Persona Non Grata

by Yuu_chi

Summary:

A no strings attached arrangement with the love of your life seems like a good idea right up until you realize he's in love with somebody else.

Ten years of chasing after Chris fucking Redfield - half that of warming his bed - and it's worse than Leon thought.

Chris has never seen him as a partner at all.

Notes:

CW for: infidelity (not between the main couple) and referenced alcohol dependence.

It starts after China. 

Some seedy hotel miles from the epicentre of the destruction and enough adrenaline shaking through his system that Leon thinks he could take out an army. There's only two rooms available given, you know, the massive displacement of all the locals, and Leon doesn't know Helena well enough to be comfortable sharing a queen bed with her. 

"Leon and I can take one room," Chris says, easy. "It's not a big deal, right?" 

It feels like a big deal. "Yeah," Leon says. "No big deal." 

Helena takes the spare key and vanishes down the hall. Leon and Chris slip into the room behind them. It's small; one bed, barely enough space for a single person let alone two men of their size. Leon's been in storage closets with more elbow room. 

Chris looks at him. He's filthy, covered in dust and blood, and there's something about him that says however bad Leon's day has been, Chris has been through much, much worse. "Do you mind if I take the first shower?" he asks. 

"Sure," Leon says. "No problem." 

Leon sits on the edge of the bed and listens as the water hisses to life in the bathroom. The pipes in the walls scream. He counts out one minute. Two.  He gets to his feet, kicks off his boots, strips, and throws open the bathroom door without knocking. 

The shower doesn't have so much as a curtain, and Chris startles, turning wide-eyed to look at him. The steam clouds the air, and Chris says, "Leon, what the fuck?" 

Leon comes near enough to drop to his knees. Chris's mouth falls open, but the breath he sucks in is sharp enough that it must hurt. Leon reaches up, rests a palm on Chris's wet thigh, and asks, "Yes?" 

He half expects to be rejected, honestly. They've known each other for years by now, he's not blind, he's caught Chris looking at men before - but he's never caught Chris looking at him. And Leon's been looking. 

Adrenaline makes him bold and stupid. 

Reckless. 

Chris's hand falls into Leon's hair. He swallows. "Leon -"

Leon digs his nails into Chris's skin. "Yes," he says slowly, "or no?" 

Chris's fingers curl through Leon's hair. "Fuck," he says. "Yeah - yes." 

Leon grins at him. "Good choice," he says, and leans forward to suck him off. 

For years, Leon has always thought if he got a chance with Chris, he'd take his time. Drag it out. Make the most of it. He'd lay in bed and fantasize about the warmth of Chris's touch, the heat of his skin; jerk himself off to the thought of being thrown against walls, bitten to the bone, worked into a wreck by hands vicious enough to save the world or ruin it. 

They'd been good fantasies. Reality is nothing at all like that. 

Leon's too desperate. He blows Chris until his jaw hurts, pulling back every time Chris's hips start to jerk uncontrollably. Water beats down on him making it impossible to keep his eyes open, and Leon's so worked up that he thinks he might come without being touched at all. Whenever Chris swears, tightens his unsteady grip in Leon's hair, arousal punches him in the gut hard enough to make him shake. 

By the time Chris gets tired of the torture and hauls him to his feet, Leon already knows he's not going to remember any of the finer details of this night. His brain is fried. All he can think about is how big Chris's hands feel on his waist - the same hands he's seen snap men's necks without breaking a sweat. 

Chris could probably snap him too.  Right in half with no effort at all. The thought is hotter than it has any right to be, and Leon clings to his shoulders, head thrown back against the shower wall as Chris grinds them ruthlessly together, cock hot and drooling as it slides against Leon's own. 

"Shit," Chris grunts, hoisting Leon's thigh up. "What the fuck, how are you so - God, look at you, Leon." 

Leon doesn't know what that's supposed to mean, but heat crackles along every inch of his skin. Maybe Chris hadn't been looking at him before tonight, but he's looking now and that's what matters. 

Chris comes first, probably inevitable after Leon's just spent the better part of twenty minutes edging him. He shudders, holding Leon against the wall with such strength that all Leon can possibly do is stand there and take it, feeling the hot spurt of Chris's come on his stomach, the bruise of his fingers in his hips. It's so fucking good, the knowledge that he's like this because of Leon, and Leon's not even surprised when his orgasm punches through him right after, riding the tail-end of Chris's pleasure like it's his own. 

His vision whites out for a moment. All he can feel is the water raining down on him and Chris panting against his shoulder. 

After, once they've both come down from the high of the experience, Chris helps him out of the shower, which is nice because Leon's knees are killing him. There's two towels thankfully, and they wrap themselves up before stumbling back into the hotel room. Chris has a beaten up bag sitting on the desk, but Leon hadn't exactly come prepared when he fled from the US as a fugitive so all he's got are the clothes crumpled on the floor. 

Chris riffles through his bag, pulling out a shirt, a pair of boxer briefs, and tosses it at him. "Here," he says. "I always leave a packed bag with the BSAA. I'm just lucky it survived the fallout this time. Might not fit you great, but it's better than nothing." 

Leon, who would frankly die before he puts on the same clothes he's been wearing for two days straight, is not about to complain. "Thanks." 

Modesty seems stupid given that Leon had Chris's dick in his mouth less than half an hour ago so he drops his towel unselfconsciously. He steps into the borrowed briefs, snapping the elastic on his hips, and slips the shirt on. Chris watches him all the while, doesn't even make a token effort to pretend he's not. 

The streetlights outside are bathing the room red and green; a turbulent swing from one to the other. Leon crawls into the bed, sheets emerald in the shadows, and the mattress dips as Chris slides in behind him. When Leon rolls over, it's bright enough that he can see everything; Chris's carefully expressionless face, the battered bruises blooming on his skin, the split across his bottom lip that Leon had bitten at in the shower. 

He sees Leon staring at him, but he doesn't say a thing. He looks exhausted - bone-deep, world-on-your-shoulders weary. 

"Hey," Leon says. "You holding up okay over there?" 

Chris laughs. "Sure. We saved the day, yeah?" 

Chris's laugh sounds as hollow as Leon feels. Missions like this are always the worst; leave him feeling wrung dry and empty. 

He thinks of blue clouds billowing down streets, civilians screaming and crying, soldiers rushing him to safety, shutting themselves behind doors they'd never open again. He thinks of the church - a sanctuary smothered in sin. 

"Doesn't feel like much of a victory," Leon says softly. "People still died." 

Chris is quiet for a very long moment. "Yeah. Yeah, they did." 

Outside, the light flips red. Chris turns over, his broad back to Leon. The space between them is minimal; an inch, two at most. Leon could cross it with his fingertips if he reached out. 

He's had dreams about this.

Leon rolls over too. 

--

He dreams badly. 

He'd thought he would. It's been days since he's last had a drink, and without the heaviness of it weighing him down, his nightmares race back in. 

It's still dark outside. The streetlights paint awkward shadows across the unfamiliar room. Leon is on his back now, staring at the water stained ceiling. Somewhere in the hotel, he can hear the faint cry of a baby. Most nights he'd find that grating. Right now it's reassuring. 

Yesterday he watched half a city die, but in this shithole at the stopping point of his world, life exists. 

Carefully, he levers himself upright. The bed beside him is empty. He can see the crease in the sheets where Chris had been, but there's no sign of the man himself. The bathroom door is closed firmly, and a tiny patch of light spills onto the carpet beneath it. 

Leon sits silently for a moment but he can't hear a sound. He slips back down again, the sheets scratching at his skin. 

He's still so fucking tired. How long has it been since all of this began? A day? Two? He can't remember. His brain is a scrambled mess. Any time he tries to think about it his head starts to pound and he feels like he's going to be sick. 

He closes his eyes and he must fall back asleep because when he opens them again Chris has returned. He's sitting on the side of the bed, back to Leon. He seems to be looking at something in his hands, but Leon can't see what it is.

"Chris?" he rasps, and Chris's shoulders tighten in surprise. "You okay?" 

Chris turns, just enough that Leon sees the line of his jaw. "It's still early. You can keep sleeping." 

Leon hoists himself up. "Not what I asked." 

Chris turns away again. "I'll be fine." 

Still not what I asked, Leon thinks, but knows better than to say. "Anything I can do?" 

"Don't worry about it," Chris says. 

Leon falls back down on the bed. "I can give you a distraction, at least." 

Chris finally glances back at him, smiling wryly. "A distraction? You have something in mind?" 

Leon hikes up a leg, sheets falling away. The shirt Chris loaned him rides up his stomach. He knows the picture he must make, and he leans into it hard. "I can offer a demonstration if you need it." 

"Generous of you," Chris says. 

"What can I say? I'm just a generous sort of guy." 

Chris laughs. This time, it sounds more genuine; soft, rough, warm. It sends a shiver down Leon's spine. "I guess that's one word I'd use to describe you." 

"Why don't you come down here and tell me some more?" Leon suggests. 

Whatever Chris is holding, he leans forward to toss it back down into his bag. Then he turns around properly so he can put both his hands on Leon's hips, looming over him. He blocks out the light from the window, haloing him like a beacon in the midnight darkness. He's the only thing Leon can stand to look at, and he swallows as he reaches up to thread his arms around Chris's neck like he might pull away at any moment. Chris smiles at him. "You're pretty good at this, huh?" 

Leon's distracted by the hands slipping up his waist. "What?" 

"Seducing men in seedy hotel rooms."

Leon can count the amount of men he's felt safe enough to fuck around with on one hand. "It's a skill." 

Chris's hands slide down Leon's thighs. "Yeah. I can tell." 

This time, it's Chris who goes down on him, and Leon is treated to first hand knowledge of the fact that Chris Redfield clearly sucks cock on the regular. It kind of fucks with him, because Leon's never been able to pin Chris down on the Kinsey scale - too worried that wishful thinking would make him biased one way or another - and here Chris is, taking him apart completely and thoroughly with confidence that Leon can only meet with desperation. 

Leon gets his elbows beneath himself to try and watch, hands in Chris's hair, and when he rolls his hips Chris moves with him flawlessly, taking him down deep enough that it's a wonder he doesn't choke. "I thought I was meant to be distracting you," Leon stutters, hips jumping without his permission. 

Chris pulls back, grinning as he strokes him off. "I am distracted," he says. "You're very distracting. Are you complaining?" 

"God no," Leon says fervently, and Chris ducks back down again. 

Before, everything had happened so fast that Leon had scarcely been able to enjoy it. This is stupidly, agonizingly slow. Chris pushes him to the edge and then drags him back again half a dozen times, pushes him until Leon can't stand another second of it. He gets his legs around Chris's waist and flips them, settling in his lap to grind down against his rock hard dick in one smooth motion. It feels like heaven, and it's not exactly a shock to confirm what he'd discovered in the shower - Chris Redfield is big in more ways than just the obvious.

"Fuck," Leon says, hands braced on Chris's chest as he rocks them together. "You never do anything by halves, do you, Redfield?" 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Chris hisses, breathless from the way Leon's deliberately working his hips. 

"I'm talking about this right here." Leon reaches between them to grab Chris's dick, thumbing along the head. Chris chokes on his next breath and thrusts up so hard Leon nearly topples out of his lap. "I bet you could split me in half with this." 

"Maybe I will if you don't stop talking," Chris grits out. 

Leon grins and leans forward to whisper in his ear, "Don't make promises you can't keep." 

Chris's hands spasm on his hips and he bucks against Leon, grinding them together, and comes messily right between Leon's thighs. Leon watches the way Chris throws his head back, teeth tight and eyes screwed shut. He looks pained - he looks rapturous. 

Leon did that to him. 

When Chris comes back to earth, he jerks Leon off, and it takes only a handful of strokes before Leon's thrusting into his hand, swearing black and blue, following Chris right over that perilous edge that he's been teetering on for god knows how long now. He clings to Chris's shoulders and pants into his neck, making a mess of the both of them once more, and Chris runs a hand up and down his spine, chasing the last of the aftershocks free of Leon's system.

"Doing okay up there?" Chris asks, amused. 

"Peachy," Leon groans, and finally slips free from Chris's lap to roll over onto the tiny square of mattress beside him. "Warn a guy next time you're planning on edging him like that, won't you?" 

"Seemed to me like you had a good time." 

Leon had, not that it's really surprising. He turns his head to stare at Chris. He looks thoroughly debauched; short hair pasted to his face, skin red from the heat of Leon's touch. Just looking at him makes Leon wish he was a good ten years younger so they could go again immediately. 

If the Leon from ten years ago knew he got to roll in the hay with Chris Redfield at all, he'd be beside himself. 

"I wasn't kidding before," Leon says. 

"About what?" Chris asks.

Leon glances away to the ceiling. The water stain he'd noticed before looms. "You can fuck me. If you want." 

Chris is quiet for so long that Leon begins to doubt himself. "Is that something you want?" 

Only for as long as we've known each other, Leon thinks. 

"Yeah," he says. "I'd be into that." 

Chris shifts beside him, near enough that their naked thighs brush together. "I don't know how enthusiastic I can count that kind of consent when the guy giving it is more interested in the scenery than anything else." 

Leon flushes and he rips his gaze away so he can glare at Chris. "What do you want, a signed letter of intent?" 

"Hey, I just wanted to make sure you actually want that," Chris says. 

"Chris, when have you known me to ever do something I don't want to do?" 

A hand slips beneath Leon's chin to hold him steady as Chris leans down to kiss him. Leon's taken so off guard that it's all he can do to remember to kiss back, softening into the touch instantly. Chris pulls back and asks, "How long is that offer good for?" 

"I don't know," Leon lies. "Guess you'll find out when I do." 

"Guess so," Chris says. When he moves away, Leon barely manages to smother his disappointment. "I'm going to hit the shower again. We're fucking filthy, and I'd rather not ruin the only change of clothes we have." 

Leon sighs, dropping back against the pillows. "You go first. Save me some hot water." 

Chris collects his crumpled clothes from the floor, and Leon watches him go, appreciative of his broad shoulders and naked ass. It's a good view, and when the bathroom door shuts behind him, Leon's genuinely disappointed to lose it. Leon lays in bed for a moment longer before prying himself loose. 

He's thirsty, and there's a water bottle sticking out of Chris's bag. Leon grabs it without a thought. Something flutters to the stained carpet. Leon frowns, glancing over to the bathroom, but the door remains shut. He stoops down and plucks the dark shape from the floor.

It's a BSAA emblem. Blood-stained, ragged like it'd been ripped free of a sleeve. It's not Chris's. He'd been wearing his uniform when they made it to the hotel, and it'd been right where it should be then. 

Leon has the sudden feeling he's looking at something he has no right to see. 

He drops it back into the bag. He takes a quick swig from the bottle before tucking it away again. The bed is kind of a disaster at this point, but he climbs back in anyway, burying his face in the pillows. The sheets smell like cheap hotel soap and dirt, and Leon is resigned to the fact that the last one is probably more on them than the hotel itself. 

When Chris comes back out, Leon is already half asleep again. He barely stirs when Chris shakes his shoulder, groaning and throwing an arm over his face. 

"C'mon, you'll feel better for it," Chris says. 

"We showered only hours ago. That's enough for me." 

"You're kind of gross right now," Chris says. "You wanna sleep like that?" 

Leon's slept covered in much grosser things, honestly, but Chris isn't wrong. Still. "In a minute." 

"You're kind of lazy after sex, huh?" 

"I'm kind of lazy after over twenty-four hours straight of trying to save the goddamn world," Leon says. "The sex is just a bonus." 

“I don’t know about you, but I think I’ll be going soon,” Chris says. “BSAA said they’d be in touch first thing in the morning, and it’s nearly dawn. Can’t imagine they’re going to let me sit here wallowing for too long.” 

Reluctantly, Leon peels his eyes open. Chris is right; the light pouring into their shabby room is no longer just from traffic, the hint of the sun bruising across the horizon. 

The disappointment that hits him is crushing. 

How long has it been since he finished a mission like this? Not fucked out and stupid with affection, but… with company. Not alone. Years, maybe. Leon’s the best solo agent the DOS has, and the mileage they get out of him is proportional to that badge of honor. 

It’d be nice, maybe, to have this for just a moment longer. 

Leon sits up, blankets falling away, and watches as Chris stuffs his bag full again. He hasn’t bothered to put his shirt on, and his skin is warm and welcoming, wet from the shower and glowing in the dim light. 

The sight twists Leon’s gut into knots. “Hey.” 

Chris looks up. “Yeah?” 

I’m in love with you, Leon thinks. I know you don’t think that much of me, but some days I think you might be the only person on this planet who knows exactly what it’s like to be me. 

He says, “Where do you stay these days?” 

“BSAA North American headquarters are in New York,” he says. “When I’m not deployed… I guess that’s where I’ll be.” 

“You guess?” Leon asks dubiously. 

Chris gives him a smile that is more exhausted than charming. “It’s been a weird few months. I don’t even know where half my shit is these days.” 

There’s a notepad and pen on the nightstand, meant for jotting down notes from phone calls probably, and Leon rolls over, picking them up and setting them on his bare knee as he scribbles. 

“What are you doing?” Chris cranes his neck to see. 

Leon rips his paper free, folds it in half, and offers it to him. “My number,” he says. “In case you’ve lost track of your phone too.” 

Chris grins as he reaches for it. “The great Leon Kennedy offering me his number? I’m honored.” 

Leon rolls his eyes as Chris tucks the paper into his pocket. “You probably won’t be able to reach me half the time anyway.” 

“Don’t worry, I know the drill,” Chris says. “I’m not going to start blowing up your phone like a needy boyfriend or anything.” 

That hadn’t been what Leon meant at all, only that given their line of work personal calls were a limited commodity. Before he can correct Chris’s assumption, there’s a knock at the door, startling them both. 

“Leon? It’s me, are you awake yet?” Helena calls. 

Chris nudges his shoulder. “Duty calls, huh?” 

“And so will you,” Leon reminds him sternly. “I don’t give my number out lightly, Redfield.” 

Chris reaches up mussing his hair. “You’ll be hearing from me again even if you don’t want to, Kennedy.”

Leon bats his hand away, disgruntled, and Chris lets him, looking at Leon with fondness that makes Leon’s already wobbly knees kind of weak. It’s on the tip of his tongue to say something else, but Helena knocks again, cutting him off before he can even try. 

Chris gives him a gentle shove towards the bathroom. “Go clean up, hotshot. I’ll greet the welcoming committee.” 

Leon hesitates for a second before slipping away. He glances over his shoulder and catches Chris staring back. Feeling caught, he flips him off, and shuts the door firmly behind himself as he goes.

The ring of Chris’s laugh follows after him, and, out of sight, Leon can’t help but smile. 

-- 

They don't see each other again until Colorado. 

Chris and Rebecca track him down to where he’s drinking himself to death in the Rocky Mountains, and not even the exhilaration of seeing Chris again is enough to tear through Leon's carefully cultivated shield of apathy.  

He's nearly forty. He didn't think he'd still be fighting the fight this late in his life. There's only so many times you can put a bullet between the eyes of your colleagues as they try and eat you alive before it gets too much to bear; and when it stops feeling like a surprise and starts feeling more like an occupational hazard, that's when you know you've officially crossed the line. 

Leon doesn't actually want this mother fucking vacation. What he wants is retirement. 

He and Chris tear strips off each other, wearing their hurt like a weapon. He says things he doesn't mean, and when Chris rakes him over the coals, Leon feels the shame of it burn like nothing else. 

When Rebecca gets kidnapped, he goes with Chris, and the rest of the day is a wreck. 

After, when New York has been salvaged and Chris's team has flown them to the relative safety of the BSAA, Leon wants nothing more than to crawl into a bed and sleep for a week. Hunnigan has a hotel waiting for him, and there's a complimentary drink cart there with his name on it. Once the BSAA medic has wrapped the worst of Leon's injuries, he heads straight for the door without a backwards glance. He doesn't make it two feet before Chris catches his arm, pulling him up short. 

"Hey, where are you going?" 

"Somewhere with clean sheets and less people," Leon says. "I'm going to drink until I pass out, and then sleep for about a hundred years." 

"Well, I can't help you with that last one, but I think I know a place with clean sheets and no people," Chris says. "I've got a room here. You know. If you want." 

Leon is so taken off guard that it takes him a moment to understand what Chris means. "What, to go back with you?" 

It’s been a long time since China, and despite what he’d said, Chris hadn’t called. 

Leon had given up hoping he would. 

Chris smiles at him, eyes crinkling in the corner. "I think there's enough room there for both of us, but if you want some time alone, don't let me -" 

"No," Leon says hastily. "I mean, yeah. If you're offering..." 

Chris laughs, squeezing his arm. “Yeah, Leon. I’m offering.” 

Chris’s BSAA quarters are everything Leon needs in this moment; clean, organized, and empty. There’s a single photograph perched atop the desk, and when Leon tilts it into the light he sees Claire smiling back at him, Chris’s arm tossed around her shoulders, the both of them several years younger and a great degree happier. 

“What are you looking at?” A heavy weight settles over his back, and Chris plucks the frame from his hand. “Oh, this old thing.” 

“You look so young I almost didn’t recognize you,” Leon teases, twisting around so he can prod Chris between his brows. “You’ve got a lot more wrinkles now.” 

Chris rolls his eyes and sets the frame back down with a clink. He braces his hands on the desktop either side of Leon’s waist. “Thanks, you look like shit too.” 

“I can’t even count the amount of walls I got tossed through today on your behalf, so maybe you should be nicer to me.” 

Chris laughs, sliding a knee between Leon’s. “How nice are we talking about here?” 

Leon pretends to think about that then reaches up, lacing his fingers through Chris’s short hair. “Maybe not too nice,” he says. “I’m pretty resilient.” 

One of Chris’s hands lands on his waist. “I can work with that.” 

Every inch of Leon’s body hurts, but it seems unimportant when Chris presses him against the desk and gets a hand down his jeans, jerking him off rough and uneven, holding Leon down as he curses and twists beneath him, clutching at Chris’s shoulders for balance. 

It seems impossible that even after six months without this, Leon should miss it so keenly, that Chris could remember exactly how he likes being touched, just how rough is enough to push Leon over the edge with no effort at all. 

“Fuck,” Leon pants, one arm over his eyes as he drifts down from the shock of his orgasm being ripped from him with nothing but Chris’s talented hands alone. “Jesus, Redfield.” 

“What happened to being resilient?” Chris asks. 

Leon pulls his arm away and sends him a weary glare. “I haven’t slept in like a week, cut me some slack.” 

Chris laughs again, gently taking Leon’s arm to pull him upright. “Sleep, then. You haven’t got anywhere to be right now, yeah?” 

Leon thinks of the hotel waiting for him. Expensive, probably, just how he likes them. Big, clean. 

Empty. 

“Nah, I’ve got nowhere to be,” Leon says. 

They take turns in the shower - this one really is too small to even attempt to squeeze both of them in - and Chris lends him a pair of BSAA issue sweats that hang off Leon’s shoulders. Leon’s struck by a crippling sense of deja vu as he crawls into the far side of Chris’s bed, bruised and exhausted. 

“What?” Chris asks, settling beside him. 

Leon looks him over; the wet fall of his hair, the reddened scrape smeared across the underside of his chin. The only light is from the lamp by the bed, and it’s making Leon dizzy, thinking of a different room entirely halfway across the world - a different night, a different bed, but the same touch. 

“Nothing,” Leon says. “Just, I don’t know, feels like we’re making a habit here.” 

Chris raises a brow. “Anything wrong with that?” 

Probably. Leon’s never had a habit that’s been good for him.

Leon rolls over. “Put out the light,” he says. “If you snore, I’m leaving.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Goodnight to you too, asshole.” 

--

In the dark, the bed beside him moves. 

Leon is awake in an instant, reaching for the knife he keeps beneath his pillow only to encounter nothing at all. For a confused moment he can’t work out what’s happening, and then the previous night rushes back in to fill the void. 

He breathes out slowly. When he turns his head, he can vaguely make out Chris sitting upright, scrubbing a hand over his face. It’s too dark to see his expression, but Leon’s familiar with being on the other side of this equation. 

“You alright?” he asks. 

Chris startles, glancing down at him. “Shit, sorry. I wake you up?” 

There’s no real point playing dumb. Leon sits up, the sheets falling into his lap as he stretches. “I’m a light sleeper.” 

“I’ve noticed,” Chris says. “I’m fine, just…” 

“Yeah,” Leon says. 

Silence lingers. Deja vu again, hanging over them like a haze. Chris huffs and his hand falls from his face. “I think you’re right. This really is becoming a habit.” 

“You wanna talk about it?” Leon offers. 

Chris shakes his head. “Not really. Sorry.” 

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Leon says. “I get it.” 

Chris glances at him, smiling wryly. “Yeah. Figures you would.” 

With the way Chris is looking at him, Leon feels precariously close to saying something dangerous. He bites it back, instead slipping down the sheets and reaching out to snag Chris’s wrist, thumb pressing gently against the slow pounding of his pulse. “If you don’t wanna talk about it, I can suggest some alternatives.” 

Chris turns his hand over, letting Leon’s fingers brush up the inside of his arm. “Oh yeah?” 

“Offer from before still stands. If you’re interested.” 

Chris breathes out, sharp in the darkness. “You’re sure?” 

Leon pinches him. “I won’t be for much longer if you keep on asking me that.” 

The bed creaks and Chris leans over him, one hand in the sheets by his hips. “You’re kind of impatient, huh?” 

“No, you just take too long to do anything,” Leon says, pointedly picking up Chris’s hand and placing it on his waist where his shirt has ridden up. “Are we fucking or what?” 

“Jesus, yeah, I’m getting there,” Chris says, and bends down to kiss him. 

At this point, Leon’s grown used to the way Chris touches him - can predict the way his palms slide Leon’s shirt over his head before pushing him down again, the way he slings a leg over his waist to straddle him, the way he tries so hard to take it slow even as Leon urges him to take things faster, to push Leon harder. 

It’s sweet that Chris always lets him set the pace, but Leon didn’t come here for sweet - can’t afford to think about this mess of a thing between them like that. 

Chris is kissing his way down Leon’s sternum, each press of his mouth unbearably hot, and Leon reaches down, fisting his fingers in his hair and tugging. “C’mon, Redfield. You can move faster than that, can’t you?” 

Chris rolls his eyes, but doesn’t pull away from Leon’s touch, lets Leon tug hard enough to tilt his head back. “See? Impatient.” 

“Maybe I wouldn’t be if -” 

Chris leans forward and bites the sharp jut of Leon’s hipbone, and the flash of pain-pleasure makes everything he was about to say promptly disappear. His breath stutters, and Chris looks at him, smirking. “Any more complaints?” 

Shirtless and sprawled over Leon’s thighs, Chris looks like a combination of his best dreams and worst nightmares. Leon shakes his head. 

Chris presses a kiss to the bite he’s left flaring on Leon’s skin. “Then shut up and let me lead for once, Kennedy.” 

Over the next half hour, Chris takes him apart thoroughly and completely. His touch is everywhere - his knee sliding between Leon’s spread legs, his hands pressing at Leon’s wrists to hold them against the bed, his mouth kissing him positively filthy. Compared to what they’ve done so far, this feels like something else entirely; by the time Chris has his fingers tucked inside him, Leon has lost track of what’s happening. 

What was it that he was thinking before? That by now he’s grown used to the way Chris touches him? 

What a fucking load of shit. 

“You doing okay?” Chris asks, as if he doesn’t have one of Leon’s legs slung over his shoulder as he finger fucks him dumb and breathless. “Need me to slow down?” 

Leon has an arm over his face. If he has to look at Chris right now, he thinks he might come on the spot. Through gritted teeth, he says. “If you stop, I’m going to crush your head between my thighs. I’m not kidding.” 

He feels rather than sees Chris laugh. “Kinky.” The fingers in him twist, and Leon curses black and blue, free hand scrabbling at the sheets for purchase. “You’re doing well. Think you’re ready for the real thing?” 

“I think,” Leon says with the last of his coherence, “that you should stop talking and put your fucking dick in me before I do it myself.” 

“You’re real bossy in bed, aren’t you?” 

Finally, Leon pulls his arm away to glare at him. “And you talk too much.” 

Chris grins at him, crooked and amused. “Sorry, it’s hard to stop when you get all flustered like this. You’re so calm the rest of the time.” 

Leon’s one more word from having a complete breakdown. He’s starting to think he’d made a mistake in allowing this - in wanting this. He’s in over his head and drowning fast. It doesn’t help that Chris is entirely too composed for his liking. 

He needs control back now. 

“Move,” Leon snaps, knocking Chris in the side with his knee. Startled, Chris withdraws his fingers, and Leon takes advantage of his confusion to haul himself upright, locking his legs around Chris’s waist and rolling them over in a move he’d normally use right before he shoved his gun beneath somebody’s chin to blow their brains out. Turns out, it works admirably well in bed too. Chris blinks up at him, hands automatically coming to a rest on Leon’s hips. “I told you if you went any slower I’d do it myself.” 

“Holy shit,” Chris says. “That was…” 

Leon grinds down against Chris’s dick and is both shocked and desperately relieved to discover it’s rock hard and leaking. “And you called me kinky.” 

“Leon, I don’t think you understand how ridiculously hot you are right now,” Chris says, breathless. 

This time, Leon can’t help but laugh, the electric thrill of Chris’s words shooting down every notch of his spine. “You don’t look so bad either, you know. Now shut up and stay still.” 

He reaches down, wrapping a hand around Chris’s dick, holding him steady as he slowly - slowly - sinks down on it. Chris hisses, his hands clenching Leon’s waist tight enough to bruise, but Leon scarcely notices, too focused on remembering how to breathe and move at the same time. 

Leon’s been fucked before, but not anytime recently, and definitely not by somebody as big as Chris Redfield. The stretch of it burns, setting every nerve ending on fire, and it seems like there’s not enough room in his lungs for air anymore. He’s got one hand braced on Chris’s stomach, the other behind him on the thick muscle of his thigh, but Leon still feels unbalanced and overwhelmed. Beneath him, Chris is so tense that Leon can feel it in every point where they connect, his self control iron even at a time like this. 

Leon knows he can break that. He’s done it before. He’ll do it again. 

Just. In a moment. As soon as it stops feeling like he’s being split in half. 

“Hey,” Chris says hoarsely. “Go slow, okay? It’s fine.” 

Leon bristles. “Fuck you,” he spits, braces himself against Chris’s chest, and sinks the rest of the way down in one swift move. 

His breath is punched out of him immediately, a groan tripping out of his mouth before he can stuff it back inside. Chris swears, his fingers bite into Leon’s skin, and his hips jerk minutely, shoving himself deeper before he gets ahold of himself. “Jesus, Leon!” 

It fucking hurts, of course it does, but already it’s everything Leon has been craving since he first set eyes on Chris all those years ago. He’s half out of his mind with the realization that this is happening at all - that the physical, tangible proof that Chris wants him at least a little is inside of him like this. 

Experimentally, he rocks his hips. This time, Chris is the one that groans, and it’s enough to make Leon smirk. Mocking, he says, “Do you still need me to go slow?” 

Chris huffs, one hand sliding up to Leon’s waist. Leon’s not exactly small, but the weight of Chris’s hand, the size of it on his skin, makes him feel like he is. “I need you to stop testing my fucking patience.” 

Leon moves again, more pointed this time. “I don’t know, seems like a good idea to me.” 

“Leon -” 

“Chris,” Leon says, “I want you to fuck me. Do I need to beg?” 

“Fuck,” Chris hisses, and finally - finally - grabs hold of Leon’s hips and fucks into him hard and brutal, just how Leon wants it. 

Things blur after that a little. They fall into a rhythm so naturally that it seems amazing that this is their first time and not their hundredth; Leon rolls his hips down just as Chris pushes, the broad hands on Leon’s hips guiding him like a beacon. Leon has both hands on Chris’s chest now, head down and teeth gritted as he fights from making a complete embarrassment of himself. 

It’s so good he feels like he could scream. 

“Hey,” Chris gasps, reaching up to push Leon’s sweaty hair from his face. “C’mon, I wanna hear you.” 

“Shut up, no you don’t,” Leon snaps. “I’m not - fuck, Chris!” 

Beneath him, Chris grins, unrepentant as he fucks in to him again, harder, and a gasp breaks free of Leon’s control. “Yeah, like that,” Chris coaxes. “You sound so hot, you know that?” 

“Try that again and the only thing you’ll hear from me is ‘oh no, officer, he was dead when I found him’.”  

“Do you still remember your Miranda Rights?” Chris asks curiously. “C’mon, rookie, Mirandize me.” 

“You have the weirdest fucking kinks,” Leon groans. 

Chris laughs breathlessly, tightens his grip on Leon’s hips, and rolls them smoothly over to put Leon on his back. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, mouthing along Leon’s throat. He hoists Leon’s leg up, hooking it over his shoulder. “God, you're flexible.” 

Leon’s this close to tears, which means he’s this close to tearing Chris’s throat out with his fucking teeth. His whole body is on fire, and his skin feels set to split from the intensity of it all - he’s never wanted to come this badly in his whole damn life. “Chris.” 

“Yeah.” Chris pins Leon’s hands to the mattress and fucks him over the teetering edge he’s standing on, sending Leon plummeting into euphoria so sudden and so consuming that he swears he sees God. 

He thinks he might bite Chris. He’s definitely not quiet about it. Between his legs, Chris shudders and goes still, burying his face in Leon’s throat, breath burning hot on his sensitive skin. 

Leon’s not sure he remembers how to breathe. He’s trembling from his fingertips to his toes. 

This has never happened to him before. 

A hand cups Leon’s cheek, tilting him as Chris carefully studies his face. Leon’s gratified to see he looks at least half as doped out as Leon feels. “Everything okay down there?” 

Leon thinks about that. “I think you fucked a new religion into me.” 

Chris’s face splits into a smile. He pats Leon’s cheek before pulling away. “Yeah, you’re okay.” 

Once Chris has drawn away, Leon feels frighteningly cold all over. It takes real effort to bite back on the noise of protest that’s trying to squirm free. He levers himself upright, watching as Chris retreats to the closet sized bathroom. There’s the clatter side of post-sex cleanup, and Leon sags back, barely propped up by the pillows as he tries to gather his frazzled nerves. 

He’s cold and naked, but the sheets are a tangled mess and he doesn’t have the strength to pull them free. The light in the bathroom flicks off again. Leon closes his eyes and breathes, listening idly as Chris lumbers back across the room. 

The bed creaks. “Are you asleep?” 

Leon makes a disagreeable noise. “Not yet.” 

“Good, sit still, this is going to be cold.”

Leon jumps, eyes flying open as something wet touches his stomach only to realize that it’s just Chris with a washcloth. “Jesus, is that necessary?” 

“I’m not chasing up clean sheets in the middle of the night, so yeah, deal with it.” The washcloth pulls away, tossed carelessly to the floor. The warmth of Chris’s hand follows its touch, pressing against Leon’s skin. “Seriously, are you okay? You’re kind of shaking.” 

Leon has his head back on enough by now that he’s kind of mortified by how obviously affected he is by all this. “I’m fine, it’s just cold.” 

“Well, you’re not doing much good when the sheets are all the way down here.” Leon watches, amused, as Chris digs the sheets free, piling them overtop them both. Catching Leon’s look, he asks, “What?” 

“Nothing. You’re just a big fucking mother hen, you know that?” 

“You just don’t take care of yourself,” Chris says. “Ever hear of treating yourself nicely? Self care, or something.” 

Leon snorts, sinking back into the bed. “I take care of myself. In fact, I gave myself a huge treat tonight.” 

“I feel like I gave you a huge treat tonight, if anything.” 

Leon slugs him in the arm, but Chris just sniggers. 

Silence falls. The room is dark, and Leon can still feel the reminder of Chris’s touch on his skin. They’re not touching now, but they’re close enough that they could, if Leon were brave enough. 

He’s not. He never has been. 

Staring at the ceiling, he says, “You didn’t call.”

There's the creak of Chris turning to look at him. “What?”

Leon resolutely does not look back. “I gave you my number. You said you’d call.” 

It’s quiet enough that Leon feels as if he can feel his heartbeat in his ears. He’s glad the lights are out. He wouldn’t be able to say something this pathetic otherwise. Already he’s regretting it; regretting how needy it sounded, how it made it seem like he was waiting for it. 

From the corner of his eye, he sees Chris sitting up on his elbow. “Shit, Leon. I’m sorry, I didn’t think…”

“That I’d notice?” 

Chris huffs, running a hand through the short bristles of his hair. “I didn’t think you’d care, honestly.”

Leon’s heart sinks. This is what he gets for cultivating a reputation like the one he has, he supposes. Unconcerned, unapproachable, unfriendly. It’s no wonder he hasn’t got any friends, let alone - 

He rolls over, back to Chris. “Yeah, well. We’re both busy, I get it, it’s fine.” 

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Chris says, gently grabbing him by his shoulder to pull him back. 

“I’m not being like anything.” 

“You’re sulking.” 

“I’m not, on account of the fact I’m a grown man and not a fucking toddler.” 

“Then come back here and look at me, asshole.” 

Leon rolls back, shooting Chris an annoyed glare that loses its edge when Chris leans over to kiss him. When he pulls back, he’s near enough that Leon can see his semi-amused semi-apologetic expression, even in the dark. It hits something inside of him that he hadn’t realized was laid bare, and to cover it he says, “You’re way too handsy, you know that?” 

“Sorry that I’m not a fuck ‘em and leave ‘em man,” Chris says. “Nothing wrong with a bit of cuddling.” 

“If you say cuddling to me again, I swear - Chris!” 

Chris has flopped to his back, dragging Leon with him. “You’re so fucking fussy. I’m sorry, okay? I’ll call, I’ll call.” 

“Not if it’s going to be a fucking chore for you -” 

“Leon, it’s not a chore,” Chris sighs. “You’re my friend, of course I wanna see you.” 

Friend. 

Here they are, naked as hell and cuddling in Chris’s single bed, and he’s talking about being friends. He’s so thick sometimes it’s a wonder what Leon sees in him at all. He used to have better taste in men, he swears he did. 

Chris’s arm over his shoulders is heavy, and Leon’s exhausted. It’s more effort than it’s worth to try and break free, so he stays there, draped over Chris’s sweaty side and staring at the far wall. He swallows. “I’m probably going to be in New York for a while.” 

“What happened to your vacation?” Chris asks sleepily. 

“Some assholes showed up and ruined it. Might as well just finish it out in the city.” 

Chris’s body shakes with silent laughter. “Sounds like some real dicks. Maybe one of them could take you out for drinks to make up for it.” 

Purely platonically, of course. Because they’re friends. 

Leon can be satisfied with that. He’s been satisfied with much less, after all. 

Leon closes his eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.” 

Mostly, he means it too. 

Mostly. 

--

It’s not a routine. They’re both too busy for it to be a routine. But it’s sure to hell a fucking pattern. 

Time will pass where they don’t so much as see each other. A month, two, maybe three. Both of them pulled off in opposite directions by their conflicting loyalties - the BSAA throwing Chris to the wolves in some far flung country or another, and the DOS sending Leon to chase BOW sightings across the globe. 

Sometimes, their paths will intersect. A request from one agency to another, for one agent or the other, and Leon gets the unrivaled pleasure of watching Chris Redfield in his natural habitat; gun in his hands, barking orders that demand obedience, and destroying monsters with the brutal efficiency of sheer force. 

In a tiny shack in the middle of some forgotten spit of Russia, Chris fucks Leon into a wall until Leon can’t walk for the rest of the night, his legs turned to jelly. Warsaw sees them in the basement of a safehouse, doors locked and boarded, as Leon rides Chris so hard that they break the springs of their borrowed bed. New York again, in between missions this time, where Leon spends three days holed up with Chris in his BSAA quarters learning in daylight the precise corners of each other's body that previously only night had granted them. 

It’s dangerously addictive, and Leon has never met a vice he didn’t grab hold of with both hands and pummel to its inevitable trainwreck of a conclusion. 

They don’t talk about it, and Leon Kennedy - famous for the iron walls that guard his every waking moment - lets Chris know sides of himself nobody has seen in decades. 

They become the best kept secret of the business, which is probably why Leon doesn’t think twice about it when Claire asks him out to brunch one day, three years after his arrangement with her brother took wings. 

His confidence does not last past the first round of drinks to be dropped off at their table. 

“So,” Claire says around her mimosa, “how are things going with Chris?” 

Leon’s only drinking coffee on account of the fact he and Chris had taken on what feels like half the bars in the city last night, and he has the corresponding hangover to prove it. He’s only just lifting it to his mouth as he says, “How’s what going?” 

“Oh, you know, the incredibly obvious thing you two have had going for years now.” 

Leon chokes, pounding on his chest as burning coffee goes down wrong. “What?” 

Claire reaches around to whack him on the back. “Jesus, Leon. I only meant to tease you a little bit, not murder you over pancakes.” 

Leon waves her off, eyes watering, still struggling for breath. “So that’s what you lead with?” 

Claire sits back, rolling her eyes, crossing her legs as she picks her drink up. “Consider it payback for keeping me out of the loop. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for something to happen, and I had to find out through Jill of all people?” 

Leon’s not awake enough for this. He feels like he’s hallucinating. “Why does Jill know?” 

“Probably because she has eyes, and you two aren’t nearly as subtle as you think you are,” Claire says, blasé. She reaches up, tapping the side of her own throat. “You should start wearing higher collars if you’re really trying to keep this on the down low.” 

Leon’s hand snaps to his neck. The memory of Chris’s teeth nipping at his skin last night hits him like a lightning bolt. “You have no idea who could have given me that,” he says. “I could be sleeping with half of New York and you’d never fucking know.” 

The look Claire gives him is so pitying that even Leon feels embarrassed for himself. “Leon, I love you, but if you think for a second I’m going to buy that, you’re dumber than you look and you already look pretty dumb.” 

Leon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Do you think maybe if I hadn’t brought it up, it might be because I don’t want to talk about it?” 

“Considered it,” Claire says. “Decided I didn’t care. Do you have any idea what it’s been like watching you moon after my brother for as long as I’ve known you?” 

“I don’t moon,” Leon snaps. 

Claire drains the last of her drink, fishing out an icecube to chew on. “The torch you carry is so obvious they can see it burning from outer space,” she says, brutal. 

Leon feels harassed, unfairly cornered in this nice bistro where they probably wouldn’t take kindly to him legging it out the door and down the street. The look on Claire’s face says she knows what he’s thinking too, which is exactly why she’d planned ahead for just such an eventuality. 

Leon pushes his plate away, appetite gone. “There’s nothing going on between Chris and I.” Claire scoffs and he grimaces, cutting her off before she can say anything else. “No, I’m serious, okay? We’ve got… an arrangement. But that’s about it. There’s nothing more to it than that.” 

Claire narrows her eyes and sets her glass down. “And how long has this been going on for?” 

“A while,” he admits. 

“How long is a while?” 

He sinks down in his chair, head tossed back and holds up a hand for the waiter. Hangover or not, coffee suddenly feels woefully inadequate. “Three years. Three and a half, maybe?” 

“My god,” Claire marvels, “it’s worse than I thought.” 

Leon shoots her a nasty glare, but gets sidetracked ordering a bloody mary he’d not normally be caught dead drinking, because it turns out the waitstaff blatantly refuse to sell hard liquor before noon. “Are we done talking about this yet?” 

Claire ignores him. “You’ve told him how you feel though, right?” 

The idea of telling anybody how he feels let alone Chris Redfield makes Leon’s skin crawl. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” 

“My brother’s an idiot,” Claire says. “He couldn’t read the room if the room presented him with a bullet pointed list of its demands. If you want this to go anywhere, you’re going to have to be the one to say something, because he’s never going to figure it out on his own.” 

“Who says I want this to go anywhere?” Leon says. “Why can’t this just be two consenting adults having a good time?” 

“Leon -” 

“What would we even do if I did say something? What, go out for dinner? Talk about our dreams for the future? Claire, we’re not even in the same country half the fucking time, and odds are good we’re both going to die before we hit fifty. There’s nothing to talk about, okay?” 

The waiter returns with his drink. Leon plucks the wilting celery from it, drops it on Claire’s plate, and chugs like he’s going for gold in the fratboy olympics. The waiter only looks slightly less horrified as he retreats than Claire looks pissed. 

“You’re being ridiculous,” Claire says. 

Leon toasts her with his glass, dripping with unappealing red. 

“So your plan is to just see how long you can keep this charade up?” 

“I don’t see why we can’t just do this indefinitely,” Leon says. “Chris doesn’t seem to be complaining.” 

Claire’s mouth thins out. “If you think Chris is the kind of guy who’d be happy with an arrangement like this forever, maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do.” She gets to her feet, pulling her wallet out to slap down some cash on the tabletop. “I’d suggest you think about what you really want to get out of this, because if you don’t make a choice soon, somebody else will.” 

She rips her coat from the back of her chair, slinging it over her shoulder, and storms out of the bistro with all the righteous fury of a martyr with the moral high ground advantage. 

Leon runs a tired hand over his face, wondering why he even bothered crawling out of bed. 

“Sir?” He opens his eyes to find the waiter back, wringing his hands nervously. “Are you finished over here?” 

Leon considers the mess of the table; the untouched breakfast plates, the stained tablecloth, Claire’s passive aggressive money growing sticky in a puddle of maple syrup. 

He holds up his empty glass. “Can I get another one for the road?” 

--

Leon doesn’t talk to Chris about it. There’s no reason to. Why chance ruining a good thing like this? Claire doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about. 

It’s been a few months since they’d seen each other last, Leon stuck in an endless loop of mission after mission. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, there’s a break on the horizon, and Leon books it out of Washington before somebody can think to rope him back. 

He calls Chris in the taxi from the airport, phone jammed between his shoulder and his ear as he buckles himself in and stretches his cramped legs out. The line rings and rings and rings before it finally clicks. “Leon,” Chris says, and he sounds exhausted. 

“Wow, you sound like shit,” Leon marvels. 

Chris sighs. “Yeah, sorry. You caught me at a bad time.” 

“Last minute mission?” Leon asks, sympathetic. 

“Sort of. Just got back from one the other day and clean-up has been a handful and a half. Surprised you haven’t heard any rumors through the grapevine yet.” 

That sort of mission then. The kind that leaves tremors in the BOW community and sends those whose job it is to keep it contained scrambling. “I just got back from Europe. I was in a total deadzone for three days straight. Was it foriegn or domestic?” 

“You know I’m not really supposed to tell you that,” Chris says. “You know what classified means.” 

“And you know if I don’t hear it from you I’ll hear it from somebody else,” Leon points out. 

There’s the sound of movement through the line. Too clearly, Leon can picture Chris slumping in a chair, rubbing tiredly at the pinch of his brows. “Domestic. It was a fucking mess, but at least we had survivors this time.” 

“Civilians?” 

“Yeah. It’s almost impressive, actually.” 

Leon believes it. Chris does not give compliments lightly. The taxi rolls to a stop at a traffic light. The clouds that have been growing darker for hours roll with thunder and finally crack. Rain spits down on the street outside. “Where did you say this was again?” 

“Louisiana,” Chris says. 

For no reason Leon can explain, a dark feeling of premonition sweeps through him. “Always hated that place. Too many fucking swamps.” 

It falls flat. “Hey, listen, I think I’m going to be busy for a while. I’ll let you know when my schedule frees up. Are you still in DC?” 

Leon stares out the window where the New York streets are sodden and grey. “Yep, still in DC.” 

“Okay, good. Maybe take some time to yourself for once, huh? You could use a break.” 

“Sure. I’ll talk to you later, I guess. Good luck.” 

“Later,” Chris agrees, and then promptly hangs up before Leon can think of a way to draw the call out for even a second more. He sits still, staring sightless outside, and then he sighs, tossing his phone to the seat beside him and leaning forward to tap the back of the cabbie’s chair. 

“Change of plans,” he says. “Take me back to the airport.” 

--

Chris’s schedule does not free up any time soon. 

Leon spends a very pathetic week kicking around Washington, drinking all the expensive liquor he’s been stockpiling in his apartment since the last time he was really home to enjoy it. His phone rings once or twice but it’s always just work, tying up loose ends in his slipshod report he’d slapped down on Hunnigan’s desk. When his mandatory vacation time dries up and he’s pulled back into the field, he’s almost grateful for it. 

It’s not a rejection. It couldn’t be a rejection when Chris hadn’t even realized he was rejecting him at all.

It feels like a fucking rejection. 

The mission this time is one of those bullshit long haul ones Leon has specifically requested they stop assigning him to. He spends the better part of two months undercover pretending to be a wealthy arms dealer from down South. He has to leave his phone behind for it, which might be for the better because the last thing he needs during something like this is the distraction of waiting for Chris’s name to flash across the screen. 

For seven weeks, Leon smiles his way through painful meeting after painful meeting, sleeping in a hotel room so luxuriant that it makes him uncomfortable. He goes cold turkey sober for the whole thing, because it’d be real fucking embarassing to die on a job like this just because he got a little too sloshed, and then when it finally comes to an end he doesn’t even get to shoot anybody. Instead, he’s forced to stand by and watch the SWAT team swarm the banquet hall, arresting a few dozen ambitious business men with their fingers in too many Umbrella-adjacent pies. 

He does get to coat-hanger one desperate man as he makes a mad sprint for the door beside Leon, but it’s a cold comfort at best. 

“Good work,” Hunnigan says when Leon settles in one of the DOS assigned cars inbound for the airport, passing him back his confiscated phone. “You’ll be pleased to know we’ve arrested no less than three seperate BOW dealers in the sting, and it’s all thanks to you.” 

“Yeah,” Leon says, slouching against the window as he wrestles loose the knot of his tie. “That’s great.” 

Hunnigan, who in a rare show of comeradiership has deigned to come pick him up in person, looks less than pleased by his dismissive tone. “I thought you’d be happier to have this over with.” 

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic to have this over with,” Leon sighs. “I’m just, I don’t know… frustrated, I guess.” 

Her brows rise behind her neat glasses. “You just single-handedly took some of the most important up and coming arms dealers out of the picture, what do you have to be frustrated about?” 

‘It’d have been nice to shoot something’ probably won’t go over too well and he can’t imagine ‘it’s been nearly six months since Chris Redfield fucked me stupid’ would do much better. Instead, he says, “Just burnt-out, I guess.” 

Hunnigan opens the tablet in her lap and begins tapping away. “We’ll be on the next flight back to DC, if that makes you feel better at all.” 

It doesn’t. Leon wants to go back to DC like he wants barbed wire under his fingernails. “No, any chance you could book me a flight for New York instead?” 

She looks up at him, expression narrow. “Might I ask what’s in New York?” 

Leon strives to keep his face clear. It’s hard. His skin feels like it’s crawling with static; the overwhelming desire to be someplace safe and welcoming. “Nothing, I just thought I’d make myself scarce before I have to spend another two months writing up a report about this mess.” 

Hunnigan doesn’t look convinced in the slightest, but Leon hadn’t really thought she would be. “You’re spending a lot of time over there lately.” 

“Am I?” Leon asks nonchalantly. 

“You know, if I remember right, the BSAA North American headquarters are in New York, aren’t they?” 

As if Hunnigan has ever remembered wrongly a day in her fucking life. Leon resolutely keeps his mouth shut. 

She holds his stare for a long drawn out moment. Then, with a sigh, she looks back to her tablet. “New York, then,” she says. “With this late notice, you’ll be flying economy though.” 

Leon would fly in the baggage carrier at this point. “Thanks, Hunnigan.” 

“If you really want to thank me, make sure you actually do your paperwork this time, please.” 

“Yeah, sure.” Leon’s barely listening, busy punching out a new message on his freshly charged phone. 

You free? 

The five minutes it takes for a reply to come in feels longer than Leon’s whole fucking mission. 

I can make time. You in NY? 

Leon breathes out. 

Give me a few hours and I will be. 

--

Leon doesn’t wind up flying economy, because Hunnigan is much more benevolent than she pretends to be. He gets into New York just before evening and takes a cab about a block away from the BSAA headquarters. 

His status as one of the lead operatives of their sister organization means that Leon can pretty much stroll right past BSAA security without anybody batting an eye, and it’s a privilege he abuses shamelessly. He’s pretty sure that at this point more than one of the shmucks who work the desk think he’s actually far more important than he is, but Leon is hardly going to be the one to disabuse them of that notion. 

Unfortunately, by the time he makes it to Chris’s room, the man himself isn’t answering either his door or his phone. Disgruntled, Leon snags the sleeve of the first passing agent he sees. “Hey, you know where Chris is?” 

“Redfield? I saw him down in one of the gyms with Winters earlier.” 

Who the fuck is Winters? Leon thinks, bemused, but thanks her politely, following her vague directions down one of BSAA’s endless clinically white corridors. He hears Chris before he actually sees him; the heavy sound of a back hitting practice mats and the too-loud laugh he lets out in the rare moments where his guard is down. 

The window from the gym to the hallway has been slid open, and Leon pauses before it, leaning against the sill with crossed arms as he stares unabashedly inside. 

Chris has his back to him dressed in a tanktop gone clingy with sweat. He’s helping somebody to his feet, slapping him companionably on the shoulder with a familiarity that makes Leon’s eyes narrow. 

“Not so bad this time,” Chris says. “You’re improving.” 

“I’d hope so,” says the mysterious Winters. “You’ve put me on my back often enough.” 

Chris grins. “Less so now. Before you know it, you might even get one up on me.” 

Unable to help himself, Leon chips in, “Only if he’s thinking of putting on about fifty more pounds of muscle.” 

Chris turns, startled, quickly becoming apparent that he hadn’t even noticed Leon behind him. Not exactly a good sign for BSAA’s golden boy. “How long have you been there?” 

Leon leans back, stretching his arms. “Not that long. One of your coworkers was gracious enough to point me in the right direction when you didn’t answer your damn phone.” 

Chris makes to pat down his pockets before remembering he’s wearing a pair of low riding BSAA swears and aborting. “Sorry, sorry. I just wanted to take Ethan for a few rounds in the gym before he went home. He needs all the practice he can get.” 

Beside him, Winters - Ethan - sighs, rolling his shoulder. “I’d have been fine just going home.” 

Chris turns to glance at him. “You’ll never get any better if you don’t practice.” 

There’s something about the way Chris is looking at Ethan that rankles Leon fiercely, the easy way with which he snags Chris’s focus, no effort at all. He isn’t used to competing for Chris’s attention. 

“So who’s this?” he asks. “New recruit?” 

Ethan’s face instantly drops into something complicated. “Something like that,” he says. 

Chris says, “This is the one I was telling you about, from Louisiana.” 

Taken aback, Leon asks, “Your miraculous civilian survivor?” 

“The one and only.” 

“Huh.” Leon looks back at Ethan, reassessing him with this new information. He looks… like somebody Leon wouldn’t glance twice at on the street. Boy-next-door generically handsome, and an expression that says he’s not at all thrilled about his preceding reputation. “Not what I expected.” 

“Sorry,” Ethan says. 

Despite himself, Leon feels a spark of amusement. “Fuck, you don’t have to apologize for it, it wasn’t a criticism.” 

In an effort to distract from himself, Ethan asks, “You’re also with the BSAA?” 

Leon snorts derisively. “They couldn’t pay me enough if they tried.” 

“Oh.” Ethan clearly doesn’t know what to make of that. “So that’s - uhh.” 

Taking pity on him, Chris says, “Leon’s an agent with the DOS. A lot of what he does overlaps with the BSAA, so I can’t get rid of him.” 

Leon flips him off. “See if I dig your sorry ass out of your next fuck up again.” 

Chris smiles at him, the first one just for him since Leon arrived, and something inside of Leon he hadn’t realized was unsettled slots into place. “Is that what you call it? That’s not how I remember Serbia.” 

“You had a concussion for most of Serbia, I don’t buy for a second that you remember any of it.” 

To Ethan, Chris says, “Don’t listen to him. He’s a bad influence.” 

Leon laughs. “Can’t be any worse than you. What were you even trying to do? Turn the poor guy into a pancake? You’re in entirely different weight classes here.” 

“Somebody’s gotta teach him how to take a punch,” Chris says. 

Without pausing, Leon slings himself over the window and into the gym. “Let me have a shot at it, then. At least I’m not likely to turn him into paste.” 

Chris hesitates. “I don’t know.” 

Leon’s already shrugging out of his jacket, and he glances at Ethan. “What do you think? Me or Captain Jacked-up over there?” 

“Hey!” Chris protests. 

Ethan pauses, looking Leon up and down. Leon can practically see what he’s thinking; the judgement calls he’s making. Up close like this it’s easier to see the minimal differences in their builds, an extra few centimeters and several pounds in Ethan’s favour, a width to his shoulders that Leon’s lacking. 

Being misjudged stopped bothering Leon a long time ago now. Instead, he gives Ethan his most charming, inviting smile, crooking a finger at him. “What do you say? Wanna try and put me on my back?” 

Ethan swallows. 

It takes Leon less than ten seconds to send Ethan to the floor. 

He’ll give him credit, it’s clear that he’s received some training; Leon can even recognize Chris in the heavy way Ethan throws himself bodily at him without hesitation. Pity for him that it’s not enough. 

Leon laughs, sitting with his back to Ethan, arms propped lazily on his chest as he looks over his shoulder at him. “You’re about twenty years too early to win this bout,” he says. “Not a bad effort though.” 

“Thanks,” Ethan wheezes. “You’re a lot heavier than you look.” 

Leon digs the point of his elbow into the soft press of Ethan’s gut, making him wince, and cheerfully says, “Yeah, I get that a lot.” 

“Alright, alright,” Chris says, hauling Leon off of Ethan. “That’s enough of that.” 

Leon lets himself be manhandled. “Sorry for bullying your new protegee.” 

“No, you’re not,” Chris says, and he means it to be teasing, but the truth is he’s right. 

Chris helps Ethan up too, and he’s slower about it, more careful. Easy to explain when you consider the fact he’s seen Leon walk off being tossed through a wall by a super mutant, and Ethan is kind of just a normal guy who got caught up in their world by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Leon doesn’t like it. 

“Do you need to be heading home or do you have time for a few drinks first?” Chris asks Ethan. “It’s not often Leon makes his way down here, good chance to get to know each other.” 

Leon’s already at capacity as far as friends are concerned, he’s not exactly in the market for any more, but it’s not his opinion Chris is asking. “Sure,” Ethan says. “I got time for a few drinks.” He glances at Leon. “If that’s alright with you, I mean.” 

It’s not. Leon’s exhausted. He’s just come off a two-month mission and an exhausting flight. He wants nothing more than to take a shower and then get fucked through a mattress. 

Chris is looking at him with a plaintive, hopeful expression. 

Leon grits his teeth. “Sure,” he lies. “Sounds great.” 

--

Going for drinks with Chris Redfield and Ethan Winters turns out to be one of the poorer choices of Leon’s life lately. 

Ethan’s not bad company. He’s polite almost to the point of being formal and has an exhausted awkwardness that’s almost a little too relatable. He’s nice, and asks Leon interesting, thoughtful questions. He never raises his voice, never talks over anybody, and he picks up the tab at the end of the night as if Leon and Chris aren’t on well-paying government salaries. 

Leon dislikes him so immediately and so intensely that it makes his teeth hurt. 

After, once they’ve shaken off their unwelcome third wheel and finally made it back to Chris’s quarters, Leon sits on the edge of his bed, stripped down to his boxers as he watches Chris rummage through his dresser for a clean set of clothes for him to borrow. He’d been exasperated when Leon had admitted he’d come here straight from his last mission, and all he had on him was the clothes on his back. 

“I just wanted to get out of DC for a while,” Leon had said, rather than the truth which was he’d missed Chris with the intensity of a missing limb. 

“I swear you wear my clothes almost more than I do at this point,” Chris says, dumping a pair of sweats on the bed. “I’d almost think you were doing it on purpose if I didn’t know better.” 

Instead of answering that, Leon says, “You were friendly tonight.” 

Chris pauses in peeling his own shirt over his head, sending him a look. “What, can’t I take a guy who’s had a rough time out for a beer or two?”

“Sure,” Leon says. “Seems like you two do that a bit though.” 

Chris rolls his eyes, hands sinking to his belt. “God forbid a man have friends, Leon. Maybe you should try it.” 

“I have friends,” Leon says. And then, a little too honest, “I have you, don’t I?” 

Utterly oblivious, Chris says, “Well, yeah, but maybe you should have friends you don’t also fuck on occasion too, you know?” 

“I do,” Leon says defensively. “I had brunch with Claire not that long ago.” 

“You did? She didn’t mention. How did that go?” 

A wilting twenty dollar bill atop an abandoned pile of pancakes and the spicy taste of a blood mary flashes through his mind. Too late, Leon realizes his mistake. “Fine,” he says. Then, desperate for a new topic, “Anyway, I just meant I haven’t seen you get attached to somebody so fast before.” 

“I’m not that attached.” 

“Chris, I thought you were going to pull his fucking chair out for him and ask to take his coat by the time we got to the bar,” Leon says. “Forget attached, it was embarrassing.” 

The tips of Chris’s ears flush and his face drops into a frown. He tosses his jeans into a pile. “Fuck, maybe you should just mind your own business if you’re going to be a dick.” 

A half dozen nasty things vye for freedom all at once, but Leon bites them back. Chris’s back is tighter than a bowstring, and Leon didn’t actually come all this way to fight over something as stupid as this anyway. The last thing he wants to do is cockblock himself over some petty jealousy that he should have grown out of at least a decade ago. 

“Sorry,” he says. “You’re right, I was being a dick. I’m just exhausted, okay?” 

Chris’s shoulders slacken and he turns to look at him. Leon strives to look as tired and pathetic as possible. It’s not exactly hard work. “You can be a real asshole, you know?” 

Leon leans back on his elbows.“Seems like an occupational hazard.” 

Chris shakes his head but takes his invitation, clambering on top of him, straddling his thighs. “No, I’m pretty sure that’s just you.” 

“Aren’t you lucky that you know an effective way to shut me up then.” 

“I don’t know, past experiences say it’s not that effective.” 

Patience running thin, Leon snaps, “Chris, for the love of god -” 

Chris’s fingers sink into his hair and his mouth meets Leon’s. Instantly, all the tension of the day, the week, the past few months, slips out of him all at once. It’s not a sweet kiss, but Leon’s not in the mood for sweet right now. He wraps his legs around Chris’s waist, rolling them over and holding Chris down against the mattress. Chris lets him, doesn’t protest even when Leon takes the kiss deeper quicker than usual, knee slotted between Chris’s thighs and hands holding him desperately tight. He takes it all, and it works Leon up even more.

When he finally breaks away, Chris breathes out deeply, raising a brow. “Feeling better?” 

Leon’s not. He wants to rip Chris to pieces so nobody else can ever have him. “Kiss me again and find out.” 

Chris does, again and again and again, until they’ve both been worked to the edge and pushed right over, and then kisses him after that too. 

And the anxious, powerful burn does not fade. 

--

After that, it seems like Ethan is always there. 

Whenever Leon’s at the BSAA, Ethan seems to be too. Sparring with Chris in the gym, going out for dinner or drinks. Swinging by unannounced when he needs reassurance or empty platitudes about the world and the shit it’s gone to. It seems Leon can’t so much as fucking turn around without seeing him at Chris’s elbow. 

It’s frustrating, but Leon’s a consummate professional as far as cold shouldering unwelcome hanger-ons is concerned, and if it were just that it’d be… fine. 

It’s not just that. 

Leon calls Chris in between missions just to trade idle chatter only for Chris to hang-up after barely ten minutes because ‘I’ve gotta meet Ethan for training’. A mission that was meant to see Chris in DC for a weekend gets abruptly reassigned because ‘Ethan’s not doing well, he needs the company’. 

Ethan fucking Winters lurks at the edge of their every conversation, and even when Chris doesn’t bring him up, Leon is waiting on tenterhooks for the moment he will. 

It’s agonizing. It’s standing on hot coals waiting for them to burn through your soles until it hits bone.

He doesn’t think Chris is aware he’s doing it, mostly because Chris has the emotional intelligence of a very shallow puddle. Jokingly, he’d once told Leon that every girlfriend he’d ever been with had dumped him with the exact same excuse - these days, Leon believes it. 

It feels like a trap; Ethan dominates their every moment together, but if Leon brings him up, then he’ll be playing into the problem too. There’s no winning here, so Leon stubbornly pretends that he doesn’t notice what’s happening at all. 

He’s not going to compete with the mere spectre of Ethan Winters for Chris’s attention. 

He’s not. 

Six months after he’d met Ethan for the first time, business takes Leon to New York, a pleasant but not unwelcome surprise. Hunnigan books him into a nice hotel, and Leon’s got great aspirations for luring Chris out of BSAA for a change, fucking some place other than his tiny quarters or a rundown hotel room. 

The flight over had been more grueling than usual, but Leon had put it down to anticipation. He’s not at all concerned about it on the drive over, or during check-in, or even as he dumps his bag at the foot of his bed and beelines for the bathroom, eager to wash away the travel grime. 

It’s only when he’s standing in the shower, too-warm water beating down on his shoulders, that he realizes that the way the world is wobbling has a lot less to do with anticipation than it does something else entirely. 

Cautiously, he turns off the tap, steps out of the shower, and wraps a towel around his waist. He manages to make it all the way back to his room before the vertigo he’d been stubbornly forcing down breaks free of his iron grip and rushes up to meet him all at once. 

Oops, Leon thinks as the room tips on its side, and he passes out three feet from the bed. 

When he wakes up, it’s dark out and his head hurts like somebody’s taken a fucking sledgehammer to it. It’s not the worst fever he’s ever had in his life, mostly because he’s not actively bleeding out in the midst of it, but it’s definitely in the top three. 

With effort, he works his elbows underneath him, and from there he manages to get back to his feet. His walk to the bed is really more of a stagger, and it takes him several tries to find his cell phone from where he’d dropped it among the sheets. 

It takes him three tries to dial, and he almost passes out again. 

“Leon?” Chris asks when he picks up. “Ah, that’s right. You said you’d be in New York soon, didn’t you?” 

The fact Chris hadn’t forgotten he was here doesn’t sting, only because Leon already feels terrible enough as it is. “Yeah. Got here… I don’t know. What time is it?” 

“Nearly eight. Are you alright? You sound like shit.” 

“Feel like shit,” Leon admits. 

“You shouldn’t have gotten on the plane if you felt this bad.” 

“It didn’t hit me until I was already here,” Leon says, as if something as pathetic as a fever has ever stopped him going anywhere. 

“Go the fuck to bed. You need to rest.” 

Leon hesitates. Chris is right. Of course Chris is right. But Leon hadn’t called him up just to be told something he already knows, although he can’t explain why he called him in that case. 

That’s a lie. He knows exactly what he’d been hoping for when he’d called. 

Leon doesn’t want to be alone right now. He feels awful, and it’s been months since he’s last seen Chris, and longer than that since he’s really had his undivided attention. A small, needy part of himself wants to ask Chris if he’d mind coming over to… to what? To hold his hand and tuck him in? 

Leon clears his throat. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ll do that, I guess. I’ll hit you up if this fever clears. Bye, Chris.” 

Faintly, he thinks he hears Chris saying his name as Leon hangs up, but it’s already to the point that he can’t be sure he’s not just imagining it. Even when he’s fully sober and conscious, wishful thinking is a hell of a thing, and Leon is not above falling victim to it. 

He leaves his damp towel at the foot of his bed and struggles into a pair of boxers, the thought of anything else touching his overwarm skin making him want to die. He’s got a half bottle of water in his bag that he manages to choke down, which is just as well because the trip back to the bathroom sink feels impossible. 

The hotel sheets are crisp and cool, and he squirms underneath them without an ounce of grace. He should get a bucket or something. He doesn’t feel like he’s going to puke yet, but realistically, it’ll happen sooner or later. 

When Leon passes out this time, he doesn’t even fight it. 

--

When Leon wakes again, it’s to a cool hand on his forehead. For a very confusing moment, he thinks somebody’s broken into his hotel room just to feel him up, but when he blinks Chris’s face is the one that swims into view. 

“Hey,” Chris says. “There you are.” 

“I - what?” 

Chris pulls back, and Leon goes to sit up but big hands push him back. “Don’t do that, you’ll make yourself sick.” 

Baffled, Leon lets himself be eased down again. As he does, a damp cloth falls from his head. Chris reaches out and settles it again without so much as blinking, as if this is all perfectly normal and ordinary. 

“Am I dreaming?” Leon asks. 

Chris cracks a smile. “For your sake, I hope your dreams are a lot more interesting than this.” 

Leon’s so out of it he nearly tells him the truth; that this is exactly the kind of riveting content Leon would dream about. “What are you doing here?” 

“You sounded real bad on the phone, so I thought I’d swing by to check on you,” Chris says. “Glad I did, because you were hanging half out of the bed and looked like a corpse.” 

“No, I mean how’d you even get in here?” 

“Flashed my badge at the desk. Said it was urgent government business.” Chris eyes him assessingly. “If I help you sit up to get some fluid into you, will you puke on me?” 

“Fifty-fifty,” Leon says. “Also you give me shit for abusing my badge, you’re twice as bad.” 

Chris’s hands slide behind his bare shoulders, carefully easing him upright. Leon’s stomach swims and he clamps his jaw shut before anything unfortunate can happen. “Yeah, well, take better care of yourself and I won’t have to do it again.” 

Leon lets Chris press a cool glass of water in his hands, and he mostly manages to drink it without embarrassing himself. Chris watches him, ready to step in if Leon’s grip fails him, and Leon struggles not to bristle beneath his gaze. 

He feels unexpectedly vulnerable like this, but not necessarily in a bad way. Chris has helped him patch up bullet wounds and bite marks before; it doesn’t seem like this should have any special meaning one way or another. 

It’s been a long, long time since Leon trusted somebody to do more than piece him together; it’s been a lot longer since he’d wanted it. 

“Alright, not too much or you’ll really be sick.” Chris takes back the glass, setting it on the bedside table with a soft clink. “You need me to call your boss or anything?” 

Leon rolls his eyes. “Thanks mom, I think I’ll manage.” 

Chris fetches him his phone, and Leon laboriously punches out a text to Hunnigan, letting her know he’s down for the count. Almost instantly, his phone buzzes. 

I’ll get somebody else to take care of the mission. Look after yourself. Do you need anything? 

Leon glances up to where Chris is leaning against the window surveying the view with an unimpressed air and feels a weary smile tug the corner of his mouth. 

No, he replies. I’m good. 

Chris glances back as Leon sets his phone aside. “How’d they take it?” 

“Devastated, but they’ll soldier on.” 

Chris snorts and circles back to the bed. “You eaten anything since you got here?” 

“Uhh, I had crackers on the plane?”

“Crackers on the plane he says,” Chris mutters under his breath, and wheels away to where takeout menus are cluttered on the coffee table. “Let’s see if anywhere in this city does decent soup, I guess.” 

Leon dozes on and off while they want for the food to arrive, and Chris is nice enough to let him, sitting on the foot of the bed and doing something on his phone that Leon can’t quite see. He has the feeling that they talk once or twice, but his memory is unreliable, and when there’s finally a knock on the door, Leon is almost awake enough that food doesn’t sound terrible. 

“Don’t get out of bed,” Chris scolds as Leon struggles to sit upright. “Better you spill it on the sheets than pass out on the floor again.” 

Leon reluctantly accepts the mug Chris has poured his soup into. “You’re really a mother hen.” 

“So you’ve said before,” Chris says. “Eat your fucking soup.” 

Leon eats his fucking soup. He manages maybe half the mug before he has to concede defeat. Chris doesn’t even blink as he sets it aside and helps Leon slide back beneath the covers. 

“Sorry, I’m not great company right now,” Leon says. 

“I didn’t show up for your company, I showed up for my peace of mind,” Chris says. “It’s fine, the first day is always the worst. I’ll put the rest of your soup in the fridge, yeah?” 

Leon half watches as Chris bustles around, cleaning up this and organizing that. He bitches at Leon all the while, half-hearted criticism to fill the air, and something about it makes Leon’s chest hurt completely independent from the fever ripping through him. 

It’s easy to forget this side of Chris, sometimes. The doting, overly concerned side that he covers with a gruff attitude and sharp but not unkind teasing. Lately, Leon’s seen less and less of it; used to scraps of his attention or nothing more than an excellent but quick round between the sheets. 

But Leon hadn’t fallen for him so hard just because he was gorgeous and looked good with a gun - he’d fallen for him because of this, too. 

And fuck, Leon’s just starting to realize how much he’s missed him these past few months. He’s gotten greedy, too used to the intimacy that had come from year after year of their arrangement. It’s hard to go back to the sort of distance they used to have once he’s adjusted to the alternative instead. 

He’s feeling pleasant enough that he almost doesn’t realize what’s happening until Chris says, “I’ll leave a jug of water by your bed. That should be more than enough for you until you get your legs back.” 

Leon blinks. “Huh?” 

Chris is sliding into his jacket again, idly thumbing something on his phone. “I let the front desk know you’re not doing well, so if you need anything, they know you’ll call. Make sure you do, okay?” 

His fever has made him stupid. “Wait - you’re leaving?” 

Chris finally tucks his phone away, looking back at him with a smile. He draws close enough to run a hand through Leon’s hair, and Leon has just enough strength to turn towards the touch. “I didn’t have a lot of time to begin with, sorry. I have to get back to BSAA.” 

“But…” Leon doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. His brain is scrambled. All the soft, warm feelings that had been washing over him in an unfamiliar wave are fading fast. His tongue is thick in his mouth. He can’t figure out what he wants to say. 

“I was meant to be back there an hour ago,” Chris says. “Ethan’s waiting for me in the gym.” 

Leon’s going to be sick. His gut twists itself into a rigid knot. He doesn’t know what to say. “Oh.” 

Oblivious, Chris continues, “I plugged your phone in to charge. Make sure to let me know how you’re going, yeah?” 

If he speaks, Leon’s going to puke. He’s shaking beneath the sheets. 

Stay, he thinks. Please, fuck. I’d never have let you see me like this at all if I knew you didn’t care. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

Chris gives him one last smile and bends down to kiss him on the corner of his mouth. “Gonna have to raincheck on any plans we had,” he says. “So consider this a substitute.” 

His lips burn on Leon’s skin. It’s the cruellest kiss he’s ever had. 

Chris leaves, the door closing quietly behind him. 

Leon waits a moment, two, and sits up to puke over the side of the bed. 

--

A month later, Leon breaks his arm and half his ribs on a bad mission with Terrasave. 

Claire is both frustrated and apologetic that she can’t stay to see him through recovery. “Look,” she says. “Chris is supposed to be on leave for the next week or so. You should give him a call, you need somebody to look after you.” 

“Sure,” Leon says. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll call him.”

He does not call him. 

It takes two months for his arm to heal - seven weeks, forty nine days. 

And Leon is alone for all of them.  

--

The next time Leon sees Chris, it’s for work. 

The DOS calls in a favor with the BSAA to borrow somebody with hands-on experience in the Edonian Civil War, and Chris is the lucky sacrifice. It’s boring work, really. The kind of work where they sit at a sprawling table thick with reports and maps and knock back coffee after coffee to keep their eyes open, tying up ends that have been left loose for years now. 

Leon never misses fieldwork until he’s faced with the alternative, and the exhausted look on Chris’s face tells him it’s a shared sentiment. 

“You know,” Chris says, as he passes Leon a sheaf of worn paper, “sometimes I think life was better when I didn’t remember all this shit, actually.” 

Leon hadn’t been there for Chris’s brief flirtation with amnesia, but he knows him well enough to know that’s a load of horseshit. “No, you don’t,” he says without looking up. 

Chris sighs. “No, I don’t, but man, I wish I did.” 

It’s dark in the office. They’re the only two people left in this whole side of the building. Leon’s already had to stop two separate interns from turning off the lights on their way out. He flips the page he’s reading. The text is swimming before his eyes and his head is throbbing. He scarcely knows what he’s looking at anymore. He sighs, dropping the pages to scatter across the table and leaning back to rub his face. “They pay me to shoot things, not read things,” he says. “I don’t know what I’m even doing here.” 

“You know what you’re doing here,” Chris says. “Same as me. How many other people out there have the security clearance to read something this classified?” 

Leon tips his chair back, gazing at the roof. “This doesn’t feel like it should be my problem.” 

“Maybe,” Chris allows. “This though?” He taps the reports sprawled everywhere, the photos of the BOW’s wandering through the thick of the Edonian war. “This does feel like my problem.” 

“You’re just a martyr,” Leon says. “Not every battle they send you to fight is your responsibility to clean up.” 

Chris smiles at him. “I know you don’t believe that.” 

Leon doesn’t. He still dreams about things he did twenty years ago now. 

He lets his chair fall back to the floor. “You play dirty, Redfield.” 

Chris gets to his feet, collecting both their empty coffee mugs. As he sweeps behind Leon’s chair, he ruffles his hair. “Only when I’m aiming to win.” 

Leon pretends to be annoyed as he fixes his hair, watching as Chris pours them fresh coffee from the pot on the bench in the corner of the briefing room they’ve commendered. He looks good like this; tired, but a normal sort of tired. Shirt rumpled, jacket abandoned over the back of his chair, fine stubble growing in along the edge of his jaw. 

How long has it been since Leon got to feel that stubble on his skin? He wants it so bad right now that it aches. 

With effort, he tears his gaze away and back to the reports on the table. “Where are you staying while you’re in DC?” 

Chris drifts back, setting Leon’s mug back down. “With you, I assume.” 

Leon’s stomach flips. “They didn’t book you a hotel room?” 

Chris grins at him, leaning against the table beside him, cradling his coffee. “I told them I would figure something out.” 

“How presumptuous,” Leon says. 

“I felt pretty confident in my judgement,” Chris replies. 

They stay like that for a moment, the comfortable quiet seeping over the moment like a pleasant sepia. Chris drinks his coffee, standing near enough that Leon’s elbow brushes his hip as he flicks between files. It’s nice, honestly, which is why Leon can’t keep his fucking mouth shut to enjoy it. 

Casually, he asks, “How’s Ethan these days?” 

Chris glances at him from the corner of his eye, like he can’t figure out whether he should be suspicious. “He’s doing good. Why do you ask?” 

“Nothing,” Leon says. “No reason.” 

Chris lets the lie sit for a beat before he sets his coffee down. “Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d ask for no reason.” 

If he wanted to back down, now would be the time to do it. “Been a while since you mentioned him is all.” 

“Has it?” Chris asks. 

“Well,” Leon says, “for you, anyway.” 

Another beat. This one heavier than before. 

Leon does not look up. 

Chris’s fingers tighten over the edge of the table. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Chris,” Leon says, “do you think I’m an idiot?” 

“What -” 

“I’m not blind. Your little crush isn’t what I’d call subtle.” 

Chris sucks in a breath. “He’s married, Leon.” 

That’s not a no. Leon’s lungs feel too tight. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, permits himself this second of hurt, and then opens them again, keeping his face turned away from Chris as he says, “That’s never stopped anybody before.” 

“Jesus, Leon,” Chris says, disgusted. “I’m not going to - just what the fuck do you think of me?” 

“Oh, save your moral panic, I’m not judging you,” Leon snaps. “I’m just saying if you’re trying to keep it quiet, you might wanna try a little harder not to sound like a lovestruck idiot when you talk about him.” 

There’s a split second where he thinks Chris is going to hit him. His fist balls tight; Leon’s never been on the receiving end of such targeted fury from him before. He meets Chris’s gaze unflinchingly, utterly expressionless. 

His heart is tripping in his chest; not from fear, but from anticipation. It’s not surprising that Leon’s so desperate for his attention that even the negative sort gets him this worked up. He’s hungry enough that any of it - scraps and all - feels like a feast. 

Come on, Leon thinks. Come on, do it you coward. 

Chris breathes out. His fist unfurls. He slumps against the table, knuckles against his temples. “Jesus, Leon,” he says again. “Sometimes I think you wind me up on purpose, you know.” 

Leon’s shoulders slump. He turns back to the reports spread over the tabletop, plucking one up at random. “I’d never.” 

Chris huffs out a quiet laugh. “Sure,” he says. He draws out the chair beside Leon, sinking down into it. “You’re kind of an asshole, you know that?” 

“Yeah, I know that.” 

Quiet for a moment. Chris reaches up, mussing Leon’s hair once more. His touch is soft, apologetic, even though he has nothing at all to be sorry for. The things it does to Leon’s sore heart are legendary. 

“Alright,” Chris says, taking the report from Leon’s hand. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?” 

Yeah, Leon thinks as Chris’s fingers brush his. Let’s get this the fuck over with. 

--

The confirmation of Chris’s infatuation changes very little between them. 

They’re still friends. They still work together sometimes. They still fuck. 

If there’s any difference at all, it’d be that Chris gives up all pretences when it comes to Ethan. 

It’s not as if they talk about it - not even Chris is dense enough to bring up the guy he has feelings for to the guy he’s actively sleeping with - but gone is the thin veneer of plausible deniability they’d both been hiding behind. 

Leon’s place in Chris’s life has been measured and found wanting; the hierarchy has shifted irrevocably, and Leon knows it. 

For the most part, Leon tries not to think about it. He’s great at repressing things, he’s been doing it for most of his life already, in one way or another. 

It’d be easier, he thinks, if it were just a passing crush on Chris’s behalf, some kind of untouchable ideal that exists outside the sphere of their influence. Most things are. Leon and Chris, they belong to a very particular kind of world that normal people can’t even approach, an unseen line that divides them from everybody else. 

Ethan Winters straddles that line, and it makes him just real enough to be a threat. 

Months pass. The way Chris looks at Ethan worsens, and so does the awful, monstrous feeling clawing Leon apart from the inside out. 

It comes to a head about a year after Ethan fell into their lives for the first time.

Leon’s in New York on a passing trip. He’d had business in Philadelphia, and the temptation to duck off for a day or so to see Chris had been too good to pass up. With such a short trip, he’d taken his bike rather than fly, and by the time he manages to duck free of his duty and roar into the BSAA’s private parking, his spirits are incredibly high. 

His job had wrapped up on time, he’d gotten to take his baby for a decent ride for the first time in far too long, and the promise of decent sex is looming just on the horizon.

His mood holds all the way to Chris’s room, where he greets him by very enthusiastically blowing Leon in the shower with barely a hello between them. 

“This is a surprise,” he finally says, once Leon’s returned the favour and they’ve made it to Chris’s bed. “You couldn’t take two minutes to shoot me a message before you got here?” 

Leon grins, propped lazily against Chris’s headboard with a glass of good whisky he knows Chris only keeps around for him. “Thought I’d keep you on your toes. They say spontaneity is good for the elderly.” 

“They absolutely don’t say that, and I’m not that much older than you,” Chris says, whacking Leon around the head as he towels his hair dry. Leon’s bag is sprawled at the foot of Chris’s bed, half open and spilling all over his floor, and something about it makes Leon feel smug; as if his things are entitled to Chris’s space, as if they belong. 

“It was a last minute trip,” Leon says. “I was nearby, so I thought I’d call past and see if they’d shipped you off anywhere.” 

“Not yet,” Chris says. “I’m on the ground for the time being. They want me to supervise Ethan’s training.” 

Leon’s good mood falters. Struggling to keep his face impassive, he says, “Seems like kind of waste keeping their best agent grounded for babysitting duty.” 

Chris shoots him a look. “It’s not babysitting duty. I volunteered.” 

Jealousy burns like bile at the back of Leon’s throat. He's choking on it, can barely breathe past it. 

Don’t say anything, Leon coaches himself. Don’t, don’t, don’t - 

He can’t help himself. Forty-one fucking years old, and still unable to work past being sidelined by the boy he likes. It makes him mean and bitter, and he's opening his mouth before he can even think about what he's about to say. "What do you even see in him? He's just some guy who got in over his head and was lucky to make it out alive. He's nothing special, Chris." 

The towel drops around Chris's shoulders and Leon's stomach flips. Chris is smiling; barely there, warm. 

He's never smiled at Leon like that. 

"Yeah," Chris says. "I know." 

Leon thinks he's going to be sick. This whole time, he'd thought it was their similarities that stood the best chance of winning Chris over, could not understand what he saw in Ethan who was nothing like either of them. It'd never occurred to him that was the point; it wasn't the similarities Chris yearned for, it was the differences. 

He's frozen where he sits, his glass half-empty and hanging loosely between his fingertips. There are bruises on his hips that Chris put there and the shape of his mouth is imprinted on the sore skin of Leon's neck. He feels every inch of his body so keenly, and remembers even more so the way Chris had touched him - has touched him for years. 

Leon feels like his ribs might split beneath the furious pounding of his pulse. He's mad. So, so mad. He can't think straight; the world wobbles in his vision. 

Ten years of chasing after Chris fucking Redfield - half that of warming his bed - and it's worse than he thought. 

Chris has never seen him as a partner at all. 

Gently, Leon leans across to set his glass down atop the bedside table. The amber of the whisky glimmers beneath the lamplight. 

"Leon?" Chris asks, glancing at him. 

Leon looks up at him. "You're such a fucking idiot, you that, right?" 

Chris frowns. "What -?" 

"I'm in love with you," Leon says. "I have been since we met." 

Silence. Like a graveyard, like a death. 

Chris's eyes are impossibly wide. 

It's the death of something, Leon supposes. 

He gets to his feet, reaching for his shirt. "I know you didn't want to hear that, but I'm not sorry. Guess we're about even when you consider the fact you've been fucking me while thirsting after a married man." 

Chris still hasn't said anything. He stands there like stone as Leon shrugs into his shirt, his jacket, stuffs the overspill of clothes back into his bag. His heart is pounding so loudly that he can feel it in every inch of himself, vibrating through his bones, rekindling his anger with each pulse. It's only when he stomps into his boots, slinging his bag over his shoulder, that Chris finally seems to come back down to earth. 

"Leon, hold up." He reaches for him, but Leon snatches his hand out of his grip. "Would you - would you wait just a second?" 

Leon backs away. He bumps into the bedside table and his abandoned glass wobbles before falling to the ground, shattering. "No, I think we're done here, actually." 

"Leon! Hold on - fuck!" 

Leon's out the door before Chris can take another step towards him, held back by the fact he's wearing nothing but a towel and a stunned look on his face. Leon slams the door behind him as he goes, barrelling down the hallway with his heart in his throat. He hits the elevator and jabs the call button frantically, and it's only then that he realizes he hadn't thought to button his shirt. 

He tries now as the elevator crawls towards him, but his hands are shaking too hard. He manages no more than half the buttons before there's a ding. The elevator doors slide open. 

"Oh," Ethan says, surprised. "Leon. What are you doing here so late?" 

Leon stares at him. His brain, which had already been stalling, goes offline entirely. 

Of course, he thinks. Of course it's the last fucking person I want to see right now. 

Like the world can hear him, his thought is followed up by the pounding of footsteps behind him. Leon's battered heart drops even further. Ethan's gaze ticks over his shoulder, confused. 

"Leon, would you just slow down for two fucking seconds?" Chris snaps. 

It's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place - except the rock is the unrequited love of your life and the hard place is the man the love of your life is actually in love with. 

Leon wants to die more than he ever has before.

Ethan glances back at him, and Leon has no clue what expression he's wearing, but it must be something indeed because realization seems to hit Ethan. Before Leon can figure out what's happening, Ethan has seized him by the arm and is dragging him into the elevator.

"Sorry, Chris," Ethan says. "I forgot I had something I wanted to talk about with Leon." 

Chris looks as baffled as Leon feels. The shirt he's wearing is damp at the shoulders, like he pulled it on while he was still wet, and he's barefoot and dishevelled. The elevator dings again, and the door slides shut before Chris can say a word. 

"Going down," the elevator says cheerfully.

Leon's reflection stares at him, distorted by the unpolished steel. He looks at least half as wrecked as Chris; hair at odd angles, boots unlaced, bag half-zipped on his shoulder. He looks every inch like a man chased from bed by a fire he'd set to his own heels.

Beside him, Ethan says, voice low, "Hey, you okay?" 

Leon does not know how to answer that. "What are you doing?" 

Ethan shrugs. He's not looking at Leon - is very deliberately looking to the slow crawl of the floors passing them by. "It seemed like you didn't want to be there," he says. "I'm sorry if I was wrong." 

He hadn't been, but Leon would rather die than say as much. "I'm not thanking you."

Ethan glances at him, the corner of his mouth turning up in a small smile. "You don't have to." 

The elevator dings, and the doors open to the underground parking lot. Leon steps out, and Ethan trails after him, just enough distance to be respectful of Leon's well documented boundary issues. Leon's motorbike is sitting right where he left it, and he straps his bag to the side of it, back to Ethan. "What are you even doing here this late?"

"I had something I wanted to talk to Chris about," he says. "It's not urgent though. It can wait for tomorrow." 

An ugly flare of jealousy spikes through Leon again. Since when were they close enough for unprompted midnight visits like this? And why had it not occurred to Chris to mention that to Leon? What if Leon had managed to keep a fucking lid on his temper tonight - what if they'd been in bed when Ethan knocked on the door? What would have happened then?

Whatever. Not like it matters now, anyway. That ship has long since sailed. 

Leon turns back to his bike. He gives the strap he's tightening a vicious pull. "Well, he's free now. Don't let me stop you." 

Sure, Leon expects Ethan to say. I'd love to go chat up the love of your life while you're stuck out here in the cold. Good luck being miserable and alone for the rest of your life, Leon. 

Instead, Ethan asks, "Where are you heading?" 

"What?" 

When Leon turns around, Ethan is watching him patiently, hands tucked in his pockets. If he's at all put off by Leon's sour attitude, it doesn't show. "Where are you heading now? It's pretty late." 

Leon hadn't really thought that far ahead. He'd been tearing to climb astride his bike and put the BSAA to his back - as much distance between him and Chris Redfield as could reasonably be accomplished without leaving the continent. Now though, the righteous anger that had carried him out of Chris's room has burnt down to something a lot less powerful - hurt more than fury, and the mean desire to hurt back in turn. 

He leans against his bike, crosses his arms, and looks Ethan up and down. His cheap jeans, white sneakers, trademark jacket. Blonde hair, hazel eyes. Earnest and bland. 

Just how Chris likes 'em, apparently. 

The ember in Leon's chest sparks again, spiteful and unkind. 

Decision made, he says, "I'm going to get a drink There's room for two, if you want to tag along." 

He half expects Ethan to turn him down - they've never been anything more than cordial to each other when their paths cross - but he smiles. "Sure, if you don't mind the company." 

Leon has a lot of thoughts about the company, but he'll keep them to himself. He snags his helmet from atop the seat and tosses it to Ethan who catches it with only minimal fumbling. He slings a leg over his bike, leaving just enough space behind him for another body. He doesn't often ride with a second passenger outside of life or death situations, but he supposes if he changes his mind about this, at least it'll be easy enough to shove Ethan off and claim it was an accident. 

Ethan stands there, helmet in his hands, looking first at it and then up at Leon with a surprised expression on his face, like he'd thought Leon was just teasing him with no plans to follow through. 

Leon raises a brow at him. "Well?" he asks. "What are you waiting for, a written invitation? Put that on, and get up here." 

Ethan scrambles to obey. His weight settles awkwardly on the seat behind Leon and his hands brush Leon's hips for a split second before retreating. "Where do I - ?" 

Leon rolls his eyes. He reaches back, snagging Ethan's arms and dragging them around his waist. "I'm not going to bite." 

"Sorry," Ethan says, chagrined. "I've never been on a motorbike before." 

"I can tell," Leon says. Before Ethan can respond, the bike roars to life beneath them. Raising his voice to be heard, Leon says, "Hold on tight, I drive fast." 

"What's that - Fuck!" 

--

They go to a bar that Leon's been to a few times when he's in the area, which is more often than he'd like to be these days. 

It's quiet, empty, and they sit in a tiny booth right at the back of the room. Leon's on his second glass of whisky, but Ethan's still nursing his first lukewarm beer. When he runs his fingers over the glass, he cuts a trail through the watery condensation. 

"Get another drink," Leon says as he drains his glass. "That looks flatter than the entire midwest." 

"I'm fine," Ethan says. "Don't worry about me." 

Leon snorts, and his glass clinks as he sets it on the table. That's really not a problem, he thinks, but instead he says, "A drink is better with company." He catches the bartender's eye and holds up two fingers. 

Ethan shakes his head. "It's late." 

Unperturbed, Leon says, "So?" 

"Not a good time for drinking." 

"I disagree. Late is the perfect time for drinking." 

Ethan eyes him critically. "Seems like you think most hours are a perfect time for drinking." 

Leon should probably be offended by that, but instead he offers him a roguish grin. "Most hours are." The bartender emerges, drops off fresh drinks for both of them, and Leon plucks his from the table and knocks half of it back. "If you're trying to insult me, you'll have to do better than that." 

"I wasn't trying to insult you, I just meant..." 

"That I have a problem with alcohol?" Leon offers. "Tell me something everybody doesn't already know." 

Ethan sighs, but he finally finishes his first drink and reaches for his second. "You're not a very nice guy, are you?" 

Leon can't help but laugh, head tossed back. "Like I said - tell me something everybody doesn't already know." 

Ethan glances over Leon’s shoulder, out the window of the bar where Leon’s bike looms. “You usually stay with Chris when you’re in New York, don’t you?” 

Leon shrugs, aiming for blasé. “It’s fine. I’ll get a hotel.” 

“I know a place that’s not too far,” Ethan offers. “I can show you, if you want.” 

This is New York. It’s not exactly like it’ll be hard to find a place to crash. Still, Leon’s curious to see where Ethan’s taking this. “Sure, why not? Not like I’ve got anything to lose.” 

“Your confidence in me is gratifying,” Ethan says dryly. He pulls out his wallet and puts down enough to cover their drinks, plus a decent tip. Leon supposes that regardless of how he feels about the guy, at least he’s not a shitty tipper. “Are you done here?” 

“Almost.” Leon reaches across, plucking Ethan’s glass from the table. Ethan’s eyes do not leave him as Leon drains it easily. He drops the empty glass back to the table, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and slips out of the booth. “Alright, now I’m done. Let’s ride, Romeo.” 

--

The hotel is kind of a shithole, honestly speaking. Not the worst Leon's ever stayed at, but not exactly breaking the top ten either. A queen bed is backed against the wall, bracketed on either side by battered looking nightstands, and a door by the kitchenette is open just wide enough to see the bathroom crammed in behind it. 

Leon shrugs his bag off and drops into a chair by a shabby desk, plucking the TV remote up. The screen fizzles with static as he flicks through the channels. 

"Sorry," Ethan says, leaning in the doorway. "I'm sure you're used to better." 

Leon snorts, flicking off the TV and tossing aside the remote. He stands, stretching, and makes a beeline for the minibar. "I'll take what I can get at this hour, but forget that. Are you coming in or not? Make up your mind, because you're letting the cold in." 

Ethan hesitates. "It's late, I really should go." 

Leon's already fished two glasses from above the sink and is splitting the travel bottle of scotch he'd found between them. "You don't get out much, do you?" 

He can hear Ethan sigh. The door closes, and footsteps creak across the weary floorboards. Leon suppresses a smile and turns around, offering him the cleanest looking glass with his most charming smile. "Here, a thanks for all your help tonight." 

Ethan accepts the glass with apparent reluctance. "Don't know if sitting around watching you drink for most of the night really counts as me doing anything." 

Leon sinks down onto the end of the creaking bed, knocking back his drink as he goes, setting the empty glass to the floor. "We all have our strengths." 

Ethan hovers for a moment before Leon pointedly pats the bed beside him and then he joins him. The warmth of Ethan's body this close prickles on Leon's skin. "Do you want to talk about what happened earlier? With Chris?" 

"No," Leon says instantly. 

"Oh, thank god," Ethan says, and tosses back his own drink. 

Leon watches him; the bob of Ethan's throat, the width of his hands as he settles his glass down on the ground next to Leon's. He's not un attractive, if you like them boyish and bland. Leon doesn't. Not really. 

Chris does though. 

"Hey," Leon says and Ethan glances up. "You wanna fuck?" 

Ethan's eyes blow wide. "I - what?" 

Leon shrugs off his jacket, dropping it to the floor. "You heard what I said." He starts on the crooked buttons of his shirt. "Do you or don't you?" 

Ethan's eyes drop to Leon's hands before jerking back up to his face. "You're seriously, what, propositioning me?"

Leon's shirt slithers off his shoulders, pooling on the bed. This time when Ethan's gaze drops to the line of his throat, he's slow to look away. "Sure," Leon says. "We can call it that if you want." 

"I..." Ethan hesitates. "I didn't think you even really liked me." 

"I don't," Leon says impatiently. "What has that got to do with anything?" 

Ethan's conflict is painted clean across his face. He still hasn't managed to look away from Leon's bare skin. "This doesn't seem like a good idea." 

Leon collapses back on the sheets, folding his arms behind his head. "Fine. Don't let the door hit you on the way out." 

Silence holds, tense and fraught. Leon counts to three in his head. The bed creaks. Ethan's hand lands on his waist; burning warm. Unseen, Leon smiles at the ceiling. 

"You're sure about this?" Ethan asks.

"I'm sure about everything," Leon lies, and lets Ethan press him down into the mattress without resistance. 

--

Ethan Winters fucks like somebody who's never touched another man's dick before. 

He's enthusiastic, at least. Leon will give him that. Makes up for a clear deficit in experience by a willingness to be bossed around, to have Leon direct his hands where he wants them. He seems kind of star-struck, honestly, that Leon's even letting this happen at all, and that's more flattering than Leon will ever admit to. 

The bed creaks beneath them, loud enough almost to drown out the choked out groan Leon bites back on when Ethan finally sinks into him, painfully slow. Leon can't figure out of it's out of some misguided concern, or Ethan's just the kind of guy who approaches any and all sex with the same degree of careful precision. 

"Oh, fuck," Ethan says, bracing himself on the bed with one hand as he digs his other into Leon's hip, holding them both steady. "Fuck, Leon, you're taking it real easily, huh?" 

Given that Chris Redfield had fucked the coherence clear out of him only a few hours ago, Leon's not exactly surprised. He tosses his legs more securely around Ethan's waist and reaches up, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck, yanking him down so he can hiss in his ear. "Would you move already, fuck, I'm going to fall asleep here." 

Ethan shudders, but he shifts his grip down to Leon's thighs, pulls him closer, and finally fucks into him like he means it. 

The bed shrieks. Leon's breath is punched out of him on each thrust, and he can feel a loose spring poking him painfully in the back. He's slippery with sweat, clutching at the sheets for stability - feels strangely disconnected from his body, like he's watching it all happen from a half a pace off. 

Above him, hair hangs in Ethan's closed eyes, and his face is red from his cheekbones to the tips of his ears.

If Chris could see them, he'd be furious. Devastated. Ruined, maybe. 

The thought does more for him than Ethan's clumsy touch ever could, and Leon throws his head back against the pillow, working with each roll of Ethan's hips, and snakes a hand down between them to wrap around his leaking cock. 

Feeling him moving, Ethan's eyes snap open, and when he sees Leon stroking himself off his pace falters. "Shit, I'm gonna -" 

Leon kicks his heel into the small of Ethan's back, wrapping his legs tighter as he jerks himself off faster. "C'mon, c'mon." 

Ethan curses, bowing forward to groan against Leon's shoulder as he comes, spilling inside of him with a jerk of his hips. Leon shudders, squeezes his eyes closed - thinks of the way Chris's hands feel as they slam him into a mattress, and spills over his own knuckles. 

They stay like that for a moment, Leon sprawled on his back and Ethan sprawled atop him, but as soon as the last of his lukewarm aftershocks leave him Leon moves. Sitting up, he knocks Ethan pointedly in the side with his knee, and Ethan obediently pulls out and away, making Leon wince. 

"Sorry, sorry," Ethan says, reaching out a hand only to seem to think better of it. "Are you alright?" 

Leon shrugs him away, tossing his legs over the side of the bed. "Don't worry about it, you didn't fuck me that hard, champ." 

He stands up, fishing his crumpled jeans from the floor and pointedly ignoring the unpleasant feeling of Ethan's come trickling down the inside of his thighs. Ethan doesn't take the hint - he stares openly, face unreadable and complicated, before glancing down to the sheets. "We shouldn't have done that." 

Leon pulls his jeans over his hips. "You're the married one, keep your guilt to yourself. Besides, you didn't seem to mind five minutes ago." 

"No, that's not what - fuck." Ethan scrubs a frustrated hand through his hair. "I'm not blaming you. I wasn't thinking straight." 

Leon leans against the wall, raising a brow. "You can say you were drunk, if you want. I'll even pretend I believe you." 

Ethan's head snaps up and he levels Leon with a glare that could strip paint from the walls. "Are you capable of not being an asshole for one minute? Just one?" 

"To you? No." 

Ethan clambers out of bed, rounding on him so that Leon's back hits the wall. "Why did you even do this if you hate me so much? Why did you even ask me out for a drink to begin with, let alone everything else?" 

Leon straightens his spine, standing as tall as he can. Even though Ethan's the one who's naked as sin, Leon feels stripped bare. "Maybe I just wanted sex and you were convenient, what does it matter?" 

"You don't seem like the kind of guy who does anything just because it's 'convenient'," Ethan says, striking a bullseye Leon hadn't even known was on display. "What's the real reason?" 

Leon can still feel Ethan's come sticking between his thighs, the lingering imprint of his fingers on his skin. He needs to shower; to wash away the evidence of what he's starting to realize might have been one of the worst mistakes he's ever fucking made, and that's pulling from a long and complicated list. 

"Leave it alone, Winters," Leon says. "It's none of your business, okay?" He goes to shoulder past, but Ethan surprises him, grabbing Leon's arm and slamming him back against the wall. The shock of it is the only reason that Leon lets it happen at all, but his hand snaps up, wrapping fingers tight enough around Ethan's wrist that he can feel the bone creaking. "What the fuck are you doing?" 

Ethan looks at him, at the coolness of his gaze, the defensive crawl of his shoulders, and he says, "This is about Chris, isn't it?" 

Leon goes cold. His heart hits the floor. Every lingering touch on his skin burns like acid. He tightens his grip on Ethan's wrist, bruising. "Shut the fuck up, you don't know what you're talking about." 

Ethan doesn't flinch. "Maybe not. But it's the only thing that makes sense. Are you two -?" 

Leon shoves him, hard enough that Ethan staggers, hand flying out to the bedside table for balance. "I said shut up." 

Ethan straightens up. "Leon -" 

"I'm going to have a shower," Leon snarls. "And you better be gone by the time I get out." 

He vanishes into the bathroom, snapping the door closed behind himself. There's no lock, but as he turns the shower on, the door stays firmly shut. 

Leon strips back out of his jeans, steps beneath the lukewarm water, and grabs the soap. 

Unlike Chris, Ethan lacks the strength to really leave any signs behind in the wake of his touch. There's no bruises, no imprints of his fingertips. It makes Leon feel worse, honestly - his whole body is a crime scene, unsure where the worst of the memories lay. 

He scrubs every inch of his skin until it starts to go red; washes away the come splattered between his legs, and tries to remember how satisfied he'd felt when Ethan had lost the last of his restraint and shoved inside absolutely bare, skin on skin, and known that he was taking something that Chris would never be even offered. 

That satisfaction has disappeared now; all that remains is a foul echo of it. 

He stays in the shower for so long that it's only the water going cold that chases him out. He can't stand to put his ruined jeans back on, so he leaves them crumpled beneath the sink and wraps a towel around his waist instead. 

Back in the hotel room, the bed is a mess. 

Ethan is gone. 

And Leon is, as he always is, alone. 

--

The day after he sleeps with Ethan, Leon leaves the US again.

There’s an op in Korea that needs a DOS agent, and when Hunnigan mentions it off-handedly Leon volunteers for the job with an eagerness that surprises her.

“What happened to wanting down time?” she asks. “I thought you were looking forward to New York.”

Leon hasn’t left his hotel since he arrived. His phone has been buzzing off the hook; Chris’s name flashing on the screen again and again and again. He’s not sleeping, and his appetite is all but gone. The minibar has already been refilled twice.

“What can I say, I just don’t think I’m meant for vacations,” Leon says.

Korea goes okay. He works to evacuate the civilians isolated in a very remote, very infected part of Busan, and casualties are kept to a minimum. The DOS is impressed with his work, and rewards him by immediately shipping him off to Iceland to follow up on a mutated strain of E-Virus, which is really par for the course as far as the US government is concerned.

After Iceland comes Ontario, then Ohio, Mexico, Michigan – there’s no rest for the wicked, and Leon throws himself into his work with an enthusiasm he hasn’t felt since he was twenty-two and eager for his first day on the force.

The distraction is precisely what he needs, because the more time passes the more his anger lessens, and all that’s left to replace it is resignation and, worst of all, guilt.

A month and a half after Leon exploded his personal life with one night of incredibly bad choices, Chris’s name finally vanishes from Leon’s phone.

It’s not a surprise. Not even Chris Redfield is masochistic enough to keep chasing after the hundredth screened call.

Leon’s in between away-missions, spending time in his empty DC apartment when his rarely used personal phone rings for the first time in a week. When he checks, it’s still not Chris, It’s an unfamiliar number, but the mystery doesn’t last long. 

It’s Ethan. Sorry for messaging you out of the blue. You don’t have to reply, but I just wanted to say I’m sorry for last time. I hope you’re doing well. 

Leon stares. He reads it once. Twice. Closes his messaging app and reopens it again. The text does not change. 

It’s Ethan. 

I’m sorry. 

Hope you’re doing well. 

Leon sinks onto the edge of the bed, and hits call. The phone rings for long enough that he’s almost certain it’s going to ring out, and then there’s a click. 

“Leon?”

“How did you get this number?” Leon demands. 

A pause. “I’m not stalking you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

Leon sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You stalking me would be the least of my problems. My phone number is a matter of national security. How did you get it?” 

“Not sure I should say, you sound pretty pissed.” 

“I’m not pissed, I’m just -” Realization sinks in. “Chris gave it to you, didn’t he?” 

“I asked him for it,” Ethan says, like a loyal guard dog. “I told him there was something important I needed to talk to you about.” 

“So you lied.” 

“I didn’t,” Ethan says, annoyance seeping into his tone. “I know you probably don’t care about apologies, but they matter to me. I said you didn’t have to respond. I just wanted you to know that I was sorry about what happened.” 

“I bet you are,” Leon says. “You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who has a lot of extramarital sex with other men.” 

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, I’m sorry about that too, but that’s got nothing to do with you. I meant about the things I said afterwards.” 

Leon’s stomach turns. He can feel the phantom pressure of Ethan’s fingers on his arm. Unconsciously, he wraps his fingers around it. It’s on the tip of his tongue to say something sharp and biting - something to make Ethan hurt the way Leon’s been hurting for months, for years. 

It’d be so easy. A long time ago he might have been a nice guy, but the cruelty of the years in between have long since taught him how to build a shield out of unkindness. It was easier to avoid being hurt when he made himself unapproachable first - cut the opportunity for it off at the knees. 

Except that’s not true, because Leon is on the wrong side of forty now, and he’s more miserable than he’s ever fucking been in his life. 

Suddenly, he’s so tired. None of this is Ethan’s fault. It never fucking has been. Leon’s known that for a while now; he never asked to be weaponized in this cold war between Leon and Chris that nobody but Leon is even aware is being waged. 

He sighs, a hand over his eyes. “No, you don’t have to apologize. I should be the one saying sorry. Nothing you said was… wrong.” The surprised silence on the other side of the line lingers for long enough that Leon can’t help but snap, “What?” 

“So even you can say sorry, huh?” 

Leon cracks a smile. “Sometimes.” 

Ethan laughs quietly. “I really thought you’d just ignore me. The text was more for my conscience than yours, honestly.” 

“I thought about it,” Leon admits. “But you didn’t deserve to have me go off on you like that. Especially not right after…” He doesn’t know whether mentioning the sex is a good idea or not. “Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is thanks. For the text, I mean.” 

“I’m glad I didn’t just piss you off more, but don’t worry, I don’t plan on making a habit out of it,” Ethan says. 

Leon smiles. “Maybe not. I can’t promise I won’t just delete the next one.” 

“That sounds fair. Although maybe you should start reading Chris’s messages.” 

“What?” Leon says, taken aback. 

Swiftly, like he thinks Leon is going to hang-up on him any second, Ethan says, “Chris is worried about you. I don’t know what happened, but I think you two should talk.” 

Leon deeply does not want to think about Chris and Ethan talking about him in any capacity at all. That’s a dangerous road for him to go down. “There’s nothing to be worried about, mind your own business.” 

Undeterred by the brush-off, Ethan continues, “Chris doesn’t seem to think so. He’s been a mess.” 

Ethan’s lying, he has to be, because there’s no way Chris is even half affected by this whole shitshow as Leon has been. Still, the thought of it makes Leon’s mouth go dry and his heart shudder in his chest. 

Fucking weak of him, really, but Leon’s long since resigned himself to that. 

Leon can’t talk about this. Not with Ethan. Not with anyone. His limited reserves of openness are fading fast. “Look,” he says, “I can’t hear you. I’m going through a rough patch, you’re breaking up.” 

“Leon -” 

“Thanks for the message, I’ll talk to you whenever misfortune allows. Goodbye, Ethan.” 

He hangs up over the tail-end of Ethan’s disgruntled protests, tossing the phone behind him to be lost among the sheets. Sitting on the end of a bed he’s barely been sleeping in, Leon’s forced to consider that he might not be dealing with this as well as he’d thought. 

He used to think the worst break-up of his life was his girlfriend dumping him the day before he’d been forced to fight off a hoard of zombies, hungover, on his first and last day in the RPD. It’d been the benchmark for a lot of his experiences going forward - sure, his life sucked, but was it really worse than that?

Kind of hilarious, in retrospect. Somehow taking rejection as a sprightly twenty year-old about to witness his first apocalypse better than he does now - a worldly and experienced old man acquainted with all manner of horror and worst case scenario. 

That’s what you get, Leon thinks. That’s what you get for spending your whole life never letting anybody close enough to actually hurt, you stupid bitch. 

Somewhere behind him, his phone vibrates. When Leon reluctantly picks it up, Ethan’s number is on the screen again. 

You’re both too smart to be acting so dumb. 

The shame of being scolded by Ethan Winters of all people is only eclipsed by the shame of needing to be scolded at all. 

Leon deletes the message without opening it. 

--

Three months. That’s how long he manages to avoid Chris for in the end. Honestly, it’s not a bad effort. Somehow it still doesn’t seem like enough. 

Leon’s on a highly classified mission in South America when his contact falls through and the op goes to shit in a handbasket. Stranded several miles out from any form of civilization and locked in a remote cabin with zombies roaming the wilderness around him, Leon resigns himself to an unknowable amount of time spent withering away in the harsh summer heat before extraction is even a possibility. 

He has deep furrows in his thigh from a glancing blow with a licker, and about three bullets left in his gun. If anything out there has the intelligence to kick down the door of his safehouse, he’s fucked. 

Leon tears a blanket to shreds to bandage his thigh, picks a corner, and sits there until exhaustion catches up with him and sleep pulls him under. 

He dreams of the BSAA. He dreams of the look on Chris’s face when he told him he loved him. It figures. Leon always has nightmares when he’s on a mission. 

He’s woken up by the sound of somebody pounding on the door. 

He freezes, back to the wall and gun loaded and ready. He keeps as still and quiet as possible. 

“Hey!” calls a very familiar voice. “You need to let me in right the fuck now or we’re going to have problems.” 

For a moment, Leon is certain he’s still asleep. He climbs to his feet on autopilot, keeping his gun at the ready. The distance between him and the front door is minimal but it takes roughly a thousand years to cross. When his hand hits the doorhandle, he hesitates. 

Another knock. “Leon, if I die out here because you wouldn’t open the fucking door, Claire’s going to gut you.” 

Leon swallows. He opens the door. 

Chris Redfield stands at the threshold, his favoured assault rifle in his arms and a bag slung over his shoulder. It’s the middle of the night, and the moon overhead paints him into grayscale like some kind of avenging spectre. It makes Leon’s heart stick in his throat. 

“Well fuck,” Leon says. “They sent you.” 

Chris’s face remains unmoved. “I don’t think you’re really in the position to be picky right now, do you?” 

He shoulders past Leon inside, and Leon stands there uselessly for a moment before he remembers to close and lock the door behind them. Inside, there’s only the light of a singular candle burning, barely bright enough to see, but Chris moves about with the confidence of a man who’s been in this exact position a dozen times himself; you see one safehouse, you’ve seen ‘em all. 

Chris drops his bag to the floor, unzipping it quickly and rummaging through, back to Leon. “How are you holding up?” 

Finally, Leon’s tongue unsticks from the roof of his mouth. “Fine, nothing major to report.” 

Chris glances up at him, expression dry. “Yeah, and I’m sure those rags around your leg are just for decoration, huh?” 

Leon doesn’t have a reply to that. 

Chris turns back to his bag. “Sit down. I’ve got a medkit in here.” 

Leon doesn’t sit. “I’m fine.” 

“I wasn’t fucking asking, Leon.” 

There’s so much irritation in his voice that Leon almost flinches. Being snapped at by Chris Redfield is a powerful thing, and Leon’s helpless but to cave beneath the force of it, sinking onto the bed as his stomach twists itself into knots. 

Chris rolls up the leg of Leon’s jeans and peels off Leon’s makeshift bandage with careful fingers, utterly at odds with his attitude. Leon sits perfectly still, staring over his shoulder and trying not to think too much about the last time they touched like this. It’s a battle made for losing. 

“I’m going to disinfect it,” Chris warns. 

“Just get on with it.” 

Chris rolls his eyes. “Think you can sit still long enough for some stitches? They won’t be pretty but it’ll have to do until we get out of here.” 

The longer Chris’s hands are on him, the closer Leon comes to saying something stupid. Teeth gritted, he snaps, “What are you, a doctor?” 

“No, I’m just the asshole sent out here to retrieve you in one piece.” Chris is already pulling out a field suture kit, disregarding Leon entirely. “Sit still, please. I haven’t got anything to numb it with, so you’ll have to tough it out.” 

In the endless list of worst experiences of his life, getting some makeshift stitches without anesthetic in the middle of a zombie infested wilderness doesn’t even rank in the top fifty. “That’s fine.” 

Chris’s hands are steady, the light reedy and thin. Leon can’t even see the needle as it dips beneath his skin, but Chris’s confident touch doesn’t falter. He keeps one broad palm pressed on Leon’s knee, keeping him still, and the warmth of it burns. 

He swallows. Chris’s shoulders bunch and unfold with every movement, utterly focused on what he’s doing, unaware that Leon’s staring. 

Leon’s missed him so fucking much it hurts. 

After what feels like far too long, he pulls back, wrapping Leon’s leg gingerly in clean bandage. “That should hold for now.” 

Leon rolls down his pants again. “Thanks.” 

“You don’t have to thank me. Taking care of you is literally my job right now.” Chris gets to his feet with a groan, stretching out his arms as he looks around the cabin with a critical eye. “How long have you been here?” 

Leon shrugs, sliding back on the bed, back to the wall. “A day, maybe. There was still light when I got here.” 

“Unlike you to fuck up a mission bad enough to need extraction.” 

Leon scowls. “My contact leaked my information. Wasn’t much I could do when they decided to let loose their pet zombie collection after me. I came here for recon, not this.” 

“At least you made it here more-or-less unscathed,” Chris says. “Not bad for being unprepared.” 

“Forget me,” Leon says. “How did you get roped into this?” 

Without missing a beat, Chris says, “I volunteered.” 

Oh. 

Chris is leaning against the wall, arms folded, looking dead at him, and Leon knows any opportunity for uncomfortable professionalism between them has slipped away, if it was ever there at all. 

He’s not ready to have this conversation. Probably, he’s never going to be ready to have this conversation. 

It doesn’t really seem like Chris is giving him a way out of it. 

“Listen,” Leon says, “can we just… not do this?” 

“No,” Chris says. “We really can’t.” 

Leon fists a hand in the bedsheets, jaw tight. He tries to hold Chris’s gaze, but the burn of it is too much, and Leon’s dangerously close to turning to kindling beneath it. He looks away. 

Silence holds. Out here in the wilderness, there’s nothing but silence. 

“You’ve been dodging my calls.” 

Right for the fucking kill. Chris has always been an efficient soldier like that. “That’s because I don’t want to talk to you,” Leon says. “I know you can take a hint, Redfield.” 

“That’s a hell of a bomb to drop on somebody and then run away from.” 

Leon gives him a thin smile. “What can I say? I’m a coward.” 

“That’s it? That’s the best excuse you’ve got?” Chris asks. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” 

Chris pushes off the wall, stepping in between the spread of Leon’s thighs. His hands fall to Leon’s knees. “Something more than ‘I’m a coward’.” 

Leon can’t deal with this. He’s not prepared. He doesn’t know what Chris wants from him. “Don’t touch me,” he snaps, but when he tries to shove Chris back he’s unyielding. “Don’t fucking touch me.” 

“Leon -” 

Leon’s burning up. His head is spinning. He needs space; needs to be anywhere but here. Needs Chris to understand the depths of Leon’s obsession with him, the lengths it’s driven him to. He needs Chris to understand that when push comes to shove, Leon is not a good person, he’s not something harmless and kind.

He’s nothing at all like Ethan. 

Leon Kennedy has worked hard to make himself into something poisonous.

He looks Chris in the eyes and says, “I fucked Ethan.” 

Still, Chris does not pull away.

Venomous, Leon adds, “I fucked Ethan, and I did it just because I knew it’d hurt you.” 

The hands on Leon’s knees squeeze, gentle as sin. “Yeah,” Chris says. “I know.” 

The world stutters to a halt. “What?” 

Chris smiles at him, thin and weary. “Ethan told me months ago, Leon. I’ve known this whole time, and you’d know too if you’d just have picked up your damn phone.” 

Leon’s still not sure he’s hearing properly. “What?” 

One of Chris’s hands lifts, pushing Leon’s hair from his face, pad of his thumb grazing along Leon’s temple. “You’re such a fucking handful,” he says, fond. “You make things at least ten times more difficult than they need to be.” 

“I - he told you?” 

“Told his wife too,” Chris confirms. “Say what you will, but at least he knows how to take responsibility for his actions.” 

That sparks against the steel Leon’s tried to armour his heart with. This time when he shoves Chris away, he puts real force behind it. “I don’t want to fucking hear about how good Ethan is -” 

“Holy shit,” Chris marvels, grabbing Leon’s wrists as he pushes at him. “Would you calm down and let me talk?” 

“I don’t want to talk!” Leon snarls. “What part of that don’t you get?” 

“For somebody so smart you’re really fucking dumb, you know that?” Chris sighs, and leans forward to kiss him. 

Chris kisses like he has something he’s trying to prove. His hands are shackled around Leon’s wrists, holding him still as Chris presses in, backs Leon to the wall, one of his knees coming to rest on the bed between Leon’s thighs. He doesn’t let Leon pull away, doesn’t let him breathe. 

Leon couldn’t count how many times they’ve kissed over the years now, and it’s always been good. 

None of those times has anything on this. 

Chris kisses like he wants to possess him. 

When he pulls back, Leon’s gasping. His heart is pounding like a drum. The darkness of the room has sucked all the color from Chris’s gaze, leaving nothing but black behind. Leon stares at him, speechless. 

“As I thought,” Chris says, “there’s really only one way to shut you up, huh?” 

Leon’s too stupefied to know what to do with that. Weakly, he says, “Are you dumb? Did you miss the part where I fucked the guy you like out of spite?” 

“No, I got that part, believe me. And it’s not like I wasn’t angry about it. For about a week, I thought the next time I saw you I was going to punch your pretty boy face in.” 

Leon has no idea what’s going on. “A week?” 

“Yeah,” Chris says. He’s on the bed properly now, Leon practically in his lap. Chris’s thumbs brush idly over the pounding pulse in Leon’s wrists. “But then you wouldn’t answer your phone, and I was much more worried about you trying to ghost me.” 

“Why the fuck should that matter?” Leon asks, baffled. 

Chris gives him a pitying look. “It matters because you were a big part of my life long before Ethan came along, jackass.” 

The fury that Chris’s touch has barely banked back flickers to life again, turning Leon hot beneath his skin. He tries to wrench himself free of Chris’s grip, but it’s like fighting iron. “Sure, as your friend. As a convenient fuck.” 

“God, Leon, are you serious? Nothing about you is ‘convenient’.” 

Leon bristles. “Well, sorry for being -” 

Chris drops one of his wrists, pressing his palm over Leon’s mouth, muffling the end of his sentence. “Just shut up, will you? This goes easier when you don’t talk, I think.” 

Leon looks at him incredulously, but Chris’s hand does not move. His other hand, the one still holding Leon’s wrist, lifts it up, pressing it to the wall beside his head, holding him there. Leaning forward, his forehead knocks gently into Leon’s. They’re close enough that he’s all Leon can see - Chris his whole world. 

“Years ago, before we even started sleeping together, I had such a thing for you,” Chris says. “I was stupid over you. It was embarrassing, honestly.” 

Leon’s eyes blow wide. He tries to speak, to move, but Chris doesn’t let him. 

“I worked real fucking hard to get over it,” he says. “You didn’t seem like you were interested in something like that, and when we did start sleeping together, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable over something that was meant to be casual.” 

Finally, Leon manages to rip Chris’s hand away from his mouth. “You’re lying.” 

Chris laughs quietly. “I’m not. You can ask anybody I work with. They used to tease the hell out of me over it.” 

Leon’s whole world has tilted on a new axis. Frantically, he’s sorting through his memories of Chris, trying to find any signs and coming up empty. “I don’t believe it. You’re lying, you have to be.” 

“I’m really not.” 

“Chris, I saw the fucking way you were with Ethan.” 

“Yeah,” Chris says. “I made the choice not to waste my time pining over you forever. Really didn’t intend to develop a highschool crush on another guy that was also emotionally unavailable, but I guess I just have a type.” 

Leon can’t keep up with this conversation. Bitter, he spits, “So I missed my fucking chance.” 

Chris’s hand cups Leon’s jaw, tilting his face up. “No, you idiot. You really didn’t.” 

This time, when he kisses him, Leon barely remembers to respond, still stunned slow. 

“When you pulled your little hate-fuck stunt and then disappeared, you know what I was thinking about?” Chris asks. “Here’s a hint; it wasn’t Ethan.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Leon swears, finally wrenching his hand free, fisting it in Chris’s shirt and jerking him desperately forward as Chris laughs quietly into his mouth. 

--

At this point, they’re experts at fucking on tiny beds in unwelcoming spaces. 

They work together to strip Leon’s pants over his bandaged leg, hands tripping over each other as their shirts are shed into a pile. Leon’s trembling fingers slip on Chris’s belt buckle three times before he manages to get it undone, and the clink of it slithering to the floor makes goosebumps chase along every exposed inch of his skin. 

The mattress is thin, and the bedframe squeaks like bloody murder. When Leon skates his palms over Chris’s shoulders, they’re burning hot and sweat-damp. The late-night summer heat makes them slick and fumbling, and Leon’s nerves are alight like they haven’t been in years. 

As Chris’s hands slide up his thighs, he thinks of him saying I had such a thing for you. 

As Chris’s mouth bites down his throat, he thinks of him saying I was stupid over you. 

It doesn’t feel real. Leon’s half convinced he’s dreaming, another fever trapping him in an empty hotel bed, alone and abandoned. 

“Hey, hey,” Chris says as he hooks Leon’s leg over his waist. “What are you thinking about?” 

Leon looks at him, the heat-painted flush in his skin, the hair in his face, the hungry burn of his gaze; the way he’s looking at Leon as if he’s his whole fucking world. 

The universe condenses down into this single moment. Leon doesn’t even care if he’s asleep anymore. 

“If you don’t fuck me right now, I’m going to murder you,” he says. 

Leon’s leg is too sore to hold him up, so Chris takes him on his back, his thighs split open around Chris’s waist as Chris fucks into him raw, big hands holding Leon down as his hips roll and roll and roll. 

They never fuck like this; slow, lingering, consuming. Leon doesn’t know that he’s ever fucked anybody like this. It surprises him how much he likes it. 

Chris is muttering nonsense into Leon’s shoulder, lips brushing his skin. “God, I’ve missed this. I’ve thought about this for years. Wanted to treat you right, wanted to show you how it could be.” 

Leon groans, head thrown back against the pillow. He tries to move, to match Chris’s rhythm, but Chris just holds him down, refuses to let Leon do anything but take it.

It’s fucking killing him. Leon feels like every bone in his body is made of liquid heat. “Chris, come on, please, fuck, I’m -” 

Chris fucks into him sharply, and Leon loses it. His orgasm tears through him like ruination, and he’s left shaking, swearing, clutching at Chris for balance as he comes down from the high of it. 

“Yeah?” Chris asks, finally letting go of Leon’s hand long enough to hold the sweaty hair from Leon’s face. 

Somehow, Leon manages to find the strength to buck up, snagging his leg at the small of Chris’s back. “Keep going, c’mon.” 

“I don’t -” 

“Chris,” Leon says. “I am begging you, please.” 

Chris shudders. “Oh hell,” he slurs, face buried in Leon’s shoulder, and when he comes he only just manages to pull out in time, spilling between Leon’s thighs.

The come down from the high takes a lifetime. Chris stays atop of him, a crushing weight that is more reassuring than it has the right to be. Honestly, Leon thinks he might be content to just stay like this forever if it wasn’t for the growing feeling of sweat and come making him uncomfortable and itchy. 

“Alright,” he says, gently rapping Chris’s shoulder. “That’s enough afterglow, get off me.” 

Chris groans, heaving himself off. The bed isn’t quite big enough for them both, Chris hanging half off the side and Leon crushed against the wall. “Sorry,” Chris says. “How’s your leg?”

Tentatively, Leon crooks a knee. “Not as sore as my ass.” 

Chris shakes with silent laughter next to him. “You were the one winding me up.” He swings himself off the side of the bed, rummaging for something to clean themselves up with. “This probably wasn’t the place for this.” 

“You started it,” Leon says, aiming for petulant but landing on exhausted. 

Chris pats his arm. “Stay like that, I’ll clean you up.” 

“I can do it,” Leon says, but Chris pushes him back to the bed. 

“Let me. Please.” He sounds so earnest, as if Leon letting him clean his own fucking come from between his thighs is the greatest honor that Leon could bestow upon him. 

Leon’s too old to be embarrassed over something like this. Really, he is. Flinging an arm over his face, he says, “Fine. Whatever makes you happy, I guess.” 

“For a guy as shameless as you are, you sure get embarrassed over the dumbest things,” Chris says.

The bed is kind of a wreck at this point, and Leon had already shredded the blanket. They find some dusty but relatively clean sheets in a chest in the corner, and they flap them out over the floor with the pillows to make somewhere clean and cool to see out the night. Neither of them bother getting dressed; they’ll hear anything coming long before it arrives, and it’s frankly too hot, and Leon is too sore. 

They sit together, back to the wall, shoulders brushing, and Leon finally works up the nerve to ask, “So?” 

“So what?” Chris asks. 

“So what happens now, I mean.” 

“Well, we’ll meet the rest of the extraction team in the morning.” 

That hadn’t been what Leon meant at all, and he knows Chris knows it. “Chris.” 

Chris sighs. “That’s up to you. What do you want to happen?” 

Leon’s not sure. He’s never even hoped for this much. He knows what he doesn’t want to happen though. “I don’t want to keep fucking around, no string attached. I can’t do that again.” 

“Good,” Chris says. “Me neither.” 

Leon swallows. “I don’t want to be a replacement either. I don’t play second fiddle well.” 

Chris’s arm settles over his shoulders, pulling him so that Leon knocks into his side, head resting in the crook of Chris’s neck. “You’re not. You don’t.”

Leon’s not sure he can bring himself to believe that. “You don’t get over somebody that quickly.” 

“I haven’t thought about Ethan like that in weeks,” Chris says, making Leon’s breath stutter. “Been too busy worrying about your dumb ass.”

“I’m being serious here,” Leon says. “If you’re just giving me what you think I want -” 

“Why is it so hard for you to believe I want this too?” Chris asks. “Hell, Leon. It’s not exactly like I’m settling. You’re one of the best in the field at what you do, you're smart and funny as hell. Not to mention you’re a knockout. Honestly, I’m the one kind of batting out of my league here.” 

He says it all so casually, but the praise prickles along Leon’s spine, making it difficult to think, as if Leon hasn’t thought the exact same about Chris more times than he can count. “If…” Leon takes a deep breath, the vulnerability of his next sentence scraping him raw. “If we decide to do this, and you decide you were wrong, I don’t think I’m going to be able to bounce back from it.” 

A beat passes. Leon wants to crawl out of his fucking skin. 

“I never would have pegged you for an inferiority complex,” Chris says, and it’s light, but the truth of it punctures something inside of him. Leon tries to pull away, but Chris refuses to let him, grappling him back. “No, hey, sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” 

“Who do you think gave it to me?” Leon says acidly. 

Chris turns, setting his hands to Leon’s cheeks to hold his gaze steady. “You’re not a replacement. You’re not second place, okay?” 

“Ethan -” 

“Ethan’s important to me,” Chris says. “He’s always going to be important to me. And we’re both going to have to live with the fact that there was a time that I liked him as more than a friend.” 

“Chris -” 

“But,” Chris continues, “I’ve spent years pretending to myself and everybody else that I was over you, and trust me when I say that with everything out in the open, it’s actually a relief to admit I never was.” 

Leon has no idea how he says these things so openly. Just hearing it makes Leon embarrassed for them both. Sighing, he drops his head back to Chris’s shoulder. “It’s going to take me time to believe that.” 

Chris’s arms drop over him. Warm, solid. “That’s fine. However long it takes is fine.”

“If you put me through a year like this again, I’m going to shoot you,” Leon says, and means it. 

“If I put you through a year like this again, I’ll shoot myself,” Chris says, and it sounds like he means it just as much. 

With that, the last of Leon’s nerves settle. For now, at least.

He slumps into Chris’s side, eyes closing, and Chris lets him, encourages it. “What time is your team getting here?” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Chris says. “You must be exhausted. Get some sleep, I’ll wake you.” 

“There’s still BOWs outside. I should stay awake.” 

Chris’s hand settles over the back of Leon’s head, holding him still, face in Chris’s shoulder. “It’s fine, I’ll stay up. Trust me, yeah?” 

He asks that as if Leon has ever known how to trust anybody. Easy, natural. 

Maybe one day it will be. 

“Okay,” Leon says. Chris’s thumb strokes the nape of his neck, and Leon sags into it, weak in a way he doesn’t often let himself be. 

Again, softer: “Okay.” 

--

Chris’s team extracts them at just past dawn. 

Nadia takes one look at them as they climb into the chopper and raises a dark brow, amused. “Have a good night, boss?” 

Chris cuffs her on the back of the head as he settles on the bench. “If you’ve got time to gossip, you’ve got time to work.” She gives Leon a theatrical wink before clambering into the cockpit with D.C, leaving him and Chris alone in the back. “Sorry about her,” Chris says. “She doesn’t know boundaries.” 

“It’s fine,” Leon says. “You’re pretty close with your team, huh?” 

“If you mean have they had to put up with me being insufferable for months now? Then the answer is yes.”

Leon does not let that comment go to his head, but it’s hard. He buckles himself in and the chopper wobbles off the ground. Beside him, Chris is watching him quietly. Self conscious, Leon says, “What?” 

“Nothing,” Chris says. “Just… you were smiling.” 

Leon startles. He hadn’t realized. He turns his head away, watching as the barren spread of the ground below shrinks. “No, I wasn’t.” 

“You’re right, you’re right. My bad.” They don’t touch, but when Chris stretches, his knee knocks against Leon’s, their shoulders brushing minutely. “DOS will probably put you on medical leave when you get back. Until your leg heals, I mean.” 

Leon resolutely does not look at him. “I guess so.” 

“If you wanted to spend it someplace other than DC…” 

Despite himself, Leon smothers a smile. “Yeah? You got some suggestions?” 

“I hear New York’s a nice place to visit,” Chris says. “If you were interested.” 

“I don’t know. Lot of tourists there. Sounds kind of tiring.” 

“Come back to New York with me,” Chris says. “Please.” 

Leon doesn’t think Chris has ever asked him that before. It’s such a juvenile thing to get worked up over, but the thrill of it makes Leon’s heart trip. He works to keep his expression neutral. “So long as I’m not getting in the way of anything, I suppose I could.” 

“Hell, Leon. You’re never in the fucking way.” 

Leon’s dangerously close to doing something dumb. 

“You need to shut the fuck up before I kiss you where your team can see,” Leon says. 

Chris grins at him. Broad, open, affectionate. It knocks the breath out of Leon like nothing else. “Don’t make promises you’re not going to keep.” 

Leon wants to kiss him, to follow through and make him eat his fucking words. He wants to prove that this thing between them isn’t constrained to dark bedrooms and creaky hotel rooms; that it can survive out here in the open where the light can touch. 

More than that though, he wants to keep it to himself, just for a little bit longer; a version of Chris that the rest of the world is no longer entitled to. 

Leon meets Chris’s gaze and says, “Buy me dinner first. I’m not a cheap date.” 

The surprise on Chris’s face gives way to delight. “It’d be my honor to have the chance to buy dinner for the one and only Leon Kennedy.” 

“Don’t squander it,” Leon says, mostly joking. 

When he replies, Chris’s voice is low and serious. “Trust me, I won’t.” 

On the bench between them, his fingers brush Leon’s, and, for the first time since this started, Leon does not make himself pull away. 

Notes:

This fic has consumed me for over a month, and I am so incredibly relieved to finally be free.

A big thank you to saint_groovy over on twitter for drawing the frankly badass cover image that I tweeted for this fic.

Some accompanying art over here by the incredibly talented knacknics over on tumblr that blows my breath away.

twitter: doingwritebyme
tumblr: glenflower