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The first thing Leon sees when he walks into the office is the banner haloing his desk; WELCOME LEON it reads in bright RPD blue and yellow, hemmed on either side by matching streamers and balloons.
It’s gaudy as hell. Something straight from a fifth grader’s birthday party.
Leon adores it.
His new team are an eclectic mix, but they share an intense excitement to welcome him into their ranks, ribbing him and slapping him on the shoulder, laughing as he struggles with the needlessly complicated locks on his desk; his first hint that the RPD is especially big on hazing.
“Don’t worry, rookie,” Lieutenant Branagh says cheerfully. “They’re just excited to have some fresh talent in the squad. We had to fight tooth and nail to keep S.T.A.R.S from poaching you right off the bat.”
“S.T.A.R.S?” Leon asks, rattling the remaining lock on his desk uselessly. Across the office, one of his new coworkers laughs at him.
Branagh shakes his head ruefully. “You’ll meet ‘em tonight. Hell of a crew, man. Hell of a crew.”
“What’s happening tonight?”
‘Tonight’ turns out to be an afterwork party at a bar three blocks down from the station. Anybody not on the night shift is there, congratulating Leon all over again, buying him drink after drink like he’d saved a bank and not just shown up for deskwork on his first day of the job.
Leon’s never been this popular in his life; two beers deep into the night, it’s a feeling he could get used to.
The party’s been in full swing for maybe half an hour when the door to the bar bangs open again. Leon’s in the middle of getting his ass kicked in darts, but he glances up to see an unfamiliar group spilling in. Unlike the RPD officer’s Leon’s been socializing with, the newcomers are dressed in military green and black, RPD emblazoned on their vest and an additional badge riding their sleeve.
“Who’s that?” Leon asks Elliot who’s been trying and failing to teach Leon to aim at the bullseye for about twenty minutes now.
Elliot glances over his shoulder to the door. A woman with dark hair blows him a kiss followed by a wink. Elliot rolls his eyes, turning away. “Looks like S.T.A.R.S finally decided to show their faces,” he says. “Heaven forbid they miss out on free drinks.”
“Didn’t realize my welcoming party was an open bar event,” Leon says.
“Trust me, Jill Valentine can and will make it one.” He puts a dart in Leon’s hand, turning him back to the target. “Now c’mon, I’m going to see you hit that thing or die trying.”
It takes the better part of ten minutes before Leon’s able to extricate himself, Elliot giving him up for a lost cause. By now everybody’s had enough drinks that when Leon bumps his way to the bar nobody grabs at him, forcing him into conversation about people and places he hasn’t met and doesn’t know.
“A beer, please.” Leon sags against the counter, determined to have just a moment to catch his breath. He’s not so lucky.
“You look like a puppy who’s been taken out on the world’s longest walk,” drawls a voice next to him, and when Leon glances up he catches sight of the dark haired woman from before, one of the S.T.A.R.S new arrivals.
“Uh, hi,” Leon says, because he doesn’t know how to answer that. “You’re Valentine, right?”
She smiles. “People spreading gossip already? Jill’s fine, newbie. No need to be so formal, we’re all friends here.”
“I’m Leon.”
She gives him a pitying look. “Yes, I know. Hard to miss with the station decked out like that.”
Leon gives a rueful smile. “I didn’t know it was going to be an event. Nobody’s really thrown me a surprise party like that before.”
“Well, not much happens in Racoon City, so folks will take any chance to celebrate.”
Leon’s opening his mouth to answer when a woman materializes at Jill’s side. No uniform this time, just a red jacket and a harried look on her face. “Sorry to interrupt, but have you seen Chris? He said he’d be here half an hour ago and I can’t find him anywhere.”
Jill shrugs and hands the girl her drink, something that looks sufficiently stronger than Leon’s beer. She orders a new one immediately. “No clue. He didn’t come with me and the others. You know what he’s like, he’ll blow in when he feels like it and not before then. Don’t stress, Claire.”
Claire doesn’t look stressed so much as irritated. “Well, he has the keys to my bike, so if he doesn’t show up soon, I’m going to jack his. Maybe that’ll teach him a lesson about punctuality.” She knocks back Jill’s drink and then, seemingly noticing Leon for the first time, sets down her glass and sticks out a hand. “Sorry to interrupt your party. I’m Claire, Chris’s sister.”
Bemused, Leon shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you Claire-Chris’s-sister.”
Claire laughs. “Sorry, that’s probably not helpful. You must be trying to learn so many names today.”
“Do you want to know a secret?” Leon says, voice hushed. “I haven’t remembered anybody’s name all day; I’ve just been smiling and nodding and coasting by on that.”
This time, the laugh comes from behind him. Deep, warm, and utterly unfamiliar. Startled, Leon turns and comes face to face with the most attractive man he’s seen all fucking day.
“Don’t let Lieutenant Branagh hear you say that,” says the man. “He’ll be gutted if his little party trick with the locks on your desk didn’t work.”
Leon scrambles for something to say so he’s not just standing there staring like an idiot. “I mean, it helped hone my lockpicking skills so it wasn’t a complete waste of effort.”
“Lockpicking, huh? Doesn’t sound very lawful of you, Officer Kennedy.” He sticks out his hand. “Chris. Chris Redfield.”
Leon takes it. His palm is very broad and very warm. “Leon Kennedy. But I guess you knew that already.”
“There were a few hints,” Chris says. He turns to Claire, digging something out of his pocket and tossing it to her. Leon catches the glimmer of keys as she snatches it out of the air. “Your bike’s all fixed up now. You can head off if you want.”
“Who says I want to?” Claire says, tucking the keys away. “Maybe I was having a fun conversation with Jill and Leon.”
Chris holds up his hands. “Then stay, I’m not the boss of you. But if you get sloshed I’m not taking you home and you’re sure as fuck not riding your bike.”
Claire rolls her eyes, but it seems more routine than irritation. She picks up a stray pen from the counter and gestures for Leon’s hand. Obediently, he offers it. “Here,” she says, scrawling across his palm. “Because somebody’s being a mother hen, I’m going to head off for now, but here’s my number if you want to get lunch or something while I’m in town. I’ll be here for a week or so.” She pauses, giving him a serious look. “In a purely platonic capacity. You seem like you’re in the market for some new friends, and I can always use somebody to keep an eye on my brother.”
Leon, who’s definitely in the market for some new friends, says, “How do you feel about mimosas and brunch?”
She grins, tucking the pen that’s most certainly not hers behind her ear. “Sounds great if I’m not paying.”
Considering Leon hasn’t had to pay for his drinks once all night, it only seems fair. “I’m sure we can manage something.”
“Then it’s a purely platonic date,” she says. She drops his hand, pulls her keys from her pocket, gives an amused Jill a quick hug, punches her brother in the arm, and breezes out of the bar all in one smooth move.
Chris watches her go, baffled. “I cannot believe my sister just gave you her phone number right in front of me.”
Leon, who’s relatively sure Claire had played up the spectacle for this exact reaction, says, “What? I’m trustworthy!”
Jill plucks a cherry from her cocktail. “Relax, I don’t think Leon’s exactly a threat to your sister’s virtue.” She wiggles her eyebrows at Leon, darting a quick and incredibly obvious glance to Chris.
Leon refuses to be read so clearly, turning back to the bar. “Another beer, thanks.”
“You’ve been getting beers?” Chris says, utterly oblivious. “C’mon, you come to a bar like this to celebrate your first day on the job, you’ve got to at least order something a little fancy.”
“They do a great Sex on the Beach,” Jill says, holding up her drink.
Leon ignores her. “I’ve never had a half decent cocktail before.”
“It’d be my honor to buy you your first,” Chris says, and leans across the counter to snag the bartender’s attention.
“Well,” Jill says grandly, “I can see I’ve outstayed my welcome. I’ll just be over in that corner making the uniformed officers feel inadequate if you need me.” Leon watches her go, unwilling to call her back when faced with Chris’s undivided attention.
Chris turns around, two amber drinks in his hands. He looks Leon up and down assessingly. “How are you with tequila?”
“I said I wasn’t a fan of cocktails, not the stuff that goes in them.”
“Alright, then,” Chris says, passing over one of the drinks. It smells sweet, garnished with a lime pricked on a toothpick. “Bottoms up, champ.”
Leon takes a swig; it’s sweet, spicy, and strong enough to make his eyes water. “What is this?” he rasps, trying not to cough.
Chris grins, leaning his elbow against the counter. “El Diablo; they mix ‘em to live up to the name here.”
“Yeah,” Leon says, gingerly sitting his glass down. “I can tell.”
Chris raises a brow. “Is that a complaint?”
“No! It’s good - really good. You were right; the honor of buying my first half decent cocktail rests at your feet, Redfield.”
Chris gives a dramatic bow. “You’re more than welcome. I live to serve.”
The flourish of the bow pulls his sleeves taunt over his biceps, highlighting the warm tan of his skin, the muscles flexing beneath it. Leon hurries to look away before he’s caught staring. “Don’t let it go to your head. I’m not always so easily impressed.”
“The boys in the department won you over with a misspelled banner and some party streamers, trust me, I’m not worried.”
Leon flushes. “The banner wasn’t misspelled!”
“Yeah, because somebody finally realized there’s not two L’s in ‘welcome’.”
Thinking back on it, there had been a noticeable gap between the L and the C, but Leon had been a bit too preoccupied to notice. “So what? It’s nice to feel welcome somewhere.”
Chris glances at him. “Worried you’d be an officer pariah? Seems unlikely; you’re a friendly, funny, attractive guy.”
Leon’s stomach turns over. He takes another slug of his El Diablo to hide it. “It’s always hard moving somewhere new. I think it’s normal to worry about it.”
“I’ll bet,” Chris says. “Did you have to leave much behind? Anybody special?”
Leon lets out a self-deprecating laugh, rolling his glass between his palms. “Not quite. My girlfriend dumped me a week before I shipped out.”
Chris plucks the pick from his drink, settling it idly between his teeth. Too casual, he says, “So you’re single?”
“Yes,” Leon blurts, not casual at all.
Chris’s mouth splits into a grin. It lights up every inch of his handsome face. “Is that so?”
Leon’s breath catches in his chest. He doesn’t know what to say; he feels struck dumb, wordless in the face of Chris’s attention, his careless flirting. He’s always been weak to pretty people, afterall.
They’re both leaning on the bar. Leon’s hand is an inch from Chris’s elbow, maybe less. It’d be so easy to touch him, to play it off as an accident - easier to not play it off at all.
Leon swallows. Chris’s eyes flick to the hollow of his throat. They flick back up to Leon’s mouth; warm from the drink Chris had brought him.
Chris clears his throat. “Do you want -”
A hand lands on Leon’s shoulder, and Elliot, now two sheets to the wind, hollers, “There you are!”
The moment is broken. Chris leans away, retreating out of Leon’s space, and Leon mimics him. He turns, giving Elliot a smile that he hopes looks natural. “I wasn’t exactly hiding.”
Elliot gives him a companionable shake. “C’mon, S.T.A.R.S are kicking our ass at darts; I need to give them something that’ll make the rest of us look better.”
“I’m drinking,” Leon protests.
Elliot picks the drink up from the counter, stuffs it in Leon’s hand, and says, “Drink while you walk, I have a darts game to seem comparatively better at.”
“Oh, this I have to see,” Chris says, and follows after them as Elliot drags Leon through the crowd.
Reluctantly, Leon knocks back the last of his drink, bracing against the sting of it. A path clears before the dartboard, and Leon’s just in time to catch Jill barely missing what looks like her third bullseye of the round. Somehow, it doesn’t surprise him in the least that Jill Valentine excels in the art of sharp projectiles.
“I hear there’s a contest going on,” Chris says.
“I wouldn’t call it much of a contest,” Jill says, prying her darts loose. “That would imply the existence of competition.”
The crowd around them jeers, and even Leon can’t help but grin at the companionable energy of it.
“Here,” Chris says, holding out a hand. “I’ve heard Leon’s dart game could use some work; might do him good to have an example to follow.”
Jill rolls her eyes, dropping the darts into Chris’s waiting palm. “Remember, if you break the board again, RPD isn’t going to foot the bill.”
“How do you break a dartboard?” Leon asks.
Chris winks at him but doesn’t answer. He slides into position, perfectly steady considering he’d just downed a full cocktail in five minutes flat. “Watch and learn, Kennedy.”
Chris may be a showboat, but he’s also a man of his word - his first toss is barely shy of the centre, his second closer still, and his third nabs a bullseye with only a moment of concentration. Reluctant applause chases his performance, but the broad grin on Chris’s face doesn’t seem to care.
“S.T.A.R.S that good with guns?” Leon asks.
Elliot sighs. “Better.”
Chris swishes over. “Get a good view?”
It’s not an innuendo, but it sure as fuck sounds it. “You’re not bad,” Leon allows.
Chris tosses his head back, laughing. “Not bad, he says! By all means, why don’t you show me how it’s done, huh?”
Elliot grabs his sleeve furtively. “Remember, it’s all in the wrist, okay?”
“All in the wrist,” Leon repeats, amused. “Got it.”
He’s unceremoniously shoved out front. Word of Leon’s ineptitude must have spread, because his fellow officers are surrounding him now like vultures to roadkill. To the side, Elliot mimics a dart toss and mouths the wrist!
Chris is watching with his arms folded, amusement colouring his eyes dark. The press of his gaze makes Leon’s spine straighten, his shoulders smoothing into a straight line.
Leon doesn’t want to make waves on his first day. He wants to be liked by his fellow officers.
He wants to impress Chris more.
His first throw whistles through the air like a bullet; it takes the bullseye effortlessly.
“Okay,” Chris says, “pretty good for a fluke.”
Leon’s second bullseye is clearly not a fluke - neither is his third.
Quiet holds for a split second in their tiny corner of the bar, and then it interrupts into chaos. “You son of a bitch!” Elliot calls, barely audible over the hooting and hollering as Leon’s coworkers swarm him. “You son of a bitch, you really had me going!”
Leon grins ruefully. “Sorry,” he says. “You were so enthusiastic about teaching me how to play, I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
Elliot shakes his head, slapping him on the back, but he’s already walking away, muttering, “Just wait until Branagh hears about this shit.”
“Alright, alright,” Chris says, pulling Leon free of the crowd. “Give the man a chance to breathe; it was a game of darts, not the superbowl.”
“Sounds like the words of a loser to me, Redfield,” Jill calls from the corner where she’s nursing a bottle of beer Leon’s reasonably sure isn’t hers.
Chris points at her warningly as he escorts Leon back towards the bar. “Hey, I wasn’t the only one showed up here.”
“Please, my ego isn’t half as fragile as yours.” Then, louder as they retreat, “Tell him to apply for S.T.A.R.S!”
Leon steadfastly pretends he didn’t hear that last part. Chris parks them at the end of the counter. “Sorry, hope I wasn’t out of line whisking you away from your admirers there.”
Leon is still riding the high of it all; of the attention, the admittedly showboaty darts, and, most of all, Chris’s hand resting at the small of his back. “No, I should thank you really. They’re good guys, but I’m getting kind of, uhh, tired of socializing at this point.”
Chris’s eyes crinkle as he smiles. The hand on Leon’s back retreats. He misses it instantly. “Is that a hint you want to be left alone?” he teases.
“No!” Leon says, too quick. Flushing, he adds, “No, that’s… I’ve really enjoyed talking to you.”
The hand that had fled from Leon’s back brushes against his knee. It makes every hair on his body stand on end. “Yeah. Me too.” Chris huffs out a laugh. “You’re really something, actually. Hell of a good aim back there.”
“I’m not bad,” Leon says modestly.
“I’ll say,” Chris mutters. He glances over his shoulder before clearing his throat and turning back to Leon. “Look. I really should get going.”
“Oh.” Leon hopes the disappointment doesn’t show too obviously on his face. “Alright. Sure.”
Chris hesitates. “Might be kind of hard to catch each other, what with you working with uniformed officers and me in S.T.A.R.S.”
Ice settles in Leon’s stomach. He’s being turned down and he hasn’t even had the chance to make a move yet. “Okay.”
“Fuck,” Chris swears, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I’m not saying this right. I’m usually much smoother. I mean, any chance I could have your number?”
The ice in Leon’s stomach thaws. “Oh. Oh. No, sorry.” Chris’s face falls instantly, and Leon rushes to say, “I don’t have a phone line yet! That’s all! But if you wanted to give me yours that would be… I’d like that.”
Chris breathes out. “Shit, yeah, I’d like that too.”
The bartender lends them a spare pen - this time with very strict instructions to return it - and Chris holds Leon’s hand in his, braced on the countertop as he bleeds his number across Leon’s palm in faded black. It’s almost funny; a Redfield number on each hand.
“There,” Chris says. “In case you want to do brunch and mimosas or whatever the fuck it was you told Claire.”
Leon swallows. “Purely platonic?”
Chris tucks the pen into his pocket. “If that’s what you want.”
“And if it’s not?”
When Chris smiles, it sweeps Leon’s breath right out of him. “Then I’d let you kick my ass at every dartboard in the city and be thrilled to call it a date, rookie.”