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“It’s not fucking fair,” Piers seethes as he slams into the house, damn near vibrating with anger. He drops his duffle on the ground with a thump, though he’s not really satisfied with the noise he’s making until he kicks the thing and sends it spiralling across the kitchen to clatter into one of the barstools.
Leon doesn’t react.
He just keeps lacing up his boots, hands steady, going through the motions carefully and deliberately and giving no indication that he’s noticed the fit Piers is throwing.
He gives Piers the illusion of privacy, though he isn’t sure if it’s because he thinks Piers needs it or if it’s because Leon needs it. Regardless, Piers uses the quiet moment of Leon’s too-slow lacing to drag his anger back in, propping his hands on his hips and tipping his face back toward the ceiling, breathing slowly and evenly until he feels like he can face the unfairness of the world again without needing to break his knuckles on something.
Leon knots his laces and stands, footsteps silent as he meets Piers halfway to the front door, absently sidestepping the creaky floorboard and something in Piers’ chest aches because he knows this isn’t Leon anymore- it’s DSO Agent Kennedy, because Leon never avoids the stupid fucking creaky floorboard. Leon feels safe enough in the house they’ve called a home for the past seven years to walk as loudly as he wants. Leon would’ve finished tying his damn boots.
But Kennedy loves Piers just as much as Leon does.
Leon extends a hand, a peace offering he shouldn’t feel the need to offer because it isn’t him that Piers is upset with. Piers stares at the hand, palm upturned, bruised and blackened with infection, anger and grief warring bitterly in his chest.
“Piers,” Leon says quietly. “C’mere.”
Piers grits his teeth against the burn of reflexive tears and takes the proffered hand, letting himself be pulled in until he’s plastered against Leon’s chest, hunched low so he can get his arms around Leon’s waist and tuck his head under Leon’s chin, letting himself be held.
“It’s not fair,” he repeats, and Leon huffs a breath of a laugh that Piers feels more than hears, smoothing a hand down Piers’s spine. He can’t really feel it through his BDU jacket, can’t feel the warmth or the sturdiness of the touch, but he can still feel the impression of his hand, the steadying weight of it.
Coming out of debriefing from an exhausting mission to meet Chris, fresh out of the shower and looking grim with the news he hadn’t wanted to deliver, had been just about the worst way to find out Leon is being called on a mission that’ll take him back to Raccoon City. Piers hadn’t bothered showering off the sweat and grime; he’d booked it to the parking garage and had broken damn near every traffic law to get home. He wasn’t risking Leon leaving before he had the chance to see him, to talk to him or convince him to stop being an idiot or yell at him for requesting the mission be assigned to him before it was even his (not that the DSO would ever assign anyone else, Piers thinks bitterly.)
“They can’t send anyone else,” Leon says.
“They can-”
“They won’t,” Leon corrects. “And I wouldn’t want them to.”
“Fucking martyr,” Piers accuses, but there’s no heat to it. He just sounds defeated.
“Piers-”
“I know you have to go,” Piers says, cutting off whatever platitudes Leon was trying to offer. “But you don’t get to ask me to be okay with it.”
Leon sighs, world-weary and so goddamn tired. “Okay,” he murmurs, and for a moment it’s Leon again. It’s Leon, pressing his lips into Piers’ greasy hair and tightening his grasp like Piers in his arms is the only thing holding him together. It’s Leon, melting into Piers’ touch when Piers slides a hand up his back to fit his fingers around the nape of his neck, squeezing gently. It’s Leon, blinking hazily when Piers unfolds to cup Leon’s cheek with his free hand, keeping the grounding pressure around the back of his neck with the other, and it’s Leon who makes a quiet, needy sound when Piers kisses him.
It’s a filthy fucking thing, all teeth and tongue and desperation, and they don’t stop until Leon does. He grunts, hands spasming where they’ve dropped to grip Piers’ hips, and Piers tastes copper.
Piers reluctantly breaks the kiss, drifting out of Leon’s orbit to snag a paper towel and hand it to him. Leon’s labored, choked-back breathing opens back up after he coughs into the paper towel, crumpling it up in his fist like he might be able to stop Piers from seeing the little flecks of blood spattered stark against the white material. Like they don’t both already know that Leon is doing poorly and getting worse. Like they don’t both already know they’re running on borrowed time, and Leon’s trek into Raccoon City is the only chance they have at restarting the clock.
“Come home, Leon,” Piers says, flattening his hands over Leon’s ribcage to push him back far enough to meet his eyes. “And don’t think for one second that I won’t come drag your ass out of the fire if I need to.”
Leon laughs quietly. “Into the coals?” He teases, and Piers pinches at the flat of his belly.
“Into my arms, you infuriating asshole.”
Leon looks at him in that way he never really stopped looking at him; with that breathless, lovestruck sort of disbelief that Piers has always been so very weak to.
“I’m serious,” Piers says, fisting his fingers in the front of Leon’s tac harness to drag him back in, resting their foreheads together. “Come home.”
Leon hums and nudges his nose along the ridge of Piers’ cheekbone, pressing his lips to the corner of his scarred eye. “I’ll be fine, Piers. Stop worrying-”
“I know you, Leon S. Kennedy,” Piers says quietly. Leon falls silent, teeth clacking as his mouth snaps shut. “I know you. I know you’ll do whatever it takes to get back to me. But I also know you’ll do whatever it takes to keep people safe.” He smoothes his hands up Leon’s biceps to rest on his shoulders, squeezing the jump of tense muscles beneath his fingers. “The world doesn’t rest solely on these, baby. Promise me you’ll come home.”
Leon stares at him, brows pinched, lips flattened.
“You know I can’t promise that,” he says finally. Piers bites down on his tongue so hard he tastes blood, dropping his hands to clench into fists at his sides. He wishes he could feel the ache of tense muscles and skin stretching too tightly in both hands, thinks the equality of it might steady him, but his prosthetic is heavy and unfeeling and his good hand is shaking and he is unbalanced, untethered-
“I’ll try,” Leon says, taking his hand and smoothing his fingers out until they’re lax and open. He brings Piers’ hand to his mouth and presses a warm kiss to the center of his palm. “I can promise I’ll try.”
Piers’ shoulders slump, but it’s enough. It’s enough, because it’s everything Leon can offer and it has to be.
“Okay,” Piers breathes. “Okay. Thank you.” He leans in to kiss Leon again, a soft press of mouths at odds with the storm raging inside him. He can see it mirrored in Leon’s eyes, the pain and grief and fear, but he doesn’t mention it and neither does Leon. There’s no use putting to words what they already know, not when they’re just going to hurt.
“I love you,” Leon says. And then he’s gone. Holstering weapons and equipment mechanically, Agent Kennedy back at the forefront.
“I love you, too,” Piers says quietly. Leon pauses, expression unreadable when he finally looks at Piers again.
He doesn’t say anything else.
Lastly- always, always lastly- he takes his wedding band off and tucks it into a zippered back pocket of his cargos, snapping a button shut over it. Tucked away for safe keeping, because he’s always been willing to risk himself but he’s never been willing to risk Piers.
He leaves, no fanfare and no tears, and Piers stares at the closed door until his eyes burn and the world feels a little less like it’s about to shake apart.
And then he turns away and goes to shower alone in a bathroom that feels too quiet in a house that feels too empty.
The call comes through just past three in the morning. Piers hasn’t been sleeping well, never does when Leon is on a mission but especially hasn’t with him on this particular one, so he’s already awake. Laying in the dark, staring at the ceiling with burning eyes, trying valiantly to brute force his way into something somewhat restful, but as soon as he hears his phone ring, he’s flinging himself upright and fumbling blindly until he can answer.
“Nivans,” he says, heart in his throat and not calming until he hears Leon laugh softly.
“Hi,” he says, and Piers desperately wishes he could reach through the phone if only so he could strangle him.
(And touch him, and hold him, and reassure himself that he’s alive he’s alive he’s alive-)
“Well?” Piers demands. “Are you okay? Did you find a cure? Was the mission successful? Did you-”
“Breathe,” Leon murmurs, the edge of a smile in his voice, and Piers glares darkly at the wall and breathes. “Yes, yes, and yes,” Leon ticks off, still sounding so goddamn amused but also…lighter? There’s something different about his voice, something Piers can’t quite place but knows he hasn’t heard in a long, long time.
“Oh.” Piers exhales low and long and fists his fingers around his phone, pressing the edge of it to his forehead as relief sweeps through him fast enough to make him dizzy. Once the risk of bursting into happy tears has subsided, he clicks the speakerphone button and lays back down, curling up on his side and resting the phone on Leon’s pillow.
“You’re coming home soon?” He asks hopefully, and Leon hums out an assenting sound.
“Yeah,” he assures. “Debrief and then home, though I might be able to convince Sherry to write the report for me.”
Piers laughs lightly, eyes slipping shut. “Don’t push that off on the poor girl-”
“-it’s not like I can make Chris do it. The bastard sent his wolves and didn’t even bother showing up-”
“-becuase he’s busy-”
“-and I just want to get back to you.”
Piers grins to himself like an idiot in the darkness of their bedroom, lit by the blue glow of the phone screen and the moonlight peeking through the blinds, curved around Leon’s side of the bed like the lovesick dumbass he is.
“I love you,” Piers says because he can, because it’s been too long since he’s gotten to say it and too long since Leon’s gotten to hear it.
“I love you, too,” Leon says without hesitation, voice warm enough to blanket the cold chill that’s lived on his half of their mattress, his half of their lives. Piers mushes his face into Leon’s pillow as exhaustion washes over him; too little sleep, too much worrying, and relief has knocked him out at the knees.
Like he knows, Leon laughs again, a quiet breath of a thing.
“Try to get some rest. I’ll tell you all about it,” he murmurs, and Piers starts to drift to the sound of Leon’s voice lulling him towards sleep.
It’s hope, he realizes muzzily, a half formed thought that floats away before he can grab hold and shake it around with the excitement it deserves.
He sounds like hope.
He falls asleep with Leon’s voice in his ears and a smile on his face.