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With shaking hands Leon tugged on his collar, trying to straighten it out the best he could as he took in his reflection in the mirror. The dark blue button-up was one that Piers had complimented, and that was why Leon had chosen it even though Piers probably wouldn’t even remember he’d said anything. It had been years since he’d worn it, and he was half surprised it even fit so well anymore. He’d debated whether to wear a tie or not and in the end he’d decided against it, but now he was beginning to doubt his decision for probably the twelfth time.
It was ridiculous. He shouldn’t be this worked up over a date. Especially since it was with Piers, who he had known for …well, a decade or two depending on how they were counting it. Whichever it was, he knew Piers, he knew he had nothing to worry about, and yet he had never in his life been this nervous before he was supposed to take someone out for dinner.
Frustrated, Leon brushed his fingers through his hair, watching the strands fall back to half cover his face. There were dark prominent circles under his eyes, but what else was new, there was really no way to conceal those unless he wanted to use a copious amount of makeup. Well, Piers knew what he was getting. Those dark circles had been a standard feature for Leon for as long as they’d known each other.
Once more Leon closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and rolled his shoulders to relax them. Time to go.
*
They’d agreed to meet up at the restaurant and when Leon arrived there, he immediately spotted Piers standing near the entrance, hands in his pockets and looking a little antsy. Piers was wearing a button-up, too, but a green one and for some reason it made Leon smile. They hadn’t discussed proper date wear but they’d ended up matching each other perfectly, anyway. There was certain warmth in his chest as he watched Piers for a beat, but he shook himself out of it and cleared his throat, stepping closer as he called out. “Hey.”
Piers spun around, his face lighting up the second he saw Leon. “Hey,” he echoed, shuffling closer until they were standing only a couple of steps apart, grinning at each other like fools. Piers nodded towards the restaurant, giving a small shrug. “I didn’t… I thought I’d wait out here. Didn’t feel right to sit there like a pompous dick.”
That startled a laugh out of Leon and he glanced at the building. “Yeah. It is kind of pretentious, isn’t it?” he agreed. They’d picked the restaurant because Chris had insisted it was perfect for first dates, but somehow the longer they looked at it, it didn’t feel like them. Leon wanted things to feel comfortable, wanted to do this in a way that felt natural for them both, and he decided they didn’t need any fancy restaurants for this to work out.
“I promised you burgers, right?” he asked, looking back at Piers. At the exact same moment, Piers opened his mouth, speaking over him. “How would you feel about burgers?”
For a second they stared at each other, frozen. Then as if on cue they both burst out laughing. That broke the weird tension between them as if it had never even been there to begin with, and as easily as if he’d been doing it forever Leon wrapped an arm around Piers’ shoulders to turn him around so they could head into the right direction. “There’s this place two blocks from here, best burgers ever,” he promised, with confidence.
Finally, the tension bled away, leaving behind the kind of nervousness that only spoke of how much this all meant for him, along with sheer excitement.
*
The burger place was about as far from a fancy restaurant as it could be. They took a corner booth and settled on the opposite sides of the small table, and the first thing Leon did was hook their ankles underneath the table. For a second Piers looked at him with surprise, but soon enough he relaxed into it, giving Leon a smile.
“How’s the shoulder?” Leon asked, nodding towards Piers’ left shoulder. It had been twenty years but he still remembered how it had felt to bandage the clawmarks, remembered how Piers’ skin had been warm under his fingertips and how he had wanted nothing more than to run his palms down that chest just to know how it’d feel. But even though it had been two decades for him, it had been less than a week for Piers, and if that didn’t cause whiplash then nothing did.
Piers started to shrug, remembering the injury halfway through the movement. With a grimace he stilled, chuckling a little embarrassedly as he looked at Leon. “Not bad. The first aid was impeccable so the scarring should be minimal.”
With a huff, Leon shook his head. “Your luck I was fresh out of the academy and hadn’t forgotten that shit yet.”
Piers laughed, but then he leveled Leon with a stare. “You do know that you’re not supposed to forget about it? It’s not like your job has gotten any less dangerous.” He looked disapproving, and that was such a familiar look Leon couldn’t help but melt at that. When they’d met, Piers had gone through a brief hero-worship phase when he’d kept trying to call Leon “sir” but that had ended the first time Leon had gotten himself injured in what Piers had felt was a reckless and idiotic way. From then on it had been disapproving frowns and judging glares and insistent attempts to patch him up even when he claimed he was fine.
It was honestly one of the things that had sealed Leon’s fate. How did you not fall in love with someone who so consistently made it clear your wellbeing was a top priority?
“I know,” Leon said, unable to hold back the fond smile. “You keep reminding me.”
That was when the waiter appeared to interrupt them and ask for their orders. They’d barely glanced at the menus but Leon had been here often enough that he knew his order, and after checking with Piers if it was okay he ordered the same thing for them both. Plus large beers, hell, any liquid courage would be appreciated right now even if a single beer wouldn’t really have much of an effect.
When the waiter left them, there was a brief bout of silence. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but there was a certain expectant charge in the air, and they both knew they’d need to address it. They hadn’t really spoken in these few days after Piers had blinked out of existence and back a few hours later. Not about anything that mattered, at least. Yet there was so much to unpack neither of them knew where to even begin.
Eventually it was Piers who cleared his throat. He was twisting a napkin in his fingers, ripping tiny little squares out of it, and steadily refused to look Leon in the eye. “I still can’t believe it wasn’t just a fever dream,” he admitted in a small voice. “I keep expecting to wake up and realize I imagined everything.”
That made perfect sense to Leon. Even with all the crazy shit they’d seen, time travel still felt like straight out of science fiction. He reached over the table and placed his hand on top of Piers’, and immediately Piers stilled and stopped destroying the napkin. “I’ve been trying to come to terms with it for twenty years and I still can’t believe it,” he admitted, ignoring the pained twist in his chest. There had been a time he’d truly questioned his own sanity, his own grip on reality, as he’d struggled to understand what had happened.
At that, Piers looked up, meeting Leon’s gaze straight. “She really told you that you hallucinated the whole thing?” he asked, something like anger flashing in his eyes even as he sounded mostly just... worried. Vaguely sad. Leon didn’t know how to interpret the look he got but Piers’ eyes were uncharacteristically glassy and wide as he looked at him.
“Yeah,” Leon admitted. He blinked slowly, mostly to collect himself, but then he figured out why not go with the truth. There was no reason to hide any of it. “When I got out of Raccoon, I…” He let it trail off. Okay maybe there were reasons to hide some of it. He wasn’t going to talk about how the government had recruited him, there was no way he’d open that can of worms. He had an inkling Piers wouldn’t exactly take it well, and it wasn’t something one could casually talk about at a burger restaurant.
Piers misinterpreted his hesitation and flipped his hand over, capturing Leon’s hand in his own to give it an encouraging squeeze. “You don’t need to—”
“No, just,” Leon cut him off, shaking his head slightly. He didn’t make a single move to pull his hand back, though. It was a simple thing, a small contact between them, but it felt like it made all the difference. Skipping over the way he’d been captured and threatened, Leon skipped to what mattered right now. “I tried to look for you. For the first couple of years, I tried to look through all military databases I got access to, because I needed to know where you were. If you even were. But there was no one who could’ve fit, it was… Now I know why it didn’t work out but it was so frustrating, banging my head against a wall like that.”
He paused, collecting his thoughts, centering himself. The fact that he hadn’t found anyone by the name Piers Nivans anywhere he looked had only cemented what Ada had offhandedly told him. “Then I figured that hey, it was a really crappy situation, so maybe I did imagine everything. The gunshot wound was infected,” he didn’t stop to explain it further, he knew Piers was aware of this much, as they had compared injuries before. It had been infected but only the regular, non-zombie kind of infected, thank fucking god. “I was pretty out of it, first because of the pain and then when I finally got to a hospital because of the fever so… Made sense. Maybe my brain tried to make an unbearable thing better by conjuring up a handsome stranger.” He looked up at that, giving Piers a smile, but instead of reacting to the feeble attempt at a joke Piers just looked at Leon as if his heart was breaking.
Quickly Leon cleared his throat, going on. “It’s not like I went on a nationwide manhunt to find you, okay. I …tried to move on. I tried to make my peace with having just dreamed it all up. And most of the time it worked.” He fell silent for a second, pulling his lower lip between his teeth, before then getting the rest of it out. “But then I met you again. And I didn’t know what the hell to think.”
“So you decided to just pretend like nothing was off,” Piers filled in. He didn’t sound accusatory but Leon still felt a pang of guilt. That might not have been his best idea, stewing in the confusion for eight more years before… before now. But he truly didn’t know how he could’ve brought it up, either. It sounded preposterous even now, and now they both had proof that it was actually true.
“I’m sorry,” Leon apologized. He made to pull his hand back, but Piers held it tighter, and somehow that eased the knot of worry within Leon’s chest even before Piers said anything.
“I’m the one who should apologize,” Piers said, obviously unhappy. “I left you there. In the fucking sewers. You got shot because I wasn’t there to help and I—”
“I probably would’ve gotten shot, anyway,” Leon said with an apologetic grimace. “C’mon, it wasn’t like you chose when to leave.” He understood where Piers was coming from and why he felt guilty about it but there really was nothing either one of them could’ve done to change that. “If it helps,” he went on, “you being there meant the world to me. I don’t know if I could’ve handled it on my own.” He thought back to how he’d panicked in that storage room, how Piers had told him it was okay to be scared, how everyone was scared, and that had truly been a game changer for him, only to mention one. He’d stopped beating himself up for being scared and instead accepted it was a part of this, something he could live with when he needed to.
Slowly Piers nodded, and although his smile was a little watery it was genuine, and he seemed like he wasn’t going to argue that. He huffed out a small laugh, brushing his thumb over Leon’s knuckles. “You would’ve been fine without me,” he said, going on quickly so that Leon couldn’t argue. “I’m glad I could help, more than I can tell. But have you met you? You had more to do with your own survival than anyone else there.”
Leon didn’t have any illusions about his own capabilities, he knew how efficient and deadly he could be when he had to be, but it still somehow felt like a relief to hear it out loud from someone he trusted. He didn’t know what to say to it, didn’t really know how to handle this conversation as a whole, but thankfully Piers went on before he needed to.
“Outside Kendo’s? When you told Ada that you wanted to help?” Piers paused for emphasis, making sure Leon was looking at him before he went on. “No one, ever, has left a bigger impact. Your will to help is… Leon. Even if I’d stayed in the past, I would’ve followed you to the ends of the earth. Without a question.” He was so sincere, so earnest, there was no doubt that he meant what he said.
And again Leon was left at loss for words. How could he even respond to something as heartfelt as that? He felt wholly undeserving. “I’m sorry,” he grimaced a little self-deprecatingly. “That boy didn’t survive for you to meet him again. He failed.” Leon remembered more than well how naïve and how ready to help he’d been back then, how he’d thought he could change the world with his determination and his drive. The world still remained the same, despite continuous effort, and Leon was so worn down by it. He’d promised his Lieutenant, he’d promised Marvin Branagh that he wouldn’t let him down but he had. He’d let the world burn, unable to stop it.
“Are you fucking kidding me!?”
The way Piers snapped took Leon by surprise and he looked up, eyes wide. Piers shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe this, going on sternly. “You haven’t changed that much. You still bend over backwards to help anyone who needs it. And the amount of people who would’ve died if it wasn’t for you? Don’t you fucking dare tell me that you failed. I don’t even want to imagine what the world would look like without you.”
Having so much faith placed in him made Leon’s heart clench. This whole conversation was beginning to be too much for him to handle, his emotions running rampant after so many years of suppressing them and pretending they didn’t exist. The waiter appearing with their orders was a relief, and even though it meant he had to let go of Piers’ hand Leon thought it was a fair trade-off, for now.
In an attempt to steer the conversation to a lighter direction, Leon gave Piers a grin over both their plates, while grabbing a bunch of fries. “I can’t believe you went straight for Chris’ jacket,” he said, thinking back to their moment in the S.T.A.R.S. office. “You should’ve kept it on, brought it back to Chris.”
“As if he’d fit into it with the way he’s bulked up,” Piers huffed, the corners of his mouth ticking up to a smile. “You still think he’d look better in it than me?” He looked up, smirking at Leon almost challengingly. It was then kind of ruined by the way he stuffed his burger into his mouth, as it decidedly made him look less than cool. Adorable, really, was way closer.
“To be fair, I never saw him in it,” Leon answered, and he already saw Piers scrunch his eyebrows together and so he went on with a chuckle. “Does it help if I admit that if we hadn’t been in the middle of a damn apocalypse I would’ve wanted to do so much more than just kiss you back at that office?” It could’ve as well been yesterday, with how clearly he remembered the way Piers had smiled at him as he’d popped the collar of the jacket, how his heart had twisted in his chest in ways he hadn’t thought would be possible after such a short time of knowing each other.
For a moment Piers was silent, chewing on his burger, but when he swallowed he arched an eyebrow, obviously amused. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Leon agreed, heart alight, feeling lighter than it had in forever. He finally took a big bite out of his own burger, sighing happily as it was exactly as good as he’d remembered. Under the table he nudged Piers’ foot with his own, smiling as Piers immediately responded in kind.
They were both hungry enough to focus on their food in comfortable silence for a while, after which they easily slotted into casual conversation. There was a limit to how much they could talk about the whole confusing mess of emotions and happenings all at once. Besides, they knew there was no hurry, they could come back to the topic, as many times as they needed to. Which would probably be multiple times, from multiple angles. For now, they deserved a break.
Besides, the burgers were amazing. Would’ve been a travesty not to focus on them.
*
“I feel like I should make a joke about three dates before putting out,” Piers said as he stepped through the doorway into Leon’s apartment. He’d been there before, even if not very often, and usually it hadn’t been just the two of them. In a way nothing had changed, and in a way everything had.
The words made Leon snort, and he shook his head as he closed the door behind them. “Who says I’m gonna put out? Maybe I want to take it slow,” he joked as he followed Piers into the tiny living room. His apartment wasn’t much to write home about. He didn’t spend that much time there, and when he did it was usually to sleep or to recuperate so he didn’t exactly need much space for himself. A small kitchen, bathroom, living area and bedroom, more like a starter apartment than something for someone in his forties, he supposed. As irrational as it was, he felt almost embarrassed about it now.
All of that vanished from his mind as Piers turned around and stepped close, right into his personal space, loosely wrapping his arms around Leon’s neck. “Technically,” he started, a slow smile spreading on his lips. “This has been twenty years in the making. So if this isn’t slow, then I don’t know what is.” He didn’t make a move to do anything else, though, just stayed close, searching Leon’s expression.
Automatically Leon brought his hands to Piers’ hips, before sliding them around him to pull him closer against himself. Compared to the handful of hugs they’d shared in the past this felt so different, like the entire earth had shifted, and Leon couldn’t deny his heartbeat was speeding up already. He didn’t have a funny quip ready to shoot back at that, all the jokes suddenly evaporating from his mind, and all he could do was lean in and brush his lips against Piers’.
For a beat, they both stayed like that, as if frozen in time. Then Piers made a soft noise in the back of his throat and tilted his head, insistently pressing closer. Willingly Leon opened up for him, sighing happily as he practically melted into it. A part of him couldn’t even believe this was happening, not after he had waited for it for so long. He had genuinely thought he’d imagined the whole thing, then had doubted all of his recollections of the happenings, and now to have Piers confirm it all had been real felt almost too good to be true. And to add to that, having him warm and solid right there against him made the feeling even more intense.
As the kiss broke, Piers brought his right hand up, gently brushing his thumb over the dark circle under Leon’s eye. “I recognized you the second I saw your eyes,” he said, softly.
“Is it the impressive lack of sleep that gave me away?” Leon joked, because the other option would’ve been to let the emotions overwhelm him and he felt like he was teetering on the very edge as it was. He knew he should be over it by now, it had been a few days already, but watching Piers blink out of existence like that had made him feel devastatingly helpless. If Piers had never returned back to his own time, or if something had happened, or—
Piers laughed, detaching from Leon so he could give his shoulder a shove. “Shut up. You were very handsome back then.”
“And now I’m not?” Leon shot back immediately. He dodged the playful punch Piers aimed his way, but it did not pass him by unnoticed how Piers winced when his left shoulder was jostled by the movement. He frowned slightly, nodding towards the injured shoulder. “Do you need anything?”
Piers hesitated, as if he first intended to brush it off but then for some reason changed his mind. He gave Leon an almost hopeful smile, tilting his head slightly. “Would it be very forward of me,” he started, jokingly, “if I asked you to change the bandages? I can do it myself but it’s a fucking nuisance…” He frowned, his nose wrinkling in distaste, and it already made Leon want to give him anything and everything in the world. Goddamnit. He was so gone. How had this happened.
“I think that can be arranged,” Leon said, pulling Piers along into the bedroom. He sat him down on the edge of the bed, only to make a quick stop in the bathroom to grab the first aid kit he kept there. It was well stocked nowadays, as Leon always preferred it if he could get rid of the official medics as soon as possible and instead insist he’d take care of himself at home. No one was there to judge him for it if he then slacked off.
Except now he had no intention in doing a half-assed job. He set the first aid kit next to Piers on the bed, before moving to stand in front of him. “Could you take the shirt off?” he asked, as Piers had just sat there unmoving while he’d been gone.
That made Piers huff out a laugh and when Leon raised an eyebrow questioningly he explained. “Last time you asked me if you could take it off yourself,” he explained. He paused for a moment, looking at Leon kind of like he was weighing something, but then he went on. “The answer was yes, by the way. For you the answer would always be yes.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Leon chuckled, but as he spoke he reached for the buttons of Piers’ shirt, starting from the top while Piers started unbuttoning from the bottom. “You don’t even know the question yet. You might be walking into a trap.” That was when their hands met in the middle, and without hesitation Piers caught Leon’s in his own, giving him a crooked grin as their eyes met.
“What if I want to walk into that trap?” he said, voice low. “Eyes wide open.”
Leon leaned in, brushing his lips over Piers’ in the promise of a kiss, even if he didn’t deepen it any further. After only a second he pulled back again, slowly settling on his knees between Piers’ thighs so he could easily reach the bandaged shoulder. The shirt was brushed away, hanging off Piers’ elbows now, and Leon slowly began to peel off the tape holding the current bandages in place. He tried to tell himself his hands weren’t shaking but as calm as his façade was, inside he was shaking apart.
The cuts were very well healed by now, even if it had only been a few days for Piers. It looked like it would scar, though, and in his mind Leon was already tracing the lines of the scars that would remain for years to come. For now he only gently disinfected the cuts, sealing them in with a fresh bandage, while neither of them said a single word. When he was done he reached out and carefully ran his fingers along the edge of the bandage, his breath hitching in his throat.
For a second he was twenty-one years old, crouching down in front of a gorgeous man he’d just met, in the middle of the most traumatic event of his entire life. He remembered the break room they’d been in, so vividly he could swear he still smelled the place, still heard the faint echo of zombies rattling the blocked windows. He brushed his thumb over Piers’ tan skin, right next to the bandages, before slowly sliding his fingers down to spread them over Piers’ ribs.
He wanted, so badly, to hold Piers close and it took him a moment to realize he could. He was allowed to. He wasn’t that scared rookie anymore, and Piers wasn’t some unattainable dream that he could only ever have in his wildest fantasies. He was real. And he was here.
Slowly Leon looked up, to the sight of Piers smiling down at him, as if sensing he needed a moment. Leon rewarded him by mirroring the smile, reaching up with his free hand to cup Piers’ jaw in his palm to pull him down for a kiss. It was slow, it was exploring, so unlike the last kiss they’d shared back in Raccoon City. And it centered Leon better than anything else could’ve. He shifted to stand up, without breaking the kiss, one of his hands like glued to Piers’ side and the other on his jaw.
When Leon pushed, Piers went willingly, and soon enough Piers was lying on his back and Leon was climbing in to straddle his hips. At first Leon barely registered that Piers was touching him in return, but when he did, it was like he couldn’t not be aware of the fingers dancing up his spine, the warm hand slipping underneath his shirt.
It was even better once there was no barrier of clothes between them, only skin on skin, hot feverish kisses alternating with slow and exploring ones, soft touches in contrast with nails scraping over smooth skin. Piers spent a small eternity mapping out the bullet scar on Leon’s shoulder and all Leon could think of was how one day, once the wounds had healed, he would do that to the four parallel scars drawn across Piers’ chest. It felt meaningful, even if neither of them said a word about it. Somehow it mattered.
The only time they weren’t kissing was when they shuffled a little awkwardly to the center of the bed, laughing at how Leon almost kneed Piers in the crotch and how he got an elbow to his ribs in return. Half of the lube ended up on the mattress instead of where it was supposed to be, just because Piers squeezed at the tube a little too eagerly. Leon laughed at him, and then spent the next five minutes apologizing by kissing him breathless.
When Piers finally, finally sank inside of Leon, Leon could’ve cried from how right it felt.
They moved together slowly, languidly, pausing just to kiss some more and to touch wherever they could reach, as if neither of them could get their fill. Leon hadn’t even thought he had it in himself to savor such a gradual buildup, but suddenly he was living for it, yearning for more of it. Until he wasn’t thinking anything at all with how his mind was filled with the sensations alone.
Afterwards Piers settled comfortably on his back and Leon tucked himself against Piers’ side, setting his head on the uninjured shoulder, wrapping his arm around Piers’ waist. “What if,” he spoke, before he could even think the words through, “I’ll tie you to the bed and never let you leave?” It was a joke, obviously so, but there was a hint of a truth to it that didn’t pass either one of them by unnoticed.
Piers snorted, pushing his fingers into Leon’s hair, giving the dark blond strands a tug. “Kinky,” he commented, his smile audible in his voice. When Leon tilted his head so he could place his chin on Piers’ chest and look straight at him, Piers rewarded him with a soft smile. “I was just gonna ask you what if I’ll shackle myself to the bed just because I don’t want to leave.”
Unable to hold it back, Leon laughed, pressing a soft kiss onto Piers’ chest. “I’ve waited twenty years for you,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. All of those nights he’d stayed awake, staring into the ceiling and trying to remember, trying to make sense of his reality, all of that felt like a distant nightmare now that he had this. He wasn’t naïve enough to think it was all magically fixed but he wanted to believe.
For once, he wanted to believe he had a future. He wanted to believe things would turn out fine.
He shifted so he could kiss Piers properly, pressing their foreheads together as soon as they parted. “I’d be a fool if I let you go now.”
Piers hummed, tightening his hold around Leon. As an answer, he kissed him again.