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By the time he finishes tripping over himself getting the rest of his uniform and jacket back on, Leon is a few minutes behind the tight arrival time he had given the superior officer. Ten minutes, who the hell does he think he’s fooling with that?! Any semblance of confidence he could possibly achieve from this scenario practically evaporated when he had to turn himself back into his almost-locked apartment to grab the irreplaceable apartment keys that fell from his pocket.
God, he is such a mess. Figuratively, and literally.
And he didn’t even leave his building yet.
Heavy boots clamour down the several flights of stairs, each more rushed and forceful than the last. Leon knows better than to trust the decrepit elevator in the building; a memory flashes back in his brain to his first week here, when he had to call several of his new colleagues to his complex because a hysterical mother of four put her faith in the wrong piece of machinery after a grocery run with rowdy toddlers. Several hours later- and many swear words to a shoddy landlord- she was freed, but Leon never forgot that day. So, the metal of the stairs braces his hurried steps, and his mind says a prayer that his neighbors’ walls are thicker than his.
Several steps later, Leon bursts into the crisp, chilly winter night air and takes off down the street. The streetlights bathe the sidewalk in front of him in a warm orange hue, painting his short walk from his apartment building to the RPD. The streets are quiet at this time of night, with only a handful of groups strutting about the other side of the street. Some rowdy young people, around Leon’s age, cackle and carry on on their way to the subway station, likely heading to the west side to enjoy what the rest of the night holds in store for them. A runner catches a midnight jog, and Leon steps courteously to the side to let him pass. Neon business signs flicker, and 24-hour convenience store bells chime with the comings and goings of fellow night owls. A car speeding down the road plays Offspring’s Gotta Get Away on full stereo blast. If Leon were on duty, he possibly would have stopped to document that person’s license plate. He’ll let it slide tonight, though.
Raccoon City at night can certainly be a rough place. But there is also a lot of beauty in the unexpected vibrancy a walk at night brought to Leon. Despite that, however, the closer he gets to the police station, the more the knots in his stomach tighten. He’s nervous- first day on the job nervous. He can’t shake the bubbling anxiety in his chest at just how convenient that phone call was to come in the moment it did.
And who was waiting on the other line for him.
He runs a sweaty hand through his hair and walks faster. He’s sounding conspiratorial now and he hates it. His anxiety is placing thoughts in his head that don’t belong there, and he needs to get a grip on himself before he walks through that door, lest he wants Chris to see what a mess he is outside of work hours.
Chris.
The man Leon would walk into traffic for if the man asked him to at this rate.
Moments later, Leon’s body passes through the outer gate of RPD, and his boots scrape against the entryway and down the steps into the main hall as if automatically, like a switch flipped in his brain, and he is now operating on autopilot. He is almost clear of the front desk and halfway across the main hall towards the grand staircase when he hears a familiar voice ring out in the empty hall.
“Kennedy? S’at you?”
Leon cringes, turning towards the sound of the voice. It’s Officer Brody, one of the guys on his squad. He got stuck on nights this week- Lieutenant Brannagh’s punishment for being late multiple days in a row. Goddamn it.
“Oh- Hey, Brody!” Leon calls after several seconds of figuring out how to use his voice box.
“Didn’t know they let you out past your bedtime!” Brody teases. He smacks his gum between his facetious grin.
Leon’s cheeks glimmer with a low pink glow. Months on the squad have unfortunately done quite little to stop the incessant teasing about his youthful appearance. Maybe it’s time for him to ditch the “Leo DiCaprio in Titanic” haircut finally.
“Yeah, uh..” His brain sputters out. Fuck!
Brody, unfazed, laughs it off, “What’s got you here this late? Didn’t see you on the call sheet for tonight.”
“Oh, I, uh-” Leon stops a moment. He can’t quite reveal why he was here. If his squad finds out he’s here yet again to “suck up to STARS,” he’ll be in for hell when he gets back on Monday. So, of course, he’s going to do what he’s done to himself for the past several months: lie.
“I had logged hours in the library this week- forgot to fill them out before I left for the weekend.”
Brody raises an eyebrow from behind the desk. “Just remembered now? At…” he checks his watch, “12:18 in the morning?”
Leon freezes at the foot of the stairs. What’s with the third-degree, Brody? If he applied half of this energy into his own investigations, maybe he wouldn’t have three write-ups in his file already. “You think about a lot when you can’t sleep, yknow?”
Like the way that handsome STARS officer looks bending him over his desk-
Brody looks unconvinced, but doesn’t really give much of a damn to continue the already mind-numbing conversation. Frankly, he likely negged Leon simply to feel something. “Guess so,”
Before Leon can conjure up a reply, Brody is already facing away from him, burying his face once again into whatever magazine is occupying his attention. Leon hopes he didn’t hear the sigh of relief he released into the air, and he hurries up the stairs as fast as his legs can carry him.
In short order, he arrives at the top and strafes to the side, cutting through the doors to the library, clearing across the wide open space and through the lounge, making it out to the other side hall. Though he isn’t nearly as exerted as he could be, his heart still flutters in his chest like a panicked hummingbird. The closer to that office he gets, the closer he comes to facing the man whose visage permanently burned itself into his psyche all too recently. How can he think about facing Chris after experiencing the filth his rotten mind conjured up of him? How can he even look him in the eye after still reeking of his devious act- with the evidence actively drying up under his shirt as he shuffled past the linen room?
He shouldn’t have said yes.
But he would never dream of saying no.
As he approaches the office, he hears the vague sounds of a bass. A bass that blooms into the strums of a guitar, a drumbeat, and beautiful lyrics. He steps closer, and the music envelops the hallway just outside the door. The door to the office is left slightly ajar, and all Leon does is slightly press into it with his fingers, and it falls open for him.
His boots cross the threshold of the office, and when he looks up, his breath is stripped from him immediately.
Standing hunched over an open crate of ammunition, in a thin, oil-stained white undershirt tucked haphazardly into his green tactical pants, is Chris Goddamn Redfield: the incubus who infiltrated all of Leon’s dreams. A few strands of his chocolate brown hair fell sloppily over his forehead, no doubt from his physical exertion moving ammunition boxes all night. A built left arm grips the side of the crate, while his right hand clutches a pen, furiously scribbling numbers on a sheet of looseleaf on his desk. Even at his distance, Leon’s eyes are immediately drawn to the quivering tension in the tendons under Chris’s arm as they hold up his impressive body weight over the crate. The collar of his undershirt is slightly damp with sweat, sweat actively creating a trail down the front of his shirt.
He looks like a goddamn mess.
A delicious mess Leon is starving for.
Shaking fingers rasp against the office’s doorframe, and it seems to be loud enough over the raging guitar solo blasting from the radio speakers because Chris’s head shoots up from the box. The focused tension in his brow immediately softens once his eyes fall on the officer, a frustrated grimace melting into a delighted glow. Leon could have melted right there.
“Holy shit, that was fast,” Chris releases a breathless laugh, and he wipes his sweaty forehead with the back of his arm, “I know you said ten minutes, but I thought you were messing with me.”
Leon’s smile helps quell the anxiety, but not as much as he wants. He steps into the office and hangs his jacket up on the coatrack while Chris stands up and leans over his desk to turn off the player.
“How fast’d you drive?” Chris asks with a curious raise of his eyebrow. His eyes are playful despite the maddening situation he finds himself in for the evening.
“Didn’t- walked,” the knots in Leon’s stomach loosen enough for him to speak, and he thanks God for it.
Chris’s eyes widen, “Walked? Or broke the sound barrier?”
Leon laughs like it's the easiest thing in the world. It is when a man like that is making him do so. “Might have broken into a light jog at one point,”
“‘A light jog,’ he says…” Chris shakes his head, but his smile remains strong, “Well, Flash, if I didn’t say it already, I appreciate this very much.”
It takes all the muscles around Leon’s mouth not to grin like an idiot at the new nickname he was blessed with this evening. “ ‘Course. How much more you got?”
Chris turns and steps aside, allowing Leon a full view of the remainder of his inventory: approximately five crates Chris has piled up over near Barry Burton’s workstation. “These here- got about 100 counts of M16 ammo in those two- the other three all got boxes of 9MM shells. But because my boss is a goddamn sadist, we gotta go through the shell boxes and count them.”
Leon’s eyes widen. No wonder he called him in. “Holy shit,”
Chris sighs and stretches, extending his arms upwards towards the ceiling. As Leon sits down at Barry’s workstation, his blue eyes follow the other’s movements. Eyes linger a touch too long to watch the damp white shirt ride up on Chris’s stomach, revealing painfully too little of the tan skin underneath. Leon’s stomach flips, and the butterflies flutter against his ribs. Look away now, dumbass! NOW!
Chris, however, is none the wiser, instead shifting himself towards the front office door. Turning to Leon, he throws a grin over his shoulder, “You good to get started while I get us some fuel?”
Leon’s head nods absentmindedly and mutters a quick ‘yeah,’ eyes wandering, his true thoughts wandering far beyond his reach- to a place Chris ought not to be privy to.
Wordlessly, Chris scurries out the door, trotting down the hallway to the lounge- more specifically, the coffee machine inside the lounge to achieve some of that coveted midnight oil. Leon takes a deep breath as soon as he leaves, like an astronaut in space without a helmet, silently praying to the no doubt laughing God up in the skies to save him a single iota of his dignity by the time the night was over.
He doesn’t have much of it left, but he’s gotta let the little bit he has last as long as he can.
Leon’s presence in a place usually packed to the brim with larger-than-life personalities after operating hours seems so…foreign. Sure, he’s worked several night shifts at the station since he first started, and being in the precinct at night certainly filled him with a healthy dose of fear. But during those shifts, he usually was paired with a companion, and they hardly had a need to visit the STARS operating room unless a case demanded it. Now, for his presence to occupy this secured space alone put him immediately on edge, as if the ferocious captain of the award-winning squad would turn the corner and unleash hell on him at any moment. Or a certain someone would catch wind of the thoughts lying deep within his brain. For the first few seconds, blue eyes sweep from one end of the empty office to the other. Eyes trickle across each desk, capturing the small details that personalized each station to the person it belonged to. A photo of a happy white dog in a frame at Officer Valentine’s station. Or the medical bag hanging beside Officer Rebecca Chambers’ desk. What draws his eyes the most, though, is Chris’s station- the most ill-kept of all the ones he can see thus far.
Leon stands from the desk and finds himself wafting over to Chris’s station, eyes peering down at the hardwood desk. A walk he had envisioned perfectly just an hour before his arrival here, its memory sending a shiver shooting down Leon’s spine. His mouth dries in a way that coffee wouldn’t soothe, and he swallows thick, shooing that thought away into the dark chamber in recesses of his mind. Still, ever the glutton for punishment, his curiosity triumphs over anxiety as fingers feather through the contents of the desk.
Underneath the scattered inventory sheets and vending machine candy wrappers lay a pile of CDs, likely for the player Chris lowered when he first walked in. The officer tilts his head a bit to read the contents of the stack. Made in Heaven, A Night at the Opera, Sheer Heart Attack…all Queen albums. He lifts one up to scroll through its song list. Leon doesn’t know too much about Queen other than whatever hit was playing on the one classic rock station Lieutenant Ford loves to blast in the squad cars. Maybe on his next day off, he ought to stop at that one music store a few blocks over.
Might give him something to talk about.
Leon returns the CD to the stack from whence it came, rearranging the papers so they perfectly shroud the stack once again as they had before. His eyes shift once again to the wall, where he comes face to face with two of Chris’s greatest possessions: his electric guitar and his brown leather jacket.
Leon is mesmerized.
Inquisitive eyes scan over every aspect of the artwork that lines the jacket. The curvature of the lettering, the expression in the woman’s iconic grin, the painstaking detail in the design are all painted with what looks like a skilled, delicate hand. When he steps closer to analyze it further, he can vaguely make out a distinct scent wafting from the jacket. The stench of cigarettes and cheap cologne invades his nostrils when he breathes in and sends intense heat swelling in between his legs.
Chris smells better than any combination of scents he could have ever dreamed.
The heavy sound of boots rushing down the hall strikes adrenaline into Leon; before he can blink, he rushes back to his workstation and starts on his actual task at hand. He reaches into the crate and stacks the boxes of ammunition shells across the workstation. He arranges them in groups of ten and counts them from there, ensuring they are an even hundred as specified on the order sheet in front of him. For every ten stacks completed and counted, he marks them on a loose sheet of paper he grabbed from the corner of the desk. By the time he reached in for his last stack, Chris barrels into the room carrying two piping hot cups of coffee, spilling a considerable amount across his bare wrist.
“Fu-ck!” He shouts, but braces through the pain to set down Leon’s cup in front of him, “Careful- hot.” When he hurries back to his workstation, he grabs a napkin from his desk drawer and dabs at his skin as if it caught fire.
“Thanks,” A rushed laugh escapes Leon’s lips in a stunningly embarrassing falsetto, which he quickly squashes by bringing his cup to his lips and slurping the sludgy, bitter liquid into his mouth. His taste buds perk up a bit, however, and his brow furrows once he recognizes something very special about his offered beverage: it’s creamier and sweeter than he was expecting. Normally, when he’s given a coffee down at the West Office, he is given it black, and he’d have to find some way to sneak back to the kitchenette to at least throw a splash of cream or two in there to render the, frankly, dreadful beverage just slightly more tolerable.
But this time? It’s perfect- no stealth mission necessary.
How did Chris know that?
Across from him, Chris seemed to get his heinous accident under control because he has resumed the task at hand. However, when Leon looks back up to check his progress, he’s pivoted to instead be facing Leon rather than away from him. He moved from his desk seat to a seat on the dirty office floor, and the stacks of 9MM shells crowd around his crunched form in multiple haphazard piles. Briefly, brown eyes catch curious blue ones.
“It looks worse than it is down here.”
“Yeah?” Leon asks rhetorically. The first stack of shell boxes is separated and opened, and he begins counting each shell inside each box, jotting accordingly.
“I have a system.”
“Sure looks like it.” That remark comes out much snarkier than Leon intended, and his soul dies a little.
A smirk breaks across the brunette officer’s face as a pile is checked over, and a tally mark is made on his sheet, “Making fun of me up there?”
Leon’s smile back is effortless, and the butterflies continue to dance up from his stomach into his esophagus. The coffee inside him burns him like acid. “Wouldn’t dream of it,”
Chris’s smirk lingers as he presses forward with his work, choosing to spare the rookie from a decent negging and switches gears, “So what party did I crash for you tonight?”
Leon’s fingers freeze over the lip of a shell box. His breath hitches, and his heartbeat suddenly thuds in his ears. Of course, he can’t be fully honest with him- honest at all, really. Absolutely not, out of the question. He thinks he’s going to get really good at this ‘lying’ thing. When he finally finds his voice again, he shrugs his shoulders for good measure. Make it look natural.
“Mindlessly listening to Conan in my sad living room is hardly what I’d call a ‘party,’”
“You watch Conan?” Chris seems genuinely interested in that little factoid. A pile of ammunition tumbles gracelessly to the floor, and another curse sputters out of the brunette’s mouth as he scrambles to pick up loose shells.
Leon’s smile returns to him as he watches from his perch on the desk chair. Is the illustrious Officer Christopher Redfield somehow as clumsy as he is handsome?
“More listen, really. Had some actress on - Mira Something, I think,” Hard for him to hear over the sounds of his own moans of the officer’s name ringing in his ears.
“Sorvino. Yeah, she’s got something with that lady from Friends coming out soon. Couldn’t tell you what it was called,”
“Jennifer Aniston?”
“No, the hippie one,”
“Right…” Leon attempts to cover his creeping internal embarrassment at his rampant thoughts with another sip of his coffee. His thumping heart protests against his ribs, and he would likely be paying for it with another sleepless night. “Think they had Goo Goo Dolls on, though. Started playing as I left,”
“Oh yeah? You like them?” Chris’s questions continue now that he has secured all the bullets back into their proper places. His minor setback, however, made him completely lose his count. Whatever, Wesker will have to deal with an accurate estimation rather than an exact count. He won’t notice anyway.
“Everybody likes that one song they do, don’t they?”
“But do you like them?” Chris moves the haphazard stack of shells back into the crate. He hears some of them crash into the bottom of the crate. He supposes he’ll fix that later. Maybe.
Leon shrugs again. He finishes the first stack and sets it gingerly inside the bottom of the crate before moving onto the next one. “I guess so- I dunno. Don’t really have a lot of time in the schedule to listen to music that isn’t what Ford puts on.”
“You got a player at home?” Chris sets his inventory sheet down and eyes him expectantly.
Leon laughs wryly, and another set of bullet casing boxes is opened, “Even if I did- I’d need something to put in it, right?”
Chris ponders the words Leon released into the air for a brief moment, sitting with them and watching the rookie continue with his task. Then, unprompted and abruptly, he stands up, this time careful not to tip any other stack of boxes, and steps over to his desk. Leon looks up from his inventory sheet to watch him curiously through his fringe. Blue eyes follow his movements as the larger man rummages through his desk, searching for something Leon can’t quite figure out. Chris, seemingly finding what he’s looking for, shuts his desk drawer and parts the sea of inventory sheets to grab something else from the surface.
Leon cranes his neck a bit to try and see what exactly he’s grabbing, and he gasps a little.
Sheer Heart Attack. The Queen album he picked up earlier.
Chris turns back to him, big smile plastered to his face. Leon’s heart skips while the other approaches him.
Stepping over the stacks he made, Chris closes in on Leon and slaps the items in his hands in front of the rookie at his desk: the CD, and what looked to be a small player, complete with collapsible headphones.
Confuses paints across Leon’s face. Frazzled eyes dart between the player, the CD, and Chris in a circular loop. There was no precedent, pre-recorded soundbite available inside his brain to process an occurrence such as this.
“I…”
“This one’s a classic. You’ll love it,” Chris’s smile was hot as the sun, burning down on Leon as if he were asphalt in the middle of summer, “-I hope,”
“I can’t take your stuff from you, man..” Leon immediately tries to apply logic and reasoning for several reasons. Firstly, he is not deserving of such a kind and selfless gesture. Second, even if he did accept it, he could blink, and within seconds of shutting his eyes, he could lose grip on the player and send it careening to the ground, shattering into a million pieces just like Chris’ impressions of him.
And third, the very idea of being given something as special as a piece of music by the man of his literal dreams is filling him with enough butterflies to call himself a conservatory.
“You’re not- you’re borrowing it,” Chris’s tone is matter-of-fact, as if he is stating the most obvious truth known to man, leaving no room for arguments or suggestions. “The squad could use a break from hearing it all the time anyway. Trust me, Valentine will thank you personally.”
Teeth sink pensively into Leon’s bottom lip, but he picks up the album and holds it loosely in his hands for a moment. In all twenty-one years of walking the earth, no one has ever presented him with such a thoughtful gesture before. He is completely at a loss at what to say, how to respond, other than…
“Thanks…”
Chris’ smile remains on his face as he continues with his task, estimating the approximate number of bullets based on the size of the box and by the sound they make when he shakes them. At this point, he is fully convinced that this task was given to him simply as a punishment- he can hardly recall a time when Wesker genuinely gave a shit about how many bullets were packaged in a single box.
Silence falls temporarily between the two as they both dive deep into the task. In their minds, the sooner they got all these crates put back together, the sooner they could actually feel the fresh night air hit their face again. Minutes swirl past them with no words exchanged between the two, and the pair flies through their assignment with ease. Bullets are counted, boxes are returned to the crates, and Chris puts away a few crates in what feels like no time flat. And all the while, Leon’s breaths are far less labored than they were when he first arrived. Whether Leon noticed or not, the nerves and awkwardness he felt were beginning to slowly, but surely, fade from within him. He finally starts to feel a sense of calm, sharing this office space with Chris. Seeing the man so larger than life in such a quiet and personal space was humanizing in the best possible way.
Curious, blue eyes find themselves wandering back to the source of his affections as he sets another pile down into the crate. There, Chris’s eyes are fully locked onto the paper in front of him, scanning it. Leon watches brown irises dance back and forth within the strong man’s head. Focused eyes that have seen everything from administrative red tape to the barrel end of a rifle. Eyes of a skilled, seasoned veteran, while also holding a boyish genuineness akin to an optimistic youth full of vigor for the future ahead.
Leon swallows audibly.
And wishes so badly he could be that paper.
Sensing the other’s head turned in a direction near him, Chris cocks his head back up, “Y’alright?”
Leon jumps out of his skin at the sudden noise and scrambles to put his attention anywhere but the other man.
“Yeah- sorry, I was just..” Think, Leon! Use your empty head for something! “..that’s a cool jacket,”
The comment causes Chris to crane his head to the side, and his expression immediately relaxes when he follows Leon’s gaze to the leather jacket hung up on the wall.
“Oh yeah- love that thing. Claire painted that for me.”
Fuck. Leon’s stomach sinks down to his feet. A woman’s name. Of course. He should have fucking known. What the fuck was he even thinking? In what goddamn world? His mouth moves before his brain does.
“Claire?” A question he almost doesn’t want an answer to.
He must have had a peculiar look on his face because realization hits Chris when he looks back at him.
“My sister,”
Hot relief washed over Leon’s innards like lava. Why did that affect him so badly? “If you ever see a spunky redhead walking around, trying to snoop and stick her nose into things- that’s her. And if she’s out on that Harley of hers, I give you full permission to pull her ass over- girl speeds like the devil’s chasing her,”
Leon knows he should chuckle at that comment, but his throat clogs from the fire burning deep inside his stomach. He shouldn’t be this relieved. He shouldn’t be hopeful in any sense. But he is and he hates it.
When Leon finally finds his voice, he clears his throat even though he did not need to do so. “She come around a lot?”
“Usually, when she’s home from school. She’ll sit in my seat, eat my food, and pit the whole team against me.” Another stack falls haphazardly into the crate beside Chris. “Wesker hates it, but she hates him, so it balances itself out pretty well.”
That gets a laugh out of Leon, “She sounds like a lot.”
“She is.” There was no malice in the brunette’s voice whatsoever.
“-And talented, based on that,” Leon adds, gesturing to the jacket once again. Chris’s eyes, too, follows that gesture briefly.
“Yeah,” Warmth filled those big, brown eyes, and Leon could have melted into the chair right then and there. “Couldn’t find it for two weeks, until I found it drying in her room. Made it to match hers, just to make me smile.”
Leon can’t help himself. He leaned into him from his chair. “Did it?”
Chris looks up to lock eyes with Leon. His smile is present, but it’s distant. Sad.
“Yeah. It did.”
They linger there for a few more seconds than it was safe to, but Leon wouldn’t break away. Neither would Chris. The two caught in a tug-of-war in a battle neither of them knew they were fighting. For a moment, Leon thought Chris was searching for something past his expression. Something within his eyes he wanted to see. He wants to say something, make a sound, anything to fill the intense silence- but he doesn’t. Just sits and lets the other stare through him to his heart’s content.
It’s Chris who shakes his head and changes the subject, mercifully tearing his gaze away from Leon. “How’s it coming over there?”
The blond, having completely lost track of his task, looks back at the desk behind him. As it turns out, the last of the M16 ammo lay scattered across the workstation- only a few boxes remain that still need to be counted.
“Just about done. Only got a few more of these to go.”
Chris rises up from his seat on the floor once again, this time strutting his way over to the desk to gaze at Leon’s work over his shoulder. Leon, to his credit, does not immediately freeze up upon Chris’s sudden proximity, but as the larger man leans in to inspect the inventory, Leon becomes painfully aware of just how much Chris is intruding on his space. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up when Chris leans his torso over the desk, bent at the waist and hips leaning out behind him. Once again, his wandering eyes betray him, as they capture a glance at him from the side.
And a familiar, arousing scent drifts into his nose. Chris’s smell.
Not the mixture of cigarettes and body spray the jacket held, but a natural musk. Earthy and sweaty. The smell of Chris’s skin on a humid summer day, or after a light workout. Or by lifting heavy ammunition boxes and placing them safely in the armory.
Or even his smell after a round of dancing the horizontal tango.
And he is close enough that that smell is wiring itself directly through Leon’s olfactory senses and into his brain.
Involuntarily, Leon crosses his legs while Chris is beside him. If the other man got even the slightest glimpse of what was starting to happen under that desk, he would have to resign from the RPD, skip town, and change his name.
Suddenly, Chris leans over the desk and takes hold of the remainder of the casing boxes. To Leon’s surprise, he neatly stacks the remaining boxes directly next to the other ones in the crate. While the younger’s face twisted in a confused bewilderment, Chris responded with a tired but gentle smirk.
“Looks good to me,”
Leon blinks over and over, watching gaumless as Chris lifts the heavy crate right up off the floor and carry it over to the armory. “But- I didn’t finish!”
“Yeah, you did- saw it myself!” Despite the younger man’s protests, Chris drops the last remaining ammo box directly beside the other four loudly on the concrete armory floor. When he steps back out, he pulls the metal door shut and engages the lock with one of the many keys on his overencumbered ring. He turns back to Leon, running a hand through his hair and takes hold of his inventory sheets from the desk.
Leon takes a deep breath before he stands up on shaking legs. He hopes- no, prays- no, begs that the tightness in the front of his pants had dissipated in the few seconds since Chris created distance between the two of them. Or alternatively, the black of his pants hid any potential embarassing tenting that may or may not be happening. His eyes move from Chris throwing the inventory sheets into Wesker’s mailbox on his office door to the clock on the wall above the workstations:
2:40AM- holy shit how did over two hours go by already?!
“Hey, uh…” Leon mutters and wipes his sweaty-sweaty?- hands on the sides of his shirt. “Don’t know if we’re gonna get to the west side before last call, huh?”
That gets Chris’s attention; brown eyes shoot up to the clock on the wall, and he sighs, cussing a bit under his breath. A sadness Leon couldn’t explain wafts over him in that very moment, seeing the other man’s shoulders slacken and jaw tighten. Did he genuinely mean what he said earlier? That offhanded comment about ‘beers on the west side?’ Was he trying to speed up the task so he could…
A familiar aching in Leon’s belly returns to him. An ache of something he’s tried his best to keep private to himself since the moment he crossed paths in that elevator. An ache he can only release in the enclosed prison of his apartment.
Holding onto his neck, Chris turns back to him. His face is downcast, and Leon starts to notice how truly tired the older man looks, “Well, there went my payment plan for the night. Sorry, I guess I dragged you out here for nothing,”
“Hey, it’s cool,” Leon’s response is immediate, almost rushed, and he shakes his head nonchalantly, “You weren’t kidding, this was a lot for one person. I needed to help, or else you’d be here all night,” he swallows any other thoughts from bubbling out his mouth unprompted, because there was certainly more coming down the pipe.
Chris chuffs humorlessly, “Probably still will. By the time I get in my car and crash through my door, I’ll get maybe an hour of shut eye before I gotta get up again,”
You could stay with me.
Leon’s eyes widen. He didn’t say that outloud, right?
Right?
Chris’s eyes brighten and he manages a light, sleepy chuckle, “Very kind of you, but I snore like a chainsaw. I’ll spare you the torture,”
Oh God.
Oh GOD he did.
God, this isn’t funny anymore. Take me out back right fucking now.
“Can I walk you back though?” Chris’s question cuts immediately through the white-hot embarrassment coursing through ever one of Leon’s senses, “Gotta pay it forward somehow,”
There are multiple deties hanging over Leon’s head, and they’re all laughing at his expense at this very moment. He clears his throat, tugging helplessly at his collar, “You really don’t have to- you’re tired, it’s been a long night for you-”
“I mean, you said it’s only a few minutes right?” Chris raises a thick eyebrow, and Leon’s body jolts as it was electrocuted, “I’m no Flash like you, but even dead tired, I think I could keep up,”
It seemed to be true what the precinct said about him: Chris Redfield is one stubborn son of a bitch. If he was determined to do something, you bet your ass he was going to find a way to do it. And Leon is learning that lesson in real time. On one hand, he would hate to ask any more of him than he already has- not after the man practically spent an all-nighter in this awful building while he went to town on himself several hours ago. Then again, the selfish side of him wants so badly to say yes, yes please. Anything to spend just a few more minutes in your presence. Desperation was slowly seeping into every one of his motions, and he didn’t like it.
It seems that Chris had made the decision for both of them, however, before Leon could even respond, Chris strides over to his workstation, grabs his jacket off its hook and throws it over his shoulders in one clean sweep of his powerful arms. In another second, he is grabbing a bag from the shelf and places the remainder of his Queen CDs inside it, as well as the player and the first album he gave Leon and hands the bag to him.
“Chris..” Leon begins to say, but Chris is already moving towards the door- particularly, to unhook Leon’s coat from the rack and pass it to him.
“Come on, gotta get you home so you can get your jam session on,” When Leon catches his eyes again, any trace elements of that former sadness left the taller man; brightness and optimism resurged into the two galaxies adorning Chris’s face.
Why, why couldn’t he just have one more second to watch the way they swirl?
Helpless to turn down yet another selfless gesture from the other officer, Leon reluctantly slips his jacket through his arms and up to his shoulders, zipping it tight. The rigid crustiness of the inside of the uniform scratches against his sensitive stomach skin irritatingly, but he cannot do anything about it now until he gets home and chucks the damn thing in the wash. And takes another shower for the evening, water bill be damned.
Without another word, the pair slip seamlessly out of the S.T.A.R.S. office to Chris’s relief, with the taller man shutting the light off and pulling the door locked behind him. Leon follows behind Chris in nearly perfect lockstep- instead of taking the long way around through the lounge and library, Chris leads them both down through the other end of the hallway, where a smaller set of stairs bring them down to where the dark room is tucked away in. Swinging around the West Office- which Leon checks quickly to ensure none of his other coworkers are out prowling about, they successfully enter the main hall. Brody, to Leon’s great relief, seems to be on his session of rounds throughout the building, so they are fully in the clear when they cut across the vast entryway and through the main doors and into the dark, winter night.
Compared to the warmth and comfort of the upstairs office and the lack of adrenaline permeating through his body, the sudden temperature drop hit Leon like a freight train. Immediately, his hands are stuffed into his pockets, the bag Chris gave him containing the CDs and player jangled and banged helplessly against his rapidly moving legs. Chris, on the other hand, soaks in the relief the bite of the cold brought to his aching, hot skin, opening his arms and breathing it in with a grin.
“Fuck, that feels good!” The groan escaping Chris’s lips is criminal as he reaches into his coat pocket for his cigarettes.
Leon chokes on nothing. He will blame the reddening of his cheeks on the bitter wind striking his face, rather than what it is actually coming from.
Chris snaps his lighter open, and the low ember of flame eats at the butt of the cigarette until it roars to light, and the sweet burn of nicotine hits Chris’s lungs. He exhales slowly, deeply, watching as the plume rises up with his breath and dissipates into the air around him.
“What’s your schedule looking like this week?”
Leon perks up at his long legs striding alongside Chris. He finds himself leaning a bit closer towards him as they walk, partially to save room on the sidewalk for any potential passersby.
“Got my beats with Rita this week, mostly. I’m on days, so probably your standard fare of gas station fights and jackasses running red lights.”
The neon light from the still-open convenience store shines like heaven's glow down on Chris’s face, illuminating those handsome features that Leon continues to be captivated by. The frigid winter night air did absolutely nothing to shatter the gleam in the man’s eye. The man takes another drag of his cigarette, letting the smoke flow freely out of his mouth.
“You get your regular lunch this week?”
“Should- hopefully, knock on wood,”
Chris nods slowly, but mentions nothing more on the subject. Leon is too frozen from the pickup of the wind to be confused by the line of questioning.
The remainder of the walk is spent in silence. As Leon peers across the street, the same side full of life, naught but two and a half hours earlier, he can’t help but notice a considerable lack of city crawlers. The partiers from earlier he is sure have ventured their way home- or any approximation of the word. The streets lay bare with no operating vehicles cutting across the blacktop- only dormant cars line the streets, waiting for their sleeping owners to ignite them back to life come the morning rush hours. Whether it be from the sudden weather shift or the late hour, the city feels noticeably emptier now.
But despite this truth, Leon certainly wasn’t alone- not with Chris in near-perfect lock step beside him. Warming the air around him with his very presence- unknowingly creating a bubble around the pair that shut out all the noise of the world around them. Whether Chris knew it or not, Leon has never felt more secure and terrified than standing beside him.
It isn’t long before the inevitable happens; within a few more steps, the pair arrives at the front doors of Leon’s apartment building, and for the first time, he is less than thrilled to see it. Chris takes a moment to study it, brown eyes traveling all the way up to the top before making their way back down.
“This you?” he asks.
“Yessir,” Leon almost sighs wistfully.
“Huh…pretty sure Vickers used to live here, if memory serves,” Chris murmurs to himself from behind his cigarette. The ash that’s piled since their walk flutters away and is carried off by the gust of wind.
“Yeah, it’s…”
“Kind of a dump, huh?”
“Oh yeah,”
“Least it’s cheap- good for just starting out, right?”
“It’s got walls, doors that lock, and running water. What more can a guy need?”
“A stereo,” Chris throws a smirk in Leon’s direction, and Leon can feel his stomach flip. The butterflies make their grand return, fluttering all around the lining of his belly.
Freezing fingers clamp around the handle of the bag containing his newfound cherished possession, and Leon locks eyes with Chris again after he stamps out his finished cigarette with the side of his boot. The butterflies threaten to spill out of his throat, but he swallows them down enough to speak.
“Thanks…for the call tonight.”
Chris holds his gaze. His features are relaxed, peaceful. He hides his exhaustion quite well, “Thanks for answering. Still gotta make up for my shitty time management somehow,”
This time, it is Leon who feels the corners of his mouth tug upwards in a small, sheepish smile. “I’m sure you’ll find a way. As you’re known to do,”
The brunette’s eyes shine in way Leon has never seen with his own eyes before. In turn, the blond takes note of the adorable shade of reddish pink that dusted across the tips of Chris’s nose and cheeks.
“Is there a deadline for this homework you’ve given me?” Leon holds up the bag of music, gesturing in a manner that he hopes comes off as playful.
It does indeed; Chris’s smirk widens, “How’s lunchtime on Friday sound?”
Leon goes completely quiet. The butterflies in his stomach are replaced with a sharp, acidic pang that churns his guts. A question he has fantasized about being asked for months on end, months since his very first day, since the first of many food stops to the S.T.A.R.S. office. He could pinch himself- he could check to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep flat on his face in the street, but he had already embarrassed himself plenty of times this evening. After his brain decides that far too many seconds have passed without him answering, Leon shakes himself from his daze and simply replies:
“Sounds good,”
“Great,” Chris- bless him- remains the same as he was when he first asked the question. If he happened to take notice of Leon’s startstruck daze, his kindness prevails as he spares Leon from making him think otherwise. As the man turns to begin making his way back to the precinct, he throws his head back to gaze at the younger man one more time. Capturing him in one more breathtaking stare.
“Goodnight, Leon,”
If it were possible for a human to melt in below freezing temperatures, Leon Scott Kennedy would find a way.
“Goodnight…”
Leon does not move an inch from the front door. He watches as Chris takes off back down the street, toned legs carrying his weight effortlessly against the cold in the direction of the station. The officer’s form shrinks in the distance- inch by precious inch until he is out of Leon’s line of sight completely. His fingertips are numb and red against the bag, and the tips of his ears and nose ache from cold, but he doesn’t care. In a sick, twisted way, he wondered if he remained up at his apartment during the night- if what he experienced over the last several hours was genuine, or if it was methodically cooked up from the recesses of his fucked-out mind. Was Chris honestly offering him an opportunity to spend more time with him? Or was this just an extension of the version of Chris he wanted to see?
Icy fingers pinch the sides of his cheek. He winces.
No, it’s real.
That all really happened.
Chris wasn’t just being nice to him because Leon wanted him to. He didn’t call him tonight because his brain wanted to further his fantasy.
And he didn’t offer him some of his favorite music because Leon wanted to experience it for himself.
Chris did all that because he wanted to.
And the truth of that floods Leon’s senses far more than any orgasm he’s given himself tonight.
Finally, he grants his body some relief from the cold and retreats inside, up the crazy loud flight of stairs and inside the security of his apartment once again. The shower this go around feels like heaven on his skin, and when he finally lays his head down on his shabby pillowcase, his eyes flutter closed to the melody of I Was Born to Love You soothing his weary, lovestruck soul.
And behind those blue eyes, an image of Chris, grinning his wide, toothy grin and strumming his guitar along to the beat, waits for him.
“Hey, handsome. Wanna keep me company while I play?”
“Yes…”