Chapter Text
It creeps up on her slowly, gently, almost. She doesn’t know she’s in danger of drowning until he chuckles at something she says, in a conversation so banal, so insignificant that she can’t recall a single word from it now.
She doesn’t even realise it then actually, in that moment of normalcy. The clock ticks away on the wall. She’s invited him for dinner and he’s taken over her kitchen before she can get a word out. He chops up vegetables into precise, evenly shaped pieces while she tries to figure out the correct water ratio for the rice. Emily is on the dining table, legs swinging, a pencil, textbooks, and homework. She says something, he laughs a half laugh, and life goes on.
Later that night, in the quiet flutter of the curtains and the comfort of her nightlight, when all she can hear is that small catch of his voice when he laughs, that’s when she knows she’s fucked. Horribly, monumentally, stupidly fucked.
It’s so foolish of her, so silly, so predictable. She feels like she’s sixteen again with an inappropriate crush on her science teacher. But she’s not been sixteen for years and years. She’s an adult with a job and a child and a very good friend with a nice smile and a gentle voice and salt and pepper in his hair. He rubs her back through panic attacks, talks on the phone with her every other day, and accepts every dinner invitation she concocts just to have an excuse to see him.
She wants to think this is some weird post-traumatic co-dependency, and yes, that is perhaps how it started out for her. That is what ignited that spark under her ribs. But it’s been months now. Emily is going to school, Grace just got a raise, she’s thinking of getting a house for Emily to grow up in (and is it so bad that she keeps checking out the neighbourhood near his apartment?). She can turn off the lights at night now, with the exception of the small nightlight. She can walk into a room without her heart in her throat. She doesn’t feel the walls closing in when she’s alone in the house anymore.
She used to call him because his voice would calm her down (he’s too good at this, she thinks, and that makes her feel weird and awful as well). For a while, he was the only support she had. Now, though, she knows she doesn’t need him.
No, now the problem is that she wants.
*
There are times when she thinks it’s not so bad. Not so bad that she goes breathless when she sees his name on the caller ID. Not so bad when her chest burns when he’s in the same room. Not so bad that instead of stuttering, she goes completely mute when he looks at her a certain kind of way.
Not so bad because she’s an adult, and he’s an adult. And the age difference between them could also be an adult too.
She’s fucked, whipped, cooked. She’s the stupidest person she knows, and somehow she can’t think of this going any other way. Maybe if he had never helped her with bringing Emily back, if he had never vouched for her to the DSO to release custody to her, if he hadn’t even met her, saved her, helped her. If he had stopped picking up his phone every time she called him because she couldn’t sleep. If he hadn’t talked to her in the slow hours after midnight, sleep softening his voice into a low rumble until she was half in her room, and half dreaming in the cradle of his voice. If he had been less Leon. Then, maybe, yeah, things could have been different.
*
She marinates in her feelings for about eight days before Anya finds her with her face in her hands, staring at the phone after a call with him. A call where she had laughed and stuttered and talked with him as normally as she could possibly bring herself to.
Anya had been moved to her department a little over a month after Grace had come back from her mandated leave, having been cleared by the sanctioned therapist. Anya’s a forensic analyst, a former violinist, and a trouble-maker. She had taken one look at Grace and decided that she wanted to be friends. Grace didn’t get much choice in the matter, not that she would have rebuffed any kind of friendship. For the longest time her only friend had been her mother. And then after the incident, her friend circle had moved on to a tween child, and a middle-aged man. It felt almost surreal to have someone her age show an interest in her.
Anya glides a cup of cold coffee towards Grace. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “Kid getting bullied at school?”
“N-N-no, I–”
“Listen,” Anya perched herself on Grace’s desk, “I know you don’t want to, but I promise you if you let me just frighten a few of these kids just a tiny bit, I feel like it would convince them to stay off Emily for good. You can’t expect kids to learn unless you put a little fear in them.”
“E-Emily’s fine. She’s made friends actually.”
Anya frowns, “Then what’s wrong? You look like someone shat on your coffee, and I promise I brought it fresh.”
“It’s nothing. It’s not a big deal. I’m just…” She doesn’t know what to say. It’s one thing to think about it, and quite another to put it into words for someone else. Somehow, it makes it more real, and Grace is afraid to make it real.
“Boy trouble?” Anya asks
“What?”
Anya points at Grace’s phone that’s unlocked and still on Leon’s contact from the call.
No! She wants to say, and not just because Leon hardly counts as a boy and nor is he causing her trouble. These are problems of her own making if anything. Leon probably doesn’t even know about her little crush, and even if he does, he has made no indication of it.
“Grandaddy not being able to get it up anymore?”
“Anya!” Grace hisses as loudly as she can without calling too much attention to herself. “It’s not like that with us!”
Anya smiles diabolically. “Babe, have you seen your face when he calls you? It’s absolutely like that.”
Grace makes a noise she doesn’t even recognise. Her hands fly up to her face as if she can smother every bit of evidence there. Does he know? Of course he must know. Everyone probably knows. She was never good at a poker face. And now her every waking thought (and some few dreams) are of him and his voice and what it would feel like to have that mouth–
No! She can’t go there. She can’t keep going there. Not at work. Not in front of other people. Not…not ever.
Because it may be like that for her, but she’s certain it’s not for Leon. Their age difference might not be a problem for her, but he definitely doesn’t see her as anything but a platonic, trauma-bonded friend. Or, oh god, worse, as a daughter-figure. Her inappropriate, decidedly un-platonic, filthy, filthy thoughts and daydreams, and dreams are her own. Looking at her like that must not have even crossed his mind.
She opens her mouth and proceeds to tell Anya exactly that, in firm, if somewhat stuttered words. She needs Anya to know this is not something she can keep teasing her about. Bad enough her chest aches at the thought of him and how he might perceive her. She doesn’t need to make this worse. She knows there will be an impending heartbreak. She’s trying to prepare for it as best as she can. Seatbelt on, braced for impact.
Anya has a funny look on her face the whole time. Like she has some secret pursed between her lips, or some devious plan manifesting in her brain. She nods while Grace gets her words out, doesn’t interrupt her, and outwardly looks like she’s listening and agreeing.
“Mmhmm,” she says when Grace is done.
Grace narrows her eyes. Anya laughs. “Look, Grace, there are a thousand things I could say to you about this but I know you won’t believe me so I’ll just leave the wheel to shredded, big biceps Jesus, and hope he starts giving off more obvious hints soon. I mean, more obvious than what he’s doing already.”
Grace opens her mouth.
“Remind me,” Anya continues, “when is he coming over for dinner again?”
Grace shuts her mouth.
*
“Hey you,” he says when she opens the door.
He’s wearing an olive shirt and jeans. His sleeves are rolled up, forearms visible for the world to see. No jacket, no gloves. Just a watch. It’s indecent. Obscene. Sinful.
She feels silly and underdressed in her t-shirt and soft cotton pants. It’s a casual dinner at home, and she’s dressed for a casual dinner at home (plus some lipgloss that she put on hurriedly before opening the door). He’s the one overdressed. He should be feeling stupid, but this is the most casual she’s seen him dressed. She’s mostly ever seen him in tactical gear because he usually comes by straight from work.
“Hi,” she says, brain short circuiting, mouth dry.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says, “Ran into an old friend.”
His hair is a little wet. He has a small cut by his nose. Not bleeding but red and angry. She wants to lean up and kiss it. Then lick down to–
No, no, no!
He blinks, politely waiting for her to give way for him to enter the house but she’s unable to move. Anya said he’s been giving hints. What hints? Why can’t Grace see these hints? She’s the only desperate, depraved one in this. Dreaming about his arms and his greying stubble in places he’s not thinking about but it’s all she’s thinking of.
She sometimes feels that he mostly stayed in touch after the incident out of guilt and maybe even pity. Or some twisted sense of obligation. She was in what was possibly her worst state for weeks after. Not sleeping, not eating, jumping and screaming at everything and nothing, unable to face the dark, unable to face the emptiness of her own apartment.
When he had first called her, she had started dry sobbing three minutes into the call. The way he had talked her down from the panic attack should be studied. She still can’t fully tell if he’s just that good or she’s that lost. She bets he could talk her through anything.
Then, oh so casually, he had just stayed in touch, calling her often, checking up on her every few days, and eventually turning up at her house after a particularly bad episode. She had never given him her number, nor her address, but she never asked him about it. She didn’t want to spook him, and even if he was the one who kept calling, coming over, keeping in contact with her, there was something skittish about him. Like, if she questioned him even once, he'd disappear. As someone who was professionally skittish, jumpy, and overly anxious all the time, she knew all the signs even if he hid his with incredible ease.
Something about him felt as if he needed the company as much as she needed him. That maybe his apartment felt too empty for him too. She could see the tan line of a ring on his finger, but no ring. She didn’t ask.
Part of his hesitancy was also Emily, she could tell. He harboured guilt there even if they had saved her in the end. The fact that he had personally gone to Rhodes Hill right after Racoon City and brought Emily to her is something he conveniently dismissed, whenever she brought it up, as if his own gun shots still echoed in his head.
He had kept a very careful distance between himself and Emily for a good while at first. Wherever Emily was, he would be on the other side of the room. But at every call he asked about her, would bring her small things, listen to her talk, keep note of all her likes and dislikes. Eventually, Emily just one day walked up and sat right next to him on the sofa and asked him if he had a dog. Does he want a dog? Their neighbour had a dog. Did he know that there were lots of different types of dogs? And that some of them were larger than her?
“Grace?” She jumps back to the present. By her door, he is still outside.
He looks around questioningly and tilts his head to the side in bemusement. “Are we waiting for someone?”
“S-s-sorry!” She steps aside for him. He chuckles and walks in like he’s home. Before Grace can overthink that, Emily comes running from her room, barreling towards Leon with an excited squeal. He picks her up like he’s so used to carrying young girls he rescues from being experimented on by evil agencies. He would make a great dad. He knows just how to hold the kid effortlessly. One armed, while the other ruffles Emily’s hair making the girl laugh in delight.
Just a few months ago he had freaked out when Emily had hugged him for the first time. He had gone so still and quiet, Grace was sure he had stopped breathing for a bit.
Now though…
Now, Grace just feels like shit that she can’t go up to him that casually and melt into his embrace.
Shit, she thinks. She’s really fucked.