Chapter Text
Pain thrummed through his body. This was a new kind of pain. One that forced his body to feel foreign to himself. Not like a virus or a parasite, no, This was far more cruel. Far more vile.
He didn’t have long to process his body’s recoil into itself before his daughter rang in for his attention.
“Hey, Leon, you got the layout information? I couldn’t reach you for a while there. Everything alright?”
“Yeah. Sorry, got tied up. Sending it your way. I just met Victor Gideon. Guy’s batshit crazy.” Leon fumbled through his things and grasped a medicine injection in one hand, and groaned as he punctured its needle into the flesh along his neck. “Mm…”
“Leon?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
The ride home was a drag. His body felt better than it had in decades, now that the virus had been eliminated from his system, but his body was crashing. He was certain the young woman beside him must have felt the same, as he watched the lids of her eyes flirt with sleep.
Grace had nervously mentioned being too afraid to go home alone tonight, so he’d offered her a place to stay in his guest room. He’d failed to mention it to his husband, but it wasn’t like Grace and Emily were a threat to their youngest child, Rose. Chris would hopefully understand, as long as his mood wasn’t soured.
With one hand along her opposite shoulder, he moved his head atop hers, cheek perched into her silver-blonde hair.
“Wealmostthere?…” she mumbled out, eyes still closed as Emily curled into her lap.
“I think you could last another hour, kid,” he teased his sleepy partner in crime in the back of the car.
Grace released a tired huff from her nose, like a dog before a nap on the couch, “I-is it really another hour?”
“No. We’re almost there, I promise. Rest will find us soon enough.”
Just as they pulled into the driveway, the front door flung open. A large man in unflattering house attire and a jacket barreled down the wooden porch steps.
“Leon, why the hell did you go to Raccoon Cityof all places without me? I could have lost you.” The man chided.
“Well, I wanted to just get ice cream, but Grace just had to see the city first,” Leon closed the car door behind him and took a few steps towards his husband to close the gap between them.
“You almost died, you idiot.” Without waiting for a moment longer, the other man pulled Leon into a kiss, not paying any mind to just how dirty his husband had become from today, or that the transfer car with an agent was still parked not three feet away.
Grace awkwardly slipped herself out of the transfer vehicle, scooped up sleepy Emily into her arms, made her way around the front, past the headlights that shined against her frame, and over to the two men, who’d separated themselves from each other after a kiss.
The man Grace assumed to be Leon’s husband cleared his throat. “This is Grace then?”
“Yeah,” Leon plainly replied. “She’s a trooper. And the reason I’m alive, as well as Sherry, your sister, and Jill. She figured out the cure and saved this kiddo.”
That was to Chris’ ears. It wasn’t often they got any semblance of good news, and this was incredible news. “Shit, you’re serious?”
Grace glanced over to Leon, who was already proudly smiling at her. “I-I…y-yeah, that was me. Um.”
“The man of the hour,” Leon placed a careful hand on her shoulder to sooth her nerves he could tell were bubbling up. “And the man of the hour would like some shut eye. Think we could make that happen for them?” He spoke as if it was not really a question. There would be a fight if Chris decided against it. They both knew it.
The car slowly pulled its way out of the couple's driveway. Chris’ eyes followed its trail for a moment until it was out of sight from the front lawn. “Rose and Heather, Leon.”
“I know. They’ll be alright. Don’t argue with me on this one, Chris. They are safe. We’ll talk.”
“W-who’s Rose and Heather, If you don’t mind me asking? I-if it’s too much of a hindrance, I-i can call an uber to go home.”
“Our daughters,” Leon lowered his hand from her and migrated them to Chris’ ringed hand. “Youngest just turned five and the oldest is twelve. Will that be alright with you?” After what happened with Emily, it would be no surprise if she didn’t want to suddenly share a space with young children for a night, as far as bad memories were concerned, even though she’d survived. Leon was certainly no stranger to those. Good ending or not, the terror always followed you.
Grace considered the information for a brief moment. “No, no, that’s perfectly okay. It’ll be good for Emily, I-I think.”
“Well, Chris, can you show her to the guest room and bathroom while I become presentable? I need out of this shit.” Leon gestured to his tattered and dirty clothing lining his muscular, bruised body.
Chris glanced Leon up and down, taking the filth covered view in, then nodded. “Of course. Follow me.”
Gentle, hands moved to remove the dirty clothes from today off his tired husband’s body. When a hand rejected his intention to assist Leon ridding of his attire, he sighed.
“Sit. Let me take care of you tonight. You deserve it. Don’t be stubborn, please.”
“It’s not that.” Leon lightly swatted Chris’ hand away and slowly sat himself on the chest at the end of their bed, not wanting to get the filth on their clean sheets. “Just. Can we sit for a moment?”
“What’s wrong, Lee?”
“Nothing,” Leon was quick to shut Chris down.
“Nothing? I’m your husband and you just came back from a traumatic revisit to Raccoon City where you nearly died. Talk to me.” Chris kneeled down before Leon’s feet and took his hands into his own.
When no answer came, he brought one hand up to Leon’s cheek, and froze when his husband recoiled. “Oh Leon…look at me, baby. Tell me what happened back there, please.”
There was a heavy pause. The air was far too thick as Leon swallowed. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what? Leon, I need you to talk to me. Why are you afraid of my touch?”
“I’m not.”
“You recoiled from me, hun.”
Damnit Chris. Leon finally rasped through his clenched jaw, “figure it out.”
“What?” Chris searched his husband’s face, as if the answer would be hidden underneath his aging skin. “Who?”
“He’s dead.”
“Who, Leon. Tell me.”
“I said he’s dead. Just leave it.”
“I don’t give a shit if he’s dead. Who?”
“Victor Gideon. I killed him. It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”
“It does matter, Leon! You’re my husband and he touched what isn’t his!” Chris got off his knee and stood before him with clenched fists, nails leaving indents into his own palms. A clear sign that he was about to blow a gasket.
“Chris.” Leon begged as he wrung his calloused hands in his lap. “Don’t raise your voice at me. Not tonight. I just want to go to bed, shower, and get out of my filthy clothing. I don’t want to talk about it. There’s too much on my mind.”
This was far from the welcome home conversation he’d been hoping for. Sure, he’d already received his ‘I’m so happy you came home alive, Lee’ speech, but this was not what he wanted. Why couldn’t he bottle it up and shove it to the side like everything else in his godforsaken miserable life? Why did Chris always have to be so…Chris when Leon was hurting? Always so stubborn about protecting the people he loved, for better or worse. Twelve years of marriage and yet somehow the feeling of being looked after in the ugly times was still new to him. He supposed this was somewhat better than coming home and downing a whole bottle of cheap whisky like they did in the old days, while Chris sat and smoked a horrid smelling cigarette after every operation they barely scraped by, but this was harder. They were so alike and ran into roadblocks at nearly every turn. Chris wanted to fix things as soon as they came at him, and Leon needed space. It was easier to just down a bottle and not talk about their shared trauma, than it was fighting to quit their learned habits and talk about everything, once the little kids entered their life years ago. Truthfully, it never got easier.
Chris exhaled through his nose. “Tomorrow then. We can’t not talk about this.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Leon stubbornly repeated. “I don’t know how. You know I’m not good with this shit.” He let out a sigh of relief as Chris’ phone buzzed in his pocket.
If it was anyone but Sherry, he’d have immediately declined the call. Chris placed his phone up to his ear once he picked up. “Hey, kid”
“Hey, sorry, I know it's getting late. I assume dad is in bed by now, but is he alright? Mom has been asking me to check in.”
“Uh, yeah. Dad’s fine. Fine on that front, at least.” Chris began to slowly pace the bedroom. “But I need to let you go for now. I’m talking to Leon right now, so I can’t chitchat.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Thanks, Sherry. Rest well. He’s in good hands. I’ll talk to your mom tomorrow.”
“The best hands. Love you, bye.”
“Bye, kiddo.”
The second Chris hung up, Leon held his breath, awaiting the inevitable continued conversation.
“You’re not working tomorrow.” Chris tossed his phone onto the bed and came back to sit beside his husband. “Not after today. Let’s go shower and get you some sleep, then we can relax all day together. I’m happy you’re alive.”
“You’re not going to leave and piss on his grave?”
“Oh I will, but not tonight.” Chris slowly leaned in to place a gentle peck to Leon’s cheek, giving Leon time to stop him if he wanted. “I love you.”
“Love you too, big guy,” Leon muttered in return and finally turned his wet, pathetic blue eyes to meet his husband.
“You alright if I kiss you?” He whispered to his now vulnerable lover.
Once Leon gave him a small nod, Chris leaned in to place a delicate, slow kiss to his soft lips. His hands stayed right at his side, in hopes of keeping Leon as comfortable as possible.
Control. That’s what Leon needed more than anything right now. His body had been out of his control for years, and as of last night, the last of what was his had been stolen. With one hand, Leon tested moving Chris’ hand to his waist. Like the gentle giant his husband was, he patiently waited for Leon to lead him on, wherever he felt ready.
“I love you so much, Leon. Never forget that. I’d be lost if you had died today. Never, ever do that to me again, okay baby?” Chris whispered against his lips.
“No promises, captain." Leon closed the gap between their lips once more, then moved Chris’ hand to the stubble along his cheek.
After a long moment of sharing each other's taste, Leon pulled back to mumble: “He ran his hands through my hair…that was the first touch.”
Chris slowly moved his hand away from Leon’s hair along his ear.
“No, keep your hand there.”
“I thought you didn’t—”
“Just do it. I don’t want him fucking up how you feel more than once. Just take it slow.”
“You sure you’re okay with that tonight? You just told me you didn’t want to do this.”
Leon inhaled a shaky breath, “I can’t do this. Fucking, shutting my own husband down because some guy who needs to see a dentist decided to fuck things up.”
“Wouldn’t put it past you.”
For the first time since they entered the bedroom, Leon smiled. “Shut up, asshole.”
“I don’t think you want that.”
“No,” Leon admitted with a playful scoff. “But sometimes.”
Their ringed hands linked together like it was second nature, before Chris lifted Leon’s to place a gentle kiss to his once infected knuckles.
“He didn’t do that,” Leon whispered, more quiet than a mouse, as if saying it any louder would frighten himself back into a shell.
Another kiss was placed along his knuckle. Then another. Leon’s palm was turned over so he could litter a few more along his calloused skin. “Good. He will pay for what he did to you.”
That earned him an affectionate chuckle, “Chris, he’s already dead. You planning the next virus just to prove a point?”
“What if I do? You came back to me alive and healed, but a part of you was broken in the process. Something that should have never happened. Not to you. Not to anyone. That bastard.” The final word spat against his clenched teeth.
“You wouldn’t do that. Not even for me, Chris. You’re too good of a man. And I’d kill you if you did something that stupid.”
“I’m glad you think I’m a good man, at least. One of us has to.” Chris’ voice trailed off as he leaned into Leon’s soft lips for one more kiss. “Mm…why don’t we go get a hot shower and cuddle for however long you last?” Before Leon replied, he quickly added: “If you tell me he cuddled you, I’ll lose it.”
Leon wrapped his arms around his husband’s broad shoulders. “You’re in luck, handsome.”
“Good. Let’s get you cleaned up. You won’t be lifting a finger. I’d like to take care of you, so long as you’re comfortable.”
After a long, slow shower, Chris led his husband back to their shared bed. He slipped his house shorts on (Leon’s favorite) before he lifted the quilted covers, and patted the spot beside him for Leon to join in.
“Come ‘er, hun.” He held out open arms for Leon to crawl into, and curled him into his embrace. “I’ve got you.”
Leon had dissociated most of their shower. At first, he’d asked Chris to clean him, in hopes of forcing the memory down and replacing it with Chris’ tenderness, but it horrifically failed. He’d never admit it, but Chris felt Leon tremble when he stopped verbally responding to him. That’s when Chris told Leon they were done showering for the night. In their twelve years of marriage, he’d never seen Leon like this. Not once.
Wordlessly, Leon moved into the bed beside his gentle giant and tucked himself into his hairy chest.
“I should have been there to stop him,” Chris finally verbalized, far more stern than intended. “I know you can handle yourself but it should have never happened. It wouldn’t have if you weren’t alone.”
“Do me a favor and stop bringing him up tonight. It’s not helping. I just want to think about you and the kids right now. Anything else but what happened during Raccoon City. Hell, ask me what Rose’s favorite song is or something,” Leon snipped at him, quickly becoming exasperated by his husband’s protectiveness. On a normal occasion, he’d find it quite charming and attractive, but today had been far too emotionally difficult to think about the what-ifs of Chris’ ability to make things easier, had he been there. What was done was done, and his husband couldn’t change that.
Chris raised one hand to move hair from Leon’s face, then curled their bodies closer. “What’s…Rose’s favorite song?”
“Bluey theme song.”
“Right. Obviously,” Chris couldn’t help but smile at the sweet memories of Rose dancing around the living room at the beginning of each episode, grabbing him to join her when Bandit was called, before plopping back into her pink bean bag to intently watch, as if it was the most fascinating thing on the planet.
“And Heather?”
“The H2O: Just Add Water theme song.”
“The song is called Ordinary Girl, but close enough. And not the Hannah Montana song with the same title” Leon held up his pointer finger, which Chris reached out to poke.
“Mm. Right. How could I forget?” Chris adjusted how his opposite arm rested under Leon in an attempt to slow its growing tingling sensation. “She binged the whole first season again while you were gone.”
“Priorities. Jealous. And here I was thinking I was the one having fun, when I could be rewatching mermaids from Australia.”
“It could be worse. They don’t make good television shows anymore. Have you heard what parents let their kids watch when Heather talks about her classmates?”
“Sorry, hold on. Television shows? Chris, I know you’re fifty-four, but that is embarrassing,” Leon cackled against his husband’s curly, dark chest hair and playfully pushed into him with one palm. “Old man.”
Chris snorted with a fond eye roll, “Alright alright, you’re only four years younger than me.”
A devious chuckle emerged from Leon, just before he opened his mouth to tease him further. “What can I say, I like an older man.”
The covers were quickly tossed over Leon, starling him into an array of giggles, the kind that only Chris and the children were privy to, followed by several playful ‘no no no’s as Chris peppered Leon’s stubbled face in smooches.
“Okay, okay, okay. I need to sleep.” Leon placed his palm against Chris’ mouth and held his face up to meet his big, brown eyes. “My body is aching and I’m tired as shit.”
“One more goodnight kiss before we fall asleep?” Chris kissed Leon’s palm and moved one hand to rub where his infection used to fester along his neck. His tender smile was betrayed by Leon tensing under him, wide eyed with fear. He carefully drew his hand away with his jaw clenched. “I won’t ask. As much as I want to, I can figure it out.”
“He—”
The bedroom door creaked open. A little girl sniffled and awkwardly entered the bedroom with a Bluey stuffie in her arms. “Papa…”
“We’re not done with this conversation.” Chris whispered before he slipped out of bed and knelt down in front of his youngest daughter. “Hey, what’s wrong, sweetheart? Did you have another scary dream?”
Rose nodded, nervously wrung her little toes, and squished her plushie close to her chest to ease herself. “M-m-daddy’s home? C-can I sleep with you and daddy? Sissy isn’t up a-and I want papa and daddy.”
Chris whispered something so wonderfully gentle that Leon couldn’t quite make out, before he turned his head for Leon’s approval, who nodded in return. “Papa gets nightmares too. So does daddy. Come on up here, kid. Let’s cuddle those scary things away.”
God, maybe he needed this too. Pure innocence of one of his daughters clinging to him. Safe contact of somebody so small and fragile wanting to hold on because she trusts him. He trusted Chris just as much as his children, but it was different. Nothing the kids could do would remind him of Gideon’s salacious touch.
Rose stumbled over to the edge of Leon’s side of the bed and held her arms up for him.
“Uppies time.” With a grunt, he heaved her over the side and onto the bed, to which Chris soon followed in rejoining. Once she was cuddled up between both fathers, Leon smooched the top of her blonde hair and whispered, “Do you wanna know what your papa and I do when we’re scared?”
“Yeah…”
“We scare them back. We tell them ‘I’m not afraid of you. You won’t win’ until they all start running in fear. I bet they find you pretty scary, right? I would run for the hills if I had to face such a big girl like you.”
“Yeah?” She replied, more sheepishly than before.
“Yeah. And I’ll tell you a big secret. A lot of those scary monsters in your nightmares are afraid of papa and I. They know that when you’re with us, they can’t touch you. Especially not with your other dad watching over in the sky.”
She curled herself further into his arms with a little coo.
“Papa and I won’t let any scary nightmares hurt you.” Leon wrapped his strong arms around her and cradled her head against his heart. “Even when papa and I get scared too.”
“Does…do big sissies get scared too?”
Leon moved one hand to hold her head, impossibly soft, then ran delicate fingers through her blonde hair. “Big sissies get scared just like you, and are very brave too, just like papa and I.”
“And like you.” Chris placed a soft kiss to the back of her head, then gave Leon a quick peck on the lips.
Leon smiled after the chaste kiss and pulled her closer into his hold. “And, I've heard that five is a very scary age for a monster to go up against. You’re already so strong against them. I think you scare them more than they scare you. And they won’t come near you when papa and I are here too.”
When sleep finally found them, Leon held onto Rose like she was a lifeline. They were everything he’d been fighting to come home to, and nothing would take that from him.
“Dad!” Little feet excitedly pattered down the hall. “Dad!” The bedroom door flung open, startling Leon awake. “Dad!”
“Mmm…morning, peanut.” Leon carefully slipped his arm out from under sleeping Rose and moved his body to ease himself out of bed, muscles reminding him just how much pain he was in from days prior. “Come ‘er.”
Heather ran to close the gap between them and flung herself into her father’s arms for a big hug. “Papa said that you got really sick and had to go far away for a special doctor, and that big sis, aunt Claire, and Jill had to leave too. Are you…better?”
Leon raised his once gloved hand he’d always worn around the kids, so they wouldn’t get scared, and wiggled his bare fingers. “Like a million bucks. See? No more glove.” He waited for her to turn her head to watch his hand wiggle a bit more.
“Papa seemed really worried and wouldn’t tell me why he was so scared…he said he wasn’t, but-but I could tell he was sad. He said I was too young and I’d find out when I’m older, but I’m a big girl. I’ll be thirteen next year.”
Leon’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach and moved his other arm back around her back. “I’m sorry, hun. I was very sick, and I was scared to tell your papa how bad I’d gotten until it was too late. We didn’t want you to worry about me, and I’m sorry that scared you more.”
Heather sniffled and tucked her nose into his shoulder.
“Hey…look at me, sweetpea.” When her big, blue, doe eyes met his, he gave her a kind smile. “I love you. So, so much. You’re my little girl, and no matter what happens, nothing will rip that from you. You’ll always be my baby.”
“Were you dying?” Heather bluntly asked, sensing her father dancing around the full truth.
“I…” Leon hesitated before nodding in return. “Yeah, I was. I—we wanted to shield you from what was happening to my body—I wanted you to go to school with a smile on your face, have sleepovers with friends, and have dinner with papa and I without being scared of me dying. Your aunt Claire, your big sister, and aunt Jill were all really sick too. That’s not something a little girl should have to think about.”
“Dad?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Will you tell me what you and papa do for work that got you sick, when I’m thirteen? I can handle it.”
“I’ll talk to Papa about it.” The longer they could protect the girls from the horrors of their work life, the better. Their life was a living hell, most days, and they’d do anything to keep the girls out of it. “But no, I don’t think so.”
In the kitchen, Chris expertly cut up perfect slices of bacon and laid them out on aluminum foil against a pan and slipped a bite of fresh tomato into his mouth. “Mm. Good stuff.”
Heather ran down into the kitchen as Leon trailed behind her with hands shoved into his black house sweatpants.
“Smells good,” Leon chirped up, then stole a bite from Chris’ sliced tomatoes.
“That was for the eggs Benedict."
“I saw you eat one.”
“It’s fine when I do it.”
“Yeay okay.” Leon snorted, reached up to grab Chris’ jaw, then turned Chris’ head to smooch his lips. “So?”
“So. We’re still talking, once Grace and the kids aren’t in earshot.”
“And here I thought you’d forget if we kissed.”
“Doesn’t work like that, baby.” Chris flashed Leon a tiny smirk along one cheek and placed a quick kiss to Leon’s lips. “I want to talk about it so we can work through it together. I’m not good with talking either, as we both know, but this is important.”
Grace perked up from the dining table, where she was patiently waiting for breakfast. “A-about yesterday? If you need to talk about it, it’s okay.”
Leon lifted a hand in her direction, like she’d seen when they first met. “Not that…something private.”
“I understand. But…may I ask something?”
“That depends.” Leon replied with a raised brow, concerned.
“I was looking through files and I…I was curious about something I found.”
Chris slowly set his knife down and gave a nervous glance to his husband.
“It mentioned something about a man named Wesker. He sounded exactly like Zeno, and I was wondering if you knew anything about—”
“—What?” Chris hissed, making Grace stiffen in her chair.
“I-I’m so sorry if that’s a tough subject, um…”
“Chris, don’t raise your voice around Grace.” Leon warned and grabbed his husband’s forearm to give it a firm, grounding squeeze. “He’s dead.”
“It’s bullshit and you know it! First, you come home and tell me that Gideon—” He cut himself off, “—then I find out there’s a goddamn Wesker clone running around and you could have died to him? Why the hell didn’t you tell me? It took us years to kill him and it took a fucking volcano, Leon.”
Grace stared down at her coffee mug, dissociating into shaking hands. “I’m sorry.”
Leon pulled Chris’ arm closer to him and grit his teeth. “What did I just say, Chris? This is why I didn’t want to say anything yet. I won’t have you blow a fucking gasket in front of half the damn family. Yes, knowing about a Wesker clone is a big deal. I thought it would've been better to wait until we were with Jill.”
“You didn’t seem like you wanted to tell me anything last night.” Chris rudely interjected.
“Christopher.” Leon sharply inhaled through his nose. “You know why. Don’t you dare say that.”
That seemed to silence Leon’s husband for the time being. Chris would be apologizing for that one later, like always.
“Finish up breakfast. I’m talking to Grace,” Leon ordered, freed Chris from his strong grasp, pushed himself away from the counter with a huff, and headed over to sit beside his newfound friend…or was she a new daughter? Something more than just seeing his younger, more innocent self in her. “Hey kid.”
“Hey…”
“That coffee cup can’t be that interesting.”
The familiar sensation of his firm hand on her shoulder eased the tension in her muscles, just a bit. “Uh…no, it’s not. Um. I’m so sorry.” She turned her eyes to meet his. “I had no idea.”
“Don’t be sorry. Wesker is just a tough spot for him. Spent most of his younger years fighting that guy. I’d give him two minutes to cool down before he comes over to apologize for frightening you,” Leon glanced over at his husband who was quietly finishing breakfast and far too embarrassed to chime in, then back to her. “He scared you pretty bad though, huh?”
Grace gave him a slow nod.
“Our tempers get the best of us sometimes, but Chris would go to hell and back to make sure you’re safe. There’s a reason I married his stupid face, even if we don’t always get along. He won’t hurt you. As big as he is, he’s a softie, but he’ll never admit that.”
Chris seemed fairly frightening, but if Leon said he was safe, then maybe he was right, even if she felt like he was the human personification of a protective Rottweiler. “So, if you don’t mind me asking: what…happened with Gideon while we were separated?”
Leon released a tired sigh as he soothingly grazed his thumb along Grace’s shoulder blade. “That’s not something I’d like to discuss.”
Grace placed her elbows on the table and stared back down into her pale brown coffee. “He was pretty creepy. I think I can…gather at least a little from that on my own. You never have to tell me anything.”
“Mm. He looked like a scrapped Spirit Halloween animatronic.”
Finally, Grace laughed through her nose, almost a giggle. Chris wasn’t nearly as amused, but Leon knew his husband had a secret smirk on his face.
“His breath smelled like he drank directly from the Raccoon City sewers every day. I’m never letting my kids skip flossing ever again.” Deflecting and ignoring how he really felt was all he knew how to do with difficult emotions. It had a way of making everyone around him cheer up from time to time, but to what end? Processing his hell was easier to stomach if he laughed it off, than it was to become suffocated.
Chris kept himself silent as he plated dishes for each of his family members and the two guests, then set them along the dining table, leaving Leon’s for last.
“Behind you.” Chris warned before he leaned down and wrapped his large arms around Leon’s shoulders to place a kiss just behind his ear. “‘M sorry baby…”
Leon snaked one hand up to rub Chris’ forearm to wordlessly show thanks, until Chris removed himself and pulled out the chair beside him to sit down for breakfast.
Just as Chris made himself comfortable, Leon’s phone rang against the dining table. “I’ll be right back. Kid’s calling.” He stood from the table and exited the living room, then headed to the bedroom where he could talk to his eldest daughter in private.
Chris gave Leon a soft nod of recognition as he left, then turned his attention to Grace. “So, you’re thinking of taking Emily in? If you’d like, Leon and I can discuss adopting her, if need be.”
“I…I would love to be her parent, actually. After everything we went through and how hard I fought to save her, it feels wrong to not be that safe person for her. The way Leon talks about Sherry, it sounds like he felt the same back then too.”
Chris smiled at that. “He loves that kid like she’s his own. Sherry was a bit older than Emily when he and my sister took her in, but the connection still stands.”
The pair took a bite of their breakfast in unintentional unison as they watched the three girls play with Barbies on the living room floor. Heather lifted up a mermaid doll with distressed, wild, pink hair, while proclaiming something about the sea queen. Rose sat on her knees in her rainbow, striped pajamas as she made a failed attempt at shoving a doll into a dress clearly meant for a different doll brand, then smacked it down into the carpet with a frustrated huff. Emily quietly brushed the hair of a rapunzel doll, which Chris thought was a lost cause, but she seemed rather determined.
“This one is the stinky boyfriend, and he can’t be in the house.” Heather giggled and knocked the boy doll off the roof of the doll house. “By orders of the sea Queen, he shall be banished!”
“Oh?” Chris snorted and took another bite of bacon as he watched the scene play out.
“No! Gimmie him!” Rose pouted, already upset from the dress mishap, and now the boy doll—that she hadn’t been paying much attention to or showed interest in—for some unknown reason to everyone else, had upset her to see it flown off the toy house.
Heather grabbed a second girl doll and made it kiss the mermaid, plastic being clanked together. “I can’t believe that man is gone! Ew he was so gross! mmmmwa mwa mwa mwa!”
“Papa!” Rose squealed.
Chris let out a soft sigh from his nose. “Heather, sweetie, hand the mean boy doll to your sister. You’re too big to play rougher with her just yet. She's only five and you just turned twelve. We have to play nice.”
The boy doll was reluctantly returned to the roof off the toy house, and just like that, Rose’s cries turned back into joyful playing, as if nothing happened.
“Cute,” Grace couldn’t help but cast Chris a fond little smile. This wasn’t what she'd expected to go on in Leon’s home at all. He seemed protective of her and Emily, but a father of young kids would not have been her first guess.
“Couldn’t agree more. Those girls are our whole world. A day without hearing that chaos behind me is a day I dread.”
“So…work days?” She shyly asked.
“Yeah. Leon and I are considering retiring soon, so we can finally spend time with our kids. We’re getting too old for our jobs. We can get the job done, but it’s getting harder on our bodies, and frankly, we’re at our wits end. We can’t do this forever, and it’s hard being away from them when we’re out on operations for extensive periods of time. It makes us nervous, even though they are always with people we trust.” Chris pressed his fork into a bite of egg yolk soaked ham and bacon, then bit into it with a pleased hum. At least the food was good.
“I think Leon deserves rest. You too, but after everything I saw him go through, I-I don’t know how he pushed forward. And to have a whole lifetime of that?”
Chris huffed. “Believe me, it’s taken its toll on both of us. He and I have had a rocky marriage, and before that, a difficult friendship. Grief is ugly sometimes.”
Grace nodded along, intently taking in every word, but before the two of them could finish breakfast, Leon returned into the kitchen with a face more pale than Snow White herself.
Leon swallowed as his breathing became uneasy, and tried to contain the bubbling anger under his skin in front of the children. “Chris.”
“Leon?” Grace raised her attention to him from Emily’s breakfast plate beside her. “W-what’s wrong?”
With haste, Chris set his fork down, swallowed his bite of bacon, and got up from his seat to be at his husband’s side. “Hun, what’s—?”
“—They found the kids.”