Chapter Text
PRESENT
Sunflower yellow, tangerine orange, the desert sun.
Who would have thought Pandora's box was so bright inside?
Bloody hands and bloody teeth. Hours to live, if not less. The infection has turned him into every monster he's fought against his entire life, just with his consciousness intact.
Thick blood drips from his mouth—dark, from somewhere deep in his body instead of the bright red it should be.
"WAIT!"
Grace. When he looks up from his crumpled place on the ground, she has a gun to her head. Zeno's, the one he's intimately familiar with pressed to his temple—Grace has it now. Staring at him.
Zeno isn't anywhere to be seen. It's only the two of them here. Leon wants to say her name, call out to her, but the infection has eaten up his throat and he has no more vocal chords. He can only watch, helpless.
"You can't save anyone," she tells him and pulls the trigger. BANG!
Leon bolts up, a cough lodged in his throat from the gasp that makes him choke on his own spit. He heaves a ragged breath and drags a rough hand through his hair, yanking on it.
He pulls until it hurts and then finally releases his strands.
He hadn't woken up when she pulled the trigger. He'd had to watch her body fall. He'd had to stare at her body on the ground, lifeless, while the infection ate away at his body, piece by piece until his own death is what eventually woke him up.
Phantom aches from the infection prick at his skin.
The image lingers behind his eyelids when he blinks.
Leon glances to his left—the bed is empty. Sheets would be cold if he touched them. His eyes sting, and he groans, flopping back down on the bed. His phone is somewhere in the vicinity of his nightstand, so he searches for it until it's in his hand and he's got Grace's last messages pulled up.
Grace: don't pick me up from the airport
Grace: i want to come to you, not the other way around
Leon: If you change your mind, I'll be up early.
Grace: always the early riser
Grace: i won't though. you don't know how much i want this
Grace: to just… come home.
Leon: I get it. See you in the morning.
Between the DSO and the FBI, they haven't had a moment of peace since ARK. Three months of barely seeing each other; an extended assignment, out in the field, except this time he's stuck behind his desk at the DSO with only Sherry to bother.
Sprinkle in Chris Redfield's nosiness about what his team saw when they picked them up and three months feels like an eternity, even to someone who's used to being alone.
THE FIRST 48 HOURS AFTER ARK
3 MONTHS AGO
Leon's been back and forth between Grace and his duties since the Hound Wolf Squad arrived: sorting out extraction for Emily, informing Sherry of the cure for her and ETA of said cure (ignoring the pointed "And how's Grace?"), firing off the locations of key items that could be useful to Chris's team, and getting someone to track down his car for him.
Leon feels great, physically. The intense relief of no chronic pain is so freeing that he really, truly feels decades younger.
The newly invigorated youthfulness makes him feel decades more foolish too.
Grace looks so small and tired under the blanket. Leon's heart aches for her because he knows what she was going through. Rhodes Hill, Raccoon City, ARK… it's seeped into her conscious now. The reality of what happened.
Leon stands closer to her than he should; he touches her more than he should. They're fresh out of a new trauma and he's already pushing the boundaries of what they are. She'd said it down there, hadn't she? The rest of their lives.
There was a time when he thought of spending his life with someone, but it'd been little more than a pipe dream.
And now?
Leon stands so close to Grace that their knees brush. Grace leans closer, like she's drawn to him, even while she holds the warm cup of coffee between her hands with her eyes nearly closing with exhaustion. He brushes a strand of her hair out of her face, tucks it behind her ear.
Grace gives him a small smile that doesn't reach her eyes.
"Hey you," he says softly. She laughs humorlessly. Grace reaches out with a trembling hand, looking for all the world like she wants to hold onto him, but glances at their surroundings and drops it back into her lap. Holds her cup again. Looks lost.
Leon can't stand it, so he's dedicated to some sort of diversion until they were cleared to leave. He reaches into the pouch with the ring, pulls it out and holds it out for her to see.
Grace stills, staring at it.
"All the people you saw in those photos at my place have these. We've all been royally fucked over by someone, be it a corporation or the government, and we've all come out from it on the other side," Leon stares down at the ring with her. "You're part of the club now too."
Grace makes a choked sound and looks up from the ring back to his face.
"Leon," she looks at him like he's crazy. "Jesus, you can't just—" Grace puts the cup down next to her and lifts her hands to her face, pressing her fingers into her eyes. While she sorts out her thoughts, he tugs his glove off and slips the ring on. When she drops her hands, she spots the ring on his finger and snorts an exasperated noise.
"I guess you're right," she concedes. Yeah, he knows he's right. "One condition though."
Leon looks to her, surprised there's a condition on joining a club she's already a member of.
"And what's that?"
"I want yours," Grace says. Leon grins his lopsided smile at her, because that's a no brainer. Easy. "We did this together. I don't want my own. I want the one of the man who saved me." Just as easily as he put the ring on, he slides it off and drops it into her open palm.
"You saved me too," he reminds her. Grace's hand closes around the ring, knowing it would be too big for any of her fingers; pockets it. She gives him a tired, shy smile at his words. Maybe it's the lingering adrenaline or just that he processes the trauma differently—slower—but Leon bends down and kisses her.
The helicopter is on the outskirts of the Hound Wolf camp, but it's centralized enough that there are plenty of people walking around them. To reiterate from before, he feels decades more foolish.
Grace makes a startled noise, but then she presses herself into the kiss, nearly toppling out of the helicopter in her need to get closer to him.
Leon cradles her face in his hands, brushing her cheeks with his thumbs.
They made it. They're alive. They get to figure out the next part of… whatever they are… together.
"Mister—ahem—Kennedy."
Reluctantly, he looks away from her and to the person who interrupted them. One of Chris's squad. They dart a look between Grace and Leon.
"Your car is unrecoverable at present. DSO will take over procurement from here, but you've been approved to take one of ours for now.
"Great," Leon says, turns back to Grace. "Coming with me or hitching your own ride back?" Her face was pink, but she hops out of the helicopter and says,
"Let's get out of here."
The first 48 hours post-ARK are a whirlwind. He takes them to his place in Chicago, they take individual scalding showers, then tumble into bed together and sleep for a solid 24 hours. Until Grace's stomach growls so loud it wakes them both up.
The blush that dusts her cheeks is so endearing that Leon can't help but kiss her. Then kiss her again, and again until an alarm begins going off in the back of his mind that something was off. Not with her, never with her. But with him.
Leon would have preferred to order the food for them—to take care, because that's all he's good at—but he leaves her the task of feeding them so he can sequester himself into the bathroom. Himself and his raging erection. From kissing. Just from a handful of sweet, chaste kisses.
He's fucking fifty years old, freshly gone through a traumatic, life-altering experience and he's so painfully turned on that he had to hide from his—girlfriend? Partner?
Leon's fucked in the head; but he's cured and apparently that means his hormones are back to what they were when he got infected in the first place.
He places his hands against the sink, staring down at the tent in his boxers, contemplating the next steps of this particular disaster. What's Grace going to think about this? She's also just gone through the most traumatic experience in her life—though… Leon's thoughts jump to the Guard Office.
Grace in his lap, demanding things from him that he'd never thought she would want. Their hands on the Requiem together while she took what she wanted—needed, even—from him.
He'd give her anything. She has to know that by now.
Leon glances to the closed bathroom door, then makes a quick decision. He pushes his boxers down just enough to hold himself in his hand.
His hand is dry, the friction almost unpleasant, but it's what he deserves.
The image of her blonde hair, tousled in his bed. Cleaned from the blood and muck of 24 hours ago. If he's being honest, he was into that too. She smells like him now; she smells like them. A full day and night in his bed.
Warmth coils tight in his gut. How stupid is it to be so possessive of her? She's strong enough to stand on her own; she doesn't need him. Leon gasps silently, because that thought sends a pang of sick pleasure through him.
If she thinks she doesn't need him, he'll have to convince her otherwise, in any way he can. She's in his bed already, he can keep her there. Remind her why she might need a man in her life—him, particularly.
His hand strokes himself harder, faster. Just the thought of Grace pliant and needy for him. There's something wrong with his brain, it's been rattled too many times by Tyrants and zombies and drain pipes to the face, but he's thinking about her tight little pussy, wrapped around his cock.
Wet, hot, so fucking soft—she squeezes sometimes. Maybe she does it on purpose, maybe not, but when she was riding him in the Guard Office, she squeezed him over and over and he thought he might see stars. With whatever he's feeling now, he might come just from her doing it once.
Leon might come just from looking at her sweet cunt, how it drips for him, soaked so easily; quickly. He pictures something so obscene it makes him come the second it enters his mind:
Grace, on her knees above his cock. He's worked her up so much that she's dripping—literally, down onto the head of his cock. Her juices creating a tether between them. Her clit, engorged to the touch and maybe she might even squirt—
Leon's orgasm feels like a freight train barreling into him. He barely keeps himself quiet as he comes into his hand. And he's coming and coming and it's a lot.
He pants heavily, his breaths echoing in the bathroom. Leon's brows furrow because what the fuck was all that? That was pornographic to the extreme. He hasn't thought about trying to make a woman squirt since his twenties.
Confusion paints his thoughts in his post-nut clarity. That'd been quick, both in getting hard and coming. He washes his hands, tugs up his boxers, and leaves the bathroom in a haze.
"Hey," Grace greets from where she's laying on the bed, facing the bathroom—waiting for him—looking exhausted and so, so gorgeous. "You okay?"
Leon snaps his gaze from the curve of her hip to her eyes. He makes a noncommittal noise before joining her back in bed.
"You order food?" He asks, trying to steer his thoughts away from the dip of her waist; the meat of her thigh.
"Yeah, Italian. I feel like we might need carbs after all that." All that being ARK, Rhodes Hill, things they should talk about.
"Good girl," he murmurs, distracted by the way she seems to glow in the midday sun that streams around the edges of his curtains. The shirt she wears is too big for her—it's his—and it calls to Leon. Easy access.
He raises his hand to the hem of the shirt, sneaks under it, and alights his fingertips against the soft skin of her stomach. Grace shudders, but doesn't push him away. He touches the bandage on her abdomen and is cruelly reminded that they both almost died.
That she was injured protecting him.
Leon traces the outline of it before moving up. His fingertips brush the underside of a breast.
"Grace, we need to talk," he says. Goosebumps breakout around the gentle touch of his fingers. She makes a wounded noise, and when he looks back up at her face, it's twisted into a sort of denial that he recognizes. Leon relents. "Not now. But… soon."
Tingles race down his arm from where he touches her. His heart races all over again. Leon huffs when he feels himself getting hard again. Too soon; not usual for him.
Grace's delicate hand touches his forearm, down the faint pale lines leftover from the infection. Her touch makes his abdomen clench hard enough to drag a pathetic noise from him. Just barely more than an exhale, but she hears it.
"Oh," she whispers. Leon's about to tell her that just because he's depraved, doesn't mean they need to do anything—she's injured, she's hungry—when she pushes his shoulder roughly and climbs on top of him. He watches the soft twist of pain over her face and panic rushes through him for all of a moment before she's grabbing at his hard cock.
Jesus Christ, when did that happen? And her hand on him makes him painfully harder. Grace is so small over him, drowning in his shirts; he can't even see anything. He can only feel when she reaches into his boxers to pull him out. When she rubs her cunt against the length of him to make herself wet, the smear of her slick makes his hands spasm with the effort it takes not to bust immediately.
He was never this sensitive. At least not for the last twenty years. Leon grips her thighs in a too-tight hold, because when she decides she's wet enough, she pushes his cock into her all on her own.
The walls of her cunt are soft, warm, wet. Tight around him, cradling his cock inside her body.
Pleasure coils tight in his core—so fucking painfully tight—his balls drawn up damn near instantly. Leon knows his body, he just came not ten minutes ago, there's no fucking way—
Grace rolls her hips, her eyes half lidded as she stares at him, admiring him, the look in her eyes too much for him to handle—
"Fuck", Leon chokes out because he's coming already—again—but already. A fucking millisecond inside her perfect little body and his second—second!—orgasm takes him by storm.
Grace's eyes widen as she gently rides him through his orgasm. Her lips parted, surprise written all over his face. It should be embarrassing, truly, it should be. Except she looks even more enamored with him. She keeps him inside her and he thinks he only gets half soft after that. Grace licks her lips, blinks slowly at him, squeezes her cunt around him.
Leon's so far out of his depth here. He should be thrown head first into overstimulation but all he wants to do is fuck up into her again.
"Grace"—
"Wow," she whispers on an exhale. "You've never done that before." That's a fucking understatement. There's been times he hadn't been able to get off at all and he knows she just assumed it was because he was old.
Leon had too though.
"Elpis?" Leon suggests since he apparently can only form one word sentences.
"Mmm maybe," she hums, then leans forward to kiss him. Leon wraps an arm around her, buries his fingers into her hair, and tucks the other between them to rub her clit. Grace stays on him, cunt squeezing him in reward for his good behavior. It's quick work to make her cum while warming his cock. He pinches and rubs her clit in tight circles until she's panting in his ear, fallen over his body in a slump—and then she's moaning his name, saying,
"Oh fuck—Leon," like a god damn prayer. Her body squeezes around him, pulsates in a way that nearly makes him hard again. Nearly, thank god, because what would he do for a third time so soon? Shoot blanks?
But Grace is an angel in his arms. He presses a kiss to her temple and draws a soft laugh from her. Grace pushes up and winces, her hand going to her abdomen. Leon wants to bang his head against the wall for forgetting about her injury already; his brain too clouded in the confusing mix of hormones in his system.
Leon holds her steady as he rolls them over so she's on her back, hair splayed out over the pillow that's unofficially hers now. He pulls out as he does and Grace whines softly.
"I got carried away," he says by way of apology. Grace looks at him like she's amused, then bats his hands away when he begins to check her bandage.
"It was a sore hurt, not real pain," Grace tells him. He's about to argue when a knock sounds at the door. Their food, no doubt, and what absolute ass timing in Leon's opinion.
"Do not get up," Leon instructs as he does exactly that and forces his sore bones out of their bed. "We're eating right here so you can rest."
Grace fights against a smile and burrows under his sheets. Leon makes himself get dressed quickly so he can grab their food from the delivery person.
She ordered a feast, but the moment the scent hits his nose, his stomach growls too, reminding him that there are other things in life than being a horny bastard.
Leon doesn't bother with getting dishware from his kitchen so he doesn't make the detour. They're both hungry enough that eating straight from the styrofoam boxes with plastic utensils is exactly what the doctor ordered.
He brings the bags to his bedroom. Grace sits up, crosses her legs, and tries to smooth out the blanket on top for a makeshift tabletop. Leon takes out the boxes upon boxes, watching from his peripheral as Grace opens them. So many different kinds of pasta. Red sauce, white sauce, cheese filled, chicken Parmesan, garlic bread, a risotto, lasagna, ravioli, a… tiramisu?
Leon pulls out the receipt to check which account she charged it to and just barely suppresses a sigh when he sees her name at the bottom. He wants to kiss her for her stubbornness. Instead, he tosses the receipt to the side and sits next to her on the bed.
They're both so hungry that they don't speak while they eat. They don't even look at each other. Usually they'll have something playing in the background to mask the chewing noises that seem to drive Grace crazy. But now, they're too busy inhaling the carbs, the first thing they've eaten in… what, days?
It's easy to eat, to fall into a food coma, to forget about their responsibilities. To fall sleep half on top of the covers and half under them, Leon starfished across the bed with Grace also starfished with her head pillowed on his chest.
At some point the body heat becomes too much and they separate in their sleep. At some point he wakes up and the sun is still up, while she sleeps soundly on.
He feels like he's going crazy. Genuinely going crazy. She's here, next to him, mouth parted slightly as she naps. The sheets are pooled around her waist; it's still cute to see her drowning in his shirt.
Leon lays on his side, facing her. He's been tracing his fingers along her thigh, unable to keep from touching her. It's soft under his touch, he wants to grab at the inside of it; creep his hand up and up and up. He shouldn't while she's asleep. She needs to sleep—he does too though, but he's too wired. Has been since he woke up.
It's only when her breath hitches that he realizes he's actually done what he'd been daydreaming about. His fingers touch just at the apex of her inner thigh, the warmth from her core teasing. Somehow, it doesn't feel like crossing any lines now that he's here. They've fucked so many times, they've touched and panted and moaned and discovered new… interests about each other. About themselves.
Is touching her over her clothes while she sleeps really a boundary they have? He's woken from sleep to her touching his chest, his abdomen, his face, this can't be too much different. He'd been happy to find her wanting him like that.
Leon traces his fingers gently over the mound of her panties, exhaling sharply from the warmth. He can feel the outline of her clit, the folds of her cunt, the way her legs press together as he gets further back. He teases the fabric over her clit. Back and forth, gentle, soft.
Grace shifts, her legs falling more open. Leon has to clench his teeth together from taking the sleepy involuntary movement as an invitation. It'd be so easy to slip his finger around her underwear, under it, to touch her soft folds.
He wants to push her shirt up and admire her gorgeous little tits, but he refrains. Over the clothes was the deal he made with himself. Until—
Grace's eyes crack open on an exhale. He doesn't stop touching her and she moans softly. She barely looks awake.
"Mm, daddy," she sighs, her eyes closing again, her head tilting away. "Feels good when you touch me." The words are slurred from sleep but Leon feels like she took a sledgehammer to his face from the casual name drop. If he wasn't hard before (which he was), he definitely is now.
Yeah, okay, that feels like she's okay with this. The invitation he was looking for.
Leon's fingers hook the fabric of her underwear finally and tug them down, just enough for access. There's a damp patch already. He groans to himself. Wet already from light petting.
Forefinger and middle, he slides them between her wet folds. Warm, slick, soft. Drags them up to circle her clit. His fingers are too wet for friction so he can't stay on course, but he doesn't want to right now. Leon wants to take his time. Why rush when this is now for him?
She has a pretty pussy, small just like her. He likes that sometimes it looks like his cock is too big for her. Leon likes to watch how her body seems like it's greedy for him; spreads and makes room just for him. Just like now—when he dips a finger into her and her cunt flexes around it.
Squeezing around him even as she dozes? Leon wonders what it'd feel like to press his cock into her like this. He doesn't, not this time, but he does nudge another finger into her and leisurely pumps them. Curls them. Pets her insides.
Grace lets out a breathy moan, her pussy squeezes. Leon presses a kiss to her shoulder, lifts up onto an arm to look down at her.
Gorgeous, far too young for him, far too pure. Yet, his.
Leon alternates between his thumb rubbing her clit and the base of his palm pressed against it. Slow, careful. She's so wet for him that he can hear the sloppy noises his fingers make.
Her brow furrows sweetly. Her body twists toward him, needy for him even now. Leon knows what she looks like in pleasure, and this is it, but muted by sleep.
"Daddy's good girl, hm?" Leon murmurs, his first time saying it out loud. He's always embodied it, she's always said it. He's wanted it—bad. He's wanted what it means: that she relies on him, she turns to him, she wants him for everything. She wants his money. He hasn't convinced her of that yet but god does he want to give it to her.
Saying it to her while she's asleep is a cop out, he thinks. Maybe cowardly. It's a good test though, to see how it feels on his tongue; to see if he can even say it. To say it is to admit it.
He'd taken care of her before ARK—or tried to at the time—he wants the next steps of that now.
His thumb on her clit focuses in finally because he's painfully hard and will give himself blue balls at this rate. Grace whimpers, voice trembling.
Leon watches, eyes half lidded. He breathes heavily through his nose, watching the minute expressions flicker across her face. He's familiar with her body, knows what it feels like to bring her close to the edge. Her cunt is tight around his fingers.
"Next time," he whispers, transfixed on her. Leon feels feral about her, about the thought in his head that he's been forced to spew out from his own perversion. "Next time you'll cum on daddy's cock. Beg for it—oh, baby, to hear you say please, daddy. Drives me wild."
He might just cum from his own filthy words if he's not careful.
Grace cries out, her sweet little cunt pulsing around his fingers when she comes. It wakes her, her orgasm, and her hands go flying down to grab at his forearm. Nails dig in, his cock twitches in pleasure.
"Leon—" Grace gasps, but Leon's so deep in his own hazy lust, he only shakes his head. She blinks heavily at him, catching up slowly. Leon curves his fingers in her, pulls them out, covered in her orgasm. Grace watches as he wipes them on his hard, very neglected cock that peeks out of his boxers.
A big, shy smile spreads over her face. She unlatches from his arm, grabs his head and kisses him. Her kiss is lazy, his is devouring. Leon smears her juices on him, strokes himself, won't ask for more.
Doesn't have to though, because Grace rolls over in bed so her back is to him. She pushes her underwear down further, shifts backwards until her backside is pressed against him. Leon shoves his boxers down carelessly, kicks them off. Why'd they even put clothes back on anyway?
Leon curls around her, arms wrapping tight, legs bumping up against the underside of her thighs. Grace moves her hips, lines his cock up with her sweet little cunt and pushes herself down on him.
She sheathes him wholly.
Leon buries his face into the back of her neck.
The angle isn't enough for him and Grace can tell. She rolls over again, onto her front, and Leon follows, pulling out just long enough to get into the new position. He's plucking at the shirt she still has on, because he wants to see all of her. The slight muscles of her back, the cute dimples above her backside, the endless length of pale skin between the two.
The shirt ends up bunched up around her shoulders. Good enough.
The bandages from her abdomen wrap around to her back. He touches it lightly, just as he'd done to the front earlier that day.
"It's fine," Grace pants. She pushes back against him. "The, um, the soreness is—ah—adding to it."
Leon feels lightheaded as he puts together what she's refusing to say. Again, they're learning things about each other when they're together. His little, budding masochist.
He helps to position her, her legs spread wide around his hips. Leon admires her lean body, her tiny waist. If he wraps both his hands around it, his fingers would just touch. He won't, because he'd squeeze her bandages, so he ghosts his hands up her back, around the bruises there. The leftovers of ARK and their struggles.
Leon lines himself back up and pushes in. Grace moans low. She takes him so well. Leon lowers himself to press his chest to her back, rocking his hips to fuck into her gently, but so deeply.
She makes a wanton noise, her head tilted to the side, face smooshed against the pillow. Leon presses another kiss to her temple, then rests his forehead there, eyes closed.
There'd been a moment in Rhodes Hill where he thought they wouldn't make it out. They have things to talk about: her giving up, throwing the Requiem at his feet. Emily. Grace's first brush with death, then with killing, then with being so willing to trade her life for his. But there'd been a moment, where she was in his sights of the rifle, alone down in the churchyard, and Leon had the wild thought that she could easily not make it out alive.
What would he do then? If he lost her? She's not just another person he'd remember the face of. No, she'd be the main character in his nightmares.
"Grace," he gasps, hips snapping hard, his navel slapping against her ass. She whines, her hands turning into little claws to grasp at his bedsheets. Leon softens his next thrust, meaning to be gentle with her. Deep, slow thrusts. Not the animalistic fucking he wants.
Later. They have a later now.
Measured rocking into her—her cunt still wet for him. To be young and constantly horny. Leon half hopes this side effect of Elpis doesn't last for himself.
His back can't take this much fucking, honestly.
Leon slides a hand up the bed and grabs hers in his. Their fingers thread together, sweaty and hot.
"Leon, oh god," Grace moans. She moves with him, small, tiny movements where they rock together. He holds onto her tight. "I-ah-I-I think I love you."
He buries himself deep in her, as deep as he can from this angle. Grinds himself inside her.
They're both too fucked up for admissions like this. He's forty-nine, he knows this. Two days ago they were going to die in Pandora. They slept for a solid 24 hours. They're hopped up on oxytocin and Elpis and raging hormones.
Grace saying it now of all times should sting, because there's no way it's close to the truth, but his is. His confession is the exact truth.
"You are everything, Grace," Leon growls at the base of her skull, her hair ticking his nose. She chokes on a moan. "Fucking everything and I'm never letting you go."
She gasps, her cunt clamps down around him, and her orgasm draws another one of his from his fucking soul. He buries himself deep, stays there as they come together. Leon wants to collapse on her, but he gathers whats left of his wits to roll them together so they don't separate.
This time, he'll stay inside her as they fall asleep for another exhausted nap. This time, when they wake again, they'll both be so, insanely sore, but still won't have enough of each other. They won't be tired of each other even when they're pulled away by their jobs and duties—interrogations and evaluations and reports and debriefing.
They'll kiss until the last moment when she steps out his door and his phone dings with a message from Claire. Then Chris.
PRESENT
So of course the ring had been blown out of proportion. Chris's messages range from inquisitive to threatening, though Leon began to ignore him after the first couple messages when he couldn't convince Chris that, no, Leon hadn't gotten engaged immediately after a life threatening event.
No matter how long they've known each other, he can't seem to convince Chris that he's not completely a fuck up. Not anymore.
He's gotten close to becoming the mess Chris found him decades ago, but he hasn't ever gotten to that level yet.
His phone dings again with another message. One of the group chats he's in.
There's the whole set of them. There's 'the girls' that Leon is inexplicably part of. There's a guys chat, there's a group chat with everyone except for one specific woman, there's enough chats that they drive him crazy on a good day. He's created none of them, and yet he keeps getting invited to them. All he can offer them in shitty one liners that only ever earn him eye-rolling emojis or thumbs down reacts.
Yet, they refuse to let him leave.
All of the group chats have questions about Grace. Leon's not ready to provide any answers yet.
Leon doesn't look at his phone. Grace has a specific noise assigned to her.
He drags his sorry ass out of bed. Goes jogging on the treadmill in his garage-turned-gym, takes a shower, checks his phone obsessively even though he knows Grace hasn't messaged him, makes coffee.
Morning is when she lands. That doesn't mean she'll arrive any time soon though. Leon sits at his dining room table and sighs at the idea that he's simply waiting for her to arrive. Is he pining? Does this count as pining?
He's bout to fall into an emotional black hole when the from door's lock clicks. The lock turns, the door swings open. The sound of a rolling bag on his hardwood has him standing, and there Grace stands with a haggard smile on her face and a box of pastries in her hand.
"Morning," Grace greets. She looks like she'd just gotten off an airplane and took a stressful twenty minute taxi ride from the airport to his house. Hair a mess, a little sweaty, a little frazzled. She looks like heaven and Leon smiles a wide, lopsided smile at her.
"Hey you."