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Being Chris Redfield was the most confusing thing for him.
It helped to have a name, it helped to have pictures, it helped to have proof of who he was, but as the born Chris Redfield, he had a hard time actually feeling like the name actually fit because— there was something else, something important, maybe even someone. Piers Nivans had filled Chris in on just about everything the younger man had thought Chris had needed to know, but learning of his sister didn’t fill that confusing void, and when Chris had asked if he was in a relationship, Piers had said that Chris didn’t have a girlfriend and that—
Why was that so confusing?
Even amidst this actual fucking hell, in China with a soldier at his side swearing his life to Chris when Chris could barely remember the man’s ticks and habits and thoughts and dreams, Chris was scared. Of course he was scared, but he was just so confused that he couldn’t think straight during moments of peace. There was something missing, something vital to who he thought Chris Redfield was as a person. Every harsh word he sent into Piers, every time he pushed the man too far and made the poor man bare his teeth and face down someone he should be able to trust, Chris felt worse and worse and worse and there was something in the back of his mind that insisted only one thing could make him better, could make him good, could make him Chris. He just didn’t know what that could be.
He didn’t have a girlfriend. Chris Redfield didn’t have a girlfriend. It felt wrong, and he hated it, hated how off centered and confused he was in his own body. There just— it was a house without its foundation, his shambled mind without the glue that held his sanity in one piece. There was something, someone out there that could help Chris feel like himself again, there had to be, but Chris didn’t even know where to begin looking for it. There was no mention of a woman and even on the plane here, when Piers had been mentioning names of Chris’s friends, the Jill Valentine and Rebecca Chambers and Sheva Alomar, none of them filled that void, not even coming close. And now Chris was in China, overrun by horrible creatures that had haunted his nightmares as faceless shadows. He wasn’t sure he’d survive this to find who that someone had to be.
And now here Chris was, running after the sling-shot happy villain in the middle of a research facility that looked just as ruined as the city outside. “Don’t lose her!” he ordered to Piers, his own voice so gruff and angry that he still had trouble recognizing it. Piers dutifully answered, he always answered, and as he and Piers sprinted after the woman cross a metal walkway, Chris almost thought he heard voices and footsteps overhead.
That didn’t matter— ahead, Chris saw Ada Wong burst out from behind a door. “There she is,” he growled. “Cut her off!” He and Piers darted down separate gratings, gunning for her as quickly as their heavy armor would allow.
“I’ve got her!” Piers declared, and Chris dug his boots in, sprinting after the woman. She sped across a walkway, that case swinging in her hands, and a huge window lit her up just behind. There was the quick spit of gunfire, Piers shooting with his H&K UMP9 at the ground in front of her to have the woman stopping in her tracks. Chris came up right behind her, his own Bushmaster ACR up, and fought down a malicious smile as the woman’s eyes darted between them both, realizing she was cornered.
Ada Wong met his eyes. Stared into him, stared into the remnants of his soul, stared into him like she knew exactly why she was hated and didn’t care. None of this shit meant anything to her, none of the lives she’d ruined, none of the people she’d killed and forced into agony with these disgusting viruses. She stared him in the eye without a hint of shame and Chris knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she was the most evil person he had faced since waking up as a shell of himself.
Chris squeezed the trigger—
A strong blow smacked Chris’s gun out of his hands, the shots spraying too high, a masculine grunt escaping Chris’s newest opponent with the effort. Fury laced through Chris, as animalistic as always and more familiar than Piers Nivans. As Chris lashed out with his right arm, the man grabbed Chris’s Nine-Oh-Nine from the holster at his waist and then stepped back, swung his leg slow through the air for Chris to easily duck beneath. The man stood tall, showed Chris too much of his front. Chris swung his elbow around, trying to connect with this asshole’s thick fucking skull, rage making his vision blur. His throw was blocked and he was momentarily impressed by the strength, but hated too much to care. He grabbed the man by the shoulders and slammed his knee into the man’s chest once, twice, and went for a third, but was suddenly thrown off by a backwards swipe from the other man.
Chris arched back, narrowly avoiding another throw, realizing that this man had been holding back his hits in the beginning and still was. The blows were at his face, non-vital regions, whoever this was— a face he couldn’t see with the lights outside—wasn’t trying to hurt Chris, he was trying to stun him.
Fuck that.
Chris went low, grappling the man around the waist— taking his gun back— charging forward and taking the man with him. His sheer weight alone could throw off the most skilled soldier, and yet this man planted his foot and swung Chris around, taking the momentum away, using his own weight to try and bring Chris to the ground. Chris held himself up with his right arm, then shoved himself up and shoved the man off. An elbow was thrown back, the man still trying to stun him rather than hurt. Chris grabbed both arms and pinned them behind the man’s back against Chris’s chest, trying to hold him too firm to be thrown. But the man— jesus, what a hell of a man— slipped Chris’s grip and swung around, getting his arm around Chris’s neck and trying to get him in a chokehold, but again, it was too light, this guy didn’t want to hurt Chris, who the fuck—
Stop asking questions, stop trying to make sense of things, Chris needed to kill Ada Wong. He broke the light chokehold and grabbed the man by the waist and by the arm, launching him over his back. The man rolled gracefully across the floor and caught himself easily with his boot to the grating. Chris tore his Nine-Oh-Nine from the holster again, listened to the man do the same behind him, turned around and whipped up the gun and stared down the barrel into the face of—
Blue eyes stared into him, shoulders heaving, breath coming in short, familiar gasps, a voice smokey and smooth as a memory saying, “Chris?”
Blond hair, pale skin, an expression that made him ache with homesickness. There was a name, a name Chris knew better than his own, it was at the tip of his tongue.
“Leon!”
Something flashed through those blue eyes, something like pain, worse than Chris had ever felt. It was confusing how easily he could read this man, how intimately he could empathize. There was something clinging to Chris, something that was pulling at his clothes, at his mind, and it smelled like aftershave and sounded like warmth and felt like home. Chris’s grip on his gun suddenly felt clammy and unsure. So he barred his teeth and got angry again. “What are you doing here?”
Chris sounded desperate. He sounded scared. Why was he scared for this man? Leon, Leon, who was Leon, was Leon—
Feet slammed across the grating behind him, graceless and young, the click of a safety being drawn just behind him. Chris watched Piers hold his weapon more firmly, turning his sights onto whoever was behind Chris. Ada took a step back, just watching, calculating, collecting data like the cold hearted bitch she was. And Leon— and Leon just kept watching Chris like he was feeling too many things far too fast.
Leon took in a shaky breath. “Put your gun down, Chris.”
—There was something, an image, a taste, a sound, blond hair twisting in his peripherals followed by the faint sensation of touch, fingertips grazing along the sensitive skin of the inside of his wrist, wet lips pressed to his cheek, there was the sound of laughter that sounded like bells or something equally as beautiful that Chris wasn’t smart enough to name—
“She’s a key witness,” Leon continued, unaware that he was shattering the ground beneath Chris’s feet, but somehow looking like he was experiencing the same upending of his world. “We need her.”
—“I need you,” three soft words whispered so sweetly into Chris’s jaw, the seat beneath Chris’s hand suddenly uncomfortable now that he knew he could be leaving as that voice went on, “Let’s get out of here.”—
Chris shook himself, focusing on the insane shit Leon was spouting. “A witness?!” he repeated, letting his hatred for Ada Wong bleed into Leon. “She’s the one who did all this!”
“No,” Leon denied firmly, so firm that Chris felt himself swallow an interruption and an argument. “It wasn’t her— it was Simmons, the National Security Advisor.”
Leon— Leon, understand, Leon needed to understand, Chris needed Leon to know why Chris was like this, why he was angry, why he was after this woman’s head, Chris didn’t know why Leon needed to know, but he did, he did, Leon needed to know tell him—
“I lost all my men because of her!”
“And I lost over seventy thousand people!” Leon cut in with just as much fury as Chris, just as much sense. “Including the president,” Leon said, and why did that mean more? Adam, wasn’t someone important named Adam? “Because of Simmons.”
Chris’s gun wavered in his clammy hands. Leon was staring into him just like Ada Wong had, but this time there was so much more, something heavier, something familiar—
—Hands clasped, a thumb soothing across his knuckles, a deep voice in his ear promising he was home, he was okay, the bombs weren’t falling, the undead weren’t clawing at his skin, Wesker was gone— Wesker, who was Wesker?— lips trailing across his skin again, gentle and comforting and grounding, swearing on a life that was more precious than Chris’s own that Chris was safe—
Behind Leon, Ada Wong’s lips tilted in the tiniest of smirks.
Chris looked to Leon and begged for the man to understand him as he said, “She’s working for Neo-Umbrella. You know what that means?”
Leon nodded. That voice— “Yeah, I do.”
How could— Leon was supposed to be one of the good guys, why— Chris swallowed hard and narrowed his eyes, tried to figure out why it hurt so much to know Leon would point a gun at him and choose Ada fucking Wong over Chris. Then Chris stopped trying to figure it out and asked, “And you’re still going to protect this woman?”
For a moment, Leon— Leon looked ashamed of himself. “I am.”
Outside, a searchlight passed through the glass, shining across Leon’s face.
—Hands again, always those hands, lifting Chris to his feet, that voice in his ear pleading with him to stand and move, that they could stop soon, that Leon would stop the bleeding, that he’d stop the end of the world, Chris just needed to stand and move and Leon would do it all, just stand, Chris, stand, stay alive, keeping going, I can’t lose you here—
Chris came back to himself and couldn’t breathe.
“Captain!”
Piers’s cry had Chris and Leon both turning— Leon went low, Leon thought he could be under attack, he didn’t trust Ada Wong— and looking in unison, straight into the blinding white of the flashbang Ada Wong tossed carelessly onto the floor. The sound of distress Leon made had Chris’s heart slamming in his chest.
Chris got his vision back in time to see Ada Wong vaulting herself from the ceiling with her stupid grappling gun, landing smoothly on the ground two stories beneath them. “Freeze!” Piers screamed as he aimed at her from above. The woman ignored Piers, darting away, and Piers fired. Every bullet rattled against metal and Ada Wong was gone again. “Damn it!”
The young man looked to Chris for guidance. Then Piers was running after Ada Wong, ever the good soldier. The person who’d been behind Chris— a woman who looked younger than Piers, brunette and bruised— ran after Piers, Leon putting an arm out to stop her, shouting, “Helena!”
“He’s gonna kill her!”
“Nivans!” Chris bellowed, scooping up his gun. He ran for where the younger man had stalled in his tracks, dead set on being the one to kill Ada Wong, but a hand slammed into his shoulder.
“Chris, wait!” Leon cried out, holding him in his place, brow twisted with something like desperation. Leon pushed Chris back and Chris— let him, he let himself be moved, let Leon put him wherever he wanted. Leon ducked his head, bangs casting a long shadow across his shapely features. That deep voice went even deeper as Leon said, “We both want the same thing here.”
—“I want you, Leon.”—
Chris’s own voice stopped his heart. He felt sick as he remembered he’d had his gun in Leon’s face only moments ago. “Alright,” he told Leon, wanting to make Leon happy, wanting to give in. “The BSAA will handle Ada. You take care of Simmons.”
Those blue eyes bore into Chris and searched him for a lie. Chris was terrified to know he would never lie to Leon. A question ached on Chris’s lips, a need to know who Leon was to him. The weakness of needing to know was scarier than monsters. Chris pushed past Leon, heading to where Piers was waiting for him, heading for Ada Wong and the only purpose he’d ever known when—
“Chris.”
On command, for Leon, Chris stopped dead in his tracks. Then he turned and looked at the man from over his shoulder.
Backlit by neon and fire, outlined in an ethereal, synthetic glow, Chris looked at Leon S. Kennedy and remembered his name without having to be told.
Leon wet his lips. “I know you—”
—Skin against skin, sweat and tears, hands clinging to Chris like the other man was drowning, Leon trembling against him and crying, why was he crying, Leon, baby, don’t cry, Chris was coming home, he was going to come home, he always came home, “But what if you don’t?” why would you ask that? “I can’t lose you, Chris,” and neither could Chris lose Leon, why was he crying, please don’t cry, don’t cry, it hurts, the explosion, his men screaming, dying, Leon’s name a ghost on his lips, it hurts, don’t cry—
“— Will do the right thing.”
Chris stopped breathing as he remembered the taste of Leon’s pulse against his lips, and suddenly Chris realized that he had another purpose in this life beyond the killing of Ada Wong. “Nivans!” he roared, suddenly striding away from Ada Wong and towards Leon S. Kennedy, his boots hard on the grating, his hands no longer clammy but shaking with anticipation as he set a timer on his watch. There was a door at the end of the way, a door with a lock. He grabbed Leon by the upper arm and yanked him away from Helena, away from the window, away from the others, to the door with the lock. “Ten minutes! Cover me!”
“Y-yessir?”
A question more than an affirmative, but Chris didn’t care. Leon struggled halfheartedly in Chris’s grip, shouting, “Hey!” when Chris threw the door open and threw Leon inside, slamming the door shut behind him and locking it, knowing Piers would be as loyal as he always was. Leon whirled around on light feet, the blue almost flashing red with indignation. “What the fuck is your problem—”
Chris grabbed Leon by the shoulders and slammed him against the windows that lined the wall of this room as well, listening to the glass shudder as Leon’s body collided. Leon let out a noise of surprise and his brow furrowed as he stared at Chris, on edge but not pulling away, not trying to defend himself, Leon would never hurt him—
“Chris?” Leon called out gently, sounding not scared of Chris, but for Chris. “Are you okay? I-I heard from the BSAA, your head isn’t in the right place, if there’s something going on we can get Piers and he’ll—”
“I don’t want Piers,” Chris interrupted. “I want you.”
The concern was washed away and replaced with such bone deep relief that Chris felt like crying himself. Especially when he saw the wetness brimming in Leon’s eyes and the shaky smile that tugged at those beautiful lips. “You remember me.”
Chris surged forward and kissed the man, the confusion ebbing away into absolute nothing when Leon immediately met the kiss with familiar, all-encompassing passion. Leon knew him, Leon knew Chris, and this man was the missing link that Chris had been searching for all along. Not a sister, not a girlfriend, his lover Leon. Chris gasped into the kiss and grabbed Leon by the hips, lifting him with adrenaline and need surging in his veins. The other man braced himself on the window ledge, aiding Chris with the lift, Leon showing off his own strength in getting his legs around Chris’s waist and holding himself up with his thighs.
“The mission,” Leon gasped between them even as he pressed every inch of himself against Chris. “Ada—”
“Fuck it,” Chris growled into Leon’s mouth. "Fuck all of that— been gone how long? Six months?” He didn’t remember missing Leon, but he knew he did, knew it was the only way he could have felt. Leon’s mouth was wet against his own, the other man kissing him back desperately between words. “I’ve got ten minutes. Let me make it up to you.”
“You fucking jackass.” Leon hiked himself up with his leg around Chris’s waist, one hand coming down to hold himself up against one of the metal section bars that paneled the windows, the other hand reaching to his front, undoing his belt buckle expertly. “You better be fucking sorry for how you left me.”
“I know I will be,” Chris said. He kissed Leon harder, tasting the man’s desire and shivering as Leon’s tongue pressed against his own, searching deeper like it wanted to re-learn and solidify that Chris was still Chris. Chris reached below to yanked Leon’s pants down the swell of his ass, slipping his fingers between the cheeks and—
“Jesus, fuck, hey!” Leon’s sharp cry and sudden jolt away from Chris’s hand had Chris’s brow furrowing in confusion. Leon looked pissed, but as Chris continued to fail to understand, the anger in the blond died away to something understanding. “Guess you aren’t all back,” he said, somehow more gorgeous, backlit by the city, a caring smile across his lips, more beautiful than Chris’s shaky memories of being inside the man and pulling him apart, inch by inch. “Here,” Leon said, leaning back and arching his spine, putting three fingers in his own mouth and sucking on them. Chris watched in befuddled arousal, staring at the flex of Leon’s throat. Then Leon pulled his fingers from between his red lips and slid them back behind his body. “Let me show you— just until you remember.”
Then Leon’s expression fell into something almost blissful and Chris pushed his hand back beneath Leon’s body to feel. The slow movement of Leon’s wrist as he fucked himself with those wet fingers had Chris trembling with the strain of holding back. His brain insisted he needed to be inside Leon, his memories screamed for it like the monsters Chris killed, but if Chris ever hurt Leon in his violent lust—
“Oh fuck,” Leon gasped, breaking Chris from his awful thoughts. He smiled shakily up at Chris and Chris felt his wrist move faster. “Look at me,” Leon asked of him, pupils black and overtaken the gorgeous blue. “Look at me when I touch myself. I’ve missed you so much.” Leon stretched upwards and kissed Chris, sweet and shaky, almost gentle like he was scared to move too fast. And Chris fed off the kiss, laid his hand over Leon’s fingers that were pushing inside himself, felt the slick that was spreading along that hot furl of muscles that clenched so tight around those slender digits. Leon moaned into Chris’s mouth and a memory—
— Yearning and taking, skin on skin under the sheets with rain pounding against the roof above them, water dripping between cracks in the ceiling, the bed beneath them wobbly and broken by air strikes and weeks of decay and disuse, Leon beneath him and keening softly as his hips rolled onto his own fingers, the desperation in Leon’s eyes like a fire as he tried to keep moving but was too overwhelmed, too high with the pleasure, too far gone as his spine bowed and he came across his chest, staining Chris’s vest and the gear and laughing as Chris groused about the rain not being hard enough to wash it away—
“Chris?” Lips on Chris’s heated face brought him back and the black was suddenly blue again, concern overtaking arousal. He felt Leon’s fingers pull out of himself and somehow knew that meant the man was ready, even if he was preoccupied. “Chris, are you—”
“Get my pants open.” Chris didn’t mean to interrupt, but if Leon managed to get the question in the air, if he actually managed to ask if Chris was okay, Chris had no idea what would come out. He just knew that his body ached and as he pressed his fingertips bluntly to Leon’s entrance, rubbed the slick opening and felt like shudder against him, Chris realized he had been generous giving himself ten minutes. Leon laughed again, this time breathless and beautiful in how Chris saying something like this was familiar to Leon. Leon reached forward obediently, pressing the heel of his palm into Chris’s bulge and—
“Shit,” Chris choked out, leaning forward, pressing their foreheads together. “Leon, please—”
“Don’t be such a baby,” Leon chided, rubbing Chris through the stiff fabric of the BDUs. Then, almost shy, “When your head was gone, did you ever…”
The trail off said enough, and Chris felt a lingering pang of guilt. He had been with people, when he’d been out of his mind and broken with a grief he didn’t understand. His body had said sex would help, but that had failed because the sex hadn’t been with the right person. Faceless women that didn’t make sense, even in Chris’s re-stitching memories, and warm bodies that he wanted to love but couldn’t, like something inside of him was broken. His everything had wanted Leon, and he’d only had those people that he hadn’t treated badly, but not with the love that every human being deserved.
Chris’s silence said enough. Leon brought a hand up and held Chris’s face, his thumb stroking the scratchiness of Chris’s jaw. “Then take me,” Leon whispered. “Be mine again. I never stopped being yours— I was just waiting.”
Acceptance hurt worse than the guilt because Chris knew he didn’t deserve forgiveness, let alone acceptance. But Leon cradled Chris’s face like he was still loved and that felt like the end of the world for him. “I’m sorry,” he said because he felt like he had to. Leon shook his head and pressed his thumb into the bottom of Chris’s jawline, into his pulse.
“It happened,” Leon said, soft and absolving. “It can’t be unwritten. And it wasn’t Chris Redfield who did it.” He brings his thumb across Chris’s skin, the calloused pad catching on Chris’s bottom lip. “You made me wait six months— don’t let an anchor of conscience keep this from me too.” The thumb dug in and Chris showed his teeth. Leon grinned. “You had all those people before, but were they enough? Don’t you want me, baby?”
He couldn’t take it— Chris gripped Leon’s hips hard enough to bruise, already strung out as Leon got the zipper down on his pants and fished Chris’s cock from the confines of the pants. Leon’s nimble fingers danced expertly over the hard length, teasing the sensitive skin and smiling at the way Chris twitched. “Can’t wait to get you home,” Leon breathed. “Show you just how well I know every inch of you.”
“Leon,” Chris whined, embarrassed by the need in his voice but unable to force it away if he tried. “Can you take it?” He was big, some of his shotty partners had refused to fuck simply from the size alone. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
Leon scowled. “I’ve been fighting through hell all my fucking life, been facing monsters for the past day, I crashed a fucking plane, if you think I can’t take a cock up my ass, then you’re just—”
Chris shut him up, letting go of Leon’s hips to take his cock and pushing inside of Leon. The overwhelming heat and tightness of Leon’s body shoved the air from Chris’s lungs. His lashes fluttered as the pleasure hammered in his chest, but he forced them open again, wanting to see—
“Chris,” Leon choked out, jaw slack, brow twisted upwards in a mixture of bliss and relief as black overtook blue again and his hips stuttered upwards into nothing. Chris forced his brain to work again and snuck his hand into Leon’s slacks, pulling out the man’s cock and feeling his hands start to shake again as he touched Leon, the long shaft slick and burning in his palm, the tip scarlet and beading with precum. It was almost as gorgeous as Leon’s face, the high flush on Leon’s cheekbones matching the fires outside. A memory—
—Far away, lost, stuck in some small town waiting for evac and nothing but time to kill, knees aching from where they were planted on the dirt floor, but the pain meaning nothing against the sensation of Leon’s cock in his mouth, stretching his lips wide, fucking down his throat, forcing him to take it because that was what he liked, Leon’s hands in his hair, the smokey voice high pitched and begging and the splash of cum across his tongue, Leon crying out—
“Come back,” Leon said, his smokey voice now so much like it had been then. “Come back and fuck me.” That gentle hand comes out again, taking Chris’s jaw, caressing like Chris was something precious. “Stay with me— here.” The hand disappeared and Leon braced himself on the metal beneath again, rolling his hips, eyes slipping into the back of his head as Chris dragged across something that had Leon shaking. “Oh god— please, Chris, just stay and be with me.”
Chris felt fire in his veins and drove his hips forward, a noise fucked right out of Leon, high pitched and unexpected. The sound was music to Chris’s ears, months of being deprived of this man, of the man that was meant for him, making Chris wild with desire. “Oh I’m here,” Chris reassured him, his voice low and rumbling through his chest into Leon. He slammed his hips again, jolting Leon, relishing the whimper. “No where else I could be.”
Leon smiled, breathlessly and shaky, and arched his spine invitingly. “Fuck me, Chris,” he begged. “I need you.”
Chris Redfield, apparently, never knew how to say no to Leon, and he didn’t want to. He bent over Leon and kissed him as he fucked him, pushing Leon into the window, the neon behind overwhelming his vision and turning Leon into a refuge of comforting shadow as they gasped into each other’s mouths. The snap of Chris’s hips had Leon moaning raggedly with every push and pull, his body like a vice around Chris’s cock and more familiar than his own skin. Leon’s arms shook with the effort of keeping himself up, not giving Chris all of his weight, not leaving everything to him and him alone. The tiny, almost meaningless action of helping Chris hold him up had Chris’s heart twisting with something he could finally identify—
Love.
It was love, and Chris was in love with Leon. And this made sense. The confusion was gone, the fear and the ache and the emptiness just nothing now that he had the missing piece of the puzzle, the sound of Leon’s voice and the sight of his smile slotting into place in Chris’s hemmed psyche.
“I love you,” Chris whispered into Leon’s mouth, the touch of their lips brushing as Leon was shoved upwards with every thrust. The wanton noises of Leon’s pleasure bled into Chris and soothed his anxieties. No matter what happened, no matter how this world survived or ended, Chris would always have Leon. Leon sobbed into him and writhed as a particularly aimed thrust drove even deeper, Leon’s eyes slipping into the back of his head. “I love you, Leon.”
“F-fuck,” Leon stammered, words broken by the thrusts. “I-I love you, I love you too, Chris.” A hand came up and tangled in Chris’s hair, pulling him close as Leon’s expression contorted with ecstasy. “Oh fuck, yes, Chris, yes,” he babbled, trying to move with Chris’s thrusts, trying to ride him, his cock bobbing against his stomach, precum dribbling down the side of the shaft, staining the inner-lining of his slacks. He was close, Chris could tell in the tremble of his thighs around Chris’s waist, in the way his voice pitched higher and higher, how he kept trying to find some sort of friction, his cock bright and angry and pleading. The realization that not only did Leon know Chris, but Chris knew who Leon was—
Leon took Chris’s hand, the one covered in Leon’s own cum, brought the palm to his gorgeous, swollen mouth and dragged his tongue through the mess on Chris’s tongue, swallowing his seed down, looking Chris dead in the eye the whole time.
Chris lurched forward, kissing Leon so hard their teeth clacked painfully and Leon almost wailed into his mouth, struggling to breathe past the way Chris was ravaging him with his body and tongue. The oxygen deprivation he could feel in Leon’s short breaths only labored more when Chris got his hand on Leon’s cock, a thrill running through him at the touch alone, stroking Leon and feeling the man writhe and wind himself tight and cum hard into Chris’s hand, the release catching on Chris’s palm and fingers. The fucking sound Leon made, loud and feral into Chris’s lungs, and then the broken, ruined sound of Leon’s voice when he whispered, “I’ve missed you,” had Chris careening off the edge, bracing himself against the window with his skull, teeth in Leon’s neck as he had the sense of mind to pull out quickly before he came inside Leon.
His ragged breathing filled the room alongside Leon’s, who kept his hand in Chris’s hair, the other hand supporting himself so Chris didn’t have to, and murmuring soft words, phrases of love and endearment and assurance, telling Chris he was safe, that the world was still in one peace so far, that they were both alive and nothing was going to keep Leon from him ever again and that—
There was a knot in Chris’s throat as something simultaneously fulfilling and awful washed over him. He wet his lips and said, “I was going to ask you to marry me.”
Leon’s words fell silent— the hand didn’t leave Chris’s hair.
“I was going to ask,” Chris continued, his voice raw. “I, I was going to get down on one knee. I had reservations at this place— at, at Sterling, this steakhouse I found on the Gatineau River, I had reservations and the staff knew what was happening, we had the best table on the patio that overlooked the water and no one else was going to be allowed on there all night cause you hate crowds and there was— Jill and Piers were going to be sitting at another table, totally undercover, they’d both had the outfits they were gonna wear planned for weeks. Piers was going to have a camera to take pictures of the moment and Jill was there for moral support. The moment when I kissed you and pulled out the champagne I bought for the moment with the ring tied to the neck of it and the moment when I went down on me knee and— and I had vows, Leon, I wrote them for months, Barry helped me, I had vows, and I was going to ask you to…”
Chris cut off, his eyes inexplicably wet. Leon carefully lowered his legs back down to the floor. He’d done up their pants and cleaned Chris’s hand off to the best of his ability, listening carefully to the words that were making Chris’s voice shake. A voice that hitched almost like he was crying as he continued, saying, “That fucker pawned the ring. I woke up, didn’t know who I was, and I pawned the fucking ring so I could get money for booze. I kept it on me because I never— I never knew if it would suddenly be the end of the line for me. I kept it in case I had to hand it to Piers and tell him to deliver this to you along with the flag and my tags. I had it and I lost myself and I fucking pawned it.”
“Hey.”
Leon took Chris’s face in his hands again and made him meet his eyes. The endless blue eyes peered into Chris like they were seeing into his soul and reading his sins and deciding he was worth forgiving. Chris leaned into the touch, into Leon, and blinked away the tears because he didn’t want to cry in whatever time he had left with Leon. Then Leon smiled at him, soft and loving and like a benevolent god. “Yes,” Leon said.
Chris blinked. “What?”
“Yes,” Leon said again, leaning in to kiss him, dragging their lips together. “I’ll marry you. I don’t even need a ring. But I gotta tell you, baby, I’ve got a spare tucked away in the spices cupboard if you’d rather use that.”
Chris blinked again, stunned as he failed to kiss Leon back. “Y-you mean—”
“I was going to ask you on New Years,” Leon murmured, sad and tired. “Nothing big like you had planned, mind you. I knew we’d be invited into the BSAA for whatever party they had planned. I wanted to propose in front of all of them. I wanted your family to be part of the moment too.” Leon looked almost regretful. “I always wished I’d planned to propose the day I bought the ring because I never knew if I would get you back.”
Chris digested this slowly. “… The spices cupboard?” The smallest cupboard in the kitchen holding all of the different flavorings Leon loved to use when cooking for Chris and himself.
Leon smiled again, a little wider. “Had to put it somewhere you wouldn’t look. You can’t even spell amchoor.” Chris had no idea what that was. “Gotta say, it’s been hard to even think of opening that cupboard these past six months. My food as been so fucking bland.”
“God forbid,” Chris teased with a snort. “Leon S. Kennedy making a tasteless meal? Unheard of.”
Leon’s gaze softened. “You really do remember me,” he said wistfully. That hand tangled in Chris’s hair again, and he was drawn in for another kiss, the taste of the other man so comfortingly familiar that Chris couldn’t believe he’d gone six months without this and somehow survived himself. He pressed Leon against the glass again, their bodies slotting together, aches and pains still at large in his list of growing problems, but to Chris, it was better to try and fail and die knowing he’d had Leon one last time after everything than to face down the devil and wonder what he could have had. “Swear to god,” Leon said into him. “Once this is over? I’m never letting you out of my sight.”
Chris grinned. “We work for different people, darling.”
“Who the fuck knows what’s gonna happen with the DSO,” Leon said, looking exhausted. “Adam’s… gone. Who knows.”
Chris winced, finally having a face for the name, and— “Leon, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Leon said. “It— it happened. I can mourn when this is over.” He pulled away from the kiss and rested their foreheads together. “I can mourn with you. It’s fine.”
Chris nodded, content to hold Leon in his arms for just a few seconds longer as the war raged just outside. Leon was lit up with neon and flames and he was just as beautiful as Chris remembered— as Chris remembered.
His watch blared the end of their ten minutes and Leon let out a woeful sound. “I— Simmons has to die.”
Chris nodded. “I need to get Ada.”
Leon’s heart broke on his face. “I’m so sorry about your men, Chris.”
Chris forced a smile. “Like you said— I can mourn with you. Once this is over.” He pulled away and straightened his clothes even though he knew it would be useless to put on a front. He looked to Leon and couldn’t help it, swooping in for one last kiss, one last taste of Leon’s breath and his life. Then Chris went to the door he’d closed between them and the world and wasn’t surprised to open it and find Piers standing dutifully at watch. Chris narrowed his eyes as the young man steadfastly didn’t look at him. “You said I didn’t have a girlfriend.”
“You were drinking alone in a bar and were known for starting fights,” Piers said, still not meeting his eyes. “I wasn’t exactly sure if you were a homophobe or not.”
Chris scowled, but couldn’t blame the kid. He put a hand on Piers’s shoulder and squeezed, knowing the man only ever tried to look out for him. And the way Chris had been treating him— “I owe you a beer when we’re back on friendly soil again, Nivans,” he said, hoping that would cover for an apology for the time being. “Now let’s go get Ada Wong.”
“Don’t kill her,” Leon warned from behind, striding forward to Helena who was flushed to the neck, though, unlike Piers, unable to look away from her partner. Chris didn’t understand why until he saw the mark on Leon’s neck that Chris had left on pure accident. If it hadn’t been clear what had gone on in the room, it was clear as day now. “Piers.”
Piers and Chris both stood at attention at Leon’s call to the young sniper. Leon sent Chris a wry grin before turning to Piers and looking to him with another of those earnest, soul-affirming gazes. “Bring him home to me.”
Piers nodded. “I promised you I would.”
Leon nodded. “Get yourself home too.”
Piers swallowed hard enough for them to see, Adam’s Apple bobbing beneath the sniper veil. “Yessir.”
Leon looked to Chris one last time— please don’t be the last time— said, “meet me at Sterling’s when you get what you need to feel whole again,” and then he was running off, boots light on the grating, Helena right behind and whispering questions beneath her breath.
Chris watched him go and hated the sinking feeling that came with the realization that Leon was what Chris needed to feel whole again. He just prayed Leon would survive the night so Chris would be able to tell him that to his face over a bottle of champagne and a ring that had been hidden away between amchoor and cardamon.