Work Text:
an intermission
Leon cooks.
That’s something that surprises Chris to no end. It really shouldn’t be such a shock; the man lives by himself, and his body alone is proof that he’s not just eating takeout every night. It’s just, Leon doesn’t seem much like the cooking type. Chris tries to imagine him standing at the stove, stirring boiling pots and sprinkling pans of casserole with garnish. He imagines an apron tied around his waist, black and stained with dusty smatters of flour, sleeves rolled up, chopping vegetables at the counter, lithe muscles working underneath the fabric of his shirt as he rolls a lump of dough flat, stretching up to grab a spice shaker from the cabinet overhead, the hem of his shirt riding up slightly to expose –
Chris shakes his head. That’s enough imagining for a while.
He won’t tell Leon that he’s shocked that he cooks, not only because he doesn’t seem the type to be patient enough to make a homecooked meal, but because the past few months have seen Leon steeped in depression and lost inside a whiskey bottle. He doesn’t have the temperament to cook, just isn’t mentally active enough to.
So when Chris comes back to the condo after wandering the streets of the city for a bit, he finds Leon in the little kitchen with the stove and oven going, pots and pans bubbling and the scent of food filling the whole room, his mind kind of blanks.
“Hey,” says Leon as he looks up from whatever recipe he’s reading on his phone long enough to see him, then goes back to stirring the pot. “You hungry?”
Chris blinks in the doorway. He must look really stupid.
He’s silent for so long that Leon stops what he’s doing and actually looks at Chris. “Chris?”
“You cook?”
Leon blinks at him, opens his mouth, then closes it again. “I…yeah?”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“Well, yeah,” says Leon. He goes back to chopping garlic. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” says Chris slowly, wandering fully into the kitchen. “It’s just…I don’t know. You don’t really seem like the cooking type, is all.”
Leon grins. “What, like I have my servants cook for me? Nah, I know how to feed myself.” He shakes his head. “You should’ve seen me back in my twenties. There is no way I would’ve survived this long without learning how to cook for real.”
Chris can’t really relate. He’s been pretty healthy his whole life, what with having to grow up fast and help raise Claire on his own. He hadn’t been too keen on letting her eat garbage for her whole life, so he’d learned to cook for that very reason.
“What are you making?” he asks, depositing a paper bag he’d picked up from one of the shops around the city into the refrigerator.
“Saltimbocca with an orange and fennel salad,” says Leon with a wink. He sprinkles the garlic into a pan. “Vacation in Italy calls for Italian dinners, and all that jazz.”
Chris takes in the man before him. Leon’s wearing a regular white t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants – no apron, though, as Chris had imagined – blue eyes darting over his work as he gets a sauté going in a pan on the stove. His arm is looking better; the bruises are still there, but they’re looking less and less angry and purple every day.
He’s fucking gorgeous.
“You’re not so bad yourself, Redfield,” says Leon, grinning as he roots through the cabinets for something. Chris feels his face go hot; shit, he’d said that out loud apparently.
“When did you decide you liked me enough to stop arguing long enough to kiss me?” Leon asks. He makes a soft noise of triumph as he finds whatever he was looking for in the cabinet: a bottle of white wine.
Chris hums. “Remember Claire’s Fourth of July party about three years back?”
“Really? Makes sense, it was a pool party; everyone’s in swimsuits, showing some skin.”
“Claire shot you in the head with a water gun,” Chris says. He turns and leans back on the counter. “And you grabbed her and tried to throw her into the pool and she tossed you in instead.”
Leon hums, unscrews the top of the wine bottle and adds a splash to the sauté mix. Then he takes a generous swig and shrugs when Chris gives him a disapproving look. “Mm. Of course you fall for me in my least attractive moment. Of course.”
“You were smiling and laughing, and everything I knew about you kind of fell into place. I knew you were a good guy; you’d have to be to save all those people, including Claire.All I had to go one was what she’d told me, and what I’d seen from the few times we’d worked together. But then I got to see you outside of the DSO agent façade and you were… charming. Attractive. Despite the fact that you came out of the pool shaking water out of your hair like a dog.”
Leon snorts.
“What about you?” asks Chris. He swipes the wine bottle from its place on the counter by Leon and takes a swig as well. “When did you figure it out? Like, two hours ago?”
“Probably when the BSAA was created,” says Leon, leaning against the counter. “I was assigned to President Graham and his family, and he wanted to come and look into the agency. Claire had talked a lot about you in Raccoon City, and when the president visited, I finally got to meet you. I remember being super impressed by the kind of guy you were. Y’know, brave and selfless, just an honest, hard-working guy looking to fix the world.” Leon shrugs, shamelessly. “I was down for it. But I didn’t really entertain the idea of kissing you until West Africa and I heard you’d punched a boulder.”
Chris laughs. “Are you serious?”
“Why not? That’s sort of attractive.”
“You’re a huge dork, you know that?” says Chris, but he walks over to Leon anyway, boxing him against the counter with his arms.
“I swear to god, if you tell me ‘that’s what you like about me’, or some cheesy romantic garbage like that-“ starts Leon before Chris cuts him with a kiss.
It’s times like these that he really lives for. Before Leon, it was moments of peace hanging out with his sister or Jill or grabbing coffee with Rebecca. Here in Italy, on a joint vacation – that has been pretty pleasant so far with no interruptions of the undead persuasion, thank god– he’s got something to hold onto, something to keep him going when things inevitably turn sour, and if the way Leon is currently melting into him is anything to go off of, the feeling is mutual.
Kissing Leon tastes like the white wine he just drank and the hint of something citrusy. It’s a good combination; Chris would be lying if he said he didn’t want more.
Leon mumbles something against his lips then, and he’s suddenly pulling away despite Chris’s grunt of protest.
“The chicken’s gonna burn,” Leon says in way of apology for moving. Chris rolls his eyes and lets him up.
“You’re lucky that smells amazing,” he grumbles.
“Tastes amazing too,” says Leon opening the oven and removing said chicken, “because I’m a fucking amazing cook.”
“And sohumble,” adds Chris.
He watches as Leon drizzles the sautéed sage and butter sauce over the chicken and then sprinkles the whole thing with lemon juice.
“Alright,” he says with a grin, grabbing two plates from the cabinet. He gestures to a bowl of orange slices and greens. “Grab that, will you? And these too,” he hands off the plates to Chris, while he grabs the chicken with a pair of pot holders. They carry the food to the table by the window and set their plates and silverware, and by that time the sun is already starting to set, casting the room in soft gold and orange.
Leon wasn’t kidding either. The food is amazing; Chris has never had fennel before, but it’s pretty good when paired with the oranges and the prosciutto and chicken. He’s noticed that Leon isn’t drinking with the meal either. He doesn’t really want to bring it up, doesn’t want to offend him, or make a big deal out of it – Leon would hate him if he did, and their relationship is still so new – but the other part of him wants to be openly proud of Leon for deliberately trying to cut back on his alcohol consumption.
Still, he’s not his mom; he’s not going to coddle him. Leon wouldn’t like it, and that’s not what Chris is going for. It’s just…nice to see that he’s making a conscious effort to kill his reliance on alcohol is all.
Instead, Chris stands and goes to grab the paper bag from the fridge. “Since you made dinner,” he says, bringing it to the table and reaching inside it, “I’ll handle dessert.”
Chris had spotted the little hole-in-the-wall bakery on his way back to the condo, and never having been one for sweets really, he’d almost passed it by until he remembered that Leon had a bit of a sweet tooth.
Chris passes him one of the boxes. “You ever had tiramisu?”
“Once,” says Leon, already opening his box of the pastry. “It wasn’t all that great; kinda like watered down coffee with too much creamer. American-made, so that makes a ton of sense.”
“Well, this is authentic, so hopefully it’s way better,” says Chris, stabbing the corner of his piece with his fork.
They enjoy dessert in silence, the sun slipping lower and lower over the tops of the buildings outside their window. When he’s done, Leon sighs and says, “That was amazing. You spoil me, Redfield.”
Chris gives him a two-fingered salute. “I do my best.”
“Seriously, though,” says Leon as he twists his fork between his thumb and forefinger, staring out the window. “Thanks for coming out here with me. You could’ve spent your time off alone, or something, but...”
He trails off and shakes his head. “Anyway. Thanks, is what I meant.”
Chris smiles, leans his head on his palm.
He really was proud of the man. And really thankful for his being there. The intimacy in their relationship is still new, and they’ve been nothing if not schoolchildren–levels of shy around each other – Chris figured it was because both of them hadn’t been in a romantic relationship in quite a while and were still working through some hang-ups. But really. This entire week that they’d been hiding off the radar in Cinque Terre has been amazing.
“No problem,” he says. “Really. This is…nice. Nice to have a moment of normalcy for a change.” He doesn’t mean to duck his when he says it, but he can’t help but subconsciously try to hide the way his face is dusting pink. “And I’m enjoying the company anyway.”
Leon snorts, but he doesn’t look like he can keep the smile off his face anyway. “You’re a sap.”
The worst part about not having alcohol is the nightmares.
Chris has never been heavy sleeper, not since S.T.A.R.S. and definitely not after. Call it training or paranoia, or whatever you want, but it’d saved his life on more than one occasion.
Tonight, it’s thanks to that he hears the rustling.
It sounds like something scratching against the sheets, like something clawing trying to get out of them. It wakes Chris enough to realize that one, the covers are drawn too tight, taut and rigged over his body like the other end of the sheets are being tugged away from him, and two, there’s someone breathing low and hard way too closely to him.
In the back of his mind, that only means one thing.
On instinct, Chris makes to roll out of bed and to his feet, reaching for the Beretta on the bedside table in the same motion, and in that moment, it kind of goes to hell: the sheets are tangled around Chris’ legs, turning the movement into a vague thrashing about in the covers, and there is no Beretta to grab onto either, there isn’t even a bedside table.
Chris almost panics, can’t remember where he is, why there isn’t a bedside table with his Beretta there, doesn’t know what that noise is –
Something next to him moves suddenly, Chris just barely catches sight of it in the pale moonlight from the windows. He swears, which is followed by a hoarse shout from somewhere else in the room, a flurry of sheets and a thud.
Chris untangles himself from the sheets and finally makes it out of the bed – he just needs to put some distance between himself and the…the…
Wait.
He forces himself to calm down. You need to breathe, he scolds himself. Get a grip. You’re a solider for god’s sake!
His blood is rushing in his ears, and he can feel his chest heaving with each breath, but his brain is slowly starting to catch up with the situation and is clearing the sleep from his mind. He…he’s in Italy. On vacation, in a condo he helped rent. Not his apartment back in the States; that’s why there’s no bedside table or Beretta.
Fuck’s sake.
And he’s not alone. Duh. But why not?
Chris blinks to adjust his eyes to the darkness. He’s in a bedroom. Right, he can see the bed, the shelf on the other side of the room where a tv is sitting dark and unused, the lamp in the corner (which would’ve been helpful), the bookshelf. He’s on the side closest to the balcony.
Right, right, the balcony. He’s on the side with the balcony because Leon fucking hates sleeping near windows and things like that; makes it easier for them to grab you when you least expect it.
Oh.
Chris feels like an idiot.
He runs his hands over his face and straightens up a little.
“Leon?”
He hears a sigh, tired and heavy. Then, “Present and accounted for.”
Chris’ eyes acclimate to the darkness and he scans the other side of the room. There Leon is, half-crouched over by the wall on the other side of the room. He straightens up, running his hand through his hair, body language tired and irate, and Chris hears him swear.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Leon breathes. For the next few minutes, he’s silent, focusing on getting his breathing under control and probably giving himself the same silent checklist that Chris had gone through.
Adrenaline having left him and replaced with exhaustion, Chris ambles back towards the bed, seating himself on the edge and leaning back on his hands.
And the past couple of days had been going so well, too.
“That could’ve gone better,” he murmurs at the ceiling.
He hears Leon behind him. “Tch. You’re right about that.” The other side of the bed dips with his weight. “How’d you end up over by the window?”
Chris shrugs. “Fell. You startled me. How’d you end up on the other side of the room?”
Leon snorts softly. “Fell. You startled me.”
Chris can’t help but laugh at that. “Jesus. You’d think we were rookies or something.”
“Come on, we’re not that bad.”
“It must’ve looked pretty hilarious though.”
Once the initial laughter dies away, silence descends while the room fills slowly with a palpable tension. Chris doesn’t really want to bring it up, but there is no way they’re getting back to sleep without addressing the elephant in the room.
Tentatively, he wades in.
“Nightmare?”
Leon is quiet for a moment.
“Yeah.”
Another moment of silence passes.
“First time in a while,” says Chris.
“Not really. But it’s probably because we’re sleeping together you’ve just noticed,” says Leon.
Despite the intimate implications of Leon’s phrasing, Chris doesn’t comment on it. “We’ve slept in the same room before; I’ve never heard you having nightmares. Not even after Arias.”
“We slept in the same room, but not in the same bed,” Leon elaborates. “Let’s be real; neither of us are really used to sleeping with someone else so close. It’s kind of…weird. Does things to your brain.”
Chris can’t argue with that.
“And anyway, I’m usually too drunk to dream,” says Leon. “So…”
Chris winces. He’d forgotten about that. It made perfectly logical sense though; after all, Rome wasn’t built in a day. It was going to take some time for Leon’s psyche to come down off the alcohol.
Leon leans back a little further on his hands, shoulders nearly brushing against Chris’. “Sounds like you got a little shook up too, huh?” he says quietly, gently.
Chris shrugs. “Like you said; we’re not used to sleeping with other people. Thought you were…something else.”
Leon hums in understanding. He’s close enough that Chris feels his shrug.
“This could have been avoided if you’d sprung for a double like I said,” he says, “cheapskate,” and Chris can practically hear the smile on Leon’s face through his voice. Smug bastard.
Chris breathes out a laugh. “I don’t want to hear that from the guy who completely destroyed a twenty-five thousand dollar Ducati the first day he got to use it.”
“Only because it was the only way to save your ass,” says Leon, laughing now too.
At least now the silence is easier when it falls again. Once it’s settled like a blanket over the room, Leon turns around to face Chris. When Chris looks back at him, he sees a nervousness on his face that makes his heart jump. Immediately he thinks of the white wine they’d used for cooking earlier, and how absolutely cannot let Leon run to it in the wake of a nightmare.
“What do we do now?”
Chris shrugs. “Tonight, or in general?”
Leon breathes out, sounding as though an enormous weight has dropped from his shoulders and exhausted like you wouldn’t believe. “Tonight. Baby steps. And besides, I don’t plan that far ahead anyway.”
Chris rolls his eyes and turns towards the window. The moon glares back at them; sleep was pretty much of the question anyway.
“How about…talking? Keep each other distracted.”
He reaches, grabs the duvet from where it’s been kicked to the foot of the bed and throws it rather clumsily around both of their shoulders, pulling Leon in closer to make it work.
When they’re both settled back against the headboard with the duvet and the pillows around them like a nest, Chris grins. “Cozy, right?”
Leon rolls his eyes, smiling anyway. “You’re a sap, Chris Redfield. A regular Suzy Homemaker.”
Chris nudges him, earning him another bout of laughter. “Anyway,” he says, grinning mischievously, “tell me more about how you thought it was attractive that I punched a boulder in West Africa.”