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When Leon returned to his little Los Angeles home after Alcatraz, he felt beyond exhausted. Which, y’know, was to be expected- he’d just spent the past day and a half fighting hordes of zombies and saving the world. Average Leon S. Kennedy activities, he supposed.
Dragging his feet across his driveway and opening the gate with one hand- the other hanging loosely at his side, knuckles bloody and bruised- Leon was just about ready to collapse at the doorway when he noticed the lights were on.
Who was home?
Oh. That’s right. His Boyfriend Luis.
He cringed internally at the realization that he had conveniently forgotten to tell his partner that he was off to fight yet another Bioterrorist and almost lose every single one of his limbs. He was sure Luis already knew, though; he was apparently right by Rebecca’s side the whole time she worked frantically to get the vaccine ready, preparing her vials and locking away the liquid inside of a safe.
Luis had offered to work with Leon in the field years ago when Leon had first saved him from Krauser’s knife to his back- Well, ‘ offered’ was a kind word, more like, ‘ Forced to by the US Government for his involvement with Umbrella lest he be sent straight to prison’.
Despite the fact that Leon couldn’t quite wrap his head around why at first, they very quickly became an inseparable pair. Luis had Leon’s back, and Leon had his; they learnt how to work off of each others little quirks, vices and habits- all to the point where they could practically read what the other was about to do before they even did it.
It helped that Leon was hopelessly in love with Luis, too. He’d confessed his feelings to Luis on one such particular mission rather unceremoniously- In the underground basement of some rich Millionaire who was housing the virus sample to a brand-new B.O.W Leon couldn’t care less to remember the name of. They had dressed up in flouncy gowns and pretended to mingle with the other guests at the masquerade ball, only to slink away minutes later to confess their romantic feelings for one another and kiss in the darkness.
Again, not very romantic, but Luis still held the moment in high regard, so Leon did too.
As time went by, though, the two of them grew older- they were both in desperate need of a vacation and it showed in their body language, too.
Luis had always spent time with Rebecca in the lab, offering to help her wherever and whenever he could- ever the gentleman he was- But the more the years went by, the more Luis found himself delegated to his job as Rebecca’s assistant and US government scientist. He despised calling himself the latter, but Leon just teased him about it to make him feel better anyways.
Leon smiled at the thought as he jangled his keys around in his hands, the mental image of Luis working to save his ass on the ground made him exhale some air from his nose as a weak laugh.
The door to their shared home creaked open with a loud squuuuueaaaakkk, the warm glow from their lights inviting him inside and offering protection from the late-night darkness as he stepped inside and sighed.
Leon kicked his shoes off and lazily threw them to the side, not bothering to even place them in the shoe rack Luis had so insistently placed by the doorway. The blonde similarly shed himself of his jacket- a once navy-blue sheen now covered in zombie blood, seawater and motor oil- and tried his best to hang it up on the coat hanger to the side of him.
But his fingers were so cold that he ended up just fumbling around with the collar of his jacket and letting it drop to the floor.
Leon sighed in defeat and began dragging his feet across the carpet, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands all the while. He looked up at the photos that lined the walls; some of them were of Sherry and Claire, during the rare times they got to see each other. Other times were of the entire gang hanging out at a bar- eyes squeezed shut and beers being flung as the photos were taken either mid-cheer or mid-laugh.
But most of the photos, however, were of him, Luis and Chris together.
Although Leon had fallen head-over-heels for Luis pretty immediately after meeting him in Spain- I mean, being tied up to a man in chains does that to you- but his long-standing crush on the BSAA’s Golden Boy Chris Redfield never went away, even when he and Luis started living together officially.
He was only a military rookie when he had first met the famous Chris Redfield, but the two of them got extremely close extremely quickly. They crashed at each others places after missions, held each others hair out their faces while vomiting after one too many drinks- Ok, maybe that last one was just Leon, but still.
Leon had a massive, puppy-like crush on Chris, and he was shocked to find out that Luis thought he was rather attractive too.
Like clockwork, Chris had confessed to the two of them and asked if Polyamory would ever be on the table for either of them. They said yes like their lives depended on it.
As the years went by, the three of them fell into more and more of a comfortable pattern with one another- no matter how long their missions were, or how far apart they’d be, or for how long it’d be without them seeing each other altogether- They still remained together. Determined to make their weird, messy, somewhat convoluted and far-too-hard-to-explain relationship work.
And they did just that. It was hard at times, sure, but it go easier and easier the longer and longer they were together.
They loved each other. And Leon still sometimes felt he was in a dream- especially when he looked up at their framed photos of them together, hung up on the walls like they were an old married couple.
God, did Leon feel old right now.
He was about to walk up the stairs and collapse onto his bed, when he smelt something familiar wafting through the kitchen. Like a cartoon animal to a pie left on a windowsill, Leon dragged his feet almost instinctively round the corner to their shared kitchen- and was delighted, but unsurprised to see Luis standing at the bench. His weight shifted onto one leg as his hips jut out, showing off his checkered red-and-white apron he insisted made him look sexy. His arms were crossed and a playfully grumpy expression was plastered on his face, three cups of warm coffee by his side.
“ Leon S. Kennedy”
“Hello, father” Leon sighed and rolled his eyes at his boyfriend's attempt at being intimidating. He opened his arms for a hug but was immediately pushed back by Luis, who tried even harder to not smile at just how sleepy Leon looked.
“Where have you been?”
“Alcatraz”
It was Luis’ turn to roll his eyes- biting back a smile and trying to keep his serious composure.
“No kidding, mí amor. But you know why I’m grumpy, sí?”
“Because I forgot to bring home the groceries?” Leon gave him the biggest, dumbest smile he could muster- it’d been a long day of throwing quippy one-liners and bad jokes, he just needed to get one more out, alright?
Luis sighed as a means to avoid smiling at Leon’s poor joke.
“ No, I am grumpy because you ran off to fight a Bioterrorist-“
“He had a name, y’know,” Leon’s voice had the same cadence of a highschool girl trying to stand up for her friends, “It was Dylan, Luis, oh my gosh, don’t be so rude ”
He smacked him gently as the blonde just about fell into a pile of giggles- ignoring the way the Spaniard grumbled something completely incoherent he couldn’t understand
“Dios mío, between you and Chris, you’re gonna be the death of me”
“Please don’t die on us just yet. Who would create life-saving vaccines in a painfully short amount of time to make sure we don’t succumb and turn into zombies?”
“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that! ¡me diste un infarto! Do you know how scared Rebecca and I were for you?? And speaking of, where is Chris?”
“The BSAA picked him up when we landed, apparently he needs to help them with cleanup or something” Leon’s shoulders slowly hunched over and more as he said this, sighing loudly and shutting his eyes. God he was tired.
“Luis, I’m really, really sorry I didn’t tell you sooner..-“
“It’s ok, Mí Cariño,” Luis smiled, cupping his face between his hands and bringing his gaze back up to look at him.
Leon couldn’t help but to stop and admire Luis’ eyes for a few moments- deep brown with flecks of gold, hidden behind a pair of glasses perched on the top of his aquiline nose bridge. His age showed through wrinkles under his eyes and dimpled from the years he had spent smiling; and Leon wanted to kiss each and every like on his face like he was made from pure gold.
“You know I’m not actually upset at you, sí? I could never stay angry”
“I know”
Leon sighed, closing his eyes and finally falling into Luis’ arms sleepily. He wrapped a hand around the older man’s shoulders, tangling his fingers in his long, curly, dark gray hair.
Luis had insisted he ‘never had the time’ to cut his hair when they first moved in together, opting to grow it out and let it get more and more wild- but eventually he caved in and admitted he just thought long hair was attractive. And Leon agreed. Salt-and-pepper like streaks of gray tangled themselves in every other curl- his locks easily reached to his mid-back, and the longer his hair got, the curlier it was. Leon secretly loved spending hours brushing through each tangle and washing it over the bathtub edge or the in the shower they shared for Luis, showering him with compliments all the while.
Leon buried his face in Luis’ shoulder, inhaling the familiar smell of his clothes and the familiar feel of his hair in between his fingers. If he could, the blonde would have fall asleep on his feet right then and there. But with a light chuckle, Luis forced him back up onto his feet to give him a brush-down, muttering to himself;
“ Oh Leon, eres un desastre como este…”
“You can blame Maria’s motorcycle for that one,” Leon huffed a laugh, wincing in pain a little as Luis’ hand glided over a red graze on his side, only visible due to the open tear left in his shirt.
“She rammed straight up behind me and sent me flying. I swear I must’ve looked like a crazy man rolling around on the highway like that…”
“You crashed another motorbike?! ”
Luis took a step back and put his hands on his hips with a disapproving glare. It took every fiber of Leon’s being to not laugh at the way he mimicked an angry parent- staring daggers at him through his eyebrows.
“Geez, you’re more worried about the motorbike than me?”
“I’m more worried about the amount you’ve been crashing recently,”
The brunette sighed and began fiddling with Leon’s appearance once more, hands fluttering all over his body like a madman.
“This is why I never ride with you, Leon. You’ll probably get yourself killed someday if you keep being so reckless…”
“You sound like a parent” Leon smiled, feeling his partner's hands fuss over each and every tiny scratch and blemish that adorned his face. As fun as bantering with him was, Leon in internally just wanted to go straight to bed and let Luis patch him up and kiss him goodnight.
Luis scoffed at his comment, straightening up his shirt a little.
“I am only trying to look out for you, Leon..-“
“You’re not helping your case” The blonde's smile widened as he victoriously managed to make his partner crack a smile. There it is.
Luis sighed before straightening up his collar. An unnecessary action that felt so, painfully domestic Leon couldn’t back away.
“You’d make a terrible father, you know that, right?”
This made Leon raise an eyebrow.
“Oh? How so?”
“Uno, you can’t make yourself look presentable even if you tried,” Luis waved his hand up and down his body, exaggerating his comment.
“Dos, you can’t even take care of yourself, let alone a baby. If you treated them anything like you treat your missions, you’d be throwing them around like a volleyball”
“How kind” Leon rolled his eyes before glancing back at Luis’ expression.
Something crossed the brunette's eyes that he couldn’t quite pinpoint at first. An emotion he couldn’t quite describe.
He couldn’t help but internalize the way Luis had said ‘ Them’. As if this theoretical baby was real.
“And trés, you’d be horrible at dressing a baby. You struggle to even dress yourself. I mean, mírate, you can never get the collars of your shirts to sit down correctly, huh..?”
Leon watched as Luis trailed off. Eyes unfocused as he continued to fiddle with the collar of his partners shirt past the point of reasonability.
There was something here, he could tell. Luis never went silent like this unless he had something on his mind.
“Luis…”
Leon began, his tone soft.
“Why… Why Are you thinking about me as if I’m a father?”
Luis stayed silent for a moment too long. His hands frozen on his partner's shirt collar. Leon was about to speak up again, ask if something was wrong- before Luis looked up at him through his glasses and gave him a soft smile.
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve just been thinking…”
“Have you been thinking about having children?”
It suddenly all made a lot more sense to Leon now.
Luis nodded, almost shyly.
“Sí, I guess I have..”
“But… but why, may I ask?”
Luis sighed and rested his head against Leon’s shoulders, almost in defeat.
“Honestly? I don’t know. I think the older I’ve been getting, the more I’ve been thinking about my Grandfather… And the kind of person he was…”
Leon felt his heart twist with sympathy for him. He knew he missed his one and only parental figure often- Luis mentioned him many times when in vulnerable positions like this.
“I’ve just been thinking, Leon… I want to be able to give another child the love my Grandfather gave me. I want to do what he did, make him proud; except this time, I want to be able to be there for them as they grow up. I want to do what he never could”
“You… You know that’s not realistic, right?” Leon felt horrible having to be the one to say that, a lump forming in his throat as he spoke.
“Y’know, with our jobs and all… It wouldn’t be fair on the kid…-”
“I know”
Luis huffed a laugh, pulling himself off of Leon.
“I know.. But.. a man can dream, can he not?”
All Leon could do was nod in agreement.
**
That night, as Luis and Leon lay awake in bed- waiting for Chris to come home- Leon couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said.
Years ago, Leon would have jumped at the opportunity- the Rookie Cop always dreamed of domestically, after all. White picket fences and a nuclear family sounded delightful to him. But the years tore away at that innocent Rookie and Leon found himself thinking less and less about the opportunity of children.
Not until he met Luis and Chris, that was.
And seeing just how melancholy Luis was, the sad, nostalgic little expression on his face as he talked about what their theoretical family would look like…
It made him want to try that dream, too.
Besides; Leon would be lying to himself if he hadn’t had the occasional daydream about the ‘wonders of parenthood’ or whatever. He had looked after Sherry for a very, very brief period of time before the government had scooped him up and stolen everything precious away from him- including small moments like tucking Sherry into bed, asking if she wanted her pancakes with syrup, etc etc etc..
The thought of Luis doing that for a child he could call their own made his heart swoon in a way Leon had never experienced before. The mental image of his partner bouncing a little baby in his knee, or babbling nonsense to them while feeding, or watching them grow up to become their very own human with their very own emotions and thoughts and feelings-
Part of it intimidated Leon, understandably.
But the much louder, much more emotional part of him- the one that usually took priority- was practically crying out to see Luis happy and fulfilling his own wish.
And Leon knew damn well Chris was no stranger to looking after kids, either.
Leon sucked in a breath before speaking,
“Hey, Luis?”
“Yes, Mí Amor?”
Luis rolled over to his side of the bed, facing Leon in the darkness- his long, messy curls falling over him like waves.
Leon gave him a smile.
“Do you think we could ask Chris about having kids when he gets home?”
Seeing Luis’ face light up like he’d just seen a miracle from god made Leon feel like the luckiest man on earth- hell, Luis even looked as if he was close to crying when he wrapped an arm around Leon’s neck to bring him in for a hug.
“ Oh, Gracias, Mí Amor- Gracias gracias gracias….”
Leon smiled and let his partner pepper his face with a million kisses.
He didn’t know what the future would hold, but if it was anywhere as close to being as beautiful as Luis’ excitement over the prospect of children;
He was already looking forward to it.
**
