Work Text:
The metro's already over twenty minutes late when the caution lights finally blink up and down the length of the platform. Usually, there aren't too many commuters at this stop, but their numbers have grown as more and more people show up in line with their usual morning schedule without any trains to ferry them off. After the train pulls to a stop, they all remember their manners just long enough to heed the automated voice's instructions to “stand back and allow customers to exit.” Leon even lets an older gentleman with a cane enter ahead of him before minding the gap right after.
Inside the car, every one of the hospital-scrub blue seats is already occupied. One of the commuters stands to let the older man have his seat, but it's standing-room-only for everyone else. The rush of passengers getting on forces Leon down the aisle, since no one else is willing to move far from the center poles. Thankfully, Leon is tall enough to reach the overhead handrail without issue. Another hand joins his and when Leon glances past his elbow, he finds the man who gave up his seat trying not to step on Leon's dress shoes.
Surprisingly, Leon recognizes him as one of the few familiar faces on his commute.
The man stands out for two reasons. The first is that every day, like clockwork, the man spends the whole ride flipping through a stapled packet with a highlighter in hand. On the one time that Leon had been nosey enough to chance a glance in passing, it looked like a printout of an email's inbox. Given how many papers he reviews, Leon feels a little self conscious about his own unread emails collecting dust on the agency's secure server. The habit sticks out enough to hold a place in Leon's memory.
The second reason Leon remembers him is because… well…
The train decelerates in the tunnel, jostling the guy a bit closer despite them both trying to maintain a margin of personal space between them. Unconsciously, the man glances up at Leon and his eyes are… really fucking brown. He blinks up at Leon before said eyes disappear back under a mop of unruly hair. He adjusts his grip on the overhead rail and Leon can't help noticing how the guy's dress shirt does a pretty poor job at hiding just how built he is.
Yeah, so Leon thinks he's hot. Sue him.
Their train slows to a stop with the platform nowhere in sight, and the tired PA system gargles whatever reason the conductor gives for their delay. They're stuck either way, in more ways than one. It's hard to pretend that Leon isn't not staring at a person whose face is close enough to smell their breakfast. Stale coffee. It should be more of a turn-off than it is. There's a tiny scar on the bridge of the man's nose, and the fact that Leon notices makes it pretty hard to convince himself that he isn't staring. Honest.
Leon is saved from his predicament by the ringtone on his work phone. They must be close enough to the next station for reception to punch through. Unfortunately, the phone sits in his front pocket, so he does have to awkwardly shuffle his hand between them to grab it. The other man politely ignores Leon's knuckles brushing his hip as he tries to get it out with minimal damage to propriety.
“This is Kennedy,” he answers the call, turning away so he can hide how red his face is getting.
“Where are you?” Hunnigan asks immediately.
“Train's running late.” He never really tries to make her job difficult, but this is definitely something very much outside of his control.
“Luckily, the BSAA's intelligence biographer isn't here yet.” Hunnigan chastises. “Please tell me you're wearing the suit?”
“Yeah.” He doesn't mention that he'd left the tie at home. She can yell at him about that when she sees him, though, so he doesn't give her a chance to ask. “Hey, we're about to hit a tunnel, so the call's gonna drop.”
In front of him, he catches the stranger raising a brow. They are still very much not moving. Grinning back, Leon tosses a wink at the man and gets a thrill when the stranger pinches his lips to fight a smile. Leon ups the anté with a few performative bad-signal sounds and by the time he thumbs the red button, the other man is doing his best to suffocate his laugh into the turn of his shoulder.
“Think she believed me?” Leon asks his co-conspirator.
“You get an 'A' for effort.” The guy rumbles warmly. He's got a kind of inner city accent that isn't quite distinct enough to pin down to any place in particular. Unpolished in a way that's refreshingly separate to the politicians and agency higher ups he's always swimming in.
A train passes them in the opposite direction. The lit windows run like frames of film through a projector's beam. Then just like that, it's gone again.
Soon enough, they're the ones moving. Still two stations to where the stranger gets off, which happens to also be Leon's stop today.
Unfortunately, the three-trains-worth of people waiting on the platform far exceeds the capacity of their already full cab. That doesn't stop the crush of would-be passengers from trying to wedge themselves past the doors. As if it wasn't crowded enough in here, the nearest person is wearing a fucking backpack, which the guy clearly doesn't give a shit about where it's swinging. In front of Leon, the handsome stranger makes a pained face as the offending backpack shoves him further into Leon.
“Sorry,” the guy mutters. Leon thinks it's more the fault of the asshole who hasn't taken off his bag.
“Glad I put on deodorant today.” Leon laughs under his breath, relieved when the man chuckles back. He hopes the guy isn't too uncomfortable, since the space between them has whittled down to a whisper. Leon silently prays very, very hard that his body doesn't spontaneously remember how long it's been since he last had someone objectively attractive pressed up against him. To distract himself, Leon nods down at the now familiar, stapled packet tucked under the man's arm. “Did you get your work done, at least?”
The man's eyes narrow just a bit. Fair enough. Leon was being nosy, after all. Still, if the guy was working on something confidential, he wouldn't have them loose on the train. Not that Leon is in the market for any more classified information than he's already privy to. He isn't trying to get between the man's sheets in that way.
Not that Leon really thinks he's going to pick up a strange man on the metro.
After a long moment of mostly silence and the rocking of the train, the guy finally nods. “I write a lot of reports for different departments, but most of it's just summarizing things I've already sent out in email.” He gestures at his stack of sheets. “I can get a jump on my day if I just print a copy of my inbox and highlight whatever I need.”
Leon is determined not to be seduced by this stranger's very efficient and sexy management methods. He isn't. Leon also isn't going to be seduced by the way the man is clearly smart enough to, like Leon, consistently choose this specific car because it's the one that lets out closest to the escalator at their stop. He is not going to ask if the guy has different highlighter colors for each report he's working on. He also really needs to stop staring at the dimple in that slightly stubbled chin and say something that doesn't sound scripted by a cave man.
“Sounds efficient.” Leon nods sagely, with a vow to zero out his number of unread emails the next chance he gets. “Looks like you're making the most of your time.”
“Doesn't feel like there's enough, sometimes.” The man says it with good humor, but there's a tender ache at the edge of his words, like being gentle with an old injury. Probably a government worker, then. Hard to imagine him at a desk, honestly, but there aren't a lot of other reasons to join the rat race every morning.
The train lurches and the man doesn't really have anywhere to go except into Leon's chest. Which he does. Bodily. Thankfully, Leon has his footing enough to catch him even if they have to interlock their feet to avoid losing their footing entirely. They've reached the next stop. Their conductor comes on the PA to tell the people waiting on the platform that there's a train coming right behind them. Some people listen, but it doesn't feel like the train gets any less crowded.
“You good?” Leon ducks his head down to check on the guy as they pull away from the stop.
“Yeah, thanks.” He tries to straighten, but the backpack toting jackass has stuck his bag in such a way that the stranger that's currently on Leon physically can't lean out of his space. Which Leon is very much not opposed to because, turns out, the man's arms aren't the only part of him that's absolutely ripped. Gives the term “desk jockey” a whole new meaning. He has to play it cool, though. Just because the guy is friendly and laughing at Leon's stupid jokes doesn't mean anything, and definitely doesn't give license for Leon to enjoy having every inch of the man pressed up against him. Stop thinking about how you've got every inch of the man pressed up against you. That's creepy. It's not like Leon is trying to cop a feel, but it's hard not to when the guy is flat against him and the top button on his dress shirt is holding on for dear life and loose where it's tucked into his waist and his belt is digging into Leon's hip-
The point is, it's all very distracting.
“It's okay.” Leon mutters quietly, offering reassurance that he's alright with having to share his space. The guy glances up, and Leon is probably failing some test of the universe right now because the eyes looking up at him are absolutely enormous and those thick eyebrows dimple in a way that Leon can't decide if he wants to soothe or be the cause of.
And maybe Leon might've felt a little guilty about abandoning the whole not-enjoying side of things. Except – and he could be wrong on this – but he's also pretty sure that the guy is blushing.
If there's such a thing as karma, then this is totally worth the time the gate somehow ate his brand new fare card.
Too soon, the PA system announces their stop as the brakes kick in. Perhaps the only saving grace is that once they reach their stop, they'll both be free to go about their day without Leon doing something ill advised like asking for the number of some guy he literally bumped into on the train.
“Think we'll be able to make it off?” Leon cranes his neck to check how many people are between them and the doors. They have about the same amount of ground to cover in either direction.
“We'll have to make a run for it.” A slow grin widens across the man's face. “Don't wanna miss our meeting, Agent Kennedy.”
Leon realizes a couple things in quick succession.
- They are in a very crowded train car.
- The volume on his phone was probably high enough that someone close by could hear it while the train was stopped.
- Hunnigan had said their BSAA liaison was running late as well.
Scrambling to remember the name of the representative he's supposed to be meeting with today, he almost misses the other man giving him a friendly squeeze on the arm before detaching himself entirely.
“Ready?” The man grins at him, and Leon doesn't even get a chance to answer before the doors open and they're both diving headlong into the rush of bodies.
Damn, he should've worn a tie.
So much for first impressions.