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When Leon arrived home, it was late—well past the 5 PM deadline he’d promised he’d be home by. It was their one year wedding anniversary, his and Chris’s. They’d spent weeks planning it, wanting it to be as sappy and romantic as possible. It had started off grandiose, two-week-long trip to somewhere sunny and warm, no expense spared. The benefit of their shitty jobs was decent pay, and Chris and Leon were in love, damnnit. Fancy chocolates, an expensive suite with a bed covered in rose petals, long walks by the beach, great sex, they deserved it all! Except… work. There was always another crisis, another billionaire who would rather use his money the fabricate bioengineered diseases instead of solving world hunger or fixing the fucking healthcare system.
What started as a two-week-long romantic getaway in Fiji, became a four day, Friday-Monday long weekend in a cozy cabin in Montana. Then four days became three days because the DSO didn't consider Martin Luther King Jr. Day to be a holiday worthy of time off. A cozy cabin in Montana became a fancy, three star hotel two hours away from their apartment, because Leon hated flying and Chris hated wasting time so two flights in three days didn't seem worth it. Their plans continue to dwindle further and further. Chris was called in on Friday, so their three star hotel turned into a Best Western down the street so as to not waste money.
“We'll do something small for now. Don't worry, we can celebrate later—go all out! We’ll take three weeks off, go where ever the hell we want to, and treat ourselves like royalty. We'll put our foot down, hell, we’ll take the whole damn month off! We work our asses off and they owe us this,”
Chris was always good and level-headed like that. He was flexible; he could face disappointment head on and just adjust, rearrange, and refuse to let it drag him down. Leon… didn't have that kind of strength. It was a personality flaw, he supposed. Disappointment crushed him. He wanted to say “fuck it!” and give up, pretend their anniversary never happened, never think about it again, because life was unfair, and there was nothing he could do about it. It was best just to move on.
Chris, however, had enough determination for the both of them. He filled out all the forms and made all the phone calls, dealt with it so Leon wouldn't have to and did it without complaint. Honestly, he wasn't sure what he'd do without Chris, who never seemed phased in situations where Leon felt paralyzed. Honestly, it was unfair to Chris that he had to take the brunt of the emotional labor. Chris never complained. In fact, he did the opposite, he encouraged.
“You're doing therapy, you're attending your AA meetings, you're taking your antidepressants, that's all I could ever ask of you. Remember that time I got my leg crushed under that cargo vehicle? Remember how long it took me to get back out in the field? How frustrated I got when I started to backslide in physical therapy despite how hard I was working? You were there for me when I needed you. You took care of all my shit while I hobbled around helplessly. You did all the cleaning, all the cooking, all the heavy lifting. You went to every PT session you could come too. You massaged my leg every night. Was that unfair to you?”
Chris was good at that, asking questions in just the right way so that the answer bored itself down into Leon's psyche like a fucking taproot. Leon hated it.
“No,” Leon had answered stubbornly, petulantly, blushing from the tips of his ears down to his chest. “I was just helping. You needed help. Your leg was- it was a leg. It was something real. Not just made up bullshit in your head,”
Chris had stepped closer, impossibly so, resting his enormous hands on Leon's hips.
“So you don't need help?” He asked the question with an obnoxious, knowing smirk because that was the whole point of the meetings and the medication, right? To get help?
Chris was right and Leon knew it.
“Fuck off,” was his eloquent, very mature response. He tried to twist away, but Chris just pulled him closer, so Leon's back was pressed flush against his chest. His arms were folded tightly against his chest, and Chris's arms were wrapped around them, firm but not trapping. Leon made no move to get away.
Work was relentless.
Their two day getaway at the Best Western became one night at home, a romantic dinner, the kind of sex that sappy, pathetic people call “lovemaking”, then a good night's sleep naked in each other's arms.
Then they would wake up at 6:00 AM and the music box would be rewound, and the song and dance would start again.
They scheduled dinner for 5 PM, but by the time Leon finally got home, the clock read 9:36. A day of paperwork had turned into a quick mission, that led to a few hours of decontamination and a quick trip to the hospital to put a cast on his fractured wrist. By the time he returned to their apartment, he was exhausted and dirty, covered in blood and sweat and dirt. His clothes were filthy. He could have been home at 9:00, but he'd stopped at Kroger's on the way, snatching a $30 bouquet of grocery store flowers. No roses, the roses were out of stock.
Leon stood outside the door for a long time. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. They should have been in Fiji or Tahiti or Costa Rica—somewhere sunny and warm, not rotting away in their shitty, freezing apartment in New York. It wasn't Leon's fault, it wasn't—but things kept going wrong, so maybe he was just cursed. He was Medusa, punished for somebody else's fuck-up, doomed to ruin everything he touched or even looked at.
Marrying Chris was the best decision he ever made because Chris was the best thing that had ever happened to him. This was their anniversary, it was meant to be a celebration of the impossible, infinite love and devotion Leon felt towards his partner but, like an unattended bonfire slowly reducing down to embers and ashes, he was left standing at the door, unwilling to go inside because that would mean confronting Chris, confronting the possibility that maybe love just wasn't enough. That he wasn't enough.
A physical injury wasn't the same as whatever bullshit Leon was dealing with. The human body was designed to repair itself. Healing would always inevitably happen, even if the final product was something irrevocably changed. But addiction? Depression? Healing was never linear, but at least with physical injury, the body worked with you instead of against you. Leon's brain wanted him to crash and burn. He regressed, he relapsed, how long was Chris going to put up with that until he decided that he had enough? Sure, Leon had made progress, he was open and honest with his therapist, he was four months sober and taking it more seriously than he'd ever taken anything else in his life—what was that enough?
Leon open the door, plastered on an enormous grin, and loudly announced, “Your knight in shining armor has returned!”
The apartment smelled vaguely like food, like somebody had cooked hours ago and the aroma was still airing out. Chris was sitting on the couch with his head buried in his hands. Frustrated, probably. Exasperated. He shot up like a rocket at the sound of Leon's voice and Leon immediately averted his gaze, proudly holding the flowers out for Chris to take, but unwilling to look at the inevitably disappointed expression on his partner's face.
Time and time again, Chris had proven himself to be trustworthy and, above all else, compassionate and kind. Why was it that, even after all this time, Leon still couldn't seem to grasp that? Why couldn't he just trust that Chris loved him unconditionally? How many times was Chris going to have to prove himself? Wasn't that unfair? Didn’t Chris deserve somebody who trusted him unequivocally?
“Oh, Lee… are you okay?”
Chris cupped his face with his large, warm hands, and the tension in Leon's finally eased up. A thumb gently caressed his bruised cheek, and he finally looked up to meet Chris's eyes. They were filled with such impossible, infinite compassion and concern that Leon immediately felt foolish for ever doubting him.
“You should see the other guy,” It was a joke, it was a flirtation, and more than anything else, it was a diversion. Was he okay? That big, callous thumb caressed his cheek again and he stepped closer, burying his face and Chris's neck. This time, he answered earnestly:
“I'm better now that you're here,”
He wrapped his arms around Chris, his lithe fingers digging into the fabric of his partner’s ratty, old letterman jacket.
“Aw, you didn't even dress up for me?” Leon asked, and the question seemed to genuinely catch Chris off guard.
“I'm sorry. I just thought we were being casual. But if you want, I can dress up for you?” There was concern in his voice, insecurity, and that surprised Leon, who pulled away and immediately began to splutter,
“No, no! It's alright, I was just joking. This is perfect! You're perfect. Hell, look at me! My hair is completely caked in mud and-”
Chris smiled empathetically. “This sucks. Doesn't it?”
Leon swallowed thickly. The backs of his eyes began to prickle and his lips twisted upwards into a snarl. He didn't want to cry, he never used to cry ever, not at all, but then therapy had started and suddenly he was bursting into tears at all sorts of stupid things. It was pathetic.
Chris, ever patient, ever kind, ever long-suffering, pulled him close and tucked his head against his shoulder. If a few stray tears slid down Leon's cheeks, Chris didn't see them.
“This sucks so bad,” Leon admitted, his voice cracking. “It wasn't supposed to go this way. Things are supposed to be better, not perfect, but better than this shit. There's no time to eat, no time to do anything, we both have work in the morning, and it isn't fair. It isn't fucking fair. Tonight was supposed to be special. This is bullshit. All of this is bullshit! You mean the world to me and if I can't show you that-”
Chris pulled away abruptly, pushing Leon back so he could search his eyes. He smiled with a kind of gentleness that Leon still wasn't sure he deserved.
“Is that what this is about?”
That familiar sense of shame bubbled up in Leon's stomach and he looked away. He felt inexplicably childish, waiting for a lecture that never came. Chris remained silent, and his hands moved to rest heavily on Leon's shoulders, muscular fingers kneading the back of his neck. He averted his gaze to reduce the pressure, giving Leon time and space to organize his thoughts and express them.
He was so impossibly patient that Leon wanted to rip his hair out. But instead, he did what his therapist told him to do: he took a breath, met the shame with kindness, and allowed the feeling to simply exist.
“You're everything to me,” he said at last. “You make me feel like the sun was something that you built for me, that you hung it yourself. You make me feel whole. But not… not in a way like you complete me. More like- sorry. I'm phrasing this badly. Dr. Jameson says self-esteem isn't something other people can give you. That the emptiness inside you is something you have to learn to fill yourself. I don't know how to do that. I'm learning, but it's hard. I'm bad at it. I fuck up a lot. You complete me because you give me space to fail. You make me want to be a better person, to give a shit about myself, to learn to like myself so I can let you love me. So I can love you the way you deserve to be loved. But… I'm bad at it. You’re patient and kind and you've never, ever given me any reason to doubt you but sometimes… I'm worried that it isn't enough. That I'm not making progress fast enough,”
Leon huddled closer, and Chris engulfed him in his arms. His heartbeat was loud and steadying. His hands traced meaningless patterns up and down Leon’s spine. Leon’s eyes fell closed. For as shitty as his day was—for a shittiest the last couple of weeks have been—somehow, this one moment made it all worth it. He felt safe.
“I made all these plans to show you just how much I love you, but those plans kept getting whittled away and now there's nothing. It's almost ten o'clock. We have to wake up at six. There isn't any time and I'm worried- how are you supposed to know just how much I love you if I can't show you?”
Chris chuckled, and his arms around Leon tightened.
“You know,” he said. “It's the damndest thing. I feel the same way about you. You take care of me in ways that no other partner has ever done for me before. Jesus, every morning when I take a shower, you get up and toss a towel in the dryer so I can dry off with a warm towel. You pack a lunch for me and leave a cute little note inside—I didn't ask you to do any of that, you just do it. You think I don't know that you love me? Leon, you're the thing that makes life worth living. It's all the little stuff you do. Like, when it's your turn to do dinner you make handmade pasta-”
“-which is how it's supposed to be done, my nonna would roll in her grave if she found out I was using boxed-”
“But that's just it! It's all of the little things like that! I don't like doing the laundry, so you do it for me. You don't like doing the dishes, so I do it for you! Your weaknesses are my strength, my weaknesses are your strengths. I don't care that you have bad days, because you don't care that I have bad days! You have this belief that all of the little things you do don't count, but Leon, those little things mean everything to me! Today is shitty. The people we work for are shitty. But you know what? Time is a fucking construct! We can pretend like today is not our anniversary, it doesn't count. I put my foot down, we've got all of next month off, nobody's going to take it away from us. And I'm going to spend that whole month fucking lavishing you. Do you hear me?”
The tension in Leon's chest had long since dissipated. Exhaustion was rapidly overtaking him. Luckily, it wasn't enough to drown out his signature cockiness, which was reemerging now that the pressure and pain had eased.
“Not if I lavish you first,”
Chris rolled his eyes. “God, you're such a brat,”
“C'mon, you like it. You like it when I act out. You like putting me in my place,” Leon was starting to press little, lingering kisses against Chris’s neck and jawbone. Given the way his skin flushed red, it was having the intended effect.
It was their anniversary. And frankly? Leon was finally ready to forget their woes and celebrate.
He stood up a little taller, spine straightening, shoulders broadening, and began pushing Chris backwards, little by little, until his pack was pressed against the wall. His kisses got messier, sloppier, trailing down to the exposed parts of his collar bone while his hands innocently slid up underneath Chris’s shirt.
Whatever he was doing must've been working, because Chris's hand slid down to grip his hip, and his thumb innocuously wormed down beneath the hem of Leon’s pants.
“No, no, no, we're not doing it like that tonight. I said I wanted to lavish you, not punish you,” Chris chided.
Leon snorted and rolled his eyes. “That can be the same thing, can't it?”
Chris rolled his eyes right back, bigger and more dramatic, like he was making a point. It was his turn to be assertive. He grasped Leon by the shoulders and pushed him backwards, towards the couch. Leon sat back the second his calves touched the cushions and his pupils blew out wide with desire when Chris climbed on top of him, straddling him, all of his weight carefully sinking onto Leon’s lap.
“Not tonight, it can't. No, tonight we’re going to do this properly,” Chris cupped Leon’s face once more and, although the touch was still impossibly gentle, there was a certain hunger in the way the pads of his fingers gently dug into the meat of Leon's cheek. A rough, calloused thumb swiped across his lips and Leon opened his mouth almost instinctively. His skin aches for the warmth of his husband’s touch, and he wasn't so proud as to not lean into it.
Leon was consumed by his senses. All he could feel was Chris’s weight on him, all he could hear was the rapid beating of their rabbit hearts. Chris stooped and pressed a long, tender kiss against Leon's lips—a kiss that grew hungrier and greedier the longer it went on. Lips met and tongues explored each other. Leon found himself pressing upwards, lifting himself off the couch and scrabbling at Chris’s clothes as if he could meld their bodies together if they just got close enough.
Inexplicably, the backs of his eyes started to prickle again, snapping him back to reality with a gasp of air. The tears came hot and fast, rolling down his cheeks, one after another. Embarrassed, he pulled away, pushing himself into the couch as deep as he could, trying to get away from Chris, desperate to hide himself, but not wanting to let go. The shame he felt burnt hot and bright in his gut and he couldn't for the life of him understand why.
Why? Why here? Why now? This was everything he wanted! So why…?
Chris pulled away as well. Leon knew he was doing it out of kindness, giving him space as he gasped for air like a dying fish, frantically swiping away at humiliating tears that wouldn't stop coming. He opened his mouth to speak, to apologize, to explain himself, but no sound came out. And Chris, that fucker, just smiled.
Then, much to Leon’s horror, he got up and left. Leon doubled over and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. The rush of emotion was so intense, so completely out of left field, he found himself completely helpless against the barrage. He didn't make a sound, thank God, but the tears didn't stop and his shoulders were starting to heave as he struggled to regulate his breathing. What the hell was wrong with him? He was a trained killer, for God’s sake, the most lethal weapon in the world! Why the hell was he falling apart over nothing?
Suddenly, there was a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back. Leon looked up, startled and starstruck. Chris. It was Chris, of course it was Chris! Who else would it be? And yet, the sight of him standing over him, smiling gently… it was ethereal, sacred. He felt like a mortal man gazing on the figure of Aphrodite herself. Chris, kind, compassionate Chris, was perfect and beautiful. And Leon? Leon was foolish and messy. He was covered in dirt and sweat and blood, and his eyes were wet and red and puffy and, God, what a mess.
Chris climbed back on top of him and something in Leon’s brain short circuited. There was too much emotion in him and he couldn't seem to repress it the way he used to. He pushed it down, but it all came right back up. There was so much of it! Shame, relief, grief, adoration…
The way Chris sat on him now was different. It was grounding, like being crushed under the weight of a 220lbs weighted blanket. Something warm and wet touched his face and Leon startled, which earned a chuckle from Chris and a subsequent scowl from Leon.
“Let me take care of you, Lee. You’ll feel better with all this grime off your face,”
Oh. It was a warm washcloth. Chris was so tender in the way he washed Leon’s face and neck, pressing little kisses to Leon’s cheeks when his expression started looking distressed, like his thoughts were drowning him. Eventually, the tension dropped out of Leon’s shoulders and he sagged forward, shamelessly leaning into Chris’s touch with his full bodyweight.
“I'm sorry,” he said softly.
“Nothing to apologize for. Crying is good for you. It's just feelings leaving the body. Better to let them out than keep them stuffed inside,”
“Stop,” Leon said, sharper than he meant to, before adding, softer, “You sound like my therapist,” Chris simply snorted in response.
“I just… don't know why this is happening,” Leon admitted. “I love you. I want you. So why do I suddenly feel like I'm drowning at the bottom of the ocean? I want you,”
“Can I say something that's going to sound a lot like your therapist?” Chris asked, and damn him for the cute little smirk on his face. He put the washcloth aside and couldn't resist caressing his husband's face.
Leon rolled his eyes and huffed, just for show, but begrudgingly relented, resting his clean face against Chris’s shoulder. “Alright, fine. But I can only tolerate so much therapizing,” he huffed.
“You know when you're recovering from an injury and they push you hard enough to rebuild muscle volume, but they also tell you not to push yourself too hard so you don't reinjure yourself?"
Leon wrinkled his nose. “Yeah….?” He sounded skeptical. Once again, Chris just chuckled and threaded his fingers through Leon’s hair.
“You have to find a balance. Because you want to build up strength and tolerance, but if you push yourself too hard, you risk injuring yourself again. So you have to learn how much is too much, and when to be done,”
“Okay? Where is this-”
“Jesus, Leon, I'm getting there, just be patient,” Chris huffed. “I'm saying, it's the same way with all this mental health stuff you're going through. You want to push yourself hard enough that you build tolerance, but not so hard that you hurt yourself. Your body’s trying to tell you something, Lee,”
Leon's stomach plummeted. He had an ugly feeling that he knew where this was going, and it stung because it felt like a rejection.
“I want to have sex with you,” he said petulantly, like a child. “Chris, I love you! I know time is a concept and shit, but it's our anniversary, and if I can't do this one fucking thing, what good am I? I love you! I want you!”
“And you can have me, Lee!” Chris exclaimed, pulling away to put his hands on Leon’s shoulders again. “I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere. You had a shitty day. Hell, you've had a shitty month! Your mission went to shit, you got hurt, and somebody on your team wound up in the ICU. You're exhausted. Your brain is still processing all the shit that happened today, and I know you feel guilty about what happened to your teammate, I know you blame yourself even though you shouldn't, and it's a lot, Leon! You're going through a lot. You've been through shit and you're exhausted and if sex is too much for you right now, that's okay. We can fuck some other time. Hell, why don't we call in sick tomorrow? Rebecca owes me a favor, I could get her to write a doctor’s note and-”
“She’s not that kind of doctor, I don't think HR would-”
“Leon, you broke your wrist, you should take some time off anyways. Besides, HR is full of a bunch of incompetent airheads. They won't notice,”
Leon was quiet, brows knit together in frustration. “This isn't fair. I want you Chris, I want this,”
“And you can have me. Tomorrow, all day, after a good night’s sleep. I'm not rejecting you, Leon. I want you too. Good God, I want you. But you're exhausted and overwhelmed and your body’s trying to let you know that this is too much tonight,”
“Stupid fucking body… doesn't know shit…” Leon grumbled, trying not to sound as disheartened as he felt.
He took a deep breath, tried to meet the feeling with love, but man, it sucked. It fucking sucked.
“You know, we can still be intimate without having sex,” Chris offered, and Leon, admittedly, found himself perking up.
“Like…?”
“Like… why don't we take a nice, hot bath together? I'll wash your hair. I know you love it when I rub your scalp,”
Leon flushed. “I do like a good scalp massage,” he agreed which made Chris snort. Fucking rude.
“God, you're such a cat, you love your head scritches, huh?”
Leon rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Redfield,”
“Ah, ah, ah, that's Redfield-Kennedy to you, mister,”
Leon found himself smiling in spite of himself.
“Okay, okay, yeah, alright. A bath sounds really nice,”
Chris grinned and finally pulled himself off of Leon, which was sort of a relief—his leg was starting to go numb.
“Good. I'll get it started. Lavender bubble bath? Or should I break into my stash of bath bombs?”
“I thought you said those were Claire’s?” Leon asked with a quirked brow and a cheeky smile.
Chris flushed instantly and it was a sight Leon loved to see.
“Well- no, yeah, they’re Claire’s! Just- shut up, Kennedy, do you want one or not?”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Leon tutted with a smirk. “That's Kennedy-Redfield to you, mister. But yes, let's do a bath bomb. Do we have any of the peony ones left?”
“Lucky for you, I think we do,” Pressing one last kiss to Leon’s hair, Chris scurried off to the bathroom to turn on the tub. Leon followed shortly behind him, grabbed two towels, and tossed them in the dryer.
“Hey Leon?” Chris called, sticking his head out of the bathroom.
“What is it?” Leon asked.
“Happy anniversary. I love you,”
“I love you too,” Leon said, and smiled in spite of himself.