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Leon S. Kennedy breathed in the clear, crisp night air and rubbed his thumb over the band on his left ring finger, marveling at the fact that he was still alive… and for once, it didn’t feel quite as burdensome as it used to.
With assurance from Umber Eyes that Emily would be rescued and treated with the finest medical care the BSAA had to offer, the last of the tension drained from Leon’s shoulders. Despite what he’d said to Sherry about feeling better than ever thanks to Elpis, he was extremely sore all over the place and ready to sleep for three business days. The idea of being put up somewhere in Rhodes Hill did nothing for him, and he resigned himself to finding his Porsche and driving through the twelve hours or so back to DC.
A light touch to his arm. “Leon?”
He turned to look at Grace, who still had her emergency blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders, holding it close with her other hand. She looked about as beat as he felt, the paleness of her skin matching her hair thanks to the blood loss. “Hey,” he said warmly, though he’d just spoken to her a minute ago. “Thought you were gonna let the ambulance take you home?”
“I… I don’t wanna be alone,” tumbled out of her mouth, her eyes widening fractionally afterwards and darting away from his face. He’d clocked her issue with eye contact early on, and was pleased when her gaze returned after a few deep breaths. “I already talked to my boss, he said to take as much time off as I need, so…”
“Well,” Leon drawled, putting his hands on his hips and leaning back a little, something in his bruised spine popping with the motion. “I need to figure out where the hell I left my car, but once I do that, I’m heading to Washington. You must’ve trained at Quantico, right?”
“Y-Yeah. I’ve been to DC a few times before, but I never really got to see much.” Grace tugged her blanket on a little tighter, shifting her weight from foot to foot uncertainly. “You really wouldn’t mind if I came with you?”
“Wouldn’t have offered if I did,” Leon replied with a wink, smiling when it made her huff out a soft laugh. He offered an arm next, waiting until she curled her hand around the crook of his elbow before he started walking, aiming them away from the giant hole in the ground left behind by ARK and toward the eastern part of Raccoon City. “You can make a vacation out of it. Meet my husband, and our friends. And I know a great place we can have breakfast on the way.”
~***~
They stopped in Indianapolis as the sun rose, at a diner Leon had been to once before when he’d been attempting to track down an errant shipment of Las Plagas. He regaled Grace with that story over intimidatingly large lumberjack specials, and once they were done eating, it was decided that they desperately needed to catch a nap. They located a decent hotel where Grace insisted on paying for their adjoining rooms and the concierge definitely thought they were father and daughter, but neither of them minded.
As soon as Leon had showered himself pruney, he tried to call Chris, but it went straight to voicemail. Not alarming, considering he was probably halfway around the world, wrapping up his hunt for clues as to the mysterious illness that had befallen everyone he loved. The elder Redfield and Rebecca had been the only ones of their little group to not get sick, since they weren’t in Raccoon City on the day everything went to shit.
Leon’s next call was Claire.
“You did it,” she said in lieu of greeting, her normally bell-like voice raspy in a way that made his skin crawl. She sounded just as weak as he had a handful of hours ago. “Are you okay?”
“I am now,” Leon responded, keeping his voice down. He could just barely hear Grace snoring like a long-haul trucker through the wall, and smiled to himself. “It’s a long fucking story, and I’d rather tell it in person. You’re still with the others at Becca’s place?” Meaning Carlos and Jake, the former too sick to travel and the latter helping out wherever he could; Jill was with Chris, watching his six when Leon couldn’t, and Piers was looking for answers elsewhere. When he got an affirmative hum, he continued, “The BSAA should be hand-delivering the antiviral any minute now. Sherry already got her dose.”
Claire let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I was almost as worried about her as I was about you.” In the background of the call, Leon heard a doorbell ring, and her sense of relief transferred to him. “Wow, you weren’t kidding.”
“Nope.” Leon popped the “p” in the word the way he knew she hated, just to make her snort. “Now, shoot yourself up and get some rest, okay? I’ll sleep a lot better knowing you’re on the mend.”
They said their goodbyes, and Leon caught the equivalent of a catnap before Grace started screaming in the next room.
~***~
“This is stupid,” Grace mumbled near his ear a while later, once they were under the covers together in Leon’s bed. Normally he would’ve had some reservations about it, but he had been deadly serious back in ARK when he’d said he trusted her, and besides that… she might’ve been older, but curled up on her side after one of the worst nights of her life, she reminded him an awful lot of Sherry. “I should be out cold after all of that. Instead I can’t even be in a bed by myself before I t-think about...”
“It’s not stupid.” Leon picked up the thread after she trailed off, turning his head enough from where he was lying on his back to look at her. He felt around (very carefully) until he found her hand, holding it gently. “That was no cakewalk for me, either. Being back in RC… never thought that would happen. Had plenty of nightmares about it, though.”
Grace swallowed audibly, scooching down until she could rest her forehead against the wing of his shoulder. “Would you… tell me about it? Being there the first time?”
Leon chuckled. “I don’t know if that makes for the best bedtime story… but sure.” He took a deep breath, debating where to start, and went with, “So I was twenty-one and a rookie cop, late as hell and hungover on his first day…”
He talked until they both fell asleep.
~***~
When Chris Redfield pulled into his driveway and realized the car already parked there was a tricked-out Porsche, he almost crashed into it.
Thankfully, his reflexes kicked in and he was able to slam on his brakes, throwing his Jeep into park and all but falling out of the driver’s seat. He’d just driven back from the airport after the redeye flight from hell and dropped Jill off at the BSAA satellite office in DC to get her dose of Elpis, but in that moment the only thing on his mind was seeing that Leon was safe with his own eyes.
He grabbed his bag off the backseat and hustled up the front steps, lumbering inside with all the finesse of an overzealous grizzly bear. “Leon?” he called, maybe a little too loudly given the situation–and dropped his bag when he saw the man in question, sprawled out on the sectional with a woman Chris didn’t recognize. “Hey.”
Leon’s whole face lit up when their eyes met, and he jumped to his feet without any of the winces or stiffness that had plagued him since he’d started showing symptoms of T-Virus infection. “Hey there, handsome,” he said, and though the words were playful, his voice cracked with emotion. “Thanks for the save–although I gotta say, your timing needs work.”
Chris made a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob and closed the distance between them, wrapping Leon up in his arms and burying his face in the side of his neck–which was no longer black with disease. “Sorry about that. Didn’t have a cell signal for a while, and by the time Sherry’s call got through I was afraid…” He trailed off, not even wanting to give voice to the thought. Instead he pulled back enough to frame Leon’s face with his hands, careful not to catch his wedding band on the stubbly beard he had going on. “You’re really okay?”
He hated how small his voice sounded, but Leon only nodded, leaning into Chris’s touch as those eyes he loved so much–back to their crystal-clear cerulean, instead of fading green–fell shut. “Yeah, I am.” His lashes fluttered again, and now he seemed to remember they weren’t alone. “But I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for Grace.”
“Um… hi,” the woman on the couch said, raising one hand from where she was hugging one of their throw pillows. She was wearing a spare pair of Chris’s reading glasses, and one of Leon’s trade paperbacks rested next to her leg. “I’m Grace Ashcroft. I’m a technical analyst for the FBI.”
“Technical analyst?” Chris repeated, surprised. He didn’t stop touching Leon, sliding them down to his shoulders, then his arms, finally taking his hands in both of his own; Grace’s eyes tracked the movement but she made no comment, and Chris honestly hadn’t expected one from someone her age. They tended to be more accepting. “Nobody told me that. Wait, were you out in the field by yourself?”
She let out a hoarse little laugh. “Yeah, m’sure my boss is getting an earful for that one.” Gesturing vaguely with the hand she already had up at their joined ones, she continued, “Well, you must be Chris. Thank you, for sending your team to get us.”
“Thank you for helping Leon,” Chris said earnestly, and it was only when the man in question gave him a little prod to the hip that he took off his overcoat and boots. “How do you feel about Chinese food?”
~***~
It turned out Grace felt very good about Chinese food, and ate with a voracity that surprised both Leon and Chris. She helped Leon tell Chris about their entire adventure, from where she’d started in Wrenwood all the way to the ARK, filling in the blanks that Leon couldn’t recall thanks to the virus that had been munching on his brain. As always, Chris listened with rapt attention, occasionally asking a clarifying question, but otherwise letting them both get it all out.
Leon glossed over a few details on his end with Grace present, still able to feel the phantom touch of Gideon’s massive fingers on his neck and the implication behind it; he’d share that later. Besides, he knew Chris would be perturbed enough when they got to the part about Zeno, and reached over to take his husband’s hand when it spasmed against the dining table, Chris’s focus drifting from them for just a moment before dialing back in.
When they were finally both out of words, Grace sat back in her chair and muffled a yawn against her arm. “Wow, I can’t believe I’m still so tired.”
“Trust me, that only goes downhill from where you are,” Leon joked, putting the leftovers away in the fridge and closing it with his hip. “Go get some rest, yeah?” He made a surprised sound when she bolted forward and hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder, but he got it together and rubbed a hand up and down her back. “You’re okay. And if you’re not, wake us up. Chris knows all about nightmares.”
“I have plenty of my own,” Chris assured her, reading cues quickly as always. He waited until she bid them both a soft goodnight before he moved toward the wine rack. “You want a glass?”
“God, please.” Neither of them drank to excess anymore, and they didn’t keep hard liquor in the house, but the occasional beer or glass of wine was something they both enjoyed. They moved to the couch once Chris poured them both some merlot, and Leon snuggled into Chris’s side before he had fully raised his arm to welcome him there. “I missed you.”
Lips touched Leon’s temple, followed by the slightest shaky breath. “I guarantee I missed you more. There’s a part of me… I know damn well what you’re capable of, Leon, but hearing all of that… I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I get that.” Leon slotted a leg between Chris’s, grateful as always that they had ordered the biggest sectional known to humankind, which allowed them to stretch out together comfortably. He smiled when Chris dragged a blanket down over them both, then carded his fingers through Leon’s hair. A much better feeling than Gideon doing the same while he was tied up, to be sure. “There were a few moments where I didn’t think I was going to be. I wanted to call you, but…”
“But?” Chris prompted when he didn’t finish his thought, thumb brushing over the shell of Leon’s ear. “I mean, like with Sherry, it might not have gone through… but why didn’t you?”
Earlier in their relationship–shortly after Arias and New York, when Leon was still a mess–he would’ve dodged answering that question directly. Now, though… “I didn’t want that to be your last memory of me,” he admitted quietly, blinking at Chris when he touched his jaw to get him to make eye contact. “Dying in pain, when there was nothing you could do about it.”
Chris inhaled, nodding slowly. “I understand that, I do. But… listen to me, okay?” He squeezed the back of Leon’s neck gently, tipping him forward until their foreheads were pressed together. “I love you, Leon S. Kennedy. And if you’re in a situation where you truly think there’s no way out, I want you to call me. I want to hear your voice one last time–” his own voice cracked, but he pushed through it “–even if I never get to see you again. We said in sickness and in health, and in this life and the next one, remember?”
“Mostly I remember you swearing after Piers realized he didn’t have the rings,” Leon joked weakly, sniffling and moving enough to kiss Chris on the mouth. It was closed-mouthed and chaste, but it still made him tingle from the top of his head to his toes. He suspected it always would. “But you’re right. Same applies to you, though, okay? I never–the thought of you dying kills me, but the thought of you dying alone…” That was unacceptable, and also less likely to happen to Chris than it was to Leon, but he refused the idea all the same. “So, what do you think of Grace? She’s pretty cool, right?”
A chuckle rumbled out of Chris. “Yeah, she is. Reminds me of you a little bit, when Claire first introduced us after Antarctica.” Another kiss, longer and lingering, but still just enjoying each other’s presence rather than trying to start anything (Leon figured they’d save that for the morning when they both had some energy). “Speaking of which, when are we introducing her to the family?”
“I thought maybe we could bring breakfast over to Rebecca’s tomorrow.” Leon settled back down again with his head on Chris’s shoulder, sighing contentedly. “Right now… right now I’m just happy to be here with you.”
Chris held him just a little tighter. “The feeling is mutual.” Another soft kiss, this time to the crown of his head. “Welcome home, Leon.”