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Chris Redfield had returned fully aware that he would lose his husband. He had, however, not considered that he might return, having nearly lost him. Frankly, after that debrief, he wasn’t sure what he’d returned to.
Their driveway looked familiar enough. The stupid Porsche, Ada had given him as a wedding present, once more parked within the perpetually open garage. Car theft, apparently, an entirely foreign concept to a man who’d gone and graduated from police academy before his brief stint as an officer led him down a career path that let him comfortably drive a $ 260.000 car into a do-over of what must have been the worst first day of a Rookie in police history.
Putting his own truck into park behind a car, his husband had nearly wrecked more often than Chris had ever driven it; he spotted the bikes beyond. An extensive collection of vehicles, no one at this point could have guessed, had been painstakingly assembled by skilled hands that still somehow managed to burn as mundane a dish as cooked rice.
Eyes fixed ahead, Chris could make out his husband’s latest project in the far back of the garage, looking no different from the day he’d practically snuck out of his own bedroom, pretending that he hadn’t been kept up all night by stifled coughs from the adjacent bathroom all the while telling himself that he would have known if it was anything serious. That he would be back before shit hit the proverbial fan.
In retrospect, he could hardly blame Leon for not even bothering to tell him how much of an asshole he’d been. Calls had grown sparse; he could hardly remember their last proper conversation, and some selfish part of him hoped his husband would prove as tight-lipped now as he’d been all those months leading up to this blasted moment. Though he knew he’d sleep better if Leon just full-on roundhouse-kicked him out the window.
Rather than dwell on the exact manner in which he’d slowly chipped away and now was about to wreck their entire life, he forced himself to turn his head, look down at the little girl still sleeping peacefully in the children’s seat he’d bought but a week ago. No idea how much her mere existence put herself and everyone around her at risk. How it was about to cost him everything he held dear. How he’d do whatever was necessary, so she’d never have to find out.
Reaching for his ‘private’ phone, he cast a furtive glance at the screen. No messages, no missed calls, not after the first barrage had gone ignored and Claire had hung up on him. Initially, he’d welcomed the silence. Decision made. Consequences accepted, he’d thought it a mercy, a few more moments in which he got to pretend like he was not about to go full salted earth on a man who’d painstakingly forged out a life for the two of them with what little they’d been given. But then that call had come through on his other phone. About mysterious deaths, an asylum… Raccoon City. Afterwards, … afterwards he’d sent his team to that blasted place and stupidly opened some of the messages. He should have known better. They didn’t do texts. Every word between them, every moment of so much as hearing each other’s voice, was too precious to waste in anything other than an emergency. And this had been an emergency. And Chris hadn’t been there. Hadn’t even shown up when Sherry had broken her word to Leon and reached out to Claire in a desperate attempt to get the HWS involved.
Chris had expected to lose his husband, but given all that had happened, he did not dare imagine what it would do to him once Leon realized that Chris had returned to rob him of what little he might have thought he’d left.
Pushing past the urge to put the car in reverse and get out of here before he’d be forced to find out, he unbuckled himself, the sound startling the small figure beside him into wakefulness. Big blue eyes blinked up at him, so much like her father's and, by now, just as precious to Chris as the pair he equally dreaded and longed to see… likely for the last time.
“We’re here,” he explained, a strained smile on his lips. The poor girl merely answered with the slightest of nods, watching Chris tend to her own seatbelt and waiting patiently for him to get out and round the car to lift her down onto the pavement. Silently grasping his hand, she allowed herself to be led to the front door of their… Chris’ house.
He tried not to pay attention to what he might find beyond the windowpane, flooding the living room and kitchen with light, but old habits die hard, and his need to survey his next battlefield overcame his selfish cowardice. Inside, the massive flat screen showed something that looked suspiciously like some salacious period drama, causing a frown to crease his brow as he beheld the broad frame of his husband, sprawled on the sofa, attention fixed on a show only Sherry could have talked him into putting on.
Far as Chris could tell, the music accompanying the extended on-screen make-out session was the only sound inside the house. Odd, given that Leon tended to keep up a running commentary, regardless of whether there was an audience to appreciate it. Pushing down the nausea that crawled up his throat, he forced himself back into motion, put the key into the lock and valiantly resisted the urge to look back at the window and catch his husband’s reaction. Not that it was likely for Leon to have missed his arrival, which made the silence all the more unsettling.
Stepping across the threshold into the hallway beyond, Chris tried to busy himself by helping Rose out of her jacket and shoes rather than dwell on the fact that Leon did not rise or so much as call out from his spot on the sofa in greeting. No commentary forthcoming, even when some guy in the show delivered the line “Be my mistress” with the same gravitas as Leon himself had used to propose.
Rose, meanwhile, had remained blissfully unaware of Chris’ growing discomfort. The girl was busy looking around, something he himself tried his best to avoid while slipping out of his own jacket and shoes. Had he looked around, he’d have found pictures of family and friends hung on the walls, too many expensive jackets on the rack and Leon’s one pair of actually worn shoes beneath, his husband refusing to buy another till the soles were quite literally about to fall off. Had he looked around, he would have had time to do more than merely acknowledge the smell of takeout from the Thai restaurant down the street. He’d might have had to acknowledge that there seemed to be too many different dishes to imply his husband had taken dinner alone.
Had Chris allowed himself to truly take in his surroundings, he’d have had to admit that, even though he had bought this place long before some blue-eyed wisecracker had begun to take up three fourths of their bathroom space with his hair products, it had only become a home after the first bottle of ridiculously expensive shampoo had mysteriously appeared in the shower. And that, by now, it was mostly Leon’s, Chris spending the past six years moving and or never replacing half the stuff that had been solely his.
Not that his stubborn husband had enough sense to just let him silently slip away. Next to Leon’s sole pair of shoes, waited a brand-new pair of trainers in Chris’ size, on the coat rack were two simple coats that must have cost a fortune but would have dwarfed even Leon and beneath the scent of Thai, Chris could still detect the faint note of the air refresher he’d silently placed in the hallway connecting the front door and garage. Testament to a time when their only arguments had been about the place reeking of motor oil because his husband couldn’t be bothered to buy another fridge, arguing that he could ‘Hardly force his favorite snack to do important paperwork amidst greasy tools wielded by his sweaty husband.’ Chris had never been in a position to truly complain. After all, there was a reason why his office was all the way down the hall, right next to the door leading to said garage. The same reason that had kept that door open so as not to miss Leon on his little ‘supply runs’ to the kitchen and back, which had usually ended with oil stains on Chris’ forehead, neck or damn lips because somehow Leon never managed to not end up covered in the stuff from head to toe.
No doubt, had he checked the pantry, he’d have found the necessary ingredients to whip up any number of his favorite dishes, despite Leon being unable to so much as cook an egg without their insurance heaving a sigh. The upstairs bathroom would be stocked with his cologne, preferred brand of razor blades and whatever else in matters of personal preference Leon had paid attention to, even at times when Chris couldn’t give a damn. It had mattered more than he dared to acknowledge during those bleak days and hurt all the more now.
Rose grasped his hand again, likely alarmed by the way his gaze remained fixed on the rack, as if he had any idea which jacket Leon had moaned about losing to Umber Eyes, in a very Leon attempt at distracting the FBI analyst, whose side he’d refused to leave even during the mandatory twenty-four-hour quarantine by the DSO.
Really, Chris should have been prepared for the sight that greeted him inside the living room, one that neatly explained why Leon hadn’t so much as stirred after hearing a familiar truck in the driveway. For his husband had been caught in the sole trap Chris knew him utterly incapable of escaping: Sherry Birkin snoring and drooling onto his shoulder, her entire body wrapped around Leon’s arm, like she was still a girl of twelve and not an accomplished agent in her early forties. Chris had stopped counting how often he’d stumbled upon them in moments like this. Though he and Claire had designated a group chat to commemorate the various renditions of the scene throughout the years. Today, the unlikely pair had been joined by a young woman, her face smushed into the curve of his husband’s neck, explaining why the HWS had been unable to track down Grace Ashcroft after her release from DSO custody.
As for his husband… Leon’s head rested on the back of the couch, face turned towards Chris with a tired but content smile that did not so much as falter at the sight of the little girl clinging to his hand. If anything, it lit up a little more as Rose curiously looked him up and down before her attention was drawn to the TV, where a colorful tree announced the beginning of the next episode. Something Chris could only acknowledge from the corner of his eye, busy drinking in the sight before him. His husband, bruised, battered and tired in a manner much more familiar than the strange fatigue Chris had caught glimpses of over the past year or so. Leon’s eyes now merely drooped from post-battle haze and the unique horror of days spent settling back into civilian life after averting yet another apocalypse, rather than the T-Virus infection Chris had only learned about less than a week ago.
“Kennedy,” Leon greeted with a familiar shit-eating grin that made Chris want to turn on his heels and throw himself in front of the next-best hoard of B.O.W’s to be torn apart.
“Redfield,” he responded in kind, voice cracking around his own damn name at the unfairness of it all. Grace was the first to stir, prevented from bolting upright by a reassuring squeeze of Leon’s that had Sherry open her eyes in a manner that told Chris she had just been feigning sleep in hope he’d just silently join them rather than forcing Leon to move. He turned to whisper something Chris didn’t quite pick up on to the Ashcroft girl, finding himself distracted by the look that crossed Sherry’s face. Because other than Leon, the woman his sister and husband considered their own seemed to make something of Rose’s presence, his husband had not. Sherry had noticed the absence of a wedding ring on Chris’ finger and come to a conclusion she did not like one bit.
Regardless, the three rose to their feet, both women, by some tacit understanding, keeping their greetings to a wave and a muttered, “It’s good to see you’re alright, Chris,” before retreating to the kitchen with a vague excuse about checking how much of the food was left.
Chris tried not to stare as Leon strolled over in a deliberate manner that indicated he would have flung himself at Chris, pride be damned, if it wasn’t for Rose, a girl Leon had every reason to believe to be in their house in much the same capacity as Grace. Consequently, his greeting to Chris consisted of another tired but genuine smile and a kiss to the cheek before he knelt down to extend a hand to her, as if this were a formal introduction. Chris would be damned if he knew how to pinpoint the spell his husband cast on any lost soul in need of a parental figure, but whatever skill he possessed did not abandon him now.
“Leon Kennedy,” he glanced back up at Chris, the twinkle in those bright blue eyes making it hard to breathe. “In case my husband has failed to mention it.”
“Rose,” she returned, a shy smile creeping onto her lips. A sight Chris had begun to crave like one might flowers in deep winter. And instead of adding ‘Redfield’ as he’d cowardly told her to, she continued, “He might have mentioned you… once or twice.”
Any ill will Chris might have felt at Rose going off script dissipated the moment a low laugh bubbled up Leon’s throat. “One of the pups told you to say that?”
Blushing, Rose vehemently shook her head, the corner of Leon’s mouth twitching ever upward. “Pleasure to meet you, Rose.” Then those blue eyes were back on Chris, and it took his husband less than half a glance to note that something was off.
“Did those pups also not tell you about a girl named Sherry Birkin?”
“Not a girl anymore!” came the chipper response from the kitchen. Sherry’s and Leon’s unspoken rapport reliable as ever. Rose gave a nod, looking curiously past Leon to where Sherry stuck her head back into the living room.
“You hungry?” she asked, Rose looking up to Chris for confirmation, providing a welcome excuse to ignore the frown that threatened to creep onto Leon’s forehead.
Chris forced a smile and a brief nod, which prompted Rose to let go of his hand and hurry over to Sherry, who promptly proceeded to introduce Grace. The young analyst, in turn, looked to Leon as he rose to his feet, receiving a reassuring nod of her own, which did not stop her from giving Chris a once-over that indicated how less than a week and a little over a day spent stumbling through B.O.W-invested rubble had made her more than apt at reading Leon’s moods. Thus, only somewhat reassured, she offered a brief nod of her own and followed Sherry and Rose into the kitchen.
“Care to take this somewhere more private?” His husband prompted, Chris unable to suppress the huff and customary eye roll at the notion that it was Leon’s silver tongue that had gotten them married.
They didn’t say much as they moved to Chris’ office, nor when they gathered up a fountain pen, he’d never used, a paperweight that seemed superfluous at a time when most of his work was done digitally, not even when he unhooked the stupid wolf charm Leon had gifted him from his housekey. He dropped all three unceremoniously onto the left scale held by a Justicia figurine, decorating one of the shelves, only for said shelf to swing open like a door, revealing a hatch and, beneath, the ladder leading to their safe room.
A few more moments passed in silence as they both swept the place to ensure it hadn’t been compromised in their absence. As was custom, it was Leon who spoke up first.
“So, do you need me to get us a lawyer to deal with CPS or fetch the rocket launcher for something more fun?” The words were dry, but the smile, the hope, still hadn’t fully fled Leon’s features as he looked Chris up and down in a manner that rendered the latter unable to say what needed to be said.
Leon looked good. Always had, always would, but it only now dawned on Chris how much he’d been fading in the past months, hell, perhaps even years. How much he’d let him, not even bothering to take a moment and acknowledge that something was terribly wrong because… well, because there had been so much other terrible shit to deal with, and he’d made sure to marry the one guy he thought indestructible. The man he’d gladly entrust with the entire world, once it was finally Chris’ turn to lay down his life for the mission rather than just send others to their deaths.
“I should start charging people for ogling me like that,” Leon huffed, tension creeping more visibly into his posture now that Chris had failed to respond to his first conversation starter.
“I’m your husband,” Chris returned stupidly.
“Can’t be. Pretty sure I put a ring on that,” Leon shot back.
Like an idiot, Chris raised his hands as if he had no idea what Leon was talking about. As if he hadn’t pulled that ring off himself. To make what came next more believable… and himself less likely to turn tail at the last minute.
“There’s no need for a lawyer.”
“Rocket launcher it is,” Leon interrupted sagely, not moving an inch, his body language practically screaming fight or flight. Chris wasn’t sure which urge he hoped would win out once he was done, but there was no getting there with Leon insisting on being so unbearably… himself.
“Please, just let me finish.”
“That’s my line. And you’ll buy me dinner first.”
Chris couldn’t help but scoff. “Fuck you, Leon.”
“Sorry.” His husband held up his hand, wiggling his fingers, the silver band engraved with a C gleaming beneath the LED lights. “Married.”
Bloody hell. Chris couldn’t help it. Not the laugh that made it past his lips and not the tears that spilt down his cheeks. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“See, if you asked my husband, he’d say I’m pretty good at making him…”
“Leon,” he drew in a shaking breath, desperately wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Rose is my daughter.”
It wasn’t hard to say; it was how he had to say it that made it hard. The conclusions he needed Leon to draw, the reason he’d taken off that damn ring.
“Could have told you as much the moment you walked through our front door.” Leon spread his arms, forcefully relaxed as if Chris couldn’t tell that he was this close to bolting. “So what? Need me to organize a six-year-overdue baby shower? You gonna return the favour and do the same for Sherry? Claire will be so jealous.”
“Leon, I swear…”
“I’d be careful with that.” All humor vanished from his voice. “Because you sound an awful lot like you mean to imply that you are already struggling with vows.”
Whatever Chris meant to say next died on his tongue at the genuine anger that finally crept onto Leon’s face. “Are you?”
“Yes.” The word came out like a sigh of relief.
“Fucking hell, Chris.” Leon ran his hand through his hair, Chris bracing for the consequences he’d long since accepted, determined to make this as easy for Leon as possible.
“I know we are struggling. I know there’s plenty of shit I do and have done that could make you avoid me…”
“Leon, it was nothing you did,” Chris cut in, unwilling to be the reason for one more of his husband’s self-deprecating spirals and thus stupid enough to take Leon’s falling silent as anything other than the last warning it was meant to be. “I just… I talked to Claire about what I wanted from life and…” Awful, what he was about to say was awful. But he hoped it was just awful enough to give Leon the necessary incentive to just up and leave. “… and I want a legacy. I want to carry on the family name and you….” He couldn’t get out the “can’t give me that,” once he was met with the incredulous look on his hus-… Leon’s face.
“You telling me you found a way to knock up Ethan just so you can uphold the Redfield bloodline?” he deadpanned, not allowing Chris to so much as recover from that sentence before tagging on, “Because that’s the only way to explain the big blue eyes of the sweet little girl you are currently trying to make me hate.”
“I…”
“And don’t get me wrong, Ethan was a looker. And I am well aware of your thoughts on blonds with nice eyes who can solo an apocalypse or two.” There was a flicker of Leon’s signature smile before he seemed to remember that he meant to hit Chris over the head with some sense. The next hit landed with enough force to knock him firmly on his ass. “And I know you loved Ethan. But I also know Ethan fucking Winters would have gone hand-to-hand with a Tyrant before so much as looking at someone other than Mia.” He paused, giving Chris a chance to say something truly stupid before kicking him in the proverbial gut for good measure. “So, put some respect on the guy’s name, that man went through his own version of Raccoon City twice over for the sake of his wife and daughter. And your Rose is their spitting image.”
“Did… did you talk to Claire?” Surely, his sister wouldn’t have compromised Rose’s safety in such a manner. Not even for Leon’s sake.
“Beyond telling her that our asses were saved by the twenty-something-year-old currently in our in kitchen? No. Did you drag her into this shit?”
“Yes.”
“Great. You’re gonna call and apologise once we’re done.” Leon sucked in a breath. “So, Redfield, do you need or want me out of the house?”
“Leon…, I…”
“Answer the question. Because if it is the former, I’ll shut up, get my shit, my girls and be out of here within the hour.”
Chris blinked, trying and failing to slam a door he had forcefully wrenched open. “And if it’s the latter?”
“Then Claire will be the only Redfield with the equipment to carry on the bloodline,” another glimpse of that smile. Of that bloody hope that had somehow rekindled in eyes, Chris had taken too long to notice were being drained of the light that had drawn him in all those years ago. No doubt Leon was playing it up, that Kennedy-brand bravado on full display to remind Chris why he’d fallen in love with this utter idiot and why he now dreaded every assignment that saw Leon grab his duffel bag rather than don a three-piece suit worth more than the watch Chris had gifted him on their first wedding anniversary. He didn’t need to find his husband curled up on their couch with his daughter and a young woman, who was but one snarky comment away from becoming Sherry’s sister, to know Leon had nearly hit his limit this time. T-Virus infection or not, there was a reason Leon S. Kennedy had increasingly taken on a coordinating role for the DSO, and it was not just because roundhouse-kicking B.O.Ws for over two decades took a toll on your hips. No, Leon S Kennedy had just never been a grand picture kinda guy. His husband wanted to make a difference, but there was precious little difference to be seen when all you had to measure your actions by were the people you could not save. Chris understood. Of course, he did, but he’d always been able to focus on the fact that there were far more people he had saved than lost, even if he would always know more of the latter than the former.
“I don’t want you to be anywhere but by my side,” Chris said with as much conviction as he’d declared Rose his. Again, it wasn’t the words that made it a wretched thing to say but the things his husband would have thought had he not said it. For every time Leon S. Kennedy dragged himself back onto his feet was a time no one had helped him up, one more time he’d been knocked down all on his own, trying and likely failing to save someone else. And if Chris had been unable to miss one thing that had plagued his husband, then it was the question of whether or not it was still worth getting back up the next time it happened. When he’d left to help the Winters, when he had kept leaving for the sake of Rose, he had done so convinced Leon would never have to answer that question as long as Chris did his job. No need to send in the crumbling one-man army to damage control an apocalypse the HWS had prevented well in advance.
As usual, when it came to his husband, he’d been spectacularly wrong and utterly right at the same time. For while he’d been dragged back into a fight, he’d probably thought lost a long time ago, there was one thing you could always count on when it came to Leon S. Kennedy: He’d do whatever it takes to get the job done, even if it meant getting up one more time. Or perhaps, thinking back to the aforementioned twenty-something-year-old, this time, there simply had been someone to drag him back onto his feet.
“Alright,” Leon took a step closer, bridging a gulf Chris had come prepared to turn into a canyon. “Then, where do you need me to be?”
“Far away” would have been the correct answer. “Livid, so the authorities won’t suspect that I am trying to pass off the child of two mutants as my own, so my daughter and her mother can have safe and normal lives even if that means tearing them apart.”
He should have said, “I need you to hate me. To forget all about me and never come back.” But he couldn’t bring himself to say anything once Leon had come close enough to touch and Chris’ hands moved of their own accord, grasping his husband’s shoulders, running down his arms so he’d know for sure that he was still there, still solid no longer… fading.
He’d seen some of the footage by now, had spotted the black marks Leon had still managed to cover up before Chris’ abrupt departure. Knew that his men had alarming quantities of Leon’s blood and bile as part of the samples taken from ARK’s remnants. Slipping his hands down to grasp his husband’s, he could feel lines covering Leon’s palms and, turning them over, Chris revealed a web of scars, mapping the blood vessels beneath the skin. This close, he finally noticed the huge band-aid peeking out of his husband’s turtleneck. The multitude of minute scratches and bruises marring every visible inch of flesh. The way Leon had slumped, now that he felt like Chris no longer needed him to pretend like his back probably wasn’t killing him every second he spent on his feet. The manner in which the brightness of his eyes never quite managed to pierce the shadows cast upon them when all that was left to do was stop the bastards who’d kept you from saving the people that had mattered the most.
How could he say any of the awful things he ought to with all that made Leon Leon laid bare before him?
“I need you to be here,” he stated simply, leaving the rest unsaid. Unsure how his husband would take the simple admittance that all Chris truly needed to keep going was to know him still in this world.
“I want you by my side.”
Both utterly selfish requests, as Leon’s being here not only gave him a reason to keep going but also the ability to let go if necessary, knowing that someone could pick up where he’d left off. It wasn’t just the DSO banking on Leon having just one more fight in him. Chris just so happened to have a personal as well as a big picture reason to do so.
“Good, because I doubt I’ll be limping anywhere but to bed in the foreseeable future,” Leon returned, squeezing Chris’ hands for good measure.
“I don’t know how to pull it off, though. Rose, I mean.” Chris’ eyes briefly flickered towards his feet before he forced himself to meet his husband’s gaze again. “I was so sure this was the only way. That I’d have to choose.”
Leon had the decency not to remark on the outcome of that choice. “Well, I knew I’d have to go for Claire if I meant to marry for brains, not brawn.”
“Leon…”
“You already have everything in place to make them think Rose is yours?” said man carried on.
Chris let out a disgruntled snort. “There’s even a mother on the damn certificate.”
Leon hummed in thought before remarking, “A certificate no one yet knows about.”
Chris shot his husband a suspicious look that earned him another shit-eating smile, smugger than the last one. “How much do you know?”
“You’ve been more of an avoidant, secretive asshole than usual for the past five odd years, and I’m still here.” Another reassuring squeeze of his hand. “Take a wild guess, Redfield.”
“Kennedy,” Chris corrected, rewarded with the smile that accompanied Leon’s answering eyeroll.
“Keep smart mouthing me, and I’ll make taking my name part of the prerequisites for forgetting about the shit you just tried to pull.” Far from a threat, Chris found himself further encouraged to sink to his husband’s level by finding Leon’s forehead pressed against his own.
“What are some of the others?” Chris dared to venture, voice lowering to a drawl he hadn’t gotten to use in an awfully long time.
“Keep it in your pants, Redfield. I’m a dinner first kinda guy.”
Chris scoffed. “Since when?”
“Since I found a bloke who treats me right…,” the line lost some of its gravitas and cheesiness when Leon withdrew to stare him down before adding, “…at least, when he isn’t trying to convince me that he’s had an illegitimate child because he thinks the world’s living breathing ‘get out of bioweapon jail free cards’ breaking up and being miserable is in anyone’s best interest.”
Chris took the verbal kick to the balls with grace. “Sounds like your bloke has some making up to do, Kennedy.”
“He’s left us with quite a mess to clean up for sure.” This time Leon drew Chris’ hand to his chest, placing it over a heart that beat a tad too fast to match the even tone he’d kept up for most of what Chris had meant to be their break-up talk. “But I also know he did it for all the right reasons, even though he should have known I wouldn’t have minded raising another daughter with him.”
“Or two?”
It had been a while since Chris had seen Leon flush with embarrassment; safe to say he hadn’t told Grace that her flat mostly consisted of neatly packed boxes by now. “Add a granddaughter to be lawyered out of BSAA custody to that list, and we’ve got ourselves a deal.”
“Deal.” And then it finally dawned on Chris that he had failed to show so much as common decency to a man he’d attacked with a sledgehammer right after he’d barely weathered the wrecking ball of whatever the fuck had happened in Raccoon City. “God, Leon, how are you?”
Holding on by a thread, it seemed, if the way Leon’s eyes went wide and vacant at the question was any indication. Nevertheless, forcing himself to hold Chris’ gaze, more and more cracks in that familiar armour of bravado began to show. Leon’s shoulders slumped, his eyes drooped, and the smile threatened to fall from his lips. Yet that light still crept through, highlighting those cracks while also giving Chris hope that his husband had one more try in him.
“I’ll sleep on that, alright?”
“Alright.”
“Attaboy,” Leon patted his shoulder, taking another step back, slipping his hand into Chris’ as if loath to let go. In response, Chris ran his thumb over the ring on his husband’s finger, considering how far he wanted to push when they’d yet to figure out a feasible way to make this work.
“Is one of your other prerequisites me getting on my knees and making sappy love confessions in front of our girls, or is it fine if I leave you to get acquainted with Rose while I fetch my ring from the glove box?”
Leon took a moment to consider that, smiling at whatever he had thought of before it ever came out of his mouth. “Just don’t ask me to be your mistress, and we’ll be fine.”
“Been thinking about using that one since I waltzed in the door, haven’t you? What lies did you tell Sherry about me to warrant her arming you of all people with Regency Drama quotes?”
“I am quoting that horrid show to make it abundantly clear how stupid you were being.”
“Would hit harder if I had any idea what the fuck you are talking about, Redfield,” Chris returned with a shit-eating grin of his own.
“Being ‘the bane of my existence and the object of all my desires,’ means nothing to you then, golden boy?” Leon shot back.
“Christ, what on earth did Sherry make you watch?”
“You’re about to find out,” Leon hooked his arm through Chris’, strutting forward as if he could lead him any further than the half a dozen steps it would take them to reach the ladder. “Because I fell asleep halfway through season three, which means I am lacking …,” and here Leon raised his free hands to do air quotes, “…‘vital context’ for the only decent plotline.”
“There’s a decent one?”
Leon smiled, either at the affected horror in Chris’ voice or whatever private joke made him look down at their still joined hands. “Just like I’ve always managed to drag something good out of Raccoon City.”
Chris did not doubt that. Otherwise, that light in his husband’s eyes would have long since winked out and the world right with it. “Being?”
Leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek, Leon hugged Chris’ arm, much in the manner he’d found Sherry doing but a few minutes ago. “All of you, Mr. Kennedy.”