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When Leon was saddled to DC in a suit, he spent a surprising amount of time lurking around what was essentially a glorified office that dealt with military matters. Sure, sometimes he was at the White House, sometimes he was at the Pentagon, sometimes he was running around DC. But more often than not, if he wasn’t being sent into the field, he was lurking around DSO headquarters, often thinking that as a younger man he’d never ever in his life wanted to do anything with it that landed him in an office. At age 16 he’d assumed he’d perform manual labor forever; at age 21 he’d anticipated he’d be a cop forever.
At age 50 sometimes he was sitting around in a suit that, as far as he was concerned, cost way too much, fighting to keep himself from spinning around in an office chair like a bored five year old.
When it wasn’t covert intelligence, when it wasn’t operatives in the field, when it wasn’t life and death, DSO headquarters was just like any other office, he assumed. It had relationships. It had drama. It had gossip. Sherry always seemed surprisingly in touch with all of it, to Leon’s continued amusement—she knew everything about everybody, which required a level of association Leon wasn’t going to attempt. He went to work and hoped nobody bothered him and kept his mouth shut. Sherry was busy having the social life she’d been denied as a chattery teenager in government custody.
It was easy to stay unbothered and tight-lipped around the other agents. Leon considered them all—himself included—a bunch of damaged goods and their conversations were dark, snide, and usually full of shit-talking and one-liners. Nobody talked about anything real, for all they knew each one of them was devoid of emotions, family, or a life and went home to hang upside down to sleep. Leon was forced to be a little more genial to the handlers, like Hunnigan or Sherry; these people—often women—controlled your life when you were in the field, fed you intel, and made sure you came back with all your limbs. They could make your day or feed you a real shit sandwich. Leon may have been the one getting sent into the field to get chased around and shot at, but he considered the handlers the real meat and potatoes of the DSO. He liked them, he respected them, and he was generally a bit more open with them. Most of them knew he was married. They knew he was from Michigan. He was a bit more human with them.
Then there was support staff, an endless cadre of analysts and specialists, and the support staff under them; the secretaries, the interns. Leon left the analysts to their analyzing and the specialists to their specialties. The secretaries and interns tended to scatter when he came through. They were all young and somehow nervous, and acted like getting caught texting at work was going to cause a national security breach while Leon engrossedly scrolled Wikipedia on his phone without a care in the world, if nothing else was expected of him.
The secretaries and interns all looked fresh out of college, and generally fumbled over themselves when someone gave them a set of directions. Hunnigan was notorious for running them ragged; Leon often watched in amusement as she came out of her office and started to bark a series of orders at the 20-somethings sitting in cubicles near her door. Leon watched them congregate in corners around the offices, files in hand, talking to each other in undertones like they expected someone to come and yell at them. Sometimes someone did.
Leon wasn’t precisely sure when he’d become aware of Kara. She was a secretary; young, like all the rest of them. She looked like she should still be in her parents’ house, and evidently hadn’t been beaten down to greys and blacks yet by government service because her blouses were always a riot of color. Leon had never said two words to her. He became aware of her by Hunnigan running her ragged like a sled dog, and then beyond that, he often became aware of her staring.
Leon needed a 20-something secretary staring at him like he needed a hole in the head. She was not subtle. Her brown eyes felt like an anvil on his head. Leon began to exit stage left when he caught her approaching. Hunnigan noticed it next.
“I think Kara thinks if she stares at you hard enough, she can will you to do something,” Hunnigan noted to him in an amused undertone.
“Unpleasant surprise, nobody can get me to do shit,” Leon replied, pointedly turning away from the young secretary and her penetrating gaze.
It went on like this for weeks. She’d sneakily stare at him as he passed her in a hallway. If he did actually have to open his mouth and say something during briefings, she stared at him like what he had to say was the most fascinating thing she’d ever heard. Hunnigan once had to subtly tell her to get the hell out when she’d entered the office and found Leon sitting there in front of Hunnigan’s desk and lingered way too long (to be fair, Hunnigan should have told him to get the hell out as he was really doing nothing but distracting her and annoying her).
A child had an office crush on him. It was just his luck, he figured. Of course this would happen to him.
“I know something you don’t,” Sherry had said to him teasingly, one day.
“What’s that?” he said, looking up at her from the chair he was sitting in.
“Somebody’s got a crush on you,” Sherry said, in high amusement.
“Yikes,” Leon said, in deadpan. “Keep it to yourself. I don’t want to know.”
Other people started to notice, much to Leon’s chagrin. Fellow agents made jokes about depraved office sex. Interns nudged each other when he was around.
Leon wished he would be sent into the field. At least there weren’t secretaries with puppy eyes in the field.
He tried his hardest to avoid her and ignore her. The older Leon got, he generally found it increasingly difficult to have conversations with people in their teens and twenties; his nieces and nephews were mysteries to him, Grace occasionally baffled him, and he had long ago given up trying to understand trends. Claire told him he was one step away from sitting on the porch with a shotgun yelling at people to get off his lawn. She was probably right.
It was inevitable that he could not avoid her forever. For as determined as he was to avoid a showdown with a girl who probably still slept with stuffed animals and listened to Taylor Swift, she was determined to catch him somehow. He probably could have dealt with this easily by just Agent Kennedy-ing her; he could have been a total snide asshole to her and sent her off with her dreams crushed and her heart in pieces, but Leon was too soft for that. He hid from her, and continually hoped in the meantime one of the age-appropriate interns or analysts would grow a pair and try to talk to her, to distract her from her bad ideas involving him.
It was inevitable, and one day Leon kicked himself for being a little too engrossed in his phone as an intelligence meeting ended and people filed out of the conference room. Oh, not him. He sat there like a fucking idiot, glued to his phone, lingering in his chair, until he became aware of a presence in the room with him. He looked up and over, and there was Kara, all brown eyes, bright pink blouse, and file folders clutched to her chest.
They were alone, and if Leon hadn’t thought it would look insane, he felt like crawling under the expansive table to hide.
She stared at him and he stared back, blinking mildly.
“Yes?” he asked finally, prompting. Don’t answer me, his brain quickly added.
“Agent Kennedy,” she began, “do you want to go to dinner sometime?”
Oh Jesus she’d really gone for it. Leon wanted to groan. He sat there, staring at her blankly, trying to think of ways to say sweet Jesus no and still be relatively nice about it. “Kara,” he began, “I’m 50 years old. I’m also married,” he added, holding up his hand with his wedding band on it.
She looked undaunted. “Well, I didn’t know. You’re always here. Or in the field, but mostly here.” She shrugged some. “Maybe you don’t like being married.”
Leon was frozen, looking at her. Jesus she was really going for it. “I think my wife is pretty neat,” Leon replied. “It’s why I married her, even if I only get to see her for an hour a week.”
“Agent Kennedy—“
“Kara, my first name is Leon,” he said, feeling supremely old.
“—okay, Leon, so, then…no?” she asked, her face even.
“No,” he said. “I’m old enough to be your father. It’d probably be better for you if you found someone, y’know, your own age to take to dinner.”
She blew out a little breath. “Men my age are…patently awful. It’s terrible.”
Leon blinked. “You watch me walk around this office being patently awful day in and day out,” he said, “and I was probably about 25 years old when you were born. Not everyone in their 20s is terrible. It helps if you look, though, and don’t chase taken men around an office.”
“I didn’t know you were taken,” she mumbled. “I’ve had enough with guys my own age.”
Jesus she was persistent. “Well, shit, I don’t know. I’m old enough to be your dad but I’m not your dad, what do I know? Go find a 50 year old then, just find one without a ring on his finger. I’m sure he’d be overjoyed.” Leon let out a breath. “But I’m not it, kid.”
She looked petulant. “My first name’s Kara,” she said. “Not kid.”
Leon resisted the urge to scrub his hands over his face and groan. “Sorry. Kara.” He looked at her. “You gonna keep chasing me around here, or are we good?”
She let out a sigh. “No, we’re good,” she said.
“Okay,” Leon said, standing and sticking his phone in his pocket. “Get out there and look busy before Hunnigan comes down on you.”
“Yeah,” she said, sounding both knowing and forlorn. “She does that.”
“You’re not the only one,” Leon said. “Nobody’s safe.”
She looked at him one last time and kind of half-heartedly shrugged, then turned with her arms full of file folders and made for the door, pulling it open and exiting quickly without another word.
Leon stood there, put his hands on his hips, and let out a gust. “Great,” he said to himself. “Awesome.” He had not expected his day to entail taking the heart of a 22 or 23 year old and smashing it to pieces, but there he was. He hoped to fuck she wasn’t going to go home and shed any tears about this. He felt like enough of a misanthropic monster in his day to day life, he didn’t need to imagine Kara at home crying, texting her friends about the asshole in the office.
……………………………………………………………
When Leon pulled up at home at around 7:30, he’d never been more eager to get out of the suit and forget that he was government property. He got out of the Porsche and made his way up the driveway, walking past his old Jeep becoming more of a rust spot on the concrete every day. Up to the front door he went, and unlocked it, stepping into the house.
The lights were on but it was quiet. He assumed Claire was around somewhere because the lights were on, but he still checked the garage for her truck. It was there, covered in dirt and dust as per usual, and he went back into the house. She was not in the kitchen, she was not in the living room, her workspace in their shared office was absent of her. “Claire?” he called in confusion, hunting through the house. He went into the master bedroom and the bathroom door was open, the light spilling into the bedroom. Leon stepped into the bathroom and spotted Claire’s shoulders and head above the lip of the oversized bathtub, her hair in a messy bun, her headphones on her head. He let his shoulders relax a little and tried to figure out how to approach her without scaring the shit out of her.
He drew up behind her and tried to get as far over into her peripheral as possible, then waved one of his arms up and down some. She still started mildly, but she looked over and up at him from the bubbles in the tub, and slipped her headphones down around her neck. “Hey,” she said. “You’re back.”
“Yeah,” he said, and then arched an eyebrow at her. “Are you in here listening to Steely Dan?”
“Hell yeah,” Claire replied.
“Steely Dan fucking sucks,” Leon said, and Claire scoffed. “It’s like the worst yacht rock easiest listening garbage ever.”
“Keep your trash opinions to yourself,” she said, the sounds of Steely Dan coming out of her headphones. “I’m subjecting myself to it, not you. Get off my case.”
“Fair, I suppose,” he said, and sat down on the edge of the bathtub in his suit, looking down at her. “I was propositioned by a child today.”
Claire managed a bewildered laugh. “What?” she asked, in confusion.
“There’s a kid at work. A secretary. Young. Probably like 23 years old. She’s been following me around like a lost duckling for weeks. Today she finally cornered me and asked me to dinner.” He let out a sigh. “I had to tell her I was not only too old for her, but that I was taken.”
Claire looked up at him, a corner of her mouth slowly creeping up. “Oh, you asshole, you. You probably crushed her.”
“Jesus,” Leon managed. “I hope not. I hope she went straight home and got on Tinder or whatever it is 23 year olds do.”
Claire looked like this was the most amusing thing she’d heard all day. “Well, I guess I’m glad you told her you were taken and didn’t immediately take her up on her offer. I’m gonna get traded in for a younger model.”
“Jesus no,” Leon said, looking at her, agog. “What in the fuck would I do with some 20-something who probably still talks to her parents once a week and barely knows what to do with a dick? Claire began to laugh. “21 year old me probably would have looked at her too long. 50 year old me just wants to run away.”
Claire still looked like someone had told her the best joke of all time. “I dunno, Leon. I was pretty maladjusted at 23 or so. I may have tried to chase 50 year old you down.”
“You must be at least this tall to ride,” Leon said, tiredly. “I hope she finds someone her own age, without the wrinkles and the baggage.”
Claire turned some in the bath, hanging her arm on the lip of the tub. “What, you don’t want a 23 year old to call you Daddy? Does it only work when I do it?”
Leon pantomimed gagging, in deadpan, and this set Claire to fresh laughter. “Yeah,” he replied. “Because it kind of makes your dick go soft when you are old enough to be her Daddy. You’re age appropriate. We’re not total degenerates.”
Claire was smiling at him. “Most 50 year old men would fall over themselves to have a 23 year old woman chasing after them.”
“Not this one,” Leon gusted. “Don’t need it, don’t want it. Hope it never happens again.”
“You’re stuck with aging me,” she teased.
“Sweetheart, I hope one day you’re bouncing on it and we both break a hip,” Leon said, and Claire was laughing yet again. “We’re both aging. You better than me. You could still pass for 40. I look like I’ve been ridden hard and put away wet.”
“Maybe that does it for me,” Claire said in amusement. “I’ve seen the full spectrum. I’ve watched you go from baby-face to grizzled veteran.”
“You knew me when I couldn’t grow facial hair,” he said, “and now I’ve got a face full of it and it’s all white. I’d look like fucking Santa if I grew out a beard.”
“It’s hot,” Claire said. “The dream of 20-somethings looking for Daddy everywhere.”
“Stop or I am going to drown myself in your bath,” Leon said, plainly.
“Hey,” she said, turning towards him a bit more, “I have to go to New Zealand next week.”
“Oh that sounds hellish,” Leon said, dryly. “Not Middle Earth. What’re you going there for?”
“Aid conference in Christchurch,” Claire replied.
“Lame. I’d be touring every spot from the Lord of The Rings movies,” Leon said, coolly.
Claire chortled. “Yeah, I bet you would. You’d be dragging me everywhere, like the Tolkien nerd you are.”
“If you go to Hobbiton without me our marriage is over,” Leon said. “You don’t even like Lord of the Rings. You think it’s all dumb.”
Claire tittered. “I thought it was boring,” she corrected. “I did try, when I was 12 or 13 or so, to read The Hobbit. I don’t like Tolkien’s writing style, and it baffles me that it’s like the one thing you’ve ever read in your life and enjoyed.”
“On second thought, go to Hobbiton and buy me souvenirs,” Leon said. “I’m probably never making it on a vacation to New Zealand. You can also go around and look at all the parks and stuff they used as scenery in the movies. You can go to Rivendell, the Paths of the Dead, Mordor—“
“Jesus,” Claire said, bemused. “You’ve looked this up before, haven’t you, you overgrown D&D kid?”
Leon looked at her. “Maybe. Maybe not. It’s nobody’s business what I’m gonna do if they ever do let me retire.”
“I’m going to be neck deep in conference stuff,” Claire said. “I’m probably not going to have time to go look at some tiny houses.”
“You’re fucking up,” Leon said, his tone reminding. “There will always be another conference. There is only one Hobbiton.”
“Oh my God,” Claire said, in amused exasperation.
“What’s for dinner?” Leon asked.
“Your Midwestern ass is going to be overjoyed, after Monday night’s curry debacle,” Claire began.
“The curry was hot as fuck,” Leon cut in.
“It was not. I barely added any spice. It was like…white people curry,” Claire countered.
“It made me feel like I needed to drink a gallon of milk,” Leon said. “I was sweating.”
“You think black pepper is spicy,” Claire accused.
“It is,” Leon said. “Not all of us are insane. Not all of us enjoy getting kicked in the mouth by their food.”
Claire looked at him like she didn’t know what to do with him, from the bath. “Anyway,” she tried to steer the conversation back on track, “Midwesterners rejoice—I made tuna noodle casserole. It’s warm in the oven.”
“Hell yeah,” Leon said. “I love tuna casserole.”
“You love anything with noodles and a can of Campbell’s Cream of Whatever soup added,” Claire said. “You think ranch dressing is a food group.”
“I’ll pour ranch all over that casserole and put it in my mouth whole,” Leon threatened.
“I wouldn’t be shocked,” Claire said, then scooted forward in the bathtub and pulled the stopper, under the cover of bubbles. She scooted back to her original position and then stood, and then Leon was looking up at her as opposed to looking down at her.
“Alright,” he said, genially. “Hot, wet, naked age-appropriate woman and a casserole. This is what a 50 year old’s dreams are made of.”
“You need help,” Claire said pointedly, looking down at him as she dripped and the remnants of bubbles slid around on her skin. “You’re insane. I’ve always known this, I just think it’s getting more pronounced as you get older.”
“I’d also settle for smothering the casserole in fake cheese,” Leon said, looking up at her. “Midwesterners love something covered in Velveeta.”
“I’ve noticed,” Claire said, “as long as I don’t add spicy peppers and tomatoes to the Velveeta to make it palatable.”
“You’re ruining it,” Leon groused. “Just plain Velveeta. Fuck it, I’m going to put Velveeta and ranch on the casserole.”
“Your arteries are probably a mess,” Claire said, stepping over the lip of the tub, reaching for a towel.
“I’m gonna put Velveeta and ranch on you,” Leon said, grabbing at her leg.
“Gross,” Claire replied. “That’s not gonna fly with me. Find a 23 year old and coat them in substances. I’m too old for food play in the bedroom.”
“Fine,” Leon said. “Get dried off and get dressed, and get out here and eat this casserole with me.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” Claire said, drying herself off. “You act like you’re 23, sometimes.”
“Only with you,” Leon said. “Driving you just as insane as me keeps me young.”
“You’re like a vampire,” Claire said. “Draining my life force sustains you.”
“You’re supple and healthy,” Leon said. “You can endure it. You committed to enduring it for the rest of your life. No take backs.”
Claire looked over her shoulder at him, a smirk on her face, and then wandered out of the bathroom with her towel, mumbling something to herself.
“What?” Leon called after her.
“Nothing,” she called back, blithely.
Leon shrugged, and began to get out of his suit coat, intent on tearing a casserole up.