Chapter Text
«Take my hand in the middle of a crisis.
Pull me close. Show me, baby, where the light is.
I was scared of a heart I couldn't silence.
But you make me, you make me feel good.
I like it.»
(Feel Good - Illenium)
autumn leaves
wet pile
Chris had never been the type to linger over autumn. In his line of work, seasons were just markers of another year survived, another set of scars earned. But marriage had a way of rewriting habits. Especially marriage to Leon Scott Kennedy-Redfield.
October in Washington, D.C. painted the National Mall in gold and rust. The air carried that particular crispness that made every breath feel cleaner than the last, and the wind kept tugging loose leaves from the oaks and maples, sending them spinning across the gravel paths like confetti after a parade no one had planned. Chris walked with Leon’s hand tucked firmly in his own, their fingers laced the way they always were when no one was shooting at them.
“You’re quiet,” Leon said, bumping their shoulders together. His breath fogged in the cool air.
Chris huffed a low laugh. “Just enjoying the fact that neither of us is currently bleeding.” He squeezed Leon’s hand. “Also that you’re here.”
Leon’s mouth curved. Two years of marriage and the man still looked faintly surprised every time Chris said something soft out loud. “Well, here is good. Here means we’re not dead.”
They wandered deeper into the quieter stretch of park near the Tidal Basin, away from the tourists clustering around the monuments. Fallen leaves carpeted the grass in thick, uneven drifts — some dry and brittle, others darkened by last night’s rain into glossy, sodden mats. The smell of damp earth and decaying foliage hung heavy, pleasant in a way Chris never would have admitted before Leon taught him how to notice it. Leon then slowed without warning. He tugged his hand free and dropped to one knee on the path, fussing with the laces of his boot. Chris stopped a few paces ahead, turning back with an automatic scan of their surroundings out of habit before focusing on his husband.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just…” Leon’s tone was suspiciously neutral. “Lace came loose.”
Chris watched the top of Leon’s dark blonde hair, the way the late-afternoon light caught in it. He was still watching when Leon’s hand moved not toward the boot, but sideways into a small, wet pile of leaves at the edge of the path. The motion was smooth, and practiced. Then Leon straightened in one fluid rise and flung the handful straight at Chris’s chest. Cold, soggy leaves slapped against the front of Chris’s expensive beige coat and slid down in a dark smear. A few stuck to the zipper. One clung stubbornly to the collar near his throat. Chris stood perfectly still, staring down at the mess, then up at Leon, whose face was the picture of innocent surprise for half a second. Then the grin broke through, wide and boyish and completely unrepentant.
Chris blinked once. Twice. The wet leaves slid a little farther down his coat. “You little…”
Leon was already laughing, stepping backward with his hands raised in mock surrender. “Relax! You looked too serious, Chrissy.”
Chris bent, scooped a double handful of wet leaves, plus a generous helping of the dark mud clinging underneath, and hurled it. “I’ll show you serious!"
Leon's eyes widened. “Chris, wait! No!” The mass hit Leon square in the shoulder and exploded across the front of his dark blue coat, leaving a streak of brown and gold from collarbone to waist.
At first, Leon was just as quiet as Chris had been a few seconds earlier. Then he laughed, loudly and heartily. “Okay, it’s like that, yeah?”
Leon's laugh was the most beautiful thing Chris had heard in a long time. And he couldn't help but grin. “Oh, it’s exactly like that, darling.”
What followed was less a fight and more a chaotic scramble across the leaf-strewn grass. Leon darted left, snatching up another clump and lobbing it with surprising accuracy; Chris took it across the side of the neck and retaliated with a broader sweep that caught Leon across the thighs. Leaves stuck in Leon’s hair, mud smeared the cuff of Chris’s sleeve. They circled each other like two idiots who had somehow forgotten every ounce of tactical training, laughing too hard to aim properly, slipping on the slick ground, trading handfuls of autumn detritus with the single-minded focus of children who had never been taught better. Chris got a particularly satisfying clump that splattered across Leon’s cheek. Leon wiped it away with the back of his hand, eyes bright, and charged.
Chris braced, ready to catch him, but Leon’s boot found a patch of wet leaves that offered zero traction. His foot shot out from under him. The momentum carried him forward and down, and his hand locked around Chris’s forearm on the way. Chris had time for one resigned thought — of course! — before gravity claimed them both. They hit the large leaf pile at the base of a sprawling oak with a soft, wet whump. Leaves exploded upward in a brief golden cloud and settled again over their legs and shoulders. Chris landed mostly on his side, Leon half on top of him, both of them gasping.
The pile was deeper than it looked, cool and yielding, smelling strongly of rain and earth. Somewhere under the leaves Chris’s coat was definitely ruined. Leon’s coat was even worse. For a moment neither of them moved. Then Leon started laughing again; loud and breathless that shook his whole body against Chris’s chest. Chris felt it travel through him like warmth. He laughed too, the sound rumbling up from somewhere he usually kept locked down. Leaves stuck to Leon’s hair, a smear of mud tracked across one sharp cheekbone. Chris reached up without thinking and brushed it away with his thumb, only to leave a fresh streak of dirt behind.
“You’re the worst,” Chris said, but there was no heat in it. Only happiness.
Leon propped himself up on one arm, grinning, hair still full of crushed leaves. “You started it.”
“You started it,” Chris said.
“Okay, maybe you’re right.” Leon’s free hand found the front of Chris’s coat, fingers curling into the fabric. He leaned down. The kiss was soft at first, tasting of outdoor air and residual laughter, then deeper when Chris’s hand came up to cradle the back of Leon’s neck. Leaves crackled under them. Somewhere a squirrel chittered in protest at the disturbance. When they finally broke apart, Leon rested his forehead against Chris’s. Their breath mixed in the narrow space between them.
“We’re going to need a shower,” Leon murmured.
“We’re going to need two showers. And possibly a hose.”
Leon’s smile turned wicked. “You offering to help with the scrubbing?”
Chris’s ears warmed in a way that had nothing to do with the cold air. “Get off me, Kennedy-Redfield, before I decide to bury you in this pile for real.”
Leon rolled off with exaggerated care, then immediately stuck out a hand. Chris took it and let himself be hauled upright. Leaves cascaded from both of them in a continuous rain. Leon’s coat was mottled with mud, while Chris’s coat looked like it had lost a fight with a compost heap. They stood there for a moment in the golden light, taking stock of the damage, then looked at each other and started laughing all over again.
Hand in hand once more — sticky and with leaf-strewn fingers — they made their way back toward the path. A few late pedestrians gave them curious glances. Chris ignored them. Leon waved at one elderly woman who looked particularly scandalized, which only made Chris’s ears burn hotter.
The walk home was slower than the walk out. Every few steps a leaf would detach from someone’s hair or collar and drift to the sidewalk. Chris kept catching himself watching Leon instead of the street: the way the fading light caught on the mud still streaked across his jaw, the easy set of his shoulders, the quiet contentment that lived in the corners of his eyes when the world wasn’t ending.
At the door of their apartment Leon paused, key halfway to the lock. “Shower first. Then food. Then we’re explaining to the washing machine why our coats look like they survived a landslide.”
Chris crowded him against the doorframe, one hand braced beside Leon’s head, and kissed him again — slow, soft, tasting the last of the outdoor air on his mouth. When he pulled back, Leon’s eyes were half-lidded and soft.
“Worth it,” Chris said.
Leon’s answering smile was the kind that still made something in Chris’s chest tighten, even after all this time. “Yeah. It was.”
They left a trail of footprints from the entryway to the bathroom. The shower ran hot, body wash cut through the earth and damp, and steam fogged the tiles. By the time they emerged, wrapped in towels and the residual heat of the water, the last of the October light had faded from the windows. The apartment smelled of clean skin and the faint, lingering ghost of wet leaves. Chris pulled Leon down onto the couch, all damp-haired and barefoot, and let the quiet settle around them. The only sound that mattered was the steady rhythm of two heartbeats that had somehow found the same tempo.
Chris wanted nothing more than for every day to be like this. But they both still had one more day off, and they were going to enjoy it.