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Being shot didn’t feel like he’d just been shot.
He’d imagined being shot before, especially when he was younger and sat in front of endless cheap action flicks to keep him quiet. Seeing people blasted back by a single bullet, cartoonishly flailing limbs as they fell in a bloodless heap, it made being shot a spectacle. That sharp cry of pain followed by the silence of a suddenly dead body. When he enrolled into the police academy and had a gun placed in his hand, he wondered how different it was. Paper targets didn’t fly back. Blue rocks didn’t scream. They just stopped existing.
It was a morbid thought, wondering what it felt like to be shot. And now he knew.
Leon pressed his hand to his chest and felt the warmth first. Pulled back the hand that didn’t feel attached to him and saw red.
He’d been shot. Oh. He’d been shot.
He felt his heartbeat in his head. It didn’t belong there. It belonged in his chest that had been shot. That had been shot. He’d been shot.
The pain wasn’t like a cut. It hurt like a fire would. Like burning in him. But it also didn’t hurt. It was just there. Was that shock? This was shock. He’d heard about shock. Heard how to treat shock until the EMTs arrived. They’d wrap them in a blanket. He had a blanket in the trunk of his vehicle. Get the blanket. Leon turned but his feet wouldn’t agree and make up their mind.
Ground was hard. It hurt. It was starting to hurt now, really hurt. Leon tried to get up, tried to make sense of the soup spilling out of his head when he struggled and clawed at grass that glistened red. Grass wasn’t red. He tasted red. Red was a color, he can’t taste red but it tasted red.
Someone called his name. More of him spilled out. The sun was in his eyes. Then something blocked it.
“Officer down! 10-00, 10-52! Kennedy! Kennedy!"
Shit, that sounded serious. He needed to help. He struggled again, struggled to move, until a weight pressed to his chest. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt.
“Look at me, Leon, hey,” the voice above him said, and Leon struggled to focus past the pain and the heart that was still in his head. They were hurting him, didn’t they know they were hurting him?
He opened his mouth to say something, but more spilled. He was spilling. The person, a man, pushed down harder. Blue. He saw blue. Lots of blue. Blue masked out by white hot pain, it hurt.
“C’mon, Leon. Leon, don’t die on me, man!”
Oh. Shit. He was dying. Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck, he was dying.
No, he couldn’t die, there was- There was so much! So much. So much to do. So much he couldn’t think.
“You’re gonna be fine,” the voice above him said, muffled. Underwater. In his head. Everything was in his head. His heart, his pain, the man’s voice.
Leon swallowed, mouth working for words that wouldn't come. The shape above him battled against the shine of the sun, against the darkness of his vision. The blue smeared with everything else.
“You're gonna be fine," the voice kept repeating, like Leon was supposed to believe it. "We’re gonna get you back home, back to Luis, you’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna be fine, stay with me, where the fuck is that ambulance?! ”
Luis.
Luis.
He wanted to get back to Luis.
He wanted to do things with Luis.
He wanted to get a house with Luis. He wanted to go out on a picnic date with Luis. He wanted to… He wanted to do a lot with Luis.
He couldn’t do that now because he was dying.
Oh.
He- He wanted to marry Luis.
He couldn’t do that now. Because he was spilling. Because he was empty.
He wondered what it felt like to die.
It felt cold.
It felt cold.
And he couldn’t move.
Shit. He was dead, wasn’t he?
Fuck.
Leon opened his eyes. He shouldn’t… be able to do that if he was dead. But there was white all around him. Heaven? So he was dead. He felt heavy. He tried searching for his limbs, tried to move his head, but there was nothing.
But then there was a voice. Low and quiet and echoing in him. His heart wasn’t in his head anymore. But this voice could stay. He closed his eyes again and listened. Something disrupted the voice, something that wasn’t so nice to listen to. Interrupting the voice in a monotone rhythm. Don’t do that. He wanted the voice.
“‘Look, Señor,’ said Sancho, ‘there’s no enchantment here or anything like it; I’ve seen through the gratings and cracks in the cage the claw of a real lion, and I think the lion that claw belongs to must be bigger than a mountain.’”
The voice pushed through the murk of his dead body. It rasped on words repeated so lowly that they were spoken like a prayer. A hymn with no notes.
“‘Your fear, at the very least,’ responded Don Quixote, ‘will make it seem bigger to you than half the world. Withdraw, Sancho, and leave me; if I die here, you know our old agreement: you will present yourself to Dulcinea, and I shall say no more to you.”’
Leon took in a breath. Felt his chest expand, the first part of his body that felt alive again. But he was dead. The accented voice must be leading him to the afterlife, piece by piece, like an angel. He waited patiently. He’d wait forever if it meant listening to this voice, one that felt so familiar, that made his heart swell in him.
“Sancho wept for the death of his master: this time he believed there was no doubt he would fall into the clutches of the lions; he cursed his luck and called it an evil hour when it had occurred to him to serve his master again, but his weeping and lamentations did not prevent him from kicking the donkey to hurry him away from the wagon.” The voice paused, then let out a long, tired sigh. It sounded weary. Exhausted. Leon’s heart ached for it. It didn’t deserve to sound like that.
It was only then that Leon could pick out that monotone sound he heard earlier, the one he tried so desperately to ignore. Low, consistent beeping. Like a machine. What was a machine doing in heaven? Shouldn't it be powered by… well, he didn't know, angel magic? God? Both? He had questions that he needed to ask his angel, his sad, tired angel.
So he breathed again, because he still needed air to talk, another question to ask. He searched for limbs that were still missing, maybe they hadn't been retrieved yet. Leon didn't want to rush his angel, it was obvious that it wasn't having a good day, but he'd like them at some point.
"Leon?"
The angel was calling to him, now. Maybe it was ready to take him. He assumed there was no negotiation process, but could he still try? Offer his firstborn? Did they take payment over the phone? He didn't have his wallet on him. It was in his locker back at the station.
"Leon," the angel tried again.
Yeah, I'm coming, he thought like a teenager being dragged out of his room, and not a man taken under the wings of death.
He felt something warm on his face, pressed against his cheeks. Like he was being held. It was nice. But then he felt the familiar pressure of rings against his skin, and in an instant, the illusion was shattered.
Either Luis had somehow died with him, and he had been granted the status of angel to guide him to heaven, or Leon was not dead.
"Leon, mi amor. Please."
If he had the strength, Leon would have jumped to his feet in that instant when he heard Luis' voice. But he didn't. He still was struggling to gain any use of his limbs. All he could do was open his eyes.
So he did.
Everything was still a blurred mess mixed with distilled white. Noise became a bubble around him as he sought through the fog, like using two senses at the same time was too much for him. There were voices, he knew they were there, but they were lost to him. All he could grasp was the warmth on his face that was becoming too tight and the smog of white.
He blinked, and a smear of color entered his vision. Blacks, browns. Blurred again.
Blinked. Blurred.
Blinked. Steady. Luis.
He smiled.
Luis.
His thoughts tangled and held only that one word; Luis. Even as Spanish words started to filter through, peppered with English that he could still barely understand in his state, his thoughts only centered on Luis. How his movements were always loud and exaggerated when they were together, rarely ever quiet. How he smiled with all his teeth. How even now, even when he could see dark circles under his eyes, how tears (why was Luis crying?) slipped down his cheeks, how his bottom lip trembled with every word he cast out through a cracked, weathered voice that had been speaking too long, that Leon thought he was beautiful.
He thought about how much he would have missed if he died.
“Ca…” His voice died in his throat, and what little utterance he did make was lost in noise that surrounded him. There were more people, all shadowed in white but they were meaningless to his mind. All his brain would let himself focus on was Luis.
He tried again, willed words to come to life, and maybe whatever angel that had been at his bedside all this time had given him the strength to as Luis leaned in close, filling his vision of just him.
“Can… we get married?”
Luis went quiet for the first time, struck silent and blinking large, wet eyes at him.
“Of… Of course. Of course we can. I’d- yes. Yes?” Luis stammered and Leon felt a little swirl of happiness plant in his chest.
Yes.
He was tired.
Luis’ voice continued on, and Leon felt his eyes drift closed again. He didn't absorb words, only his voice.
“When?” A single word poked through the haze.
“Now.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Darkness swallowed him again.
It felt warm.
Days passed in a haze. Leon had visitors, but he barely remembered most of them. Lieutenant Marvin Branagh. Chris Redfield. A terrified and apologetic Patrick. Some with flowers, others with words of support that all meshed together in a fog he couldn’t think through. Not Luis, though. It was disappointing. Or maybe Leon had just been asleep every time he came.
Branagh had tried to explain what had happened; traffic stop gone bad, a high speed pursuit that ended in a gunfight. Patrick, his rookie partner, froze up, and Leon had apparently saved him. Leon didn’t remember it, and Branagh said it was best he didn’t for now. All he knew was that it had been a shot at the very edge of his bulletproof vest, in the back and through the front, and had sent him into a three-week-long coma.
That had been a bit hard to process. Three weeks. Complications, fragments of bullets, explanations were given but they didn’t sink in. Branagh had patted him on his uninjured shoulder and told him to get some rest, that they’d talk more when he was up and about.
Leon was good at resting, at least. Very good. A professional. All he had done was rest.
But then he heard a familiar voice call his name and Leon decided his profession at resting would have to wait because Luis was back.
He blinked open his eyes when he felt a hand on his cheek and fingers combing through his hair, and he searched through the blur to find Luis again.
Luis smiled as soon as their eyes met, but he somehow looked even more tired.
“Hey,” Leon breathed out, shifting in the bed he had barely been able to stand from. Luis went pale at his shifting, but as Leon settled on his good side to face him, the panic smoothed over. “How're you?”
“Good, good, and you?”
“Better.” It was a strangely domestic conversation when Leon was sure Luis had spent the last three weeks perched in a chair, hovering over his body like he could ward off death with his life alone. His angel. His angel who sat and read Don Quixote to his unconscious body at least twice; once in Spanish and the second in English. Leon only knew that because Luis would have never been caught preferring an English copy to his own ancient, weathered copy held together through spite and Luis’ constant rebinding.
The fingers were slow as they carded through his hair that he had to have help to wash, and hair that felt like it had gotten a little too long. The fringe wouldn’t stay out of his eyes, no matter how many times Luis brushed it back. It was like an endless test to Luis as he brushed it back again and again, and Leon let him.
Something in Leon told him that Luis needed this. Needed the physical confirmation that he was awake and alive. So he waited with his head partially sunk into a pillow, eyes barely open as he watched Luis mess with his hair like there was nothing else in the world to do.
“So, are you ready?” Luis finally asked after the stretch of silence and hair fixing.
Leon furrowed his brow, wondering for a moment if he had blanked out of part of the conversation. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened over the last few days. “For what?”
“To get married.”
Luis said it so plainly with a smile that Leon had to take a moment to balance the weight of the words.
“Now?” he asked, lifting his head up from the pillow. It disturbed Luis’ hand, which darted back to his side at the motion. Had Leon any coordination in his limbs, he may have reached out and grabbed it before it could leave, but he had barely been able to shift his hand on the mattress by the time it was out of reach.
“Well, I mean,” Luis started, breaking eye contact for the first time and staring at the wall that he had probably memorized many times over. His teeth nipped the corner of his lip for a moment, waging a war mentally that Leon was entirely oblivious to. He sighed, and he sighed long like it had taken every ounce of air from his lungs before he looked back to Leon and carefully took his hand within his own.
Leon felt the rings against his fingers as Luis linked them together, then brought their shared hands to his lips. He pressed them against the back of his hand, chapped against his skin. “I don’t-” Luis started, speaking and breathing against his skin to where he felt every syllable mold against him. “I don’t want to wait any longer.”
He paused, thumb stroking against his own. Luis' eyes fluttered shut as he took the seconds to breathe, and his lips were moving soundlessly against him.
“I almost-” the words came into being, then stopped. Swallowed. “I almost lost you, Leon. And the first thing you ask me when you wake up is if we could get married.” Luis’ voice turned rough and he swallowed again. Moisture creeped into the corner of his eyes, but through sheer strength of will, they did not fall. “I don’t want to wait another second without you, mi amor. Do you?”
Leon shook his head. He didn’t.
“So then,” Luis pulled his lips away, opening his eyes and flashing a wide smile like there was nothing wrong with the world any longer, “let’s get married.”
“Right now?” Leon asked, already reaching for the blanket and pulling it away like the chapel was a door away.
“Right now.”
Right now.
“Luis Serra-Kennedy.”
“Hm.”
“Luis Kennedy-Serra?”
“Eh.”
“Luis Navarro-Kennedy.”
“Worse.”
“Luis Serra-Navarro-Kennedy-Scott-Leon.”
“I think I gave you too strong a dose of painkillers, mi amor.”
Leon felt great. Amazing, even. It was probably the painkillers. Or it could be the fact that he was on his way to get married.
The idea of marriage had always been in that little corner of his mind where his domestic thoughts lay dormant, right next to the category of ‘family’ and ‘future.’ Leon had been too focused on his goal of becoming a police officer to give it more than a passing thought when he had been younger, but when he met Luis during his first year on the force, that changed. Just a little bit. Not to where he was scribbling shared names over and over on pages of journals, but enough to where he imagined the new name plate on his desk when his thoughts would drift away from the reports he was supposed to be filling out.
But now it was really happening. Sort of. They had to make the drive to Vegas, first.
Leon squinted at the dash of Luis’ car, barely able to make out the haze of numbers. It was the dead of night, and had been every time Leon had shut his eyes for what he had hoped was only a few minutes. After a few moments of squinting, Leon finally read the time at 5:38 AM. Yeah, checked out. Leon sank back in his seat, letting his head fall to the side and stare at a phone screen he had been scrolling through for what felt like hours.
“What am I looking for again?”
Luis sighed, but gave his hand a squeeze where it rested on top of the center console. There were two to-go coffee cups in the cupholders, one empty and the other drawing close. Both were for Luis. He’d complain with every sip, but keep drinking anyway. “You’re looking at wedding packages. I just need you to find a reservation for tomorrow.”
“It is tomorrow.”
“Tonight,” Luis corrected, only to groan. “Tonight. Joder.” He released Leon’s hand for just a moment, enough to rub at his face and his eyes, before quickly replacing it just as Leon felt lonely.
“Do you want me to take a turn driving?” Leon offered, sinking further into his seat to where his knees knocked against the dash.
“I’d like to live to see our wedding, mi amor,” Luis said. “We’re not too far, anyway. A few more hours.”
Leon hummed something in acknowledgement. Hours go by fast when you’re on painkillers. Not so much if you were driving. He was lucky.
Lucky, lucky, lucky.
Lucky for a lot of things. Lucky to be alive, for one. Lucky to have Luis, another. Lucky to… Leon’s mind went blank and he stared at the screen again, scrolling through the same three tabs that Luis had picked out and placed in his hand. Don’t leave those screens, he had been ordered, so he was going to do what he was told.
All the screens were white, which was starting to hurt to look at, so he looked at the pictures for a break. Happy couples. Smiling couples. Them, soon enough. Leon sank further, feeling the seatbelt snag against his throat.
“Incorporarse, Sancho.”
“Huh?” Leon mumbled, so far down in his seat that his knees were higher than his head.
“Sit up,” Luis sighed, tugging on Leon's hand. "Or I'll put you in the back with everything else and strap you down and I guarantee that you will not like it."
"I think I'll like it," Leon said, an anesthetic-assisted grin plastering over his face as he looked at Luis. It was hard to see in the dark, but the glow of his phone helped illuminate his fiancé's expression. A little bubble of joy found its way in his chest. Fiancé. He had a fiancé. He was going to have a husband soon.
It was hard to wrap his fogged head around even now.
Luis was shaking his head, but he could see the smile even with his focus on the road. He could trace that smile anywhere. Hear it when he spoke. Grand smiles or little, subdued ones when Luis thought of something witty but hadn’t yet said it aloud.
Leon took a quick glance over his shoulder, and by quick it meant more he shimmied his way back up in the seat and pulled against the belt to turn almost completely around in his seat.
"Oye, careful with the shoulder," Luis quickly said, reaching out and pressing a careful touch to Leon's arm. "Don't be moving too much."
"I'm all good," Leon hummed, shining his phone to the backseat. Hanging on the little handle things he didn't know the name of were suit bags. Luis had rented tuxes for them. Luis had warned him already that they may not fit the best, but it was something, and was more than Leon would have thought to grab. He wasn't doing a lot of thinking right now. Luis had spent the few days not with Leon planning and packing, filling out forms, getting everything ready.
It was no wonder Luis had been tired, and now he was driving all the way to Vegas fueled by gas station coffee. They may be spending their honeymoon sleeping.
Well, Leon would be, that's for sure.
Their bags were in the trunk, enough for a couple days at whatever hotels they bounced between. It left the backseat almost entirely vacant. Maybe he'd like to lay in the backseat for the rest of the drive-
A hand went to his arm. "Don't you dare," Luis rumbled. "You will pop a stitch if you move too much and I will turn us right back around and we will go home."
"But you got the tuxes-"
"Leon-" Shit, okay, he was serious.
Leon jolted back into his seat proper and stared forward, onto the blank stretch of road that felt like it went on forever. He intended to stay that way for the rest of the drive, perfectly attentive and controlled.
It lasted maybe a minute before Leon was slouched in his seat, scrolling up and down the same tab without processing any of the words on screen. Minutes passed, and Leon wondered if he had dozed off at one point or another.
"How do you feel?" Luis asked, making Leon turn his head towards him and away from the screen that felt like it was slowly blinding him. His gaze was flicking between the road and Leon near constantly, and he hoped he wasn't too much of a distraction.
He'd distracted Luis plenty of times while driving before, but Leon had a feeling that his jerk-off game was going to be weak while under the effects of whatever Luis had given him.
Leon digested the question, letting it sit in his brain. How did he feel? It felt like everything was moving so fast. Like they had been in the hospital room that morning, out by afternoon, and on the road since. Because that was exactly what happened. It was hard to put the feeling into words… and he thought his tongue would trip over them anyway. So he sank further in his seat and thought.
He loved Luis. He was about to get married to Luis. They were going to go back to Raccoon City as husbands after all this was over. It felt good. Really good. Amazing. Like… like his body was going to explode with warmth and love and everything was going to change for the better. It made his stomach do leapfrogs over his heart that was twirling and tangling in his chest. Did that make sense? Could he say that?
"Flippy floppy," was the poetic phrase his brain chose.
"I-... Okay. I meant your shoulder. Do you feel pain?"
"Oh." Leon reached and pressed his fingers to his left shoulder directly into the gunshot wound that had almost killed him.
"Don't do that!" Luis reached out and grabbed a hold of his wrist and pulled it away. "Mierda, you are a menace under the influence."
"I didn't drink anything."
Luis let out a groan laced with Spanish his brain couldn't register. He released Leon's wrist if only to massage at his temple, and if Leon was hearing him right, he was reciting some Spanish prayer under his breath. "I will take your answer as that you are fine and you are not in pain?" Luis finally asked once he concluded whatever plea to God he needed in that moment.
"No, it doesn't hurt at all. Like I didn't even feel it when I poked it. S'good. Nice. No pain. None," Leon started to ramble off any synonym of 'no' he could think of.
"I gave you too much," Luis decided, cutting through half his list of negatives. Leon huffed and set his hands into his lap, because he was all too tempted to see if he could get any reaction out of the wound. He’d probably get a reaction out of Luis first, and none positive.
“How’d you get me out of the hospital, anyway? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t cleared,” Leon asked, and he was sure by now he had asked this question four different times and forgotten the answer to each.
Luis at least was happy enough to answer, or perhaps it was to brag more than anything else. “You forget that I’m a doctor, mi amor.”
“Yeah, but not that kind of doctor,” Leon pressed, letting his head sag to one side as he stared at Luis.
God, he was marrying this man.
Running away from a hospital in the dead of night (it had been maybe afternoon at the latest, definitely still daylight), it felt like they were high school sweethearts sneaking out of restrictive parents’ homes, all while reciting love song lyrics to each other as they swore to fight the world. That they weren’t late twenty-somethings sharing a tiny apartment with a leaking kitchen faucet they didn’t have time to fix, barely able to share good-mornings between them before rushing to their respected works. Seeing each other over microwaved meals when neither would have the energy to cook. Wondering when life together would truly begin.
None of that mattered right now.
They were together. That mattered more than a pesky faucet or bleary mornings.
Leon found himself staring, heart and body warm as he sank back in his chair, soaking in every detail of Luis. He was so pretty even in the soft glow of the phone light. He angled the phone just enough to catch more of his profile, of his dark hair and the way his gray eyes shined and-
“Please do not shine that in my eyes.”
“Sorry,” Leon mumbled, tilting the phone away and breaking himself out of the Luis-centered haze.
Luis took a moment to blink away the glare of the light, rubbing at his face before he continued. “I know a few doctors, then, how about that? Ones that owe some favors to me, and ones that know that I will not hesitate to take you to the nearest urgent care if I see so much as a shifted suture.”
“Your accent’s so pretty when you say s words.”
The flush that dusted Luis’ cheeks was just as pretty. “Your lips have been loosened far too much.”
“Could loosen them more over your dick-”
“Leon. Your homework.”
Leon threw a hand in the air in defeat, sinking back in his seat and forcing himself to stare at those three tabs that were his assignment. The mission. He had a mission he must complete. He narrowed his eyes down at them as he scrolled, at words that blurred and pictures that he tried to make resemble friends. That one looked like Jill Valentine. Someone else, a little like Claire. He wanted to mesh them together because everyone at the RPD knew they were dating except for Chris Redfield. Leon made a mental reminder to send the link to one of them, and he forgot that reminder as soon as it came into his mind.
He scrolled and stared at the one image of two men, and tried to change the picture to them. To Leon and Luis in dashing tuxes surrounded by white cherry blossom flowers which absolutely would not be present in Vegas. That one, he decided. He scrolled down to the price and winced in his seat.
“The gay option’s really expensive,” Leon mumbled as he clicked on it, clicking on auto-fill options when he could barely type straight.
“What do you mean the- hold on.” Luis flicked on the turn signal and slowed the car to a stop on the side of the road that still felt the exact same as it had an hour ago. Leon glanced up, wondering if Luis was about to take him up for that blow-job after all until he saw his hand held out.
“It’s the only one I could find,” Leon mourned quietly as he passed the phone across the center console.
Luis squinted at the screen for barely a moment, only to audibly choke. “Six thousand dollars?! Mi amor, that’s- the picture doesn’t mean it’s the ‘gay option.’”
“Oh.”
“What do you mean-” Luis planted his forehead against the steering wheel, lifted it, and plopped it down a second time. “Leon. ¡Mi amor, mi sol, mi corazón, mi cariño, luz de mi vida, me vas a arruinar!”
Leon didn’t know what he was saying past the first couple words, but his accent made it pretty.
“Take a nap. I’ll handle this.”
Leon in fact did not take a nap. Not until Luis handed him a bottle of water after handing him back his phone, told to drink as much as he could, and barely minutes into a nearly two-hour video about the creation of a sound effect in a video game, he fell asleep.
The tux didn’t fit him. It hung on his body that had been on the business end of a feeding tube for three weeks. Leon didn’t care. Why should he care? He was getting married.
He did get married.
Leon barely remembered it, though. Through a haze of anesthetic and euphoria, all Leon remembered were a bunch of flowery words that Luis had given to him and Leon being so struck by it (and the drugs) that he had bumbled through whatever he had planned in return. They had kissed a little too long in front of a priest who, even in his inebriated state, Leon could tell had been through potentially twenty other unions that day.
But they got married.
They were married now.
And now they sat in the car they had just spent countless hours driving in near silence, processing a moment that Leon could still barely remember.
…Maybe they should have waited a couple days.
Leon studied the ring on his finger, gold with a red stone. It was Luis' grandfather’s, he had told him. One of the last pieces of his grandfather he had left. It felt strange, wearing a ring. His thumb played with it, rolled it across his finger where it didn’t quite fit, a little too big. He stared at the bright red jewel and wondered if Luis’ grandfather would have liked him.
A weird thought to have mere minutes after marrying someone.
He spun the ring around his finger, wondering how much bigger Luis’ grandfather’s hands were that it hung loose on him and even more so on Luis. Maybe he’d have to wear it as a necklace. He didn’t have a ring for Luis, unfortunately, remembering that only minutes after getting into the tux and hurriedly asking Luis for one of his rings to give back for now. He took the one with the Alpha and Omega signs on it, and had planned to put it somewhere in his vows of them being one and the same, but he’d been so caught up in Luis’ proclamation of love that he forgot it all.
Maybe they could redo their vows someday. Then Leon could remember them fully and have a real ring ready.
“Leon. Mi amor, are you alright?”
Leon blinked and looked to his left, his vision swirling with it. Hell, he didn’t even get to the cheap champagne offered in the wedding package and his concentration was already going. Luis sat in the driver's seat, beautiful in black and Leon felt his mouth go dry again.
That was his husband.
His husband who was leaned over the center console, pressing a hand to his forehead and sweeping his hair back in loving motions. Whose lips were moving but he couldn’t follow the words. Because that was his husband. Luis Serra-Kennedy. And he was…
“Y-yeah,” Leon stammered, feeling his face rush red.
“You look pale,” Luis fussed, pressing the back of his hand back to his forehead. Oh. Apparently he wasn’t flushing red. “And you feel cold. How are you feeling?”
“Great. Amazing. Floaty. Swirly. Fli-”
“Flippy floppy,” Luis finished with an uneasy smile. “I’m beginning to think that using your previous weight was a mistake in measuring your dose. My apologies, I overdid it.”
“S’all good,” Leon tried to comfort, but his words slurred out from beneath him and only added to the worried expression on Luis’ face. “I’m fine,” he tried again, forcing his lips to move around words properly. He reached out and took Luis’ hand in his, thumb searching for his ring finger only to realize he was holding his right hand. The left was too far away to hold, so he hoped the sentiment was felt all the same.
Leon pressed a kiss against his hand, and it felt warm. Much warmer than him. His lips felt numb. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Leon, maybe I should take a look at your stitches-” Luis started, only for Leon to shake his head.
“I feel fine,” he reassured, kissing Luis’ hand again to try to feel it. Luis made an uncertain sound, but Leon just shook his head again. It was fine. Leon was fine. More than fine. He was married, he was in love, he was dizzy, he was really dizzy, but that was from how much love he felt, and he shifted to reach back to the seats and find the champagne because Luis looked like he needed to loosen up and-
“¡Joder! Leon, you’re bleeding!”
“No I’m not,” he sighed, fumbling with the small bottle. This wasn’t going to be nearly enough.
“Leon!”
Luis clamored over the center console, wedging himself in the space between the dash and Leon, hands pulling at the buttons of his tux with such haste that Leon wondered if they were going to even make it out of the parking lot before ‘consummating their relationship.’ He’d have hoped they could make it to a motel, but he wasn’t one to complain.
He rolled back into his seat, completely abandoning the champagne and settling his hands onto Luis’ hips. “Right now?” he chuckled, leaning up to catch his lips, only for Luis to grunt and press his hands sharply down on his chest, shoving him back into the seat.
“Do not move,” Luis grunted, which Leon followed by immediately leaning up and pressing his lips into the nape of his neck instead. “Leon! I’m serious! You’re bleeding!”
“I’m not bleeding-”
Luis pulled the tux jacket open, the left flap nearly pasted down to his skin from the bright red that had seeped through his white dress shirt.
“Oh, I’m bleeding,” Leon hummed. That explained a lot. Like, a lot. Like how he could barely remember the actual service and how he felt like it took every fragment of concentration in him to stay upright. He assumed that part was the three-week coma, which probably didn't help.
“Yes, you are!” Luis groaned, popping open the passenger’s seat door and stumbling out, reaching the trunk and opening it to rifle through their bags.
It left Leon sitting in the front seat, staring down at the red that coated his left shoulder. Yeah, that was blood. That was his blood that should have stayed inside him. He glanced around to his seat and saw the red smear against leather that must have tipped Luis off to begin with.
“We’re not getting the deposit on these tuxes back, are we?” Leon mumbled, hearing a string of Spanish swears in return that made his heart do a little flip flop in his chest. Luis returned into his lap a couple seconds later, a welcomed reunion as he found his hands going back to Luis’ hips.
Luis didn’t fuss about that, not as he was fussing on unbuttoning the white dress shirt and pushing it down off his shoulder to reveal the wound. He remembered there were six stitches on the front, ten on the back, and, well, he only counted three on this side now. Maybe there were more, maybe less, he still couldn’t see straight. At least he had Luis to tend to them as he pressed a gauze against the wound, and for the first time, there was a hint of pain. Only for a moment, before it disappeared into the void along with any other alerting pain he should have had for the past however many hours.
“You must have popped them putting on the suit, I tried to help you but-,” Luis muttered under his breath as he pressed down against the stitches, hands firm and concentrated. “You didn’t feel anything- no, of course you wouldn’t. Because I gave you too much because I didn’t want you to be in pain for our wedding, estúpido de mi parte.” Leon understood at least one word of that. He just didn’t know who Luis was calling stupid.
Leon occupied his blood-losing brain by running his fingers along Luis’ sides, trying to feel the way the fabric hugged his skin perfectly. He could now blame blood loss for why Leon didn’t instantly get hard when he saw Luis in this. He had wanted to do exactly what they were doing right now; have Luis in his lap as Luis tore clothes off of him in a feverish haste while Leon was allowed to take his time with Luis. He wanted to kiss Luis until their lips were bruised and swollen, chanting love between them and their new shared names.
Instead, he had Luis trying to stop him from bleeding out. And he was probably bleeding out faster with how fast his heart was beating.
Luis lifted the gauze momentarily, only to press it back down as a line of blood escaped down the broken skin. Blood was smeared over his hands that were somehow steady when the rest of Leon wasn’t. “I don’t think I can stitch you up here,” he murmured, “not safely at least. Hold this down, I’m driving us to the nearest hospital.” Luis grabbed his hand from his side, pulling it up to press down onto the gauze. “Hold this down, do not move. If you’re going to pass out, tell me.”
“How am I supposed to-”
Luis had already pushed himself off Leon’s lap and clicked his buckle into place much like a parent to a misbehaving child. Leon watched with blurry vision as he sprinted around the front of the car and practically dove into the driver’s seat. By the time he had closed the door, the car was already in motion and shot into the street, leaving the chapel and plans of a honeymoon behind.
It felt kinda like a thrill-ride. Leon was the only one having fun, though.
There was a part of him that hoped Vegas nurses and doctors were used to seeing patients still wearing suits and dresses. Perhaps not stained with blood, but it had to come with the territory. When Luis and Leon had burst through the doors with Leon unable to stand under his own power and leaning on Luis for support, he expected a little more franticness. He expected a Hollywood style of being shoved onto a gurney and whisked away.
Actual hospital check-ins were a lot less exciting, even when bleeding and looking as pale as he did.
They had a nurse who looked like she was suffering at the tail end of a double shift sit them down in a seat, clipboard in hand, asking questions that Luis answered almost the instant they came out of her mouth. What happened, where is the injury, is it a fresh injury, yada, yada, yada. Until the nurse asked for the name of the patient.
It was then that Leon felt his face break out in the widest grin, his stomach fluttering with happiness that couldn’t have been drowned out with the worst pain or drugs imaginable as he said, for the first time;
"Leon Serra-Kennedy."
And when he'd wake up the next morning in a hospital room unfamiliar and with stitches too familiar, he'd have the same grin on his face when a disheveled Luis in a bloodied tux would have to remind him that, yes, they were married.