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If there’s one thing Leon has to give the BSAA credit for, it’s that their medical staff are kinder, gentler, and much less inclined to deny him alcohol. They swathe his wounds in antiseptic, slap bandages over the ones still actively bleeding, and re-locate his shoulder in short order. They send him away with a sling and orders to bathe and sleep, which is perfect because those are the two things Leon wants to do.
He’s never been in this branch of the BSAA, and Redfield was whisked away for a debrief while Leon was shuffled into Medical, so Leon has no idea where he’s going. But there are plenty of interns wandering around. He only has to grab a couple and ask for directions before he’s pointed to the communal showers on the side of the barracks that tend to be reserved for those of higher rank.
Chris has a private room around here somewhere, but Leon’s DSO not BSAA, so his credentials don’t get him that far. Not to the special quarters of the BSAA’s golden boy. No, Leon’s relegated to the communal showers.
Luckily, it’s a small shower room, six heads tucked into a narrow space like the builders realized at the last minute they forgot to account for the shower facilities and stuck them wherever they could. The showers are empty, and Leon hisses as he undresses, adrenaline gone and his body taking the opportunity to remind him of every wall he slammed into, and every punch and kick he absorbed.
His clothes are filthy, shedding dirt and blood and bits of concrete as he drops them into a heap and kicks it toward a corner. His body is equally filthy, odd spots of clean where his wounds were treated amid smears of gore and filth. He’s sure he reeks and that explains the startled, nose-wrinkled look the intern had given him.
Leon’s seen better days. Hell, he’s seen better months, better years. Of course, a lot of that was prior to 1998 and are faint, blurry memories. Probably thinking fondly of those before years through rose-tinted glasses because he doesn’t remember much of his childhood anymore. It’s mostly death and screaming and monsters and pain these days.
He steps under the shower head in the furthest corner and tallies another point in the BSAA’s favor – the water in their communal showers is piping hot. It’s almost blistering, but the sheer heat of it feels heavenly, nevermind that steam quickly fills up the narrow space.
Leon closes his eyes, tilts his head under the spray, lets it wash over the back of his neck, his back, his aching shoulder – sling abandoned for the sake of getting clean. Dirt sluices from his skin, splattering the floor. He aches everywhere, and he’s exhausted. There’s a cradle stocked with communal soaps, but Leon doesn’t have the wherewithal to grab one.
He’s fucking exhausted, and there’s a tremble in his fingers, his knees. It may be the adrenaline crash, the pain, the thirst. Of course, it could be the fact he’s fast approaching forty. It might even be that he hasn’t had a drink in twenty-four hours. But that would be admitting he has a problem.
Leon Kennedy has many, many problems. He’s not admitting to this one.
Through the noise of the spray, he hears the door click open behind him. Someone else wanting to use the showers. It’s three in the morning and of course, Leon can’t sear his skin in peace.
“Didn’t they give you a private room?”
Leon’s eyes snap open as Chris Redfield’s voice echoes around the tile. He half-turns, looking over his shoulder, and sure enough, Redfield lacks even a stitch of clothing. He walks bare-assed into the shower without a care in the world, and Leon’s brain abruptly short-circuits.
Skin. So much skin. Broad shoulders – as filthy and bruise spattered as Leon’s own to be fair – and a broad waist and the dip of his pelvis toward a cock that even soft, makes Leon’s mouth water. Thick thighs, strong calves, strong feet and why is he looking at Chris’ feet goddamnit?
May have something to do with the torch he’s been carrying for years now. The one he hopes isn’t obvious in the way he looks at Chris, and goddamn, Leon doesn’t know if he’s ascended to a dream state or if he’s plummeted down to hell. Because Chris Redfield is naked and within arm’s reach, and Leon can’t do a bloody thing about it.
Fuck his life.
“Leon?”
Shit. Chris said something.
Leon rewinds the last few minutes of his life and pretends to shake water from his ears. “If they did, I wouldn’t know where to find it in this labyrinth of a building,” he says. “Why are you here?”
Chris takes the shower right next to his, popping it on with a smack of his hand. His broad, strong hands which would fit so perfectly around Leon’s waist. “Looking for you,” he says with one of those goofy grins that hooks a finger in Leon’s chest and tangles him up with want. “Someone said they pointed you here.”
Leon tears his gaze away from Chris’ pecs and his flat, peach-colored nipples and the dusting of hair across his chest. “Well, you found me.”
“I did.” Chris ducks his head under the spray and runs his hands over his hair before shaking his head like a dog caught out in the rain. He’s ridiculous and Leon can’t believe how much he wants him.
“Thought you might need some help,” Chris says after a moment, glancing over at Leon. He’s standing on the side where Leon’s injured arm hangs limp.
It should probably still be in the sling, but Leon wants to be clean. He’s dry-swallowed enough pain pills that they should kick in soon enough. Best he can do is keep it immobile and hope the water is hot enough to burn the filth away.
Wait.
Help?
Blood drains out of Leon’s face and pools in his groin. “Well, I don’t,” he says and shoves his head back under the water, promptly getting a noseful of it and sputtering inelegantly.
Chris’ stare burns a hole into the side of his head. “You’ve got one functional arm and viscera in your hair.”
Leon tries to glare, but his gaze keeps dropping down to Chris’ chest, his abdomen, the sharp vee of his hips right down to his– “You know a word as big as viscera?” he says, a touch too loud, grasping desperately at any kind of distraction.
“Fuck you, I read,” Chris says, but there’s no heat in his voice, just a light laugh that echoes in the shower.
“Sports Illustrated?”
“No, Guns and Ammo Monthly.”
Leon snorts a laugh and ducks back under the water, letting the cascade of it disguise the burn of a blush in his cheeks. He glances longingly at the shampoo as more filth rinses out of his hair. His scalp itches. But betray weakness? Here in front of Chris Redfield? The BSAA Golden Boy?
Never.
“You didn’t answer my question, Kennedy.” Chris grabs the soap and starts to lather himself up. Five other shower heads he could have picked, and Chris chose the one closest to Leon like he came into this room specifically to torture Leon.
It’s impossible, of course, Chris has never shown any indication that he returns Leon’s obvious interest or that he even looks at other men at all. No way the All-American Golden Boy has an ounce of queer in him. Chris is just like this, oblivious and too nice for his own good, which is simultaneously one of his best and worst qualities.
Leon wants to refuse on principle alone. That whole not wanting to need anyone bit. Except Chris offered, and if it’s the only way to get Chris’ hands on him, maybe Leon’s just desperate enough to take it. He’s the wrong side of thirty and any day now, something is going to successfully throw him off a building.
So he sighs a great heaving sigh, lets his one good shoulder droop, and says, “Fine. If you insist.”
Chris rinses himself of soap and shuts off his own shower – got to conserve water and everything, right? Planet’s going to hell as it is, might as well not contribute. And then he steps into Leon’s space, and Leon is abruptly hyper aware of the nearness of another body, the sheer presence of Chris Redfield within his personal bubble.
“I’ll get your hair at least Mr. Pantene,” Chris says, a tease, and his voice sounds husky, or maybe that’s just Leon hoping with what little hope he’s got left in this bruise-ridden husk of a body.
“We can’t all pull off a military buzz cut like you,” Leon retorts, and tries to pretend like this is a casual, everyday thing.
Like he’s used to the man of his fantasies stepping up behind him, reaching past him for the shampoo, their arms brushing. Like the other hand on his good arm, gentle and guiding as it nudges Leon beneath the stream better, it’s all par for the course. Nothing unusual in the life of Leon Kennedy.
Leon braces his bad arm with his good arm just to give him something to do, help take the weight off the injured shoulder. He’s hyper-aware of the pop of the shampoo bottle, the obscene squirt of the liquid, the heat Chrisradiates, somehow hotter and more tangible than the shower itself.
“Had to do this for Claire once,” Chris says a mere second before his hands rest on top of Leon’s head and thread through his hair. Leon freezes. He doesn’t even dare to breathe. “She broke her wrist, had to wear a cast for five weeks.”
Leon doesn’t know what to do with that information. Is Chris gently letting him down? Politely reminding Leon that he’s just being a good friend? Or is this just another example of Oblivious Chris Redfield, cheerfully and blissfully unaware of his own allure?
“Tell me if I hurt you.” Chris’ fingers dig into Leon’s scalp, one finding a fresh bruise but the jolt of pain is nothing compared to the skitter of want that claws down Leon’s spine and pools in his groin.
“Got it,” Leon grits out instead of moaning, and he closes his eyes and clenches his teeth and prays for this to be over quickly and last forever somehow at the same time.
It takes all the control Leon has to focus on breathing silently, on standing there and letting Chris direct his head wherever he needs it, back under the water, his fingers sliding over Leon’s scalp and through his hair. It’s torture and the best thing he’s ever felt. Every brush of Chris’ skin over his, the quiet patter of the water, Chris’ chuckle as Leon melts into the touch of his hands.
“You’ve got some serious tension, Leon,” Chris says, and his hands drop to Leon’s neck, calloused thumbs digging into Leon’s trapezius as his fingers tap over Leon’s collarbones. “Should get that looked at.”
“Ngh,” Leon says, much to his dismay, as the moan escapes his meager control and echoes a little too loudly against the tile.
Leon freezes; Chris does, too. If Chris turns Leon around, if Leon shifts too much, Chris will see how hard Leon is, and the truth will out. If Leon moves, he’ll die. That’s the truth of it. So he doesn’t. Move or say anything and hope Chris continues to be oblivious.
“Did I hurt you?” Chris asks, his hands still warm and heavy on Leon’s nape, laying flat now, as the water splashes down and Leon’s heart thuds so loudly, he swears Chris has to hear it.
Fuck, why did he think he could let himself have this and not ruin it?
Leon drags in a ragged breath, his skin stretched too tight around his body, the urge to step back, step into Chris like a too-tense muscle begging to be eased. “Kind of the opposite actually,” he says, tries to sound composed, but his voice is too shaky.
“Oh, sorry,” Chris says, but his hands don’t move.
Leon’s on the wrong side of thirty with a bum knee and a frequently abused shoulder and two long-standing crushes he’s way too old to harbor. He hung on the edge of that skyrise, inches from tumbling to a messy end, and he’s exhausted and miserable enough not to care.
So he says, “I didn’t say I hated it,” and hopes that’s enough.
“What?” Chris says, sounding genuinely confused, and Leon sighs the sigh of someone who should’ve known better.
“Never mind. I’m being stupid.” Leon tries to slip out from under Chris’ hands without making it look like he’s running away. He’ll rinse off and find his bunk and collapse into it, and maybe tomorrow, he’ll wake up and have forgotten this mistake ever happened.
“Wait.” Chris grabs at Leon’s good arm, surprisingly delicate for a guy who bristles with muscle. “What do you mean?”
Leon doesn’t turn, but he glances sidelong at Chris, over his shoulder. Might as well make his humiliation complete. “Come on, Redfield. You can’t be that stupid.”
Chris’ forehead wrinkles, and it shouldn’t be so cute, but it is. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says with a huff, until those big brown eyes turn liquid and sad, and Leon feels a bit like he kicked a puppy. “Unless you really are pissed at me.”
“Why would I be mad at you?” Leon asks, baffled. It throws him for a loop, stopping him from shaking off Chris’ grip and esca– leaving the shower room at a rapid pace.
Chris shrugs, his hand sliding away from Leon’s arm, and he tells himself not to mourn the loss. “Because I’m the reason you dislocated your shoulder?” he points out. “Why you almost died tonight? The one who dragged you out of your vacation.”
Leon stares at him. “You really are that stupid.” There’s something like awe in his voice because there’s oblivious and then there’s Chris. “I’m not pissed. I’m just tired of being in love with you. Two different things.” He slaps off the shower, and now there’s nothing to hide behind.
He’s not sure what he expects when he looks at Chris, but that expression – wide eyes, mouth open, totally empty – is not it. His hand’s still hanging in the air like he’s forgotten it’s there, and he’s just looking at Leon.
“... what?” Chris asks, weakly, like the sound of the shower made Leon inaudible, and in the drip-drip-drip aftermath, Chris still isn’t sure he heard correctly.
Leon shakes his head. Yeah, he’s done. “You heard me,” he says, and brushes past Chris, stalking toward the towels.
“I did, but there’s no fucking way,” Chris says, and his voice is… well, Leon isn’t sure what to call it. Not angry at least. Takes flirting from another man without it upsetting his masculinity apparently, which Leon should have known. Chris is a good man.
Leon waves his good hand over his shoulder. “I get it.”
“No, you fucking don’t!” Chris’ feet splash across the floor, and the urgency in his tone is a surprise. Almost enough to make Leon turn around. “Just hold on!”
Almost. He doesn’t though. He’s exhausted and humiliated, and he might have just ruined one of his longest friendships with one of the few people who understand what his life is like. Leon wants to find a bar yesterday and lose himself again.
“Leon!” Chris snaps, and he lunges, snatching Leon’s good wrist, bringing him to a halt. “Will you stop and listen to me for a second?”
Anger bubbles within his lungs. He can’t even escape with his dignity, can he? No, Chris has to make Leon’s humiliation utterly complete because he can’t let it go until every bit of Leon’s fragile self is laid bare. Because that’s what it will take for lovably oblivious Chris Redfield to get it.
“What?” Leon snarls, whirling back toward Chris, his lips twisting in a snarl.
Hands curve around Leon’s jaw, pulling him forward, and he has half a second of confusion before Chris’ mouth falls over his. A kiss. Chris is kissing him. Leon’s brain short-circuits at the pressure of Chris’ mouth, the motion of his lips. Surprise washes over him until the last spark of coherence flickers to life and Leon kisses him back, lips parting for the eager plunge of Chris’ mouth, the collision of their bodies.
Leon hooks his good arm around Chris’ back, yanking them together, his body singing at the delicious contact. Chris is a wall of warm muscle, pressed against him. Chris’ kiss is a desperate thing, like he’s trying to speak with his lips and his tongue. They’re both half-hard – when did Chris get hard? What? How did Leon not notice?
Leon’s still somewhere between confusion and victory as he paws at Chris’ back, trying to climb into his skin. He needs to get closer, needs more, and he moves his other arm without thinking. Pain whips through his shoulder, and Leon gasps against Chris’ mouth before he can swallow the flinch.
Chris pulls back from the kiss, his forehead wrinkling in worry. “Oh, shit. Your arm.”
“It’s fine.” Leon grips Chris’ back, dizzy at the ripple of muscle beneath his fingertips, the sheer immensity of the man pressed against him. Chris could pick him up and break him with little trouble at all, and that thought shouldn’t be as arousing as it is.
“But it’s–”
“--fine,” Leon grits out because he can’t take it anymore. “If you stop kissing me because of my arm, I’m going to find my sling and throttle you with it.”
Chris looks at him, eyes darkening with heat. Of course the threat turns him on. Why did Leon think it would have a different effect? His lips curve into another one of those goofy smiles.
“Seriously?” Chris’ hands slip down to Leon’s waist, thumbs pressing in on the slope of his hips before he tugs their lower halves into delicious contact, his cock tucking neatly against Leon’s, both of them half-hard and thickening with each passing second. “You really want this?”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Leon rolls his eyes. “What part of my tongue in your mouth was confusing to you?” He has never been so equal parts exasperated and aroused in his entire life.
Chris rolls those great big shoulders, nonchalant, though the press of his fingers is anything but. “I kissed you first,” he explains, gaze cutting to the side, and something rosy darkening his cheeks.
“And I kissed you back,” Leon says. What kind of confirmation is Chris looking for here? Leon to get on his knees and propose? “You drive me crazy, Redfield.”
“Yeah, well, you make me insane,” Chris retorts, but his hands slide up, up, up Leon’s sides and back down again, like he’s taking a measure with his fingers. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been in love with you?”
The words wash over Leon. He hears them, but he doesn’t comprehend, and Chris couldn’t have startled him more if he tried. “Since never?”
“Oh, fuck you,” Chris growls, and he tucks his face against the side of Leon’s neck, lips and stubble scraping a path over bruised skin. He sucks a biting kiss, and Leon pants a startled breath, bucking against Chris in a heave of great want.
Leon’s fingers scrabble uselessly at Chris’ too-short hair. “You never said anything,” he says, trying to find indignation and losing it in the press of Chris’ lips to his throat, in a second, firmer bite that’s too firm, a whip of pain-pleasure that throbs indecently in Leon’s groin.
“Neither did you,” Chris rumbles against his skin.
“Yeah, well. I thought you were straight.” Or at the very least, just not interested in Leon in particular, which was such a blow to Leon’s self-esteem that he preferred to believe Chris was only attracted to women.
“And I thought you were my sister’s boyfriend,” Chris mutters.
Leon jerks back out of sheer surprise. “You’re joking.”
“Well, maybe you’re not actually together yet,” Chris says, sounding less certain now. His forehead’s crinkling again, and right now, it’s not endearing. It’s damn annoying.
“Not now, not ever!” Leon snaps. Honestly, just when he thinks he’s reached the limit of the things Chris doesn’t know, somehow the other man finds a new low. “Are you telling me you don’t know that your sister is a lesbian?”
Chris blinks at him. “Claire’s a lesbian?”
“Jesus Christ, Redfield! Do you notice anything around you?”
“But there was that guy.” Chris looks off into the middle distance, squinting at nothing, legitimately trying to discuss his sister’s sexuality at the most inappropriate moment. “Damn, I can’t remember his name.”
Leon groans and rubs at his forehead. He can’t even tell if he’s aroused anymore. “I’m not having this conversation right now,” he mutters. “I’m not. This is either a nightmare or some kind of twisted dream-come-true because this can’t be actually happening.”
“Dream come true?” Chris echoes, and his attention reverts to Leon like a rubber band. He pulls Leon’s hand away from his forehead, giving him nothing to hide behind, and a full view of Chris grinning like an idiot. “Have a lot of dreams about me, Leon?”
“Not anymore,” Leon grumbles, trying to push Chris away, but the minute his palm hits one of those massive pecs, he loses all will to let go. Instead, he pets the rise of muscle with appreciation.
Chris curls an arm around his waist, tugging them back together, and lifts Leon’s other hand higher. He presses a hot kiss to the inside of Leon’s wrist, like Leon’s some genteel damsel instead of a banged-up DSO agent with a bum shoulder and a crick in his neck.
“You sure?” His mouth is hot, so, so hot as he drags it down the inside of Leon’s arm, nipping at a red mark that’ll blossom to a dark bruise sometime in the next several hours. “Can’t we just go back to the part where we were kissing? I like that part.”
So does Leon. But disbelief keeps tugging at the back of his mind. Has he, in his sleep-desperate, pain-fogged, delirium imagined Chris Redfield coming on to him? Is he, even now, passed out in a bed somewhere having the most vivid fantasy of his entire life?
Leon takes a breath. “Is that all you want from me?” He means it to be playful, but his heart is squeezed too tight, and his stomach is in knots. He needs a serious answer.
“Not even close,” Chris says with such a sudden fierceness that Leon’s taken aback. It bashes through all his insecurities and turns them to bits, but more so does the kiss, the way that Chris takes his chin in hand and yanks him into a kiss that’s bruising for its intensity.
Leon moans into the kiss, mouth opening for the plunge of Chris’ tongue, the heat in his mouth. Chris’ hand slides to his hair, holding him in place, refusing to relent from the kiss, and Leon moans again. It feels like being claimed, like a cage he doesn’t want to escape.
Chris’ other arm locks around Leon’s waist, an iron bar holding him tight. He’s only a couple inches taller, but it feels like more since Leon will never catch up to the width of Chris’ shoulders. Leon shudders and tries to lick into Chris’ mouth, give as good as he gets, but Chris bears him back, like the press of his lips is a promise alone.
Christ. This can’t be a dream.
Heat thrums in Leon’s blood, pulsing stronger than ever, and he’s rocking his hips, grinding his cock against Chris’ hip before he knows what he’s doing. He’s hard, and he thinks he’s been hard for several minutes now. If he can come like this, with Chris’ taste on his lips and Chris’ arms wrapped around him, then it’ll be worth all the previous headaches.
It’ll be worth everything.
“I want everything,” Chris growls against his mouth, and he grabs Leon’s ass, pulling him for a delicious grind of their pelvises that sets sparks at the base of Leon’s spine.
Leon grits out a moan, and hooks his good arm around Chris’ neck, over those broad shoulders, holding on for dear life. Chris’ fingers press like a bruise into Leon’s hips, and he imagines they’ll still be there tomorrow, solid lines in the shape of Chris’ fingers. Just the thought sends a roar of wanting through Leon’s body, and he shudders.
“Take it then,” Leon gasps as his cock throbs and blurts a spill of messy pre. The damp of Chris’ cock smears slick over his belly, and god, he thought Chris was big before, but judging by the press against his stomach, Chris is thick. Leon’s favorite kind.
Chris bites into his throat, a searing line of teeth and Leon moans, the sound echoing loudly in the shower room. His legs tremble, and then Chris’ hands are squeezing on the back of his thighs, and Leon is airborne, held aloft by Chris’ hands alone. He wraps his legs around Chris’ waist, tugs them together with the press of his ankles, right before Chris slams him into the tiled wall.
It’s a shock of cold against the volcanic heat between them, and Leon shivers. He rocks up, using nothing but the wall and Chris’ grip for leverage, and there’s sweet friction, Chris’ cock against his.
“Fuck,” Chris groans through clenched teeth, his eyes dark pools of want.
Leon paws at his too-short hair, fruitlessly trying to get a grip. “That’s the point, Redfield.”
Chris huffs a sharp bark of laughter and then they’re kissing, mouths colliding, teeth and tongue. Leon’s pulling them together with the force of his legs alone, and Chris has a double-handful of Leon’s ass, yanking him into a satisfying grind.
The tile is damp-cold-slick behind Leon’s back, and Chris is a hot line against his belly. He wants that cock in him yesterday, but not even Leon’s crazy enough to take it without so much as lube to ease the way. He’s not that much of a masochist.
This is good enough for now. The press of Chris’ fingers on his ass, the feel of Chris between his thighs, muscles bunching and releasing, the grind of Chris’ dick against his belly, the soft grunts and moans, the way he breathes ‘Leon’ into the humid air.
Leon shivers all over, stomach tightening, balls drawing up, rutting against Chris Redfield like he’s always wanted to do, the head of his cock grinding over those beautiful abs, painting them with his pre. He grabs the back of Chris’ neck, yanks him into range for a kiss, and the clack of their teeth together is nothing compared to the raging inferno coiled in Leon’s stomach.
“Take it,” Leon snarls into Chris’ ear, and those fingers on his ass turn to iron bars of bruising, Chris pinning him hard against the wall as if he’s going to fuck Leon through it.
He growls, teeth sinking down on the join of Leon’s neck and shoulder, as the hot splash of his semen paints their bellies, and Leon’s cock grinds messily through it. There’s desperation coloring the whine in Chris’ throat and Leon bucks against him, thinking of a bed, and Chris crouched over him, fucking him senseless. He’s shuddering as he comes, fingers digging into the back of Chris’ neck, his teeth a sharp line against the curve of Chris’ jaw. He’s a band pulled taut before left to snap, white lights exploding behind his eyes, his spill joining the mess Chris made.
“Jesus,” Chris breathes, and he seeks out Leon’s mouth with a messy, hot drag of his lips. He keeps Leon pressed to the wall, and Leon’s not sure if the throbbing between them is his own rabbiting heart or Chris’.
Leon blindly returns the kiss, blinking stars out of his vision. Everything’s shaking, and the tile’s not cold enough to ease the heat anymore. He’s panting, and sucks in a damp breath.
“Well, now that that’s out of the way,” Leon shakily says, and Chris laughs against his lips.
“You’re such an asshole,” he says.
“I know.” Leon kisses Chris again, because he can. It’s a novel concept, leaning in toward Chris Redfield, and Chris Redfield leaning back, letting their mouths collide, their tongues tangle, Chris’ hands still on his ass, though much gentler now.
Chris’ mouth drags along the curve of Leon’s jaw. He nips at the hollow beneath Leon’s ear and murmurs, “Come back to my room with me.”
Leon’s spine tingles. His head’s a fog of post-coital bliss, and he’s not sure he heard what he thinks he heard. “What?”
“I’ve got a big bed and clean clothes you can borrow,” Chris says, which feels like a sharp veer away from their current circumstances, wet and satiated.
“You want me to get dressed?” Leon drops his legs back to the ground, bearing his own weight, and Chris’ hands shift to his hips, thumbs rubbing along the divot of his hips.
“Hell, no,” Chris says, still trapping Leon between himself and the wall. “Just pointing out that you have that option.”
Leon steals another kiss, more savoring this time. His lips feel bruised and swollen, the faint taste of copper lingering on his tongue. There’s a cut on Chris’ bottom lip, probably from his fight with Arias, and his breath hitches everytime Leon licks it. So Leon, of course, can’t leave it alone. Not when it makes Chris breathe a little heavier.
“I sleep in the nude,” Leon says in between kisses, and Chris groans, breaking away from his mouth to press his forehead to the tile beside Leon’s head.
“You don’t have to wear the clothes,” Chris says, but they’re close enough Leon feels the interested twitch of his dick. His hands slide up and down Leon’s sides, like he physically can’t stop himself from touching Leon.
Leon can relate. His good hand is magnetically drawn to those marvelous pecs. “You prefer me naked?”
Chris pulls them back toward the nearest shower, activating it with a pop of his elbow. “Is that so surprising?”
“I’m still not convinced I’m not hallucinating,” Leon admits as the water cascades over his body, chilly compared to the feverish heat that lingers everywhere Chris touches him. Especially since Chris’ hands keep wandering, down his back, his arms, his shoulders, across his belly, his hips.
Leon’s skin tingles. He swallows a groan, head tipping back on Chris’ shoulder as those strong hands pluck and play him like an instrument. Calloused fingers glide up his abdomen, skirting over bruises darkening to purple, and cupping his pecs with noted intent.
“You’re not,” Chris says into his ear, voice like a siren, a rumble that vibrates through Leon. Or maybe that’s the result of Chris pinching his nipples, taking each one between thumb and forefinger and rolling them gently.
Leon groans and pushes into Chris’ touch. His dick twitches. “You keep doing that and I’m not going to be able to walk out of here.”
Chris laughs and does it again, little jolts of pleasure running straight from Leon’s nipples to his dick. “Would that be such a bad thing?”
“Probably,” Leon hums. His eyes feel a little heavy, and there’s a faint languidity to his body. Maybe double-fisting the hydrocodone hadn’t been a good idea, but how was he supposed to know this would happen?
Chris leans around him, all warm, wet skin and solid muscles, to cut the shower off once more. “We’re clean enough.”
“Speak for yourself,” Leon says as he follows Chris back to the locker room, staring dolefully down at his clothes, lying in a bloody, dirty heap. “I’m not putting those back on.”
Chris opens one of the lockers and pulls out a pair of gym shorts, slipping them on. They hang low on his hips, showing off the jut of his hipbones. Leon stares at them for longer than is polite until he forces his eyes to drag up, catching Chris in the middle of a frown.
“I don’t have anything else in here.” He snaps the locker shut, before he looks at the one beside his. Brown eyes go soft and dark all at once.
Leon glances at the locker, but it’s unmarked like the rest of them. It has a number, but Leon has no frame of reference for who ‘17’ might belong to.
Chris yanks it open and pulls out a pair of sweatpants, which he offers to Leon. “I’m sure Damien won’t mind,” he says, with the softest, saddest smile that Leon’s heart clenches like a bruise in his chest.
Leon accepts the offered athleticwear with a nod. “It’s never easy, is it? Losing anyone from your team, I mean.”
“No.” He fishes around in his locker, shuffling stuff around, before he closes it with a quiet click. “It’s not easy to be the one who survives.”
Leon tugs on the sweatpants, which still hang loose around his waist. “I know.” It’s one of the things they have in common, one of the reasons Leon trusts Chris as much as he does.
He stuffs his arm back into the sling but before he can gather his dirty clothes, Chris does it for him, holsters and all.
“I could have gotten those,” Leon says.
Chris flashes him one of those grins that makes Leon a little weak in the knees, and his heart start throbbing triple-time. “And you still only have one useful arm.” He tips his head toward the door. “Come on. My room’s close. I promise.”
“If you say so.”
Leon follows Chris out the door, only to almost immediately collide with Chris’ bare back. He leans around the wall of muscle that is Chris Redfield to see another member of the BSAA. It’s one of Chris’ team. What was his name? DC? Well, DC’s leaning up against the wall, and despite the fatigue pinching his dark eyes, he’s managing to give Chris a teasing smirk.
“Congrats on finally landing that decade-long crush, boss,” he drawls with two raised eyebrows. “Did you a favor and stood guard. Figured you wouldn’t want to be interrupted.”
Heat floods Leon’s cheeks. He’s painfully aware of his state of half-dress, the red blotches on his neck that might not be attributed to the rigors of the day. The fact that he’s in borrowed pants. That Chris is carrying his dirty clothes for him.
“Thanks,” Chris says, and from behind, Leon can see the tips of his ears turning a bright crimson. “Did you need something?”
“Nope,” DC says, popping the word. He flashes Leon a grin and a wink before skirting past them with his hands up, making a beeline for the shower. “Hope you cleaned up after yourselves at least.”
Chris scowls after him. “Shut up.”
“Is that an order?” DC asks, but he slips into the communal shower, letting it bang shut before Chris can respond.
Well, that was only slightly humiliating.
“Decade-long crush?” Leon echoes after a few seconds of awkward silence.
The tips of Chris’ ears are so red, they look to be on fire. “I told you. I’ve been in love with you for a long time.” He ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s embarrassed. “Everyone knew without me saying a goddamn thing.”
“Except me,” Leon says. He can’t believe how blind he’s been. They could’ve been fucking for years if either of them had even an ounce of courage. “And Claire apparently.” Though in her defense, she’s not around her brother that often. They’re usually on opposite ends of the world.
Still, if there’s one thing Leon knows about Claire Redfield, it’s that if she even had one iota of an inkling that Leon and Chris were hot for each other, she’d have done something about it. She doesn't suffer fools, which apparently, both of them are.
“Apparently,” Chris echoes with a wince before he gives Leon his trademark goofy grin, tilting his head to the left. “Come on. My room’s this way.”
Leon should not at all be surprised by what he sees when Chris swipes a key card to a door that looks like all the others on the hallway, and gestures Leon to go in ahead of him. Leon could have guessed that BSAA’s golden boy has better than average quarters, certainly better than his own, but even he isn’t prepared for the sight of the spacious, well-stocked suite.
Two closed doors probably hide a bedroom and a bathroom respectively – which means Chris had specifically gone to the communal baths to find Leon – but there’s also a separate space for a couch and a massive entertainment center, a fully equipped kitchen that looks as if it rarely sees use, and a wall of gear and weapons that could arm a small army.
The room smells crisp and clean, sterile and unlived in. It’s not the dust of disuse, like Leon’s own rarely used apartment, but a place that is cleaned for Chris when he’s not home, that’s kept tidy and ready for its occupant. There aren’t very many personal touches, but a single three-shelf bookcase crammed with odds and ends, one being a framed photograph.
It’s old, but when Leon picks it up, he immediately recognizes a young Chris and Claire standing there, Chris’ arm over Claire’s shoulders. He can’t be more than thirteen, pimple-faced and gangly. He hasn’t grown into his shoulders yet, but it’s still the same goofy grin. Claire’s rolling her eyes, and well, she hasn’t changed much either, though her hair is short, cut like she’d taken scissors to it when her parents weren’t looking.
“That was only a few months before our parents died,” Chris says as he gently takes the frame from Leon’s hands and sets it back on the shelf, between a few other photos, one which looks like a group photo of the S.T.A.R.S team pre-Arklay. “We had no idea our world was about to go to shit.”
“I can relate,” Leon says. Though he doesn’t have any happy photos of the Kennedy family to remind him of the good old days. He’s pretty sure there weren’t any good old days, though his memory of anything before Raccoon City and 1998 is pretty hazy at this point.
Chris curls an arm around Leon’s waist from behind, tugging him into the warm cradle of muscle that is Chris’ torso. “I know.” He presses a kiss to Leon’s neck, just below his left ear, and a shiver radiates warm pulses down Leon’s spine. “Come to bed.” His other hand sneaks around, palm sliding down to toy at the waistband of Leon’s borrowed sweats.
“I don’t think you’re interested in sleeping,” Leon says as Chris’ hand sneaks beneath the band and cups his dick, thumb stroking down the half-hard length. Leon sucks in a breath, pushing back against Chris, reaching up to cup the back of Chris’ neck with his good hand.
“Not really,” Chris’ mouth drags a hot path along the curve of his neck to suck a bruise into the join of neck and shoulder.
Leon groans and his eyes slip closed. He rolls into Chris’ hand as a low, pulsing warmth starts to spread through his body. “Insatiable.”
“Only when it comes to you.” Chris rocks against his ass, the athletic shorts doing nothing to hide the hard heat of him.
“Well, I’m not coming without your dick in me this time,” Leon says. He shifts his hips back, grinding his ass against Chris’ groin for emphasis.
Chris groans and rocks back against him. “That can be arranged.”
It takes some coaxing, since Chris seems uninterested in letting go of his prize, and Leon is equally uninterested in separating from Chris’ hands. But the bed is large and inviting, and every inch of Leon’s bruised, battered, and banged up body wants to stretch across the plush surface. He kicks off his borrowed pants and climbs between the sheets, groaning as the mattress cradles him sweetly.
Every second of adrenaline-fueled, determination-driven action from the last twenty-four hours catches up to him all at once. There’s no pain, thanks to the hydrocodone, but a seeping lethargy that takes him by the shoulders and refuses to let go.
The bed doesn’t even bounce as Chris crawls in beside him, now deliciously nude once again, their bare skin coming into contact. Leon hums and tries to aim a kiss at Chris’ mouth, but he’s off-center and sloppy and so, so sleepy.
“Damn,” he mutters around a jaw half-cracked into a yawn. “Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the meds.”
“You definitely should have.” Chris divests him of the sling he forgot to remove, tossing it onto the floor. “You’re exhausted. I’m exhausted. Go to sleep.”
Leon’s eyes shutter closed without his permission. “I don’t want to sleep,” he grumbles anyway. “I want you to fuck me.”
Chris breathes a quiet laugh and presses a chaste kiss to Leon’s forehead. “I’ll still be here when you wake up.”
There’s a clutch in Leon’s chest that desperately wants to believe Chris. He makes the promise so easily, and Leon has to bite down on the bitter retort of how little he trusts those kinds of promises. The last thing he wants is to sound even more pathetic than he obviously is.
“You better be,” Leon says. There. A vague threat. Much less pathetic than begging for Chris to follow through.
Chris tucks Leon’s head under his chin and wraps Leon up in those big, burly arms, winding himself so thoroughly around Leon that neither of them will be able to leave the bed without the other knowing it. Leon’s ear is pressed to Chris’ chest, and the steady thump-thump-thump of Redfield’s heart shouldn’t be as reassuring as it is.
It makes him feel safe in a way Leon doesn’t want to contemplate right now, because as it stands, Chris Redfield is the most dangerous man in the world for Leon Kennedy.
“Go to sleep,” Chris rumbles.
Leon smirks. “Whatever you say, boss,” he says, and files away the little hitch in Chris’ breath for later use, right before he drops off into sleep, lulled by the steady beat of Chris’ heart.
***