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For Leon S. Kennedy, life drifted into an unexpected beat between duty and comfort. What began as Chris asking him to dinner at Emmy’s Diner had become an entire evening crowded with friends, neon reflections in coffee cups, and laughter easy enough to soften even the city’s rust. Leon never realized it had been meant as a date…. Chris Redfield never quite recovered from that.
The carnival arriving in town only made things worse; or better, depending who was watching. Leon wandered through blinking midway lights with powdered sugar on his fingers and an endless appetite for fried food, winning armfuls of stuffed animals at every shooting booth while Chris followed behind carrying them all with devotion written plainly across his face.
The rest of the group watched the disaster unfold in real time: Leon beneath summer lights, Chris hovering at his side like a man already in love with a future he hadn’t asked for yet, because through it all, Leon remained beautifully oblivious, but Raccoon City never let happiness exist untouched for very long.
A late-night arrest outside Umbrella Corporation changed the tone of everything. What should have been routine turned into long hours once the suspect was taken into holding, and when Albert Wesker returned, dismantled the comfort Leon had spent the year building around himself. Reports were torn apart and rewritten. Casual, cruel remarks. Leon didn’t understand the attention Wesker gave him. Only that it left him feeling awful, but good, in ways he couldn’t explain, because there were moments buried beneath the cruelty that almost sounded like interest, and Leon, who had never truly learned how to recognize flirting or attraction, couldn’t tell the difference between being desired and being targeted. By the time the station finally fell quiet again, the summer warmth felt farther away than before.
Morning arrived slowly over Raccoon City, pale gold sunlight filtering through cloud cover still heavy from last night’s early morning storm. The streets outside the R.P.D. looked dark with lingering rainwater while trees along the avenue stirred softly in the breeze.
It was the kind of morning that made people want open windows and quiet kitchens. Fresh coffee. Damp grass. Somewhere far away from fluorescent lighting and police reports…. Instead, Leon S. Kennedy was still at the reception desk.
Still in yesterday’s clothes.
Still awake mostly through stubbornness and sugar when he and the station both carried the exhausted stillness of a place caught between shifts. Phones rang less often. Officers moved slower. Somewhere upstairs, somebody had started a coffee pot strong enough to smell through the entire building… maybe it was burning.
One of the lobby doors had been propped open after the storm, letting the outside air drift gently through the station.
Leon could’ve drifted away with the breeze from gratitude alone. The breeze carried the smell of wet pavement, summer leaves ready to start getting crunchy, and distant bakery bread from somewhere down the block. Every now and then it lifted the longer strands of his blonde hair where they’d fallen loose around his face, cooling the heat still trapped in his skin after a sleepless night indoors.
He leaned back carefully in the chair with a tired sigh, oversized report files spread around him like failed attempts at productivity, then rested one elbow against the desk and watched dust move lazily through the sunlight near the open doorway. Outside, he could hear birds… Actual birds. Not sirens. Not gunshots. Not dispatch chatter.
Just birds singing somewhere in the wet trees lining the street. It almost didn’t feel real.
He wished desperately for a window seat somewhere. Somewhere with curtains moving in the breeze and plants on the sill and maybe a little diner breakfast sitting untouched beside a cup of coffee gone cold.
Instead he had police stationery and a stiff neck… Still, the air felt nice enough that he could almost pretend.
His stomach growled softly, Leon looked down at the half-finished bag of vending machine chips beside the keyboard and sighed in defeat before taking another bite anyway.
The hallway outside records smelled faintly of dust and rainwater. Leon got up and moved through it slowly, exhausted enough that every errand felt dreamlike around the edges. Bathroom. File delivery. A brief stop near the copy room while two detectives argued quietly over cigarettes and budget cuts, a fax machine older than he was making some random noise that didn’t mean dialing out or receiving, nothing remarkable, it just did that sometimes.
It was only ten minutes gone at most, but when Leon came back through the lobby doors toward reception, he stopped short so suddenly the folder under his arm nearly slipped from his hands.
There was coffee on his desk, and not station coffee. Real coffee. Large enough to qualify as a swimming pool, maybe. Whipped cream piled obscenely high beneath the clear plastic lid, already beginning to melt softly down the sides from the warmth of the morning. Three donut holes had been stabbed directly onto the straw like some kind of sugary kebab; one chocolate glazed, one powdered, one plain glazed shining in the sunlight.
Beside it sat two full pink bakery boxes.
Leon blinked slowly, “…Jesus,” all this in ten minutes?
The lobby was empty. Only the soft metal creak of the open door and distant office chatter upstairs answered him.
He stepped closer carefully, setting the files down. There was a little folded card resting against the coffee cup and was surprised just from picking it up. His name was written across the front in neat cursive.
Inside, only four words: ‘my darling receptionist.’
Leon stared at it.
Then immediately looked around the lobby again as if someone might jump out and explain what the hell was happening…. Nobody did, and the creaking door just made that same sound.
The card smelled faintly familiar… Leather? Maybe? Like gloves left in sunlight.
Leon frowned slightly, trying to place it. Somewhere in the back of his exhausted brain, recognition tugged weakly at him without fully surfacing, and looked back down at the note again, ‘my darling receptionist.’
His face grew hot instantly, embarrassed and bewildered in a way that made his stomach flip strangely beneath the lingering heaviness of carnival food and sleepless exhaustion.
Nobody had ever left him something like this before, not even anonymously. He just wasn’t attractive, and he’d never been. He had trouble getting dates, couldn’t ask anyone out and they didn’t ask him, either.
His eyes drifted toward the coffee again…. The whipped cream… The exact way he liked it: way yoo much cream, way too much sugar. Too indulgent to be accidental.
Leon sank slowly back into his chair, wiggling his hips to fit, and still staring at the note while morning sunlight drifted across the lobby floor. The open doorway let another cool breeze pass through the station. Outside, birds sang softly in the wet summer trees. Inside, Leon touched the edge of the card again with confused carefulness, blushing harder the longer he looked at it.
Then, after a moment, he looked around and called out, “…Chris?”
No answer came, only the faint smell of rain and leather. He sat down carefully with the coffee balanced in one hand and the little card in the other, the reception chair creaking faintly beneath him as he settled back into it, the arms biting into the sides of his stomach, forcing him to shift and squeeze slightly to fit comfortably between them. A year ago he would’ve dropped into the seat without thinking. Now everything required adjustment first; turning sideways, pulling himself in closer to the desk, making space for himself where there hadn’t needed to be space before. Some doors in the precinct needed him to turn sideways, too, but then his ass was too plump and his stomach stuck out too far. Usually he noticed it immediately.
Right now he barely registered it at all, mostly because the card still smelled so familiar. Leon frowned softly, staring down at it again while morning sunlight drifted across the desk.
The handwriting curled elegantly across the paper in dark ink, all loops and graceful lines that looked almost old-fashioned… ‘my darling receptionist.’
No signature….
No initials….
Nothing personal except somehow all of it. Leon turned the card over once more as though an answer might magically appear on the back.
Nothing.
Only that scent…
He lifted it carefully toward his face again.
Leather.
Warm leather.
Not cigarettes. Not cheap cologne. Not paper or ink.
His cheeks heated immediately… “Oh my God,” he muttered to himself quietly, because the smell was…. Well…. Sexy.
Which was ridiculous…. Cards were not sexy. Stationery was not sexy. Nobody in human history had ever become emotionally compromised by office supplies before; yet here he was, blushing alone at reception while holding scented paper like a complete idiot. He fanned himself absently with the card a few times, trying to stir the scent stronger, eyes narrowing with concentration as he searched his memory for where he knew it from…
Somewhere close.
Somewhere recent… It clung stubbornly to the edge of recognition. Gloves? Had anyone worn gloves in the summer? That was crazy, right? A jacket maybe? It was starting to get cooler at night…His stomach flipped strangely again, just enough to make him feel warm all over in a way he deeply did not know how to process…. No one had ever flirted with him before.
At least not openly enough for him to recognize? Chris brought him coffee and food constantly, but Chris was just… Chris. Sweet. Reliable. Protective in that sturdy golden retriever, German shepherd sort of way…. But? This felt different somehow. Leon looked down at his own hands holding the card. Soft hands now. Chubby fingers dusted faintly in powdered sugar from earlier. The elegant note looked strangely delicate against them. That couldn’t be Chris’ writing, but maybe one of the girls? Maybe someone else?
His blush deepened…. Maybe someone was flirting with him. The thought landed somewhere deep and vulnerable inside him with alarming force, definitely not because he thought himself irresistible. Mostly because he’d never really considered the possibility at all.
Leon leaned back in the too-small chair with the card still held near his nose, then using his stomach as a shelf, staring at the swirling handwriting while his coffee melted slowly beside him, and somewhere upstairs, entirely unknown to him, a black leather trenchcoat rested neatly on the back of Albert Wesker’s desk chair.
“Leon!!”
The yellow fax machine near records had won again. It always won. Nobody in the entire history of the Raccoon City Police Department had ever truly defeated it; they merely survived encounters with it long enough to pass the trauma on to someone else.
“Leon!!”
By now the machine had yellowed so badly with age and cigarette smoke that Leon suspected it had originally been white sometime before his birth.
The thing rattled ominously when it operated.
Sometimes it screamed.
Today it had simply eaten six pages of incident reports and refused to acknowledge the crime.
So when Leon S. Kennedy, valiant receptionist extraordinaire finally got unstuck from his chair to go fix it for the latest officer, he realized he was the only one who could tame it, and then he escaped records and started back toward his valiant reception position, he already looked emotionally exhausted enough to qualify for medical leave.
Then he saw Chris Redfield waiting at the desk, and immediately brightened. Chris stood there in rolled sleeves with Leon’s usual coffee order in hand, condensation sliding slowly down the plastic cup.
Extra cream, extra sugar, whipped cream piled too high, and three little donut holes on the straw.
Leon laughed softly the second he saw it, “Another one so soon?”
Chris shrugged casually, though he looked faintly pleased with himself anyway, “Thought I heard you surviving the fax machine battle.”
“I barely did,” Leon took the coffee gratefully with both hands. Then, still smiling, “Thanks, darling.”
Silence.
Chris froze… Completely.
His expression went blank in the purest form of system failure Leon had ever witnessed. Then came the colour, bright red climbed instantly up Chris’s neck and into his ears while his brows furrowed in total confusion, “…What?”
Leon blinked, the smile fell off his face immediately, “Uhhh… Oh…”
Chris was still staring at him like he’d just been hit with a brick labeled ‘romantic,’ Leon’s stomach dropped, “Chris… Oh my God,” he said quickly, already flustered, “No, I mean—not like that, I was joking because, uh—” he fumbled one-handed into his pocket while still holding the coffee, “The n-note,” he explained hurriedly, “The coffee from this morning? The note said—”
He unfolded the little card and held it up. Chris leaned closer slightly and read the elegant swirling handwriting, ‘my darling receptionist’
Chris looked back up slowly, red, confused, a little angry, “I didn’t write this,” he growled, teeth biting at the words.
Leon stared at him, “…You didn’t?”
“No!” The answer came so fast it almost echoed.
Leon’s face went pale with horror, “Oh my God.”
Chris immediately regretted sounding alarmed because now Leon looked like he wanted the floor to open and consume him alive.
“I thought it was from you,” Leon said miserably.
“No, I mean— I would never—” Chris stopped himself so violently he nearly bit his own tongue off, “I mean, not—I mean—” now he was spiraling.
Leon covered his face briefly with one hand, “I’m so sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize—”
“I called you ‘darling.’”
Chris stared at him helplessly, because oh fuck did that sound like everything he had ever wanted to hear, “Yeah.”
“Oh my God.”
“You can do it again if you want?” The words escaped before Chris could stop them.
Both of them froze.
Leon looked up slowly.
Chris’s entire face went crimson, “I meant jokingly,” Chris lied terribly.
Leon blinked at him for a second longer than normal before laughing nervously, “Right…” he mumbled, thinking ‘because someone being in love with me has to be some kind of joke, right?’ even before he’d put on weight.
Something unsettled faintly behind Chris’ eyes, “So… Who left this?”
Leon shrugged weakly, upsetting himself with his own thoughts, “I don’t know.”
Chris turned the card over once… Then paused; a faint scent lingered on the paper… Leather. Chris’s expression changed instantly, subtle, but enough that Leon noticed.
“…Chris?”
Chris looked back up too fast, “Did anyone see who brought it?
“No…” Leon frowned, “Why?”
Chris folded the card once between his fingers, for the first time all morning, Leon saw something genuinely cold move behind Chris Redfield’s eyes. The shift in him was immediate, like something in him had clicked into place the moment the card left Leon’s hand and the paper’s scent hit his nose.
Chris Redfield stepped forward, voice low and rough with something that wasn’t quite anger yet, but was heading there fast, “Who the fuck brought this?!”
Leon flinched slightly, not because Chris had never raised his voice before, but because he had never heard it aimed like that at him.
“I don’t know!” Leon said quickly, reaching for the card again, “Chris, it’s just— I just found it on the desk—” but Chris had already grabbed it back, and that was the problem, now it wasn’t a joke anymore.
Leon reached out instinctively, “Hey!! hey— give it back—”
“I want to know who left it!” Chris snapped.
“I said I don’t know!”
The card tugged between them.
A ridiculous, escalating struggle over a piece of paper that smelled faintly of leather and had somehow become the most important object in the building.
A pen clattered off the desk. Somewhere off the side of them, a detective muttered, “Oh, here we go…” with a full view of reception from the doorway.
Leon tried again, softer now, “Chris, it’s not a big deal, I was just—”
“It is a big deal,” Chris cut in.
That made Leon pause, not because it was loud but because it was certain and final and —-
“Enough!!” The voice cracked through the lobby like a gavel being pounded.
Both of them froze mid-motion.
Chief Irons stood in the hallway between reception and the staircase as he descended, expression already twisted into annoyance before he even fully looked at them.
He stared at Chris first… who was supposed to be a superior, serious S.T.A.R.S. officer.
Then Leon.
Then the card still half-caught between their hands.
A long, heavy sigh, “You two are acting like immature children.”
Chris opened his mouth—
“Shut it, Redfield,” The Chief didn’t even let him start, then, pointed sharply upward with one striking finger, “Redfield. Get your ass upstairs where you belong!! I’m sick of all this fucking around with reception!”
Chris’s jaw tightened, the looked at Leon, just for a second longer than necessary. Leon still had his hand half-raised, unsure what to do with it now that the argument had been forcibly removed from it.
Chris exhaled through his nose.
“Drop whatever the hell that is and get upstairs.”
…And let go of the card.
The Chief’s gaze snapped to Leon next, “And Kennedy, stop standing there looking useless and get your lazy ass back to work!”
Leon nodded, “Yes, sir,” the words came automatically and went to sit down again, immediately, without another word, like movement itself might restart the conflict.
The card was still in his hands, he looked down at it slowly, the elegant handwriting, the strange, alluring scent, the absence of any signature that made it feel more deliberate than anonymous but also the proof that someone actually liked him, and it wasn’t a joke.
Behind him, footsteps receded.
Chris didn’t say anything else or look back.
The chief walked away with a sigh, headed into the next room and turning a corner to where Leon couldn’t see, then the station went back to its usual noise; phones, papers, distant radios, all like nothing had happened at all; but something had, and Leon sat alone at reception for the rest of the day, the card resting in his hands like evidence nobody had officially filed yet.
Chris didn’t come back.
….Neither did Claire, or Jill, or Rebecca, who he tried so hard to include in their circle, and for the first time since his career began, the station didn’t feel like he had friends in it anymore.
The afternoon hours had been silent, he tried not to sulk over lost friends, but caved to boredom and nodding off up until a civilian had come in. Leon had been stuck at reception for fourty-five minutes listening to a woman explain, in exhaustive detail, a wildlife emergency that had not occurred in any jurisdiction even vaguely related to his job.
“There was a moose!!” she insisted, leaning across the counter like she was briefing national security, “On the side of the highway!!”
Leon nodded slowly, “Okay.”
“And it was drinking from the lake!! The lake! The lake!!”
“Right.”
“I think it was disrespectful.”
Leon paused, “…To the lake?”
“To me,” she clarified, as if that should have been obvious, “Because I might go there next summer!”
He stared at her, nodded again, because he had learned survival,“Yes, ma’am.”
She continued. Leon continued typing nothing of importance.
The yellowed fax machine in records somewhere screeched some sort of signal call briefly in the distance like it was remembering a past life.
Then…. Chaos.. Up the stairwell.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” The shouted chant of officers echoed through the station like a war cry.
Followed immediately by the thunder of boots. Then more voices.
Leon slowly turned his head toward the hallway. Several officers bolted past reception at full speed like they were late for something important. One of them nearly tripped over a chair. Another dropped a folder mid-sprint and kept going anyway.
Leon hummed, “…What is happening…?”
The woman at the counter didn’t even notice, “So anyway,” she continued, “if I do go next summer, I think there should be signage about moose behaviour near recreational lakes.”
Leon turned back to her and smiled politely, “I’ll make a note of that…” He did not make a note of that.
More running upstairs. More shouting.
“Get him the fuck off of m—”
“He started it!! He—”
“You insolent child!!”
Leon slowly leaned forward, eyes still on the woman, “Ma’am,” he said gently, “I’m going to need you to hold for just one second.”
She gasped, “Is it the moose?”
“No.”
“Oh good.”
Leon stood carefully from the desk, and waddled two small steps, stopped and looked at the hallway again. Another officer sprinted past yelling, “It’s about to get worse!”
Leon sighed, then turned back to reception duty like a man accepting his fate, he didn’t need to see whatever was happening… “I’m sorry,” he said to the woman, “Can you repeat the part about… the emotional impact of the moose?”
Somewhere upstairs, something crashed loudly. Leon didn’t move, just stared forward, trapped between administrative wildlife discourse and whatever had just become a full-scale internal police incident, waiting for the exact moment his day would either improve or completely collapse…. And knowing the R.P.D., it would probably be the second one.
“And it was naked!” she announced suddenly, as if delivering the final piece of a long criminal indictment.
Leon startled slightly, fingers pausing mid-type over the keyboard, “…Someone was naked?” he asked carefully, “On the highway?”
“The moose!”
A beat of silence settled over reception…. Leon slowly stared at her, down at his keyboard, back at her again… ‘Oh my God,’ he thought, very clearly, very tiredly, and with the kind of spiritual exhaustion that could not be properly filed under any police report category. Out loud, he said nothing; he had learned, painfully so, that once you respond to a naked moose situation, you are legally required to continue responding to it until retirement. He can handle being ‘that fat guy,’ but didn’t want to be ‘naked moose guy.’
Leon stared at her for a long moment, then slowly, carefully, like a man stepping onto thin ice he could already hear cracking, he asked, because he genuinely did not know why she was there, or why he even bothered to go to the academy, “…What outcome would you like from the R.P.D.?” The question immediately felt like a mistake.
“Arrest him!!” she screamed.
Leon physically flinched and a pen somewhere behind reception dropped onto the floor and rolled away in slow judgment, “Yes, ma’am,” Leon said automatically, because his soul had already left the conversation and was now hovering near the ceiling vents…He pulled a report form closer, “…Can you describe the suspect for the record?”
“Oh I can,” she said proudly.
Leon immediately regretted everything again and began writing as she dictated…
“Very tall,” she said.
Leon wrote: Suspect: extremely tall.
“Like… unreasonably tall.”
Leon added: (unreasonably).
“Dark, long brown hair.”
He wrote it down…
“Very intense eyes.”
Leon paused. “…Eye colour?”
She leaned in. “Brown. Maybe hazel. Like… serious, a glare, moody.”
Leon wrote: brown eyes (emotionally intense)….
“A very serious coat,” she said immediately.
“And he had like… this vibe.”
Leon stopped writing, “…Ma’am.”
“A dangerous vibe,” she clarified.
Leon added it in, because at this point the report had stopped being law enforcement and become abstract poetry.
She nodded firmly, “—And he was just standing there near the lake like he owned it.”
Leon wrote: ‘stood near lake with ownership energy….’
She squinted, “And he looked like he could fight a bear.”
Leon hesitated, wrote it anyway.
At this point, upstairs, someone yelled again: “He’s gonna knock him out cold!”
Leon did not look up, he was too deep in it now, in being a forest ranger or something.
The woman suddenly pointed at the form, “And arrest him!!”
Leon exhaled slowly through his nose, “Yes, ma’am…” He paused. Then, under his breath, wrote the final line: ‘Suspect: apparently a naked, emotionally intense, bear-capable moose with authority issues.’ He stared at it for a second, “…I’m going to jail myself,” he muttered quietly, then smiled politely at the woman, “And where exactly did this happen again?”
The station erupted again before Leon could even finish processing the ‘moose suspect report.’ From somewhere upstairs, a voice rang out like a stadium announcer, “It’s Redfield and Wesker!”
Leon froze mid-breath.
“What a left hook!!”
“Fifty bucks on Redfield!”
“Sixty on Wesker!!”
Leon’s head snapped toward the stairwell. The woman at reception was still nodding seriously about wilderness justice, completely unaware that the R.P.D. had apparently turned into a live pay-per-view event.
Leon slowly stood, “…I think something is happening upstairs,” he said.
“No,” she replied firmly, “We are still discussing the moose.”
Another shout echoed from above.
Leon took one step toward the stairs, then another, then stopped, already halfway into full emergency mode, because if Chris Redfield was involved in anything described as a “left hook,” it was either: Training-related… Life-threatening… Or both
Leon inhaled sharply, he was about to move when—
“Enough!!!” The voice of the Chief cut through the entire building like a gunshot. Chief Irons stormed into the room upstairs, face already hot with rage, “I don’t know who is yelling and getting into boxing matches in my station,” he barked, “but you will all!! get back to work!! Right now!!” The effect was immediate, like someone had hit pause on chaos itself.
The shouting upstairs died mid-echo. Bootsteps stopped. A chair squeaked once… then nothing. Even the radio seemed to quiet out of respect. One by one, officers reappeared at the top of the stairs, suddenly very interested in clipboards, ceilings, and the concept of being gainfully employed.
Someone coughed.
Someone else pretended they had never sprinted in their life.
Leon slowly lowered himself back into his chair as people came back downstairs to their desks.
The woman at reception cleared her throat, “…So,” she said, unfazed, “about the moose arrest—”
Leon stared forward, heartbeat now fully lodged somewhere in his throat, “…Yes, ma’am,” he said weakly. Behind him, the station returned to its usual state of controlled disaster. Leon could still feel it; adrenaline, confusion; the very real, very inconvenient fact that somewhere upstairs, Chris Redfield had just thrown a “left hook” at Albert Wesker inside a police station on a Monday morning.
The station settled into an uneasy silence, not the peaceful kind; the post-disaster kind. Somewhere upstairs, the last echoes of the “incident” between Chris Redfield and Albert Wesker had finally been absorbed into the walls of the R.P.D. like all the other things no one ever officially documented… nothing. The kind of nothing that made everyone suddenly remember they had paperwork.
Down at reception, Leon sat very still, like if he moved too quickly the building might resume fighting, but unfortunately, the woman was still there.
“And the moose could be contaminated,” she insisted, leaning forward with growing urgency, “Moose germs are not studied enough. What if it’s airbourne? What if it’s in the lake water? What if it infects the entire town?”
Leon blinked slowly, “…Ma’am,” he said carefully, “moose germs are not—”
“And it was naked,” she added again, as if that explained everything.
Leon exhaled through his nose,“Yes.”
She nodded seriously, “That’s how you know it’s unnatural.”
Leon opened his mouth, closed it again. Somewhere deep in his survival instincts, something told him: ‘do not argue with this dumb bi— Karen.’ …Unfortunately, he had already been pushed past that point.
“So,” Leon said gently, trying to stay professional, “just to clarify—fish are in lakes all the time.”
“Yes.”
“And fish are… also technically ‘naked.’”
A pause, the woman frowned,“That’s different.”
Leon hesitated, “…How.”
Before she could answer, heavy footsteps approached from the stairwell. The Chief arrived like a storm in a bad mood.
Chief Irons stopped at reception, took one look at Leon, one look at the woman, and visibly aged ten years.
Leon, sensing danger, tried to help, “I was just explaining that fish are in the lake all the time and they’re also naked—”
The file folder came down, ‘Thwack!!’ Right to the back of Leon’s head.
“Ow!!”
“Shut up!!” the Chief snapped, “Just… shut up!! You’re embarrassing the entire department!!”
Leon rubbed his head, “Yes, sir.”
“You are done talking to the public!!”
Leon nodded quickly, “Yes, sir.”
The Chief pointed vaguely toward the hallway like he was releasing a particularly unreliable employee from containment.
“Leave!! Go!! Walk away!! Before you make this worse!!”
Leon stood immediately, too quickly, chair squeaked and momentarily stuck to his large ass. He hesitated only long enough to glance at the woman, who was now scribbling notes like she was preparing to brief the U.N. on aquatic nudity crimes.
“Ma’am,” Leon said politely, despite everything, unsticking his rear fork the seat, “I hope your… lake concerns get resolved.”
The Chief made a sound of pure suffering. Leon backed away, waddling as he went, still half-exhausted from the night before, still carrying the lingering chaos of upstairs boxing matches and moose allegations.
“I’m leaving,” he added quickly.
“Yes,” the Chief said.
“I’m leaving now.”
“Yes, Kennedy!! Go!”
Leon turned and moved toward the hallway with increasing speed, nearly tripping over nothing in particular, his weight alone impeding his movements, but recovering with practiced police survival instincts.
Behind him, the Chief stepped into reception fully, already taking over like a man volunteering for an unlisted crisis, as Leon disappeared down the corridor, he paused to still hear the woman beginning again: “But what about moose germs in the water!”
Then the Chief immediately replying: “Uhh.. What??...”
Leon didn’t stop walking, just kept going. The downstairs break room was cool in the way the lobby was, a door led to the outside was propped open, but it still smelled like old pipes and old cigarette smoke permanently trapped inside the walls from decades of exhausted cops surviving graveyard shifts. Somewhere overhead, the station carried on in muffled bursts of movement and distant phones, and he had intended to sit down “just for a minute,” …That had been at least an hour ago. Now he was fully asleep across the ancient couch with peeling fabric, occupying the entire thing without meaning to. One arm hung loosely over the edge, fingertips almost brushing the floor, while an old magazine from ten years ago rested open across the apex of his stomach like it had simply given up halfway through being read, and it had. His soft snoring blended faintly with the hum of the vending machine nearby at the other end of the room. The pillow under his head smelled like dust and old fabric and possibly the ghosts of retired detectives…. Honestly, it was the best sleep he’d gotten in weeks.
Then something nudged his leg, Leon grunted softly.
Another nudge, “Kennedy.”
A pause…
Then a shoe pressed against his side again, “Kennedy, wake up, we need to talk.”
Leon surfaced from sleep slowly, tangled in exhaustion, “Hh—…” he yawned enormously before even opening his eyes, stretching slightly against the couch with sleepy, heavy movements, then he blinked upward, immediately realized who was standing over him.
Chief Irons….
Leon jolted… Or tried to. The magazine slid dramatically off his stomach onto the floor while he scrambled to sit up too fast, immediately getting trapped halfway between the couch and his own size, “Oh my God! S-sorry—” he struggled awkwardly for a second, trying to unstick his fat body from the couch while attempting to regain professionalism at the same time.
The couch creaked ominously beneath him… Leon flushed bright red, “I’m up,” he promised, breathlessly, “I’m awake— I, h-hold on—” to his credit, he did manage it himself eventually… Barely.
He sat upright with his hair a mess, shirt wrinkled, cheeks warm from sleep, and the deep exhausted imprint of the pillow still faintly pressed against one side of his face.
The Chief stared at him for a long moment, then sighed heavily through his nose, “Kennedy.”
Leon braced instinctively for impact,“Yes, sir?”
The Chief rubbed one hand down his face, “…First of all,” he said, voice tired beyond human comprehension, “that lady was fucking crazy.”
Leon blinked, blinked again while nodding… relief hit him with enough force that his shoulders physically dropped, “Oh thank God.”
“I mean clinically,” the Chief continued, “Absolute lunatic.”
Leon put one hand over his heart, “I thought, I, was losing my mind.”
“You started explaining naked fish to the public.”
“In my defense—”
“There is no defense.”
Leon nodded immediately.
The Chief sighed again, softer this time, some of the tension left the room with it, a phone rang faintly somewhere far away and the vending machine buzzed across from them.
“There was a fight upstairs…” Chief Irons began with the exhausted sigh of a man reconsidering every career decision he had ever made.
Leon nodded quietly from the couch. His first thought was immediate and awful, ‘Please don’t let Chris be hurt…’
The Chief crossed his arms, huffed, “That Redfield is awful protective of you,” the wording carried disapproval heavy enough to sink through concrete.
Leon looked down briefly at his hands, “We were friends,” he said softly and the room went quiet.
The Chief frowned, “So… You and Wesker are dating?”
Leon’s entire brain stopped, “What?”
Irons looked annoyed now, like Leon was the confusing one in this scenario, “The note. The arguing. Redfield trying to take Wesker’s head off upstairs,” he gestured vaguely with the file folder in his hands that Leon thought would eventually hit him in the face, “I don’t care what the hell kind of relationship drama is happening in my station, but I expect you both to act like professionals from here on out!”
Leon stared at him in horror, “No— no, w-we’re not—”
“I’m not losing a Kennedy,” the Chief interrupted bluntly, “or a man of Wesker’s caliber! All because you people can’t keep your personal business out of the god damn workplace!”
Not because of Wesker… Because of Chris. Leon suddenly understood, with sickening clarity, what the fight upstairs must have looked like to everyone else. Not protective. Jealous, angry. Whatever version had spread through the station already probably sounded terrible.
If Chris had actually swung first…. Leon swallowed hard, “…Chris could get in trouble?”
The Chief gave him a flat look, “He already is in trouble.”
Leon’s stomach dropped. For a second, all the exhaustion vanished from his face entirely, “He didn’t do anything,” Leon said quickly, “I mean—not really—”
“He punched a superior officer. His superior officer.”
Leon winced, “…Right.”
The Chief sighed again and rubbed at his forehead, “Look, kid…” his tone softened slightly despite himself, “I don’t particularly care who’s sleeping with who around here. Half this station is held together by divorces, alcoholism, and bad judgment. I made a promise to your father that I’d protect you here.”
Leon nodded slowly.
“But,” Irons continued, pointing the folder at him now, “if Redfield keeps acting like a damn attack dog every time Wesker looks at you, I’m going to have a staffing problem.”
Leon opened his mouth, was smart enough to close it again, because the worst part was… Chris had looked angry…. Really angry. Not annoyed. Not playful. Protective in a way Leon suddenly realized he maybe hadn’t fully understood until now, and underneath that realization sat another one even more intense: Wesker had been looking at him last night… had learned his coffee order and his favourite donuts. That was not a one time thing, that took thought and care.
The Chief sighed one final time, “So whatever this is,” he muttered, “fix it before it gets worse.”
Leon’s heartbeat was climbing slowly back into his throat. The break area hummed softly around him…. Vending machine buzzing… Pipes rattling… Rainwater dripping faintly somewhere from the fire escape outside.
Leon looked down at the wrinkled note still sticking halfway out of his pocket, ‘my darling receptionist.’
His cheeks warmed again instantly, not from embarrassment this time, but he realized somehow, impossibly, his life had become complicated enough that the Chief of Police now believed he was secretly dating Albert fucking Wesker, and worse… Leon still wasn’t entirely sure why Chris had looked so upset about it.
Chief Irons had stood there another moment, looking older than usual with so much stress on his shoulders.
Then, with a weary sigh, he placed one hand briefly on Leon’s shoulder, like he started the fight on purpose, “Don’t let this happen again, kid…” the words weren’t cruel, he was just tired. After a second, the Chief took half a step away, already turning back toward the stairs, “And get back to the police desk,” he called over his shoulder, “Your shift ends in two hours.”
Leon nodded automatically, “…Yes, sir.”
Then the Chief was gone. Leon stayed where he was, sitting crookedly on the old leather couch with the magazine half-crumpled beside him and the note still tucked into his pocket like something dangerous and ready to explode.
Leon stared at the floor, thought about Chris, the look on his face upstairs at reception, his confusion, his horror, the immediate ‘No!’ Leon swallowed hard… Maybe he’d misunderstood everything… Not just the note. Everything, their friendship, their friends, their time together; because Chris had looked genuinely upset and embarrassed. Angry, too, like the idea itself bothered him. Like the thought of Leon calling him ‘darling’ had been ridiculous enough to panic him. Leon pressed one hand slowly against his fat stomach, suddenly feeling too aware of himself again, aware of how he could barely reach around himself. The couch dipped beneath his weight. His shirt pulled awkwardly across his middle from gaining so much so fast.
Wesker’s words from the night before crawled unpleasantly back into his head, ‘You used to be so pretty when you started here.’
Leon closed his eyes briefly… Maybe Chris had reacted that way because the whole thing was absurd, because Leon wasn’t the kind of person someone like Chris would ever want. Chris was handsome. Strong, muscular. Confident. The kind of man people naturally looked at when he entered a room.
Leon worked reception, because he couldn’t be trusted on the streets. Fell asleep at desks… Got trapped in chairs sometimes now. Couldn’t fit in some doorways. Spent half his shifts covered in powdered sugar and coffee stains. Maybe Chris didn’t mind taking care of a friend, Chris even liked being protective, but he protected all of his friends, that didn’t mean he wanted… Leon’s throat tightened painfully. The worst part was that Chris clearly didn’t want it to be Wesker either. That much had been obvious, and maybe not because he was jealous; maybe because the idea of Leon dating anyone inside the station felt embarrassing to him. Complicated. Uncomfortable….
Or worse; maybe Chris was disgusted by the idea that one of his own friends might look at the fat receptionist that way. That Leon might look at Chris that way… The thought hurt more than Leon expected it to; enough that his eyes suddenly burned hot before he could stop them.
“…Oh,” he whispered softly to himself, now that the idea, the truth, had entered his head, he couldn’t unknow it.
He did look at Chris that way. Somewhere along the line, he had started wanting things he wasn’t supposed to want.
…The coffee… The movie nights. Having friends. The way Chris always noticed when Leon was tired before anyone else did. The safety of falling asleep near him… not being embarrassed of himself. The warmth he imagined in Chris’s voice whenever he said his name…. Leon lowered his head into his hands.
Humiliation rose hot in his chest, because maybe everyone else had seen it before he had, maybe Chris had been horrified the entire time.
Leon sat there on the worn couch, staring at nothing in particular while the vending machine hummed its tired little song beside him… He didn’t even realize he was crying at first, just a quiet pressure behind his eyes. A tightness in his throat. The slow realization that he couldn’t quite untangle what he was feeling without it all collapsing inward.
So he let it happen for a moment… Not long, enough for it to pass so it wouldn’t build up and happen in front of someone. Then he wiped his face quickly, breathed in once, and stood up like nothing had occurred at all.
The rest of the shift was exactly what Raccoon City always offered when it didn’t feel like collapsing into chaos: nothing… Paperwork. Phone calls that led nowhere. A complaint about noise that turned out to be a refrigerator and definitely not ghosts in a woman’s house. A printer that jammed with the determination of a dying animal that only he knew how to fix.
Leon stayed at reception until the end of his shift, moving through it all on autopilot. By the time the new desk clerk arrived, a bright, sweet new hire who smiled like she still believed the job would be mostly calm and maybe lead to more, Leon was already packing up…
“Good night, Leon!” she said cheerfully.
He tried to match it, but couldn’t,“Yeah. Night…” then he gathered his things… and that was when he saw him.
A voice behind him, quiet but familiar, “…Hey.”
Leon stopped so fast his keys almost slipped from his hand.
Chris Redfield stood just inside the lobby, like he hadn’t quite decided how long he’d been standing there already.
Leon turned slowly, “…Chris.”
Chris looked different than earlier, like the anger from the morning had burned down into something quieter and so much harder to name, he didn’t even speak.
“You need something filed?” Leon asked automatically, because that was easier than anything else.
Chris shook his head, “No. I just…” He hesitated…
Leon waited.
Chris exhaled softly, “I just wanted to invite you to movie night tomorrow,” he said. Then corrected himself quickly, almost awkwardly, “Tonight. I mean—tomorrow night. Whatever works,” his voice wasn’t confident the way it usually was, it was careful, like he was trying not to break something.
Leon felt the words land strangely in his chest… Movie night. Normal words, but they didn’t feel safe anymore; now everything felt like it had consequences he couldn’t see until it was too late, and all Leon could think about was Wesker’s voice:
‘not professional.’
‘not becoming of a serious officer.’
‘childish.’
He swallowed, “I don’t think I’m up for it,” Leon said quietly.
Chris’s expression dropped immediately, “Oh—”
Leon kept going before he could lose the resolve, “I’m tired. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for two days…” it wasn’t entirely a lie, it wasn’t entirely the truth either, but didn’t give Chris time to respond, didn’t trust himself to stay standing there and hear whatever came next. He just adjusted his bag strap, forced a small nod that didn’t quite land as a goodbye, and walked out of the station.
The lobby doors closed behind him with a soft final sound, and he kept moving forward into the parking lot without looking back.
The evening air outside the Raccoon City Police Department felt cool after the stale feeling of the station. Rainwater still clung to the pavement in dark patches beneath the parking lot lights, and somewhere nearby crickets had started singing softly through the fading summer dusk.
Leon moved slowly toward his car, exhausted down to the bone, keys jingling softly in one hand when all he wanted was quiet… Sleep maybe…. Definitely. Or at least a few hours where nobody looked at him strangely. He was halfway to opening the driver’s side door when he heard someone shouting his name.
“Leon!”
He almost didn’t stop. Almost pretended not to hear it, but he turned anyway and saw Claire Redfield jogging across the parking lot toward him, slightly out of breath.
“Wait!!—”
Leon managed a tired smile automatically, “Hey.”
Claire slowed once she reached him, brushing loose hair back from her face, “I was looking for you upstairs,” she said, “Chris said you left.”
Leon looked down at his keys, “Yeah…” upstairs made sense, because that’s where he fucking worked.
Claire hesitated briefly, then smiled again, gentler this time, “We’re still doing movie night if you wanna come,” she said, “Jill already rented something terrible, so honestly you’d be saving us!”
Normally that would’ve worked instantly. Normally Leon would’ve laughed. Tonight he just shook his head slightly, “I think I’m gonna pass.”
Claire’s expression faltered, “…Is this about earlier?”
Leon didn’t answer immediately. That alone was enough.
Claire sighed softly, “Leon, I’m sorry about the fight.”
Something in Leon’s face changed at that, not dramatic or crying, just hurt. Where had she been the rest of the day? Or Jill? Or Rebecca?… “I didn’t ask him to do that,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“He didn’t have to freak out over it.”
Claire blinked slightly, “Over what?”
Leon laughed once, then scoffed a small miserable sound, “The idea of me dating somebody, apparently.”
Claire stared at him, “What?”
Leon’s grip tightened around his keys, “If Chris is that disgusted by his ‘fat friend’ dating somebody,” he said, voice trying very hard to stay casual and failing, “then maybe we weren’t really friends to begin with!”
Claire looked genuinely horrified,“Leon—”
“He looked at me like I was insane,” Leon continued quietly, “Like it was ridiculous. That I could have feelings, too.”
Claire’s mouth opened, because suddenly she understood the entire disaster all at once, “Oh no… Leon, no,” because fuck, this had gone catastrophically wrong, “Leon,” she said carefully, “Chris is not disgusted by you.”
Leon shrugged weakly, “He seemed pretty damn angry to me.”
“Because he thought—” Claire stopped herself just in time.
The secret sat right there… So easy…. ‘Chris is in love with you.’ She could fix this right now. One sentence and the entire stupid misunderstanding would collapse instantly… But it wasn’t her thing to tell.
Even now…. Especially now.
Leon leaned against the car door slightly, looking exhausted, “I just…” He hesitated, “I don’t know.”
Claire waited quietly.
Leon stared out across the parking lot, then looked at her, “I think I just wish I could meet somebody like Chris someday.”
Claire’s heart nearly shattered on impact… Because the way he said it, so soft and so honest…
Leon laughed faintly to himself, “Maybe I already did,” he admitted quietly.
Claire looked at him like she wanted to stop the universe with her bare hands, but before she could say anything else, Leon opened the car door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said gently, “I guess…” then he got in.
The engine started a moment later, and Claire stood there in the parking lot watching his taillights disappear into the Raccoon City night, feeling completely helpless for the first time in weeks, because somewhere between coffee runs and movie nights and summer carnivals, two of the stupidest men alive had managed to fall in love with each other… and misunderstand it so badly it was starting to hurt them both.