Chreon Week 2024

Chris didn’t need to be told any of that. He’d been the one to find him, carry him half a fucking mile to evac. “Stay with me, Leon. You’re gonna be alright,” he’d said through grit teeth, trying to convince himself more than his unconscious counterpart. The longer he’d walked, the colder the tacky stream of blood had become against Chris’ warmth, leeching him of any semblance of calm he’d managed to steady himself with until his words had become a mantra of, “Don’t leave me.”

Days turned into weeks as the time continued to pass, blurring into an ugly without. There was the time with Leon in his life and now- this limbo of here and, yet, not.

(Chris vaguely recalled something Rebecca had once explained to him, just before he’d been deployed at Kijuju: Schrödinger’s cat, both dead and alive.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, it’s about perspective,” she’d said, closing her laptop. “You can’t observe the cat or whatever happens to it while it’s in the box. Whether it lives or dies depends on a subatomic quantum event that might trigger the poison, which you also-”

“Can’t observe. So you don’t know whether it’s dead or alive.”

“Basically. It’s all about quantum superposition.” Rebecca took off her glasses, placing them to the side as she watched Chris’ arms fold over his chest, eyebrows furrowed. His plight was clear as day; she smiled at that.

“The cat might be alive, Chris.” She placed a comforting hand on his bicep. She gave him a knowing look. That’s all that matters to you.)

A vegetative coma, the doctors had explained. From all the violent bodily trauma, the carbon monoxide in his blood. There was a chance of waking, they’d reassured, but really it was a waiting game.

Chris wasn’t a praying man. For Leon, though, he could be.

“He’s lucky, to have someone like you,” the nurse had commented as they updated Leon’s IV sheet. They paused, turning to face him properly, and for a moment he assumed they were going to correct themself. Say they meant that he was a good friend, wave off the impossible implication with a nervous laugh. But their expression was something soft, circles under their glassy eyes like bruises. Sincerity that they couldn’t quite say aloud. A quiet knowing.

They hadn’t given it a label, but they had given each other a spare key. A drawer full of their own clothes in the other’s bedroom. Shared the bed, since the couch was too cruel to send the other off to. Occasionally helped one another “relieve stress” as Leon would joke, despite the crushing gravity of his touch against Chris’. Helped with bathing, when the task was too daunting, too much of a strain on their aching joints.

Was the other’s emergency contact. Apparently. Chris hadn’t known until Leon had been rushed in, sent straight to an operating room; the hospital had confirmed it with him. It had never been this severe- never so bad that Leon felt he needed someone to check up on him. (It had been that way for a long time. Longer than Chris could guess.)

Leon’s condition seemed to be improving, though. The doctor’s consciousness evaluations indicated progress in waking- he was beginning to respond to stimuli. So when Chris received a call, officially a month and four days since his initial check-in, he’d had higher hopes for the news he’d receive. The doctor’s words sent him reeling, hands trembling as he reached for his car keys.

Leon had momentarily flat-lined.

He was stable again, but the possibility loomed overhead. Chris officially called out for an indeterminate amount of time. A family emergency, he’d insisted- and if anyone at the BSAA questioned it, they didn’t say anything.

“I’m worried about you.”

Chris idly traced a finger over the creases of the blanket, just around the outline of Leon’s body. As the fabric rustled against him, Leon’s fingers twitched at the sensation. He adjusted his phone with the other hand.

“I’m fine.”

“You can’t bullshit me, Chris.” Claire’s voice was firm, but not punishing. “I just-” There was chatter in the background. Someone called her name. Her quick phone break was up. (The world didn’t let up for them. For anyone. All it knows is the axis it spins on.) She sighed; Chris could imagine the way she smoothed her hand over her forehead.

“I don’t want you to be alone right now.”

“I know,” Chris responded. He trailed his hand upward, sliding palm up underneath Leon’s. A beat. Leon’s fingers curled around his, not quite intertwining but connecting nonetheless. An inarticulate noise. (Chris wishfully imagined that Leon had been trying to call his name.)

“I’m not alone.”

Two months since hospitalization, and Leon had cleared into almost definite consciousness. Sure, it wasn’t usually for long, and he was never truly lucid, but progress was progress. His wounds, too, were healing well. Chris felt like he could almost let go of that breath he’d been holding in.

The door to Leon’s room opened, and to Chris’ surprise it wasn’t medical staff- rather, a blonde woman with a mousy, sweet face. She strode across the room, over to where Chris had been sitting, half-asleep.

“Chris?”

He stood up, rubbing at the back of his neck- she seemed familiar, somehow. He extended a hand politely. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

She chuckled, tilting her head to the side as she glanced at Leon before her gaze swept up to greet Chris’. Her eyes sparkled, a subdued green with hazel flecks.

“No, we haven’t. But he talks about you enough.” She clasped her hand with his. “Ashley. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Ashley.” That rang a bell. Leon had mentioned her in passing; last he’d heard they were trying to get together whenever their schedules might permit it. He shook her hand, smiling. “Glad I can finally put a face to a name.”

“Really? We take a picture like. Every time we see each other.” Ashley frowned, feigning offense, swiftly unlocking her phone. “He seriously didn’t show you any?” Just as she had swiped to the album titled ‘Kennegramz’ Leon groaned, hands flexing at his side before he attempted to reach up and wipe at his eyes.

Ashley shot Chris a look. Does he do that often?

But he was too busy watching as Leon’s blue eyes seemed to focus on him, the ghost of a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“What happened to what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?”

“Leon,” Chris tentatively called out, palm cascading over the sheets, resting gently on an unscathed portion of his thigh. He was weary- from the constant back-and-forth, the fleeting tide of consciousness. For all he knew, this was just another moment of clarity before Leon was swept under the waves again.

But he couldn’t deny the way Leon peered up at him, baby blues twinkling with something unspoken.

“I thought I was going to lose you.”

“Not gettin’ rid of me that easy, Chris.” Leon’s voice crackled slightly, strained with disuse. His hand traveled to meet Chris’, trembling with effort as he interlaced their fingers. He gave the lightest squeeze. I know. You almost did.

“Who said anything about getting rid of you?” Relief crashed over him. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to Leon’s temple. He dropped his voice lower, just for Leon to hear. “I missed you.” I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.

“Mm,” Leon hummed back. Hey- you beat me to it. I love you too.

As Chris pulled away, Leon glanced back at Ashley, who had been looking on quietly. He chuckled to himself. “What? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

A pause.

Just some stress relief after Death Island 🤭

Just some stress relief after Death Island 🤭

“Take it easy, Lee,” Chris says, sounding comforting even as his fingers tighten in Leon’s hair. “There’s no rush.”

Leon knows his eyes are wet. He wouldn’t be able to explain in—cock in his mouth or not—how it isn’t from a lack of practice as much as it is forgetting what it felt like. What it was like to look up from his ministrations and see Chris staring down at him. 

He pulls off and kisses down the shaft, gentle as he would touch the space behind his ear, and finds the soft junction of his leg to suck fragile skin into his mouth. 

He opens his mouth, and he lets the velvet skin of his cock brush his face, the curve of his lip, his tongue. On Chris’ waist, his hands wander—around his back to the gentle dip there, then down the hips where he can press his thumbs into the tops of his thighs. 

When he slips Chris into his mouth, he moans. 

He shifts his hold on the tree branches, making sure he’s got a solid foothold in the crook of the limb beneath him.

Not that anything bad will happen. Leon’s got this. 

“Could use the grill tongs,” he calls down. 

He hears the answering mutter, “I’m not enabling this.” So grumpy. 

“I’ll get them!” Rose answers. At least someone is on his side.

He’s so close to grabbing the frisbee—snagged in one of the fragile upper branches of the tree, almost invisible in the leafy covering—but he needs a boost. 

She runs back into the house, slamming the door behind her. 

“And how are you getting yourself down?” Chris asks. The crossing of his arms is almost audible. 

“Same way I came up, I imagine,” Leon answers. 

“Just be careful, please.” 

The tongs arrive. Rose passes them to Chris, who comes up to the base of the tree and holds them out for Leon to grab. He does so very, very carefully, only bending his knees a bit to reach down. 

He clacks them once, just for fun, “Groovy.”

Chris sighs wearily. 

The rest is a piece of cake. He pries the frisbee out with the tongs. It flings out into the yard, Rose running after it on her gangly legs with a cheer. 

Success. Now all that’s left is him. 

He’s not particularly eager to go flying across the yard, no matter how easy the frisbee made it seem. Pursing his lips, he looks down. Huh. It had been fairly easy to scale the base of the tree—a smooth, branch-less trunk reaching up about as tall as he is—but unless he can walk sideways or sprout claws, the way down won’t be as simple.

He glances at Chris. They have a short and silent conversation. 

He’s probably thinking about that potential hospital trip, or how he should’ve snatched Leon before he started running for the tree. Maybe he’s thinking about how it’s still the same after all this time—Leon gets himself in a scrape, a momentary frustration, until the inevitable trusting must happen. 

He’s getting too old for climbing trees, but never for the rest of it. 

After a minute, his heart begins to slow down, bringing feeling back into the rest of his skin. The sheets are wrapped around his ankles. He’s got Chris’ furnace of a body pressed against his back—over him, almost. That’s when he recognizes that he’s being touched differently.

“Chris?” he mumbles.

This posture isn’t right for sleeping as Leon knows it, not as Chris crowding up like he wants to burrow, because the hand on his side is too deliberate, perched. 

Turning to look, Leon finds wide eyes. Chris stares across the room with a blank, still face, like he sees something.

Cautiously, he whispers, “Chris.”

The room is empty. Streetlight peeks in past the curtain, but it doesn’t reveal any monster or person. Feeling a pang of sympathy, Leon grasps Chris’ hand where it rests on him.

“We’re alright. You can go back to sleep.”

The hand doesn’t stir in response. Leon wishes he knew what he was being protected from. Chris stays unmoved, face frozen in the same expression. It’s eerie. Leon doesn’t like it.

“Hey,” he says, a bit louder.

After another moment of tense silence—two breaths into that haunted gaze—and he feels the weight of a choice.

To wait this out for who knows how long, or try to get things under control now, both miserable options that will keep him from falling back asleep. He starts to push himself up.

Instantly, Chris makes a strangled noise and grabs him around the torso. The hold is heavy, trapping him onto the bed.

The hands locked together around his front are trembling. Heart thundering, Leon soothes them.

“Chris, we’re okay, it’s okay.”

He doesn’t want to feel trapped, but his chest tightens painfully anyway.

“We’re at home. You had a bad dream—”

Chris is breathing loud through his nose like he’s come out of a sprint. It’s threatening to spark something in Leon’s brain, a panic of his own, but he won’t let it.

“Chris, you’re—” his breath catches, “take it easy.”

Chris’ answer is mournful, small. “No.” Leon covers it like a bare flame.

He just shudders against him, movement, at least, a feeble victory when his breathing keeps thundering on.

“You with me?”

“No, no…”

This desperation in his voice only comes when he talks in his sleep. It always sounds like pleading. Leon doesn’t know why it makes him so sad. He searches for a quiet place in his head, trying to coast on it while his body is stiff. “Shhh,” he hushes again.

They stay like this for a long chunk of time.

Finally, there’s a crack in the pattern. Leon catches it as it happens, clinging to the first sign with bated breath. An inhale goes a little longer, a little deeper, and when it comes out, it brings tears.

There we go.

Leon knows this part. It’s rougher, but it’s better than panic. Chris begins to heave into the back of Leon’s neck, and that’s when he knows it’s safe to move. He turns in Chris’ arms. “You’re okay,” he says, cradling his face.

He’ll say it again, over and over, because it’s the only phrase he can pull besides I’m sorry, and he's smart enough to know that it wouldn’t help.

Even in the faint light, Leon can see tears spill down his cheeks. He quickly wipes them away with his thumbs.

It hurts. He can’t handle the way Chris is grimacing too open and scared. The smooth plane of his forehead is crumpled, in pain like the rest of him.

As cruel as it is, Leon wants to slam the lid back down to find normal again. Leon’s eyes sting. Biting down on the inside of his lip, he blinks through emotion. This can’t last forever.

He chants it to himself, treading water with it under him, desperate. 

Stop fucking crying, I can’t take it. We’re at home, we’re safe at home and everything is fucking fine. Please stop…

But each sob shakes him down to the bone. The darkness is a heavy thing, choking him, and he can’t recenter himself in the water.

At some point—still trying to hold Chris’ face—he realizes he fucking hates this. He hates that it’s dark out, that he sleeps too light, that he keeps startling like an infant hearing a loud noise. That this is what being alive has been like, and will always be. 

There’s a shadowed, blurry shape ahead. He’s crying now, fully, and he can’t see Chris or the bed anymore, not the nice sheets that were supposed to feel comfortable.

Before, he used to be able to hide this, but he can’t remember how to do it. 

He hears a voice.

Oh, god, everything is wrong, and I can’t move— I hate this, hate it, shut the fuck up— help me!

Suddenly, there’s a rocky movement in the bed, and he’s pressed into warmth. The fist he had been pushing to his own face now touches something soft. He goes easily, grasping at it. A shirt, a body.

His heart punches against his chest, and he's dying, he's dying. 

“Lee, Leon, sweetheart.”

He’s tipped over the edge when he didn't want to, and his body is locked into a loop. Where their skin touches, he feels damp.

Chris talks through a stuffed nose, nasal and still out of it, with overbright eyes in the dark. “M’sorry… sorry.”