ry

Your hands shook as you tugged at the slick grooves of the sash, trying to get it to close before any more rain could come in. Each breath swirled in a little silver cloud in front of you, and when the window finally gave way to your efforts, it jerked into place with the dull crack of wood on wood. You jumped and looked over your shoulder. Even with the thunder, that could have been heard, and you had the distinct sense that you should be trying to keep as quiet as possible.

The sound of the storm was almost entirely muffled now that the window was closed, the thunder and rain giving way to a lifeless silence that somehow seemed heavy, a suffocating kind of darkness and quiet where something could hide. From somewhere deep in the murky darkness, the faint sound of a chain could be heard - a slow, dragging rattle, distant enough to be missed unless you held your breath and strained to listen.

Sunny.

With a squeak of fear, you whirled around to face whoever had called you. No one was there, but a pale silver light had flickered on around the corner, giving a mix of comfort and wariness as you wondered who’d turned it on. Pressing a hand to your racing heart, you tried to get yourself to settle; the storm was making you jumpy, and the darkness behind you wasn’t helping as it seemed to inch closer and closer towards the little pool of light from the window. The rattling chain sounded nearer now, coming from the direction of the still-dark corridor, and you ventured away from the rain-pattered window to try to come into the light.

Breathing a sigh of relief as you rounded the corner, you finally recognized where you were. The quiet, empty expanse of Rhodes Hill’s entrance hall was hardly cozy, but at least it was sort of familiar; you’d only stepped away from your desk to close the window and must have gotten turned around in the place you were still getting used to. Under the pallid overhead light, you came to the desk and took up your post again, watching the door and waiting for... someone.

You couldn’t remember his name exactly. Something soft and short, something that rolled off the tongue; indistinct images came to mind as you tried to recall it, frosty blonde hair and big, gentle hands. You remembered his eyes, the keen, lonely, wintery blue of them that seemed to soften when framed by delicate crow’s feet or lit by some wry, irrepressible curve of his mouth. You would always remember their color, you were sure. If only you could remember his name.

From the top of the stairs, breaking into the silence so deep it was almost loud, came the sound of a soft, irregular crunching. Your features scrunched in unease as you listened to it for a moment longer, trying to place it - it seemed almost wet, like the sound you’d expect a honeycomb to make if it was split apart, thick and sticky and brittle. What on earth could be making it you had no idea, but you supposed you ought to check it out; minding the entrance hall was your job, as delightful a task as it was, and you knew you couldn’t afford to be remiss in your duties. 

Slowly making your way up the stairs, afraid it was some kind of animal, you stopped in surprise when you saw it was a man hunched over on all fours. His back was to you, but his navy shirt and the gun belt at his waist struck you as familiar, and you hurried to his side to see if you could help.

“Are you alright?” you said, kneeling beside him, the floor cold and unforgiving through the fabric of your tights. “Are you hurt? I can get a doctor if - ”

With a sudden lurch, his right shoulder jerked and bent inward at an unnatural angle, the movement making a noxious crunching noise like the one you’d heard before. You shrank back in fear.

“What are you doing?” Your voice wavered and cracked. “What’s the matter with you?”

He said nothing, his muscles starting to writhe grotesquely under the fabric of his shirt, each twist and jerk accompanied by a dull, wet crack. Jagged, bony ridges appeared under the skin along the place where joints should be; his arms were covered in textured bruises, ash colored spirals crawling up the flexing sinews under his skin. With a nauseating pop, his jaw unhinged at an angle, viscous strings of blood and saliva dripping onto the white floor from his blackened teeth.

“Sun...ny...”

You cried out in horror and grief when he slowly turned his head and looked at you, the bones of his neck and shoulders wrenching and crunching under pale skin webbed with dark, pulsating veins. His eyes were a deep, luminous yellow, sunk deeply into dark sockets, and you were frozen in abject terror as his hollow, lifeless gaze raked over you.

They should be blue, you thought hazily. His eyes should be blue.

He lunged at you, his lean muscle pinning you to the floor before you could scramble back from him, your skull bouncing off the marble with a sickening crack. Stars exploded across your vision, your eyes rolling back in your head as the pain of it registered; he clawed at your wrists, dragging them above your head, trapping you with the weight of his jerking, writhing body. One his his hands found your throat, squeezing until you could barely draw breath; each inhale rattled and wheezed as he loomed over you, the blood from his mouth dripping into yours.

“Please,” you gasped, watching the spread of that dark, ugly bruise as it crept up his neck and spread over his face. The yellow of his irises shone against the spidering tendrils of the bruise, dark, syrupy fluid dripping from his eyes, his nose, his ears, his mouth; he seemed to be trying to speak, but all that came from his throat was a thick welling of blood and a hungry, deadened moan.

His name, what was his name? Somehow, you knew if you could only remember what it was and call him by it, he wouldn’t hurt you - but you couldn’t breathe, and his hand closed tighter around your throat, and you knew you were going to die.

Then, to your complete surprise and absolute horror, he kissed you. 

An agonized groan tore itself from your chest and was swallowed by him, blood and sweat and black fluid smearing in the hot press of his mouth against yours. You thrashed under him, trying to fight him, but you were so tired and he was so big, and there was nothing you could do but let him rake his tongue over your teeth and force his humid, decaying breath into your lungs in an obscene parody of intimacy that seemed like it would never be finished.

“Stop... fighting,” he rasped, his voice multiplied into a jagged, ghoulish harmony that vibrated through your whole body. The scruff on his jaw scraped against your skin, burning it raw. “Say... my name.”

You couldn’t remember it. Maybe you’d chosen to forget it. It was tucked too deeply in some corner of your heart, somewhere you’d locked it away to try and ease the pain of it, and you cried and screamed and begged him to let you go as he squeezed harder against your throat.

“Please - don’t - kill me,” you sobbed, each word a gush of exertion and anguish as tears ran down your face to pool on the icy floor. “I don’t want to die.”

He dragged your limp, heavy arm into your line of vision, and when he pressed his mouth to your palm, the bruise that was spreading over him bloomed on your skin too. When he spoke, his voice was a cold, hollow gasp, meant only for you - 

“Too late.”

-

You came to consciousness with a ragged, choking inhale, your entire body wreathed in pain and the world a wash of blinding light and piercing sound. Someone was pinning you down, their hands on your wrists as you strained and twisted and fought against them. Voices overlapped around you, a bevy of sharp commands and questions, orders to push medication and check metabolic panels and put on hard restraints. The pain in your head was excruciating, some shrill metallic alarm racing in time with your thundering heartbeat, and someone was screaming the name you’d forgotten.

“Leon!”

You only knew it was your own voice because it hurt when you heard it, the syllables of his name like bits of jagged glass as they came from your raw throat. Too late. Too late. You hadn’t remembered. The sickness was killing you too, and wherever you were was a punishment, the end of all things where there was nothing but pain and loss and your heart being ripped from your chest, the soft innards of you squeezed in some merciless hand until you burst like the splatters of blood on the walls.

Something jabbed into your arm, quickly followed by a flood of ice in your veins that suddenly dulled all sensation until you could finally drew a real, gasping breath. Sobbing and groaning, your sweat-drenched body collapsing against the surface beneath you, you watched vague shapes of sterile white and lifeless grey swim before you and felt a leaden weight begin to eat away at every part of you until you were completely numb. You couldn’t stop crying, but reality slowly started to take shape, and your breath shuddered and caught as the out-of-focus face of the doctor from earlier appeared in front of you.

“Okay, kid.” His voice was calm and concerned. “You’re alright.”

He shined a small, bright light into your eyes, and you couldn’t even wince away from it. Hospital. Real one. Not Rhodes Hill. A small armory of facts came under the fog and built a protective wall around whatever shred of sanity you had left. Doctor. Medicine. Still alive. For now.

“Pupils are equal, round, and reactive,” he said. He held a finger up in front of you. “Can you follow my finger with your eyes? Don’t try and turn your head.”

You couldn’t have moved if you’d wanted to, the deadened weight of your limbs a strange, entrapping reprieve from the blinding pain that seemed to sink you ever deeper below some dark, murky surface. With much more effort than you thought it should take, you made your eyes follow the slow back-and-forth movement of his finger.

“Where am I?” you rasped.

“You’re in the medical wing,” he said. “DSO field office. We gave you a sedative, but I’d like to do some checks before I give you anything else. Can you tell me your name?”

“Sunny,” you said without thinking. 

“Is that a nickname?”

Your face was wet, but you didn’t know if it was from sweat or tears. Maybe both. “Yes.”

He hummed in agreement when you told him your given name. “Can you remember what you were doing before you lost consciousness?”

Vaguely, you recalled the agent, the endless questions, the file with Leon’s name on it. Mostly it was lost against the vivid images that flashed through your mind - Rhodes Hill, a rainy window, yellow eyes and dripping blood. Panic almost spiked again at the thought of it, but whatever they’d given you made you feel like you were miles underwater.

He’d asked you a question, and you tried to answer, reviewing the facts you’d gathered. Hospital. Doctor. Still alive. What else?

“Interrogation.” Your voice grated and creaked like something rusty. “That agent was mad at me.”

“She pushed you too hard,” the doctor said, and his tone was frustrated under the clinical calm. “I never would have cleared you if I thought they were planning to treat you like that.”

Kindness. Okay, that one was good. Somebody who cares whether you live or die. It made you think of something else, another thing in your small arsenal that also cared whether you lived or died.

Leon.

You swallowed, your mouth dry and your throat tender. “Where’s Leon?”

“Agent Kennedy hasn’t been brought in, as far as I know.” He took your hands in his, and you could barely feel his grip. “I’d like to do a few motor function tests. Squeeze my hands, please.”

Trying to do as he instructed, you looked at the panels in the ceiling and watched them blur with tears. Hospital. Kindness. Leon. Still alive?

“Do you know if...” You couldn’t quite bring yourself to ask what you wanted to, the hellish vision of his decayed, hungry body transformed with the virus burned into your memory. “If they found him yet?”

“I don’t know, but I can try and find out for you.” He held up his hands. “Push against my hands, please.”

You did as he said, feeling that it took far too much focus to do something so simple. Next he had you hold your hands out in front of you for a few seconds, and though your hands were shaking, it seemed you passed whatever test that had been too.

“GCS 14 after lorazepam,” he said to the nurse who jotted it down on your chart. “Good motor function. Hang another liter of saline, and let’s go ahead and push the toradol.”

You watched the nurse inject something into your IV and glanced back at the doctor. “What’s that?”

“Just pain relief. Does your head hurt?”

“Like a bitch.”

His smile was a touch wry. “Well, we should get that under control pretty soon. Look at the wall, please.”

You did as he said, and he shined the light into your eyes again. Your armory of facts got tucked away for when you needed them, building their stores up in case you lost touch with reality again. You could breathe now, though your throat was still sore, and you didn’t feel that weird, icy grip you’d felt in the interrogation room; with the meds kicking in, you didn’t feel much of anything besides a hollow, carved-out feeling of grief right in the middle of your chest.

“Your CT scan is clear,” he said. “You have a hairline fracture where you hit your head, but there’s minimal bleeding, and you’re alert and oriented.” He glanced at the monitors. “Your sats are fine on room air now that we’ve got you calmed down a bit. Managing your pain is what I’m concerned with right now, but I’m not worried about any neuro deficits or underlying problems. You just gave us a bit of a scare in interrogation.”

“So... what happened?”

“My guess? Panic attack.” He clicked off the penlight and put it in his pocket. “Very common after acute trauma like what you went through last night, and especially in a high-pressure environment like interrogation.”

All that had been a panic attack? Surely not. 

“But I couldn’t breathe,” you said hoarsely. “I thought... something would be wrong with my throat.”

“You do have some swelling, but medically, your airway was clear. That doesn’t mean you didn’t feel like you couldn’t breathe, though.”

A little embarrassed that you’d managed to give yourself a skull fracture because of a panic attack, you touched a hand to your head and winced.

“Are you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with...” You glanced at the nurse, not sure who was privy to your exact medical situation. “That other thing we talked about?”

“We’re still waiting on some tests to come back about that,” he said calmly. “As you can imagine, it’s not a diagnosis we see very often in patients of your... level of awareness.”

No kidding. You’d never even heard of a T-Virus infection that didn’t turn someone into a flesh-eating monster within a few hours. Too late. The words in that voice that wasn’t his crept into your mind again, and you felt the awful press of his bloody mouth against your palm as vividly as if it had actually happened. Glancing at your hand, you saw that the bruise hadn’t spread any further up your fingers, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t on your wrist or arm where you couldn’t see it under the brace.

“We’ll keep you on the monitor for a while,” the doctor said, stripping off his gloves and giving your knee a fatherly pat. “Once the toradol kicks in, you should be able to get some rest. I’ll try and find out about Agent Kennedy’s status for you.”

“Thank you,” you croaked. You weren’t sure what news you hoped for, but if you could only know that he was alive, that he hadn’t turned into that... thing like he had in your nightmarish imaginings, that would be enough.

The nurse worked around you for a while, putting the room back to rights after the drama of getting you stable, checking your vitals again and turning down the lights when she left. The dim glow, the silence broken only by the low beep of the monitors, the drugs working their way through your system - all of them left you in a weird half-light of consciousness where the vision or nightmare or whatever it was seemed merely to loom at the edges of your mind. But a dull blade worked as well as a sharp one if it was persistent enough, and this one was digging into you with a slow, inexorable weight that felt like it might kill you before the T-Virus got a chance to.

Leon. His name was a mantra, a warding spell, a sacramental liturgy that kept the darkness at bay. Whatever had gotten a hold of you in the realm of your unconscious mind, you knew it wasn’t him. Part of your certainty came from a logical assumption that it was unlikely he’d turn like that; he’d had it for years, this lingering, dormant strain, and if it was going to do that it would have happened already. It would kill him, you had no doubt, just like you knew it would kill you too eventually - but not like that. 

The other part of your certainty, though, came from a source entirely devoid of logic, maybe even detached from reality entirely. Something in you - be it that daydreaming, romantic nature or a naive, girlish hope that still remembered how warm and sweet that kiss had been before everything else - something in you was sure nothing like that would happen. No virus could change him into something that wanted to hurt you. Nothing could change your Leon like that.

Your Leon. You almost rolled your eyes at yourself with a rueful scoff at such nonsense. But what happened instead was that you started to cry, curled up in a hospital bed miles from home, completely alone in the world with a death sentence written on the palm of your hand. You knew he wasn’t your anything. In the grand total of your experiences together, there was nothing that made Leon and sunny belong to each other, not really. 

But beneath that, beneath the logic and the realism and the certainty that you’d both be dead before long, there was a small, tender place in your heart that wished that he was yours. You’d said you hadn’t wanted to see him again, that it would be for the best if your paths didn’t cross; but that ship had sailed, had left the port as soon as he’d taken your hand in his that first time. Your paths weren’t so much crossed as entirely knit together, at least for you, and you didn’t think you could manage to unwind them now. 

Trust me, sunny.

You wanted to. But you didn't know how, and it didn’t matter anyway. He could be yours for right now, a secret between you and your heart, the last scrap of play-pretend comfort your mind could come up with. Sleep claimed you with tears still wet on your face, a weariness beyond exhaustion and a medicated heaviness dragging you deeply under; you hoped you would dream of him, and if the dream was nice enough, part of you wondered if you wanted to wake back up at all.

-

Wake up.

Leon grimaced as he turned his head towards the sound of your voice, unable to open his eyes just yet. He couldn’t remember ever being this tired, even after back-to-back training exercises or countless hours in the field on some mission or living with a hypervigilance that sapped his battery before he’d even gotten out of bed in the morning. There was something different about this kind of tired, and it hurt - he had nothing left to give, really nothing, and he wondered why you didn’t know that. But maybe something was wrong, and even if he had nothing left to give, he’d find enough to help you if you needed him.

Please wake up.

“I’m trying,” he said. Or wanted to say. All that came out was a groan, thick and clogged with the blood in his mouth.

Oh, he thought. Right.

But that didn’t explain why you were here. Images fit themselves together in his mind - blindingly white epoxy floors, grenade smoke and gigantic cryo-chambers, mountains of biological sludge, those sharp-tongued, raw-bodied fuckers that unnerved him now as bad as they had when he was a kid in his uniform blues. Grace, shaking and determined. Himself, staggering and choking on blood as his one connection to the outside world crackled and gave out the further he went underground.

But why were you here? He’d made sure you were safe. As safe as you could be with that bruise on your hand, he guessed, but certainly not here. Not in the place he’d chosen to die.

He was surprised to still be alive, truth be told. Sherry was right: his body couldn’t take much more. But if you were here, it would have to. He’d figure it out. He wouldn’t fail you this time.

Rousing himself, scraping the bottom of the barrel for the strength just to open his eyes, he saw a wavering, golden glow like rippling water cast on the towering walls. He wondered absently what the real name for that color was. You’d probably know. You seemed like the kind of girl who paid attention to that kind of thing. He knew military colors - army green, ballistic black, oh shit that bastard’s got a laser sight on me red. But things like periwinkle and carmine and chartreuse made no sense to him. He wasn’t even sure why those were in his vocabulary, because, gun to his head, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you what color they were.

Boy, he was losing it. Daydreaming about color names when he was one foot in the grave and you needed him.

Leon, wake up. He was trying.

The floor beside him was spattered with dark blood, all of it from his hemorrhaging lungs that seemed overly keen to come up his throat and flop out onto the floor. That’d be a hell of a thing. He needed them to stay put, though, just long enough to get you and Grace out and blow this place sky high. He took a cautious breath, seeing what they would do with that - they protested angrily, flooding with fluid and screaming with pain, but they stayed in his chest for now.

Okay, he thought, gearing himself up. Lungs work. Sort of. For the moment. Now what?

“Come on, Leon, wake up.”

Grace’s voice startled him enough to make him swing his gaze over to her, and he couldn’t make heads or tails of the fact that it was her and not you kneeling beside him. He’d heard you clear as day, but you were nowhere to be found. By degrees he figured it out, and though he was relieved you weren’t really here, the pain in his chest suddenly had nothing to do with his lungs and everything to do with the fact that the comfort of your company was nothing more than a dying hallucination.

Oh well. There was nothing for it, and he knew by now that a lifetime of failure and violence tended to earn little in the way of comfort when it was all said and done.

“Hey you,” he grunted, trying to prop himself up straighter, feeling Grace’s hand on his knee as she tried somewhat futilely to coax him back to the land of the living. “I was just resting my eyes.”

If she knew that resting my eyes was code for very nearly dead and going insane to boot, she didn’t say so. She helped him to his feet, and he didn’t have the strength or the pride to protest when she slung his arm over her shoulders and helped bear his weight. 

For a moment, watching the dance of the light on the walls and feeling his own weakness more acutely than he ever had, he was strangely at peace with death. Elpis was just on the other side of the door, and as long as he could buy Grace enough time to destroy it, he’d be alright. The litany of failures that would come with that victory - not getting Grace out, leaving you to a slow death that he was helpless to stop, not preventing any of this in the first place - those were rough, but God or the universe or whatever was waiting for him would get their pound of flesh before too much longer. Whatever happened, he’d accomplish at least one of the things he came to do and hope it left the world a little safer than it had ever been in his care.

He looked over at Grace. “Let’s do this.”

Her face was pale and strained, but she nodded. “Okay.”

-

Leon, wake up.

Again? He’d thought that was it. That one last barrel-run right at that pretentious bastard hadn’t been his best work, admittedly, but he’d hoped maybe it had given Grace time to get away. He’d figured on trying for that checklist item instead, seeing as she’d blown the other one completely to hell by putting in the right password and putting the virus directly into Zeno’s fancy gloved hand. He wasn’t super excited she’d done it, was in fact very confused and angry that she’d promised to end it and had actually started it all over again, but hey. She didn’t deserve to die for a lapse in judgement, even if the fate of the entire world seemed to hang in the balance.

So, he’d run at Zeno and been tossed to the floor for his trouble, and there he lay gasping and bleeding out for who even knew how long. It had been incredibly long to his body that was ready to be done, blindingly short to his brain that had decided he actually wasn’t at peace with death quite yet. Zeno and Grace and somebody else - fuck, was it Victor? Was he ever going to be shot of that freak? - had argued and threatened and pleaded in turn, and Leon had sunk into whatever was waiting for him on the other side.

But now here you were again, telling him to wake up, and he wanted to say he didn’t know what the hell good it would do. 

Please, Leon. For me. 

Well, how could he argue with that?

Cracking open his eyes, he saw Grace pull the needle-ended vial of Elpis out of his arm. His eyes widened. The last fucking thing he’d needed was another bioengineered virus eating him alive, and he was just about to politely ask Grace why she’d injected him with it when he felt an overwhelming wave of pure relief. All the T-Virus noise in his body was suddenly, mercifully silent. He felt cracked ribs and a concussion and various gashes and bruises, sure, but when had he not? The insatiable depth of that wasting, festering pain was completely gone, replaced with a confidence in the weapon of his body that hadn’t felt in months.

He got to his knees, bracing his forearms against the floor to let this new virus, he guessed, finish getting rid of the T-Virus. With a swift mental calculus born of years of training, he took in Zeno’s headless body, Grace’s pained, protective posture over a wound in her side, Victor’s triumphant stance with a vial of Elpis in hand. The bastard had also found the time to grow a gigantic tentacle arm since Leon had seen him last. Wonderful.

He looked back to Grace as the floor started to rumble beneath them and chunks of debris fell from the ceiling. 

“Grace, what happened?”

She didn’t answer, clutching her side as blood seeped between her fingers; and when the platform started to give way, he figured there’d be time for questions later. 

“Grab something!” he ordered, digging his boots into the smooth floor and finding no purchase. The platform listed violently with the screech and groan of weakened metal, crashing against the hundreds of globes on the wall, sending glass and sparks flying. His stomach dropped when it fell without warning, plummeting towards the bottom of the silo at an ever-increasing vertical angle. Shit.

They slid across the polished surface, scrabbling for something to hang on to, and he couldn’t grab Grace in time. The guardrail was as flimsy as paper beneath his downward momentum, and he kicked through it to land with a practiced agility at the bottom of the vault, instantly scanning his surroundings like he’d been drilled to do. Every nerve was on high-alert, years of training finally of some use in a body that worked: with pain set aside for the mission, a cool, keen vigilance came over him with the same ease it always had, and it didn’t have to fight against the T-Virus to do it this time. 

“Grace!” he called, his voice a strong, rough baritone of tactical clarity and personal fear. The remnants of the platform were halted in their freefall with a billow of smoke and debris. “Grace, where are you?”

No answer. Cataloguing every inch of the wreckage for any sign of her, he came around a pile of sparking rubble and found himself face to face with Victor in all his tentacled glory. Pulling his magnum from its holster, confident that the bastard would stay dead after he’d finished with him this time, he faced down this last bio-engineered nightmare with a scowl and a bright spark of defiance.

“Time to bury Umbrella’s last skeleton.”

-

He buried Victor, just like he’d said he would, and ended up burying himself too. 

The darkness was thick, alive with the last, desperate attempt of the lab not to crumble with a stubbornness that seemed learned from its makers. Concrete and metal and glass settled with the creaking, weighty finality of death, the last sparks of some dying wires popping and flashing in the dark. He and Grace would be underneath it soon enough, two more broken pieces left in the grave they’d fashioned themselves.

He felt the way Grace trembled beside him, heard the shallow intake of her breath and the shuddering release of it. She wasn’t used to this kind of darkness like he was, and neither of them were ready to die just yet. But for all the hope Elpis had given him that he might still make it out, there was nothing to be done for the fact that they would die here. 

Reaching out in the darkness to put his hand over hers, he figured he could try to ease these last moments with a compassion he was still trying to get the hang of after nearly thirty years of shutting it out. His line of work didn’t lend itself to that kind of thing, and as quick on the uptake as he was with military training, police investigation, killing monsters, using any weapon he could get his hands on - gentleness was something he’d had to work long and hard to unearth from how deeply he’d buried it after Raccoon City. When he’d kissed you, he’d done it with that same clumsy kind of tenderness, and he hoped merely putting his hand over Grace’s wouldn’t hurt her like he’d hurt you.

She flinched for a moment, a gasp of surprise and fear escaping her; but then she realized it was only him, and her jittery fingers settled under his as she remembered there was nothing left to get her in this lonely, hollow wreck of former glory.

“L-leon?” she asked, that stumbling in her weak voice making his name sound like something hopeful and fragile all at once.

He pressed his hand closer. “Grace.”

Their names hung in the close-pressing darkness for a while. Her fingers moved under his, not to pull away, but maybe nervous to say something he could practically hear her working up the courage to give voice to.

“Can we talk?” she finally asked. “If... if you don’t mind.”

He didn’t. Not that he’d ever been a great conversationalist - his penchant for sarcasm and little quips didn’t exactly invite intimacy and warmth in return - but he’d do what he could to make it easier for her.

“Sure,” he said. His voice was rough and hoarse. “What do you want to talk about?”

She said nothing for a moment, then gave a bleak laugh. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “Kind of hard to think of what you should say right at the end, I guess.”

He’d never imagined himself saying much, truth be told. Staring down the barrel at death tended to make words feel useless, and he’d done it enough times to know.

“I know you said to end it,” she said after a few long seconds. “And I promised I would. But I - ”

“You did end it, Grace.” He turned towards her in the dark. “Just because it wasn’t the way I would have done it doesn’t mean it didn’t work. And you saved my life.”

“It didn’t do much good,” she said softly. “You’re gonna die anyway.”

“Maybe,” he allowed. “But that’s not your fault. And because you didn’t destroy Elpis like I told you to, you bought us enough time to kill Victor and get rid of this lab. That’s more than I was hoping for coming into all this.”

“That’s... kind of depressing,” she said, a wavering note of humor in her voice before it shuttered back into something hopeless. “And humbling, because I was hoping to get out alive on top of that.”

“Well, I figured it was a sure thing I wouldn’t,” he said soberly. “I was hoping you’d get out alive too, but...”

He swallowed against the taste of ever-present guilt. “I’m sorry you won’t, Grace.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry you won’t either, Leon.”

They lapsed into silence then, and Leon had nothing to distract him from thoughts of a life that felt littered with efforts that were too little, too late. The relative successes were outweighed by the overwhelming amount of failure, and even now when he’d finished this thing with Victor and ARK, there would still be those that he’d fail to rescue. Grace, Sherry, you. Any of those with the virus who wouldn’t get Elpis, and he felt responsible for every single one of them whether he knew them or not. The last little vial of it was tucked in Grace’s pocket, and he would have been satisfied - happy, even - if she’d been able to get out herself and give it to someone who would know how to make more of it. If he could be sure that Umbrella’s curse wouldn’t cost any more lives besides his own. But he couldn’t, and he’d go to his grave with the same guilt that had steadily eaten away at him since the first time he opened the RPD’s doors. 

He thought of you in those dark, lonely minutes counting down to his death - his real one, this time, one he didn’t think even you would be able to wake him back up from. The sound of your laugh. The soft feel of your hand. The bright flame of something - innocence, hope, impossibly shy desire - you’d shown him when he kissed you. What would he do if he wasn’t hundreds of feet underground in a tomb of his own making? If he knew the thing he’d thought would kill both of you could be erased, if he knew both of you would live long enough for him to make amends? You’d said you hadn’t wanted to see him again, but maybe it would be different - maybe he could apologize and explain, and maybe you would let him kiss you again, and he’d do it another way entirely. Pull you close, kiss you deeper, not fearing that death would take both of you before he’d even had the chance to know you. 

But it would. 

He looked unseeingly into the darkness, feeling the suffocating weight of every last failure even now that it was finished; and he heard your voice, fragile and sweet.

It meant something to me, Leon. 

It meant something to him too, more than he could tell you. He wished he could, but he knew better than anyone that wishing for things didn’t make them come true.

chris stared at leon from the bathroom doorway, watching as he dripped something onto his hand before combing his fingers through his hair.

“is that…hair oil?

leon didn’t even look up. “hair serum,” he corrected. 

“alright, pretty boy, what’s next? face masks? cucumber slices over your eyes?”

“why? you wanna do some? I’ve got a few,” leon said, holding up a variety of sheet masks.

chris blinked. “...why do you have so many?”

“they’re moisturizing,” he shrugged. “my girl took all the brightening ones.”

leon said it so casually that chris had to stare at him for a second before breaking into a grin. leon gave him an annoyed look through the mirror. “what?” he scoffed.

“hair serum. moisturizer. lip balm,” chris pointed at the lineup on the bathroom counter. all the bottles were on a rotating caddy, courtesy of you, of course. he plucked a bottle from the shelf, squinting at the label. “cuticle oil? since when do you care about your cuticles?”

“since someone told me to take better care of my hands,” leon snatched the bottle away from him. 

chris barked out a laugh. “ain’t no way.”

“you don’t have room to talk,” leon said, organizing his caddy.

chris frowned. “what does that mean?”

leon turned around, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. he eyed chris up and down.

“my hair’s healthier. my hands are softer,” he smirked. “and I dress better than you.”

chris looked at himself in the mirror. “this shirt’s fine,” he said firmly. 

“shirt from ten years ago?”

“it’s cotton.”

leon chuckled beneath his breath.

“you know…jill might like it if you put in a little effort.”

that caught chris’s attention. “...you think so?”

“yeah,” leon shrugged. “my girl gives me something to look at, I might as well do the same.”

chris rubbed the back of his neck. “pass me the serum,” he said.

“no. you can have the moisturizer.”

masterlist

© lilacgrayskies on tumblr

The lecture hall was vast, impersonal, with tiered seating that rose up towards the back wall like an amphitheater for the academic-minded. Two hundred students, a sea of laptops and notebooks, their faces illuminated by the cool glow of screens. And at the front, bathed in the warm spotlight of the projector, was Professor Kennedy.

He wasn't what you'd expected when you'd signed up for "Advanced Statistical Modeling." You'd anticipated a tweed jacket, elbow patches, and a monotone voice that could cure insomnia. Instead, you got Leon S. Kennedy. He didn't wear tweed. He wore impeccably tailored suits—navy, charcoal, sometimes a deep, severe black—that hinted at a body honed with a discipline that had nothing to do with academia. His hair, a surprisingly thick shock of blond, was styled with a casual precision that defied the severe part at the side. He was forty-nine, according to the university's staff directory, but he carried it with an effortless gravity that made him seem both ageless and ancient. There were lines around his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and things seen that no lecture hall could ever prepare you for.

His voice, however, was the real weapon. It was a low, smooth baritone, the kind that could cut through the chatter of two hundred students without ever raising its volume. It was measured, calm, and had a gravelly edge that made the driest equations sound like a thrilling confession.

"And so, the null hypothesis is rejected," he was saying, his gaze sweeping across the room. It landed on you for a fraction of a second longer than on anyone else. It always did. "This indicates a statistically significant correlation. But correlation, as we all know, is not causation. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to the difference?"

A few hands went up, tentative. He called on someone else, but you could still feel the phantom weight of his attention, a lingering warmth on your skin. You were twenty-three, a graduate student, and you'd been crushing on your math professor with an intensity that bordered on pathetic. It wasn't just about his looks, though they were certainly a factor. It was the way he commanded a room, the quiet intelligence in his eyes, the rare, fleeting smile that transformed his stern face into something devastatingly handsome.

You were his best student. You knew it, he knew it, and the rest of the class knew it. You sat in the front row, your hand perpetually in the air, your assignments always submitted early and flawless. You called it diligence. Your roommate called it being a teacher's pet. She wasn't wrong.

The lecture ended, the hall emptying with the usual rustle of bags and low chatter. You took your time packing up, waiting until the last student had trickled out. You approached the podium where Leon was gathering his notes.

"Professor Kennedy?" you asked, your voice a little too bright.

He looked up, and the professional mask softened slightly. "Miss [Last Name]. What can I do for you?"

"I had a question about the Bayesian inference models from last week. The priors you suggested… I was wondering if there was a more robust method for selecting them when the initial data set is particularly noisy."

A genuine smile touched his lips this time, crinkling the corners of his eyes. It was like the sun breaking through clouds. "An excellent question. The textbook method is crude, I'll admit. It's a conversation better had with a whiteboard." He gestured towards his office. "I have a free hour now. If you're not busy."

Your heart hammered against your ribs. "Now? Yes. I'm free."

"Lead the way," he said, falling into step beside you. The scent of him was subtle, clean, like expensive soap and something else, something faintly metallic and dangerous that you couldn't place.

His office was exactly as you'd imagined: organized, minimalist, with a wall of books that looked more read than decorative. A large window overlooked the quad, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows. He didn't sit behind his desk like a barrier. He pulled up a chair to the small whiteboard in the corner, motioning for you to take the one opposite.

"Alright," he said, uncapping a marker. "Show me what you're working with."

For the next hour, the world shrank to the confines of that small space. The age gap, the student-teacher dynamic, all of it melted away under the thrill of intellectual sparring. He wasn't just teaching; he was engaging, challenging you, pushing your understanding to its limits. You were so in your element, so caught up in the elegant dance of numbers and logic, that you didn't notice how his gaze would sometimes drift from the whiteboard to your face, a thoughtful, almost hungry expression in his eyes.

When you finally solved the problem you'd been wrestling with, a triumphant little laugh escaped you. "There. That makes so much more sense."

He was watching you, the marker resting idly in his long fingers. "You have a mind for this, you know. A rare one."

The compliment sent a flush of heat through you. "Thank you, Professor."

"Leon," he corrected, his voice dropping a register. "When we're in here, just… Leon."

The air suddenly felt thick, charged with an unspoken current. "Okay," you breathed. "Leon."

He stood up, his movements fluid and deliberate, and went to the small minibar tucked into a bookshelf. "Whiskey?"

You blinked. "I… yes. Please."

He poured two glasses, the amber liquid catching the light. He handed one to you, his fingers brushing against yours. The touch was electric, a jolt that shot up your arm. He sat on the edge of his desk, closer than was strictly professional, one leg bent, the other stretched out.

"So, Miss [Last Name]," he began, swirling the whiskey in his glass. "Tell me something that isn't about statistics."

You took a sip, the liquid burning a pleasant trail down your throat. "What do you want to know?"

"Anything. Why this? Why advanced statistical modeling? Most people in your program are aiming for corporate data science. You seem to… love it for its own sake."

You shrugged, suddenly feeling shy under his intense scrutiny. "I like the certainty of it. The logic. In the rest of the world, everything's so messy and subjective. But here… there's a right answer. You just have to know how to find it."

He nodded slowly, his eyes holding yours. "I understand that better than you might think." He took a long drink of his whiskey. "You're not like the others, are you?"

"The other students?"

"Them. Anyone." He set his glass down. "You don't look at me and see just 'Professor Kennedy.'"

You couldn't lie, not with him looking at you like that. "No," you admitted softly. "I don't."

He was silent for a long moment, the only sound the ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner. He was so close now you could see the flecks of silver in his blue eyes, the faint scar on his jawline. He radiated a controlled energy, a tightly wound tension that was both intimidating and intoxicating.

"This is inappropriate," he said, his voice a low murmur. "I'm aware of that."

"I'm an adult," you countered, your voice barely a whisper.

"An adult who is my student. Who is twenty-six years younger than me." He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of frustration, or maybe restraint. "I've spent my life building walls. Being careful. And you… you walk into my office with a question about Bayesian priors and make me want to tear them all down."

Your breath hitched. "Leon…"

"Tell me to stop," he said, his gaze dropping to your lips. "Tell me to forget this conversation ever happened, and I will. I'll be your professor, nothing more. But if you don't…"

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. You leaned forward, closing the small distance between you, and pressed your lips to his.

It was a tentative kiss at first, a soft, questioning press. But the moment your lips met, something in him snapped. His hand came up to cup the back of your neck, his fingers tangling in your hair, and he deepened the kiss with a hunger that stole the air from your lungs. This wasn't the kiss of a cautious academic. This was the kiss of a man who had been starved, who was finally allowing himself a taste of something forbidden. His tongue swept against yours, claiming, possessive, and a soft moan escaped you. He tasted of whiskey and something uniquely, intoxicatingly him.

He pulled back, his breathing ragged, his forehead resting against yours. "We shouldn't," he murmured, but his hands were still on you, one tracing the line of your jaw, the other resting on your thigh.

"Then don't," you whispered, your hands coming up to rest on his chest. You could feel the steady, rapid beat of his heart beneath the expensive fabric of his suit. "But I don't want you to stop."

He let out a low groan, a sound torn from deep in his chest. "You have no idea what you're asking for."

"Then show me."

That was all the permission he needed. He stood, pulling you to your feet, and his mouth was on yours again, more demanding this time. He backed you up against the whiteboard, the surface cool against your back through your thin shirt.

His hands were everywhere, mapping your body with a desperate urgency. One slid down your back to press you firmly against him, erasing any last sliver of space between your bodies. The hard line of his arousal was unmistakable through the tailored wool of his trousers, a thrilling, terrifying proof of his desire. His other hand tangled in your hair, angling your head to deepen the kiss, his tongue exploring your mouth with a thorough, possessive stroke that made your knees weak. This was a man accustomed to taking control, a man who moved with a purpose that left no room for doubt.

He broke the kiss, both of you panting for air. His blue eyes, usually so cool and analytical, were now dark with a storm of lust and something else, something that looked suspiciously like vulnerability. He looked at you as if he were seeing a ghost, or a miracle.

"This is a very bad idea," he breathed, but his hands didn't move. If anything, his grip on you tightened.

"The worst," you agreed, your voice shaky. "But I don't care."

A slow, dangerous smile spread across his face. It was the smile of a man who had just decided to jump off a cliff. "Good. Because I'm past the point of no return."

He captured your mouth again, but this time it was slower, deeper, more deliberate. His hands moved from your hair to the hem of your shirt, his fingers brushing against the skin of your stomach. The touch was feather-light but sent a jolt of electricity straight to your core. With a practiced motion, he lifted the shirt over your head, letting it fall to the floor. His gaze devoured the sight of you in your simple lace bra.

"God, you're beautiful," he murmured, his voice thick with awe. He traced the edge of the lace with a fingertip, his touch sending shivers across your skin. "So beautiful."

You reached for him, your fingers fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. You wanted to feel him, to see the body that the expensive suit had only hinted at. He let you, his eyes on your hands as you worked your way down the placket. When the last button was undone, you pushed the shirt aside, and your breath caught in your throat.

His torso was a landscape of hard muscle and old scars. A faint, silvered scar nicked his collarbone. Another, more vicious one, marred the hard plane of his abdomen. They weren't the neat, tidy scars of a clumsy accident. They were the marks of violence, of a life lived far from the quiet halls of academia. They told a story you couldn't begin to understand, but they made him even more real, even more compelling.

You leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the scar on his abdomen. He tensed, a sharp intake of breath hissing through his teeth. You looked up at him, your eyes questioning.

"It's alright," he said, his voice strained. "It's been a long time since anyone… saw them."

"Then let me see all of you," you whispered.

He needed no further encouragement. He shrugged off the shirt, letting it join your clothes on the floor. His body was magnificent, lean and powerful, with the corded muscle of a man who relied on his strength. He scooped you up as if you weighed nothing, his arms wrapping securely around your waist, and carried you the few steps to his large oak desk. He swept a stack of papers and a laptop onto a nearby chair with a clatter, clearing a space before setting you down on the polished wood.

The cool surface was a shock against your heated skin. He stood between your legs, his hands resting on your thighs, his gaze intense and unwavering. He looked at you like you were the answer to a question he'd been asking for decades.

"I've wanted this since the first day you walked into my lecture," he admitted, his voice low and raw. "From the moment you sat in the front row and looked at me like you weren't afraid to ask the hard questions."

"I've wanted you since I first saw you," you confessed, your hands resting on his broad shoulders. "I thought it was just a silly crush."

"It's not silly," he said, leaning in to kiss the hollow of your throat. "It's dangerous. It's reckless. And it's the only thing I've thought about for months."

His mouth moved lower, tracing the line of your collarbone, his teeth grazing your skin in a way that made you gasp. His hands slid up your thighs, his thumbs hooking into the waistband of your jeans. He paused, his eyes meeting yours in a silent question. You nodded, lifting your hips to help him. He made quick work of the button and zipper, tugging the denim down your legs and tossing them aside.

His gaze was molten as he took in the sight of you, nearly bare before him. He knelt, his movements fluid and graceful, and pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee. Then another, higher up your thigh. His hands gripped your hips, holding you steady as his mouth continued its slow, torturous ascent.

"Leon," you breathed, your hands tangling in his hair. "Please…"

"Please what?" he murmured against your skin, his breath hot.

"Please touch me."

He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated through you. "Oh, I intend to."

He hooked his fingers into the sides of your panties, pulling them down with agonizing slowness. He paused for a moment, just looking at you, his expression one of pure, unadulterated hunger. Then he leaned in and his mouth was on you, his tongue finding your most sensitive spot with an unerring accuracy that made you cry out.

It was nothing like you'd ever experienced. He was skilled, patient, and devastatingly thorough. He explored you with his tongue and lips, learning your responses, driving you higher and higher with a masterful control that was both infuriating and exhilarating. Your hands gripped the edge of the desk, your knuckles white, as wave after wave of pleasure washed over you. When he finally slid a finger inside you, then another, the dual stimulation was your undoing. You came with a sharp cry, your body arching off the desk, your vision blurring as the world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of sensation.

He didn't stop, riding out your orgasm, his mouth and fingers working you through the aftershocks until you were a trembling, boneless mess. Only then did he pull back, looking up at you with a smug, satisfied grin.

"You're a responsive one," he said, his voice husky.

"You're… talented," you managed, your breath still coming in ragged gasps.

He stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand in a gesture that was shockingly primal. He quickly shed the remainder of his clothes—his trousers, his boxers—until he was standing before you, completely naked. Your eyes widened at the sight of him, hard and ready, his erection jutting out from a nest of blond hair. He was big, bigger than you'd expected, and the sight of him sent a fresh wave of desire through you.

He rummaged in a desk drawer, his movements a little frantic, and produced a foil packet. He tore it open with his teeth and rolled the condom on, his eyes never leaving yours. Then he was back between your legs, his body covering yours, his weight a welcome, grounding pressure.

He positioned himself at your entrance, his tip teasing you. "Are you sure?" he asked, his voice serious. "Once we do this, there's no going back."

"I've never been more sure of anything," you said, reaching up to cup his face. "I want you, Leon. All of you."

That was all he needed to hear. With a slow, steady thrust, he entered you, filling you completely. You gasped at the sudden, intense stretch, a mix of pleasure and a sharp, sweet ache. He paused, letting you adjust, his forehead resting against yours.

"Okay?" he murmured.

"Okay," you breathed, wrapping your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper.

He began to move, his strokes slow and deep at first, a deliberate, rocking rhythm that built the pleasure gradually. He watched your face, his eyes searching yours, as if memorizing your every reaction. It was incredibly intimate, more intimate than any sexual encounter you'd ever had. This wasn't just fucking; this was a conversation, a dialogue of bodies and souls.

He kissed you, a deep, languid kiss that mirrored the rhythm of his hips. The scent of his skin, the taste of his mouth, the feel of him moving inside you—it was overwhelming, a sensory overload that threatened to consume you completely. You met his thrusts, your body moving with his, a perfect, synchronized dance.

The slow, deliberate pace began to quicken, his thrusts becoming harder, more demanding. The desk creaked beneath you, a rhythmic protest that mingled with your moans and his harsh breaths. He shifted his angle, hitting a spot inside you that made you see stars. You cried out, your nails digging into his shoulders.

"Right there?" he asked, his voice strained.

"God, yes," you gasped.

He hit that spot again and again, his movements becoming more erratic, more desperate. The pleasure was building to an unbearable peak, a tight coil of tension low in your belly. You could feel his control beginning to fray, the careful, composed professor giving way to the raw, primal man beneath.

"Come with me," he commanded, his voice a low growl against your ear.

"I want to feel you come around me."

His words, raw and possessive, were the final push you needed. The coil inside you snapped, and your orgasm crashed over you with the force of a tidal wave. It was a blinding, all-consuming thing, a white-hot explosion of pleasure that stole your breath and your vision. You cried out his name, a broken, desperate sound, as your body convulsed around him, your inner walls clenching and releasing in a frantic, rhythmic pulse.

He groaned, a deep, guttural sound of pure satisfaction, as he felt your release. It was his undoing. With a few final, powerful thrusts, he buried himself deep inside you and found his own release, his body shuddering against yours as he poured himself into the condom. He collapsed against you, his full weight pinning you to the desk, his face buried in the crook of your neck. You could feel the frantic, uneven beat of his heart against your chest, a frantic drum that gradually slowed to a steady, powerful rhythm.

For a long time, the only sound in the office was your combined breathing, the harsh gasps gradually softening into deep, contented sighs. The air was thick with the scent of sex and sweat and the faint, lingering aroma of his expensive cologne. The late afternoon sun had shifted, casting long, golden shadows across the room, bathing the two of you in a warm, hazy light.

He finally stirred, pushing himself up on his elbows to look at you. His hair was disheveled, a few stray strands falling across his forehead. His blue eyes were soft, the storm of lust replaced by a gentle, almost tender light. He looked younger, somehow, the harsh lines of his face softened by a post-coital glow.

"Wow," you said, your voice a little hoarse.

A slow, genuine smile spread across his face. It reached his eyes, crinkling the corners in a way that made your heart ache. "Wow indeed." He leaned down and kissed you, a soft, lingering kiss that was full of unspoken emotion. "Are you alright? I wasn't… I wasn't too rough."

You shook your head, a lazy, satisfied smile on your face. "You were perfect."

He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that you felt more than heard. "I haven't been called perfect in a very long time." He carefully withdrew from you, dealing with the condom with a quiet efficiency that spoke of a lifetime of practicality. He then did something that surprised you. He didn't just hand you your clothes. He picked up his discarded shirt and gently draped it over your shoulders, the fine fabric still warm from his body.

"Here," he said softly. "You're cold."

You hadn't realized you were, but the sudden warmth was a comfort. You clutched the shirt to you, the scent of him enveloping you like a security blanket. He pulled on his trousers, but left his chest bare, the scars a silent testament to his past. He sat on the edge of the desk, not touching you, but close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating from him.

"So," he said, his voice quiet. "What happens now?"

The question hung in the air, heavy with implication. This was the moment the fantasy ended and the reality began. You were a student. He was your professor. You were in his office, on his desk, surrounded by the trappings of his professional life. The weight of it all settled over you, a cold, sobering counterpoint to the fire that had just consumed you.

"I don't know," you admitted, your voice barely a whisper.

He nodded, his gaze fixed on the window, on the students walking across the quad, oblivious to the seismic shift that had just occurred in this small office. "I know what should happen. I should walk you out, we should pretend this never happened, and on Monday, I'll be Professor Kennedy and you'll be my star student, and we'll never speak of this again."

The words, though logical, felt like a physical blow. "Is that what you want?" you asked, your heart sinking.

He turned to look at you, his expression unreadable. "No," he said, his voice firm. "It's not what I want. But it's what's right. It's what's safe."

"I'm not a child, Leon," you said, a hint of defiance in your voice. "I knew what I was doing. I knew the risks. I wanted this."

"I know you did," he said, his voice softening. "And that's what makes this so damn complicated. If you were some naive girl I could dismiss, it would be easy. But you're not. You're brilliant, and you're challenging, and you look at me and you don't see the professor or the older man. You just see me."

"Because that's all I want to see," you said, reaching out to place a hand on his knee. "Let the rest of it go. Just for a little while."

He looked down at your hand, then back at your face. A war was being waged behind his eyes, a battle between duty and desire, between the man he was supposed to be and the man he wanted to be. Finally, he let out a long, slow breath, the sound of a man surrendering.

"Okay," he said, covering your hand with his. "Okay. For a little while."

He stood and pulled you to your feet, his shirt still draped around your shoulders. He led you over to the small leather couch in the corner of his office, away from the desk that now held so many memories. He sat down, pulling you down next to him, and wrapped an arm around you, pulling you close against his side. You rested your head on his chest, the steady beat of his heart a comforting rhythm against your ear.

"Tell me about the scars," you said softly, your fingers tracing the faint, silvery line on his abdomen.

He tensed, just for a moment, then relaxed. "It's a long, and very boring story," he said, his voice light, but you could hear the evasion in it.

"Try me," you said.

He was silent for a long time, and you thought he wasn't going to answer. "Let's just say I had a… a previous career. Before academia. It was a job that required a certain… physicality. And it didn't always go smoothly."

"Like what? A cop? A soldier?"

"Something like that," he said, his voice distant. "It's a part of my life I'd rather forget. A part I thought I'd left behind."

"And now?" you asked, your fingers still tracing the scar.

"And now," he said, his arm tightening around you, "I'm wondering if I was ever meant to forget it at all."

You didn't press him further. You could sense the pain in his voice, the weight of a past he wasn't ready to share. Instead, you just held him, offering a silent comfort that you hoped he could feel. You sat like that for a long time, wrapped in each other's arms, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the office was plunged into the soft glow of his desk lamp.

Eventually, you knew you had to go. The real world was waiting, with all its complications and consequences. You pulled away, just enough to look at him.

"I should go," you said, your voice reluctant.

"I know," he said, his hand coming up to cup your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin. "Come to my place tomorrow. For dinner."

It wasn't a question. It was a statement, a request, a command all rolled into one. And you knew, with a certainty that settled deep in your bones, that you would go.

"Okay," you said. "What time?"

"Seven," he said. "I'll text you the address."

You dressed in silence, the air thick with unspoken words. When you were ready, he walked you to the door. He didn't kiss you again, not on the mouth. He just took your hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your knuckles. It was an old-fashioned, courtly gesture that was somehow more intimate than anything that had come before.

"Tomorrow," he said, his voice a low promise.

"Tomorrow," you echoed, and then you were gone, walking out into the cool night air, your mind reeling, your body still humming with the memory of his touch. You had crossed a line, a line you could never uncross. And as you made your way back to your dorm, you knew with a terrifying, thrilling certainty that your life would never be the same.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

ding. [2:43 am]

It’s fucking hard, okay? It’s not like you’re lazy or born with a silver spoon in your mouth; you’re okay with rolling up your sleeves and getting the job done, you’re just… tired. You’re so fucking tired, and you feel like you’ve been tired all your life, running after something you can’t even put your fingers on. You’ve felt it for as long as you can remember, the pull of doing something; create, speak loud enough to be listened to. Write, draw, tag the empty walls of the endless sea of factories behind your parents' run-down home at the periphery of the run-down town you were born into.

It was an itch that had developed into an urge, something you were desperate to scratch but unable to bend deep enough to reach. Something calling for you.

And that’s a very nice philosophical picture you have painted, if only you were not stuck behind a counter, ringing up mostly condoms and cigarettes into the gruelling, tiresome hours of the night.

But you are! Congrats, you’re part of the machine, a soulless machine— no, a cog in it, whose only design is to accumulate money and spend money the very way society had designed for you to do. Yippee. There goes your fighting spirit.

«Shouldn’t you be in school?» The light overhead buzzes, the edge of the stool you are granted to occasionally prop your ass up digs viciously into the meaty part of your thighs. Your eyes dislodge from the hazy blur of dissociation and land on your customer for the first time since the automatic doors had pinged. The man in front of you is crazy hot. No way around it, gruff features and a deep scowl framing icy blue eyes.

You blink dumbly. «At the wee hour of the night?» Thank God you’re usually fast, never really losing yourself in your own little world, only… lingering. The man’s deep line between his eyebrows deepens, «No, like tomorrow morning. Shouldn’t you be sleeping on a school night?»

At this point, you usually get pissy; partially because you’re tired, but mostly because you’re full of piss and vinegar, and your mother had always told you you have an attitude and a short fuse. But you don’t feel pissy. Not yet, at least. The dude’s hot, and pretty privilege — apparently — is real. So you laugh, strained and slightly taken aback. «A school night? Jeez, dude, I’m in college.» And since sarcasm is basically your second language: «No child is being exploited in this fine establishment of ours.» The man’s lips tug at a corner, a low huff of air — very similar to a laugh but not quite still — escaping his lungs. «Same thing.» Hell no. «Fuck no.» Yup, that’s you, miss good manners and articulated vocabulary in front of Mr Hottie. But that’s you, and you can’t change in the snap of a finger. «School was hell, college is… purgatory or whatever. But I’m sure I’m never setting foot back in school.»

A moment of silence passes, the stranger looks at you like he wants to know every nook and cranny of your personality, but perhaps that’s just the blue eyes effect. «It is still school.» He deadpans at last. «I mean—» the man is starting to get a bit on your nerves, pretty privilege corroding faster than your paycheck each month of school you drag yourself through. «Technically, but I want to let you know, sir, that coming for you sounds patronising as fuck.» It’s still only a half-tease, though, rough the same way your humour always is, perhaps the reason you had never been able to strike up a conversation with your classmates the few times you had actually set foot on campus grounds. Or your colleagues at that. The stranger tenses up immediately, large shoulders drooping in and up. «Didn’t mean to.» he blurts out quickly, piercing gaze digging into your own eyes. Fuck, you’ve been rude again. «I know. I’m pulling your leg.» At least the tension is short-lived. He seems to relax visibly, bulky frame descending from its strung-up position. Mumbling something terribly similar to “sorry” into the quiet store. «Sorry— I’m— I tend to be a bit rude on my humour when I’m tired. I was just teasing, I swear.»

Silence follows; you’re unsure your apology landed, but the stranger nods and pulls his lips into a small smile. Just when you’re about to ask for his items, still clutched in his hands, he speaks again, «So… Shouldn’t you be sleeping on a college night?» The embarrassment dissipates a bit, a small laugh escapes you. «I don’t go.» His face scrunches up in confusion, this time a smile appearing on his features. «Wow, that’s confusing—» «No—I, I mean, I do, I just don’t… go— I don’t attend. It’s not mandatory.» At this point, a constant stream of giggles and huffs fills the silence, dampening the awkwardness you always feel when interactions don’t go as you have planned. «Does it work? For you?» The question doesn’t take you aback immediately, still giddy with soft awkwardness, «Ahhh… yeah, I mean it’s…» your tongue clicks on the back of your teeth, a word surfaces immediately, clear and sharp, but your brain stomps on the brakes. The dude is basically a stranger. Your smile falters. «Tough. It’s tough.» It’s lonely. Incredibly so. «Keeping up?» What? «Oh. Yeah, yeah, for sure.» Silence lingers a bit; it looks like he wants you to keep rambling. «I mean, the books cost a fuck-ton, nobody is willing to help you, and some professors hate you for never showing up. Which, I get it, dude, I already feel like a baby-daddy without you hammering home the fact I’m never around—» «A fuck-ton?» he interrupts, probably more confused by the unit than the concept. Still, you go for the latter. «Yeah. Imagine I was into medicine, first book, first year… Two hundred bucks.» «Jesus.» «Yeah.» «Yeah… yes, no, that’s fucked up.» He’s cute, a bit awkward, polite if not a bit rusty in human interactions. He’s really cute. Although that’s probably not the first word that comes to mind when looking at him. Now that you have had time to study him better, you have taken in far more details than you would have expected. He looks to be in his fifties — or around that — white specks peeking out from his dusty blond stubble here and there, perhaps only lighter blond strands, but you have a feeling the former speculation might be way more plausible. He looks like he has aged a little bit too prematurely, light wrinkles around his eyes and a deep worry line under an ashy golden almost-side-bang. The icy blue eyes should feel like the detail that does a lot of heavy lifting, but his features are so harmonious and precise that those oceans of chill water only end up being the cherry on top of an already magnificent cake. Speaking of which… the body is tea, your perception is slightly distorted — with you leaning heavily onto the stool and messing up your proportions — but he appears to be tall, not freakishly tall but quite a good deal of tall, he feels as an imposing figure without necessarily being it. Perhaps all the muscles hidden under the leather jacket over his back might be helping in that department; strong arms and broad hands clutching to— his items. In his hands, not the counter. Fuck— «Shit, sorry— let me ring you up, I’m so sorry, I’m sure you have someplace else to be at… Jeeze, sorry, three in the morning. I’m so sorry.» To a party, that’s probably where he’d rather be and will be given his purchase choices. Two bottles of whiskey, a tall one of vodka and a six-pack of beer. Damn. You’re so freaking jelly. «It’s— no, I liked it, I like talking wit— You don’t have to apologise… sorry.» The register beeps each item, you have the impulse to ease his worries, so you ramble, unguarded and dumbly truthful. «No, I— you’re cool too.» Man, you’re a loser. Before you can embarrass yourself further, declaring your human-interaction ability too rusty to be salvaged anymore, you cut it short. «That will be 53 and 74 cents, sir.» The stranger’s eyes flicker to your face — you hadn’t noticed he had been cowering his gaze to his items since you asked for them — averting them quickly as if caught red-handed, nodding and looking into his wallet with a hum. «Keep the change.»

That’s a hundred-dollar bill. He gave you a hundred dollars. «Sir—» «For your school books— ah, no, pardon me, college books.» You gape like a dumb ass, holding onto the little paper rectangle with two hands. Your eyes lift, wide and confused. «But—» But the stranger no longer stands in front of your register, with a plastic bag dangling from his fingers and his broad, leather-clad back getting farther, he raises a hand without even turning. «Study hard, nighty-night.»

The door swings closed, the figure of the man blurred by the dirty glass and the outside darkness.

He basically just bought you the course’s book you have been paining so hard for. With a few bills to spare for a new pen as well. You ought to be the only person alive who finishes their ball-pens.

[6:07 am]

The sky is an ugly colour, some sickly washed-out version of the deep blue the night had been a couple of minutes ago. The moon still shines up in the sky through a cloudy barricade that threatens rain. Your eyes burn, and your skin itches as if stretched too thin over your bones.

You can’t keep going on like this. Miles away from your home, a liar every time your parents call and stuck in a dead-end job in the hope of finally getting a diploma you should have acquired years ago. You pull the hoodie over your head; it’s chilly outside, morning air damp and sharp on your skin. You should have brought a heavier jacket.

[6:21 am]

At least you have enough money for the next exam’s textbook. Your door creaks under your blows, your shoulder body-checking the old plywood plank to let the lock give way. Bloody, fucking, mouldy apartment set back a prayer and a spit in your eye. The keys jingle in your grasp, a final clunk escapes the mechanism, and suddenly you stumble into your home. Not that you can stop worrying, 40 bucks are nice, but not nearly enough to make you take a deep breath of relief. You still gotta pay for rent, that money you have. When you first started working at the convenience store, you used to always put aside every penny left after your basic necessities were satisfied. After a while, you had been able to accumulate enough money for rent for two months. In case anything happened. But you still have to pay for the electricity and water. Speaking of water, you really need to take a shower. You also need to brush your teeth, but your stomach protests so loudly at the implication of going to sleep without eating that you almost double over at the sudden cramp. Fine. Eat something, then wash your teeth and remove your makeup… Damit, you put the waterproof mascara on, you can’t wash it in the shower like the animal you are. Another damn step you’ll have to take before finally collapsing. Your earrings weigh on your piercings. The weird encounter slithers under your skin; you were so awkward…

You are so overstimulated right now.

tic toc, tic toc, tic… TOC.

[2 am sharp]

Leon can’t sleep. It doesn’t matter how many sheep he counts. What he actually wants and needs is to count his drinks and exceed his record by a long shot if possible. Too bad Sherry had raided his stash a few months ago while he was still on a mission to give him “a fresh start” when coming back.

Fresh start his ass. He’s going insane here.

And that’s why he will not stay “here”. He needs to go to the convenience store and raid their stash in return. He’s thinking Whiskey, Vodka, beer… whatever he can get his hands on.

The girl at the register looks like one of those sad, sad paintings of older days left to rot in an unknown room in a minor museum. Eyes distant and slightly wet. You look as if about to cry. «Shouldn’t you be in school?» The question is out of his mouth before he can ever pass it thoroughly through his reason’s filter labelled: “What the fuck are you doing? Shut up.” Your eyes look for his frantically, lost for a second, in a glance cast only God knows where. Then your eyebrow scrunches up, «At the wee hour of the night?» Shit. He tries to save as much as he can of it, to at least not look like a complete idiot. «No, like tomorrow morning. Shouldn’t you be sleeping on a school night?» But destiny mustn’t have that in store for him tonight. Humiliation it is then. «A school night? Jeez, dude, I’m in college.» He should have just stayed silent, paid for his booze and got the hell out of this neon-lit trap. But life is not that cruel, and you’re not that much of a sadist, apparently. «No child is being exploited in this fine establishment of ours.»

The remark is so stupidly out of pocket, yet fitting, it truly tears a laugh out of him. Unexpected and soft. Enough to make him loose lipped. «Same thing.» «Fuck no.» Your indignation booms naturally and truly in the cramped space of the convenience store’s front. «School was hell, college is…» Your face does something funny, as if you were unsure of the denomination as well. «Purgatory or whatever.» You finally come up with. «But I’m sure I’m never setting foot back in school.» You don’t look like you belong to either. A bit, actually, you do. With eyes rimmed with unshed tears and stubborn makeup. As if both hell then purgatory had left a mark on you, like a brand. So it’s still school, still hell. «It is still school.» That came out wrong. He has to learn when to shut up. A bit difficult at 48, but he can sure as hell try. Your face flutters through a couple of emotions. He’d like to try and at least advocate for his own words, but you’re too fast, and any protest dies on his tongue. «I mean— Technically, but I want to let you know, sir, that coming for you sounds patronising as fuck.» Shit. «Didn’t mean to.» Your eyes glimmer; something tugs at your lips, right at the corner, where — in another fairytale — a kiss would have been. «I know. I’m pulling your leg.» Oh.

It’s incredibly easy to talk to you. You never let awkwardness linger in a bad way, nor do you push it onto him as if telling him: “See? You’re awkward, and it’s hard to be around you” You just let it breathe, giggling and quipping up sarcasm like you’re being paid for that. A great deal of weird on your part.

«Tough. It’s tough.» Something heavy flitters behind your eyes, perhaps a bird locked inside a cage, maybe a creature gnawing at its bars. He can’t tell which one it is. But it looks painful. «Keeping up?» Your lashes flutter, confusion shows, then melts away. «Oh. Yeah, yeah, for sure.» The moment is gone. «I mean, the books cost a fuck-ton, nobody is willing to help you—» your voice trails off; it’s a nice voice. «A fuck-ton?» «Yeah. Medicine, first book, first year… Two hundred bucks.» That’s probably the first thing that had jarred him out of the weird warmth he had started to feel inside. «Jesus.» Your eyebrows shoot up, and your head bobs in agreement. «Yeah.» You look absolutely pissed by the fact, eyes sparkling with a fighting spirit he had not noticed there when he entered the store. «Yeah… yes, no, that’s fucked up.» Suddenly, as if remembering you had yet to take a very good look at him, your eyes trail up and down his figure for a long minute, eyes sharp and inquisitive. He wished he had at least thrown a glance at himself in the mirror before exiting his apartment.

Then something snaps. «Shit, sorry— let me ring you up, I’m so sorry, I’m sure you have someplace else to be at… Jeeze, sorry, three in the morning. I’m so sorry.» And Leon has to grasp at words to fumble into something resembling a conversation. «It’s— no, I liked it, I like talking wit—» too direct. No, he needs to backpedal. «You don’t have to apologise… sorry.» «No, I— you’re cool too.» His heart hiccups.

The scene unfurls slowly, then fast, then natural, then stiff, and he’s too damn rusty to feel comfortable in it. «Keep the change.» He wishes you’d told him what you study. «For your school books—» his words hitch, not what he was going for. «Ah, no, pardon me, college books.» «But—» «Study hard, nighty-night.»

[4:39 am]

Study hard, nighty-night. Nighty-night?! Seriously? Jesus, if you didn’t find him patronising after the whole school debacle, you sure as hell do now.

The liquid in his glass sloshes; the empty silence in the apartment rings hollow and cold all around him. Devoid. Everything feels devoid of life, as if Leon himself had syphoned every last drop of it. The gun on the table calls to him. He should just end it all.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

Fuck. [3:33 pm]

This time, it takes you an hour to fight your way out of the harsh, leathery embrace of your couch. You should sell it, make some quick cash and sleep on the floor for the foreseeable future; it’s not like it’s warm or anything.

Your notes stare back at you, you feel so dumb, but you truly don’t understand what the hell you wrote. You still will yourself into trying.

For five hours straight. Until every word is seared behind your eyelids, but its meaning is completely lost to you. You’re such a loser.

By 9:15, you’re out the door once more.

[10:05 pm]

«Hi, welcome to 7-Eleven. If you need anything, I’m right here.» «Go kill yourself.» Oki doki, not a nice one this is.

You can’t wait for your shift to end.

«What are you doing?» The ladder shifts, rattling metal against metal, as your muscles flinch and cramp up. «Jesus Christ! What the hell is wrong with you?» The stranger from yesterday stares up at you from the last step of the metal ladder you’re currently cramped up onto, clinging to its railing and praying you won’t fall and split your head open. He doesn’t look impressed by your snapping, though. One foot on the first step to steady the freaking deadly contraption; a very calm expression on his face, save for the deep frown between his eyebrows.

«You shouldn’t be doing this; it’s dangerous.» The absolute guts. «Well, somebody has to change the damn neon, or I’ll be ending up my shift in pure darkness.» The man looks around for a second, as if only now noticing the big buzzing neon overhead being off. A feat truly since you’re holding the replacement rod in your hand at the moment —horribly putting you out of balance — and said rod is four fucking feet long. «Do you even know how to?» A beat of silence follows. «No.» The man sighs lowly. In the dark, he acquires a weird allure of dangerous, something pretty but… sad, no, tired; but not your type of tired, a new one, one you think you are just too young to have encountered yet. An erosive force digging deep into his soul. «Get down, doll-face, before you seriously hurt yourself.» The pet name snaps you out, the rest of the phrase pulls a sigh of relief. «I’ll do it.»

Holy hell, that is a nice ass. Ho-ly. Your hands grip the ladder sides tighter, and your head falls down, severing eye contact with those freaking buns — whole bakery tbh —. A movement beside you captures your attention. The stranger had passed you the old light a couple of minutes ago, asking you to gently put it on the ground and is now lifting the new neon to install it back. Biceps shifting under the compression shirt, he revealed under the familiar leather jacket. A salivating ordeal. «Done.»

You blink dumbly up at him, light installed but turned off. He’s turned your way, looking down at you. «Oh… wow, you’re fast as fuck. Thanks a bunch.» You’re almost sure you can spot a soft dusting of pink on the bridge of his nose, but it’s too dark in the store to tell. «It’s no problem.» you hear him mumble, descending the steps in controlled strides. Now that he’s in front of you once more, you finally notice he’s not incredibly tall per se; he’s just naturally imposing, a bit folded on himself, as if wanting to take less space than necessary. He looks like the person who would roll his eyes at bad puns. All serious and business. A very bad one crosses your mind, and you blurt it out. Because you’re stupid and you have zero self-control: «No, for real… You really brightened my day.»

A very ugly, almost wheezed-out laugh chokes out of the man’s lungs; his eyes crinkle, the bridge of his nose scrunches up. He looks ten years younger. But maybe that’s just the light — or lack of it. — talking. Something inside you squirms pridefully. «Oh my God, that was criminal.» his laugh is criminal; they should charge him for murder. You feel like your heart just stopped.

«Sorry for making you do that— Can I help you find what you came for?» You don’t usually have regulars; those are for the morning shift, you have a few recurring faces, some students just like you, fueled by coffee and good intentions studying a bit too into the night, some old folks struck by the “I’m getting too old to sleep a normal amount of hours” type of insomnia — always eager to strike up a conversation — but none of those are regulars per se. It’s always a bit weird to see the same person two days in a row during the night shift.

You’re not complaining tho, dude is eye-candy on legs and a surprisingly funny, if not a bit awkward, company. Speaking of awkward, the man seems to tense up at your question, almost as if taken aback. «Ah, yeah, I need… aaah… batteries.»

You can’t contain the twitch of one of your eyebrows. «Batteries.» «Yeah.» You eye him up and down, really questioning if you want to voice the dirty thoughts flashing through your mind at light speed. But you choose the mature route, mostly because he looks an awkward conversation away from never coming back. Besides, dude probably really only needs them for his TV remote or whatever; why couldn’t it wait for the morning shift to arrive, you have no idea, but still, it’s not like you dislike his company. «Right shelf beside the register.»

«Thanks.» The man shifts with you through the front of the store. «So, what do you need batteries for at…5:51 in the morning?» Damn it. You don’t know how to control yourself. Wait— 5:51? «Wow, shift’s almost over.» you mutter to yourself, impressed by how quickly the time had passed since the man had shown up. Not even registering that your mumbling had an audience. «Are you going home?» It’s really fortunate you’re almost always quick with a joke. «Oh no, I sleep in a couple of trash cans out back; it’s pretty cosy.» Silence fills the empty space where a comeback should have been placed, the man blinking dumbfoundedly at you. You should come with a warning, something along the lines of “Do not interact with, too dumb to have a serious conversation with.” so you bend at the hips, leaning slightly over the counter separating you two and reassure him. «I’m fucking with you. Yeah, I’m heading straight home after six. I need like three days’ worth of sleep.» The response you get back is almost immediate, as if the stranger had had it on the back burner for a while: «This late?» Yeah, you know, your sleep schedule is already fucked up. Your mother was right, you will work yourself to the bone. «It’s never too late for sleep.» «No, I meant, are you walking home this late at night?» Oh. That’s new. You haven’t had someone worrying about you since… well, you don’t really remember anymore. «I mean… It’s so late it’s basically early.» The answer doesn’t really seem to please him; worry lines deepening between his eyebrows. This is nice— not making him worry! Just— «I see a lot of joggers and old people walking their dogs on the way back, and it’s not like I’m far.» Your cramped words hurry up slightly faster than the warmth creeping into your cheeks. What the hell is wrong with you? «Right.» His lips pull into something that doesn’t quite pass for a smile. «Just— please be careful.»

Your heart beats a little bit faster. But maybe that’s just your imagination. «I will. Thanks, dude.»

Driiiiiin… Driii—

[3:20 am] «Leon Scott Kennedy. DSO. I understand. When will the extraction be? I understand.»

Bibibi—bip… bibibi-bip.

[4:22 am] You punch the alarm off, yet another thing in here that doesn’t work properly.

You sometimes ask yourself how the hell you ended up like this. With a dead-end job and a dead-end life, only willing to be lived as long as it never changes. Because nothing ever changes. Every day you wake up at the ass-crack of dawn, bid goodbye to a ratty apartment holding the shape of your existence in the murky mould growing on its walls and walk to a job within walking distance of your place, but a building jump and two train tracks nap from the life you had hoped for yourself. Where no one cared, and dingy radio stations cared even less if the same fucking song had been played twenty separate times already. «How’s studying?» Well, something did change. The man in front of your register is the same man who, three nights ago, had helped you change the neon light now happily buzzing over your head. All the same… if only the stranger didn’t look like he just came back from being mauled by a pack of rabid dogs. «A living hell.» His eyes crinkle, the ghost of a smile wafting over bruised features. Something in your chest squeezes, and your usual apathy gets pressed deeper into your soul as a part of you begs for you just to say something more. «New book helped tho, thanks. Really.» The stranger’s smile softens, eyes downcast as if doing so hurts him. «I’m glad.» In the buzzing silence of the convenience store, you dare to ask: «What happened?» His answer comes out tired, in a deep exhale. «Work.»

You wonder what type of work must ask from this kind man to hurt himself so brutishly. «Can I help?» Dull grey pin you to your spot, boring deep into your soul. «Freezer’s busted. I need something cold for the swelling.» His black eye seems painful. «Yeah… yeah, that I can do.»

«How much for… ahh… the mais?» «It’s okay, that’s on me.» A blood-caked eyebrow scrunches, then spasms in pain and smooths back to its original position, probably offended by the disturbance of the only painless position it can stay in. «No, you have tuitions to pay.» Another hundred bill slips into the jar beside you, without fanfare. Movement as smooth as the whipping of a cat’s tail.

«Sir— you don’t have to—» «When is the exam?» The man’s head tilt, chin pointing at the book opened up over your lap, hand coming to get the frozen bag of veggies you had armed him with and pressing it on his temple and over his offended eye. «Ah— next week, um, the third.» you let your head bob up and down, slightly taken aback by the question; you can’t exactly say you expected it. The man looks pensive for a second, glancing around and tapping two fingers over the counter he was almost leaning on. «You’re cutting it close with this one.» Your shoulders loll, a light exhale shakes your frame, and a stupidly derisive laugh escapes with your next batch of self-deprecating words. «Pftt. When am I not?» Your answer doesn’t really seem to please him. «You’re still good with the whole working at night and studying during the day, right?» God no, you haven’t been in a very long time. But it’s not like you can just drop your work; you have bills to pay and a belly to feed, thanks god it’s only your own. It’s not like he’s offering to patronise your studies. God, your own mother didn’t. So you plaster your best customer service face all over your tired features and smiling a very dim but persistent smile you respond: «Yeah, yeah, it’s good. It keeps me… active.» What a load of bullshit. You hear him mutter something similar to “okay” from his barricade of frozen veggies and cradling hands, awkward and weird. «Well, be—be careful walking back home, okay?» He had almost been successful at making you forget about the jarring hundred-dollar bill sticking out of the tip jar. «Sir, wait, I can’t accept—» but he doesn’t even let you finish the protest. «It’s for your next textbook or school supplies.» His voice hitches, his eyes suddenly look for yours and something heavy passes through his gaze. «You know what you need better than me.» he finally exhales, detaching from the counter and taking the door. «Thanks for the help.»

The people counter dings the silence of his departure away; you stare uselessly at his slightly hunched back as he walks away from you. «I did little to nothing.»

[5:59 am]

It is a bit weird. In the grand scheme of being a cashier and a waste of space, but also in the very spot you have fought tooth and nail to be in. It is weird for the man to give you such big tips. The morning air cools you down as the morning light approaches over the horizon, and the wall of buildings lining your view of the city starts to glow in a very dull blue, not yet morning, yet again too bold a colour to be night still.

The door is stuck, your shoulder hurts, and the meagre grocery bag you have convinced yourself to drag from your workplace to your apartment lies at your feet, the single treat of a melting ice cream bucket rolling from side to side every time you try to shoulder your way through your door. Fuck. Fuck your life so so hard. «Quit it!» Somebody screams from the stairwell, your back hits the wooden slab one last time, then you do as your bags, slowly falling onto the floor. This is too much, too overwhelming, too fucked up. You just want to sleep.

Your arm lifts; your phone lights up sadly, instructed to the lowest brightness setting possible, in the hope of saving up enough battery to receive your landlord’s response to a text from a couple of hours back. It’s 9 in the morning, and your phone is at two per cent. You just wanted to sleep. Sit on your fuck-ass couch and drown your sorrows in your textbook and a tub of ice cream.

You don’t really have a spoon, but the ice cream is melted enough to be drunk. You study chapter 23 like that, cross-legged in front of your door and drinking melted chocolate chips cookies ice cream from a soggy carton of the cheapest cardboard. And if a tear or two slipped from your eyes before you fell asleep, nobody was there to berate you for it.

DING!

[2:05 am] The neon light hits Leon’s eyes hard. The a-little-too-loud music for a store tackles him. The boy behind the counter is not a girl with sad eyes and quick wit. «Howdy! Welcome to 7-Eleven. If you need anything, I’m right here.» You should be behind the counter by now.

But maybe that’s good; maybe you have taken a day off to sleep the tiredness away from your eyes, to rest, properly rest and catch up with your studies without the impending doom of yet another shift. Maybe today is the day he finally can go on and buy what he has been itching to buy since he had last drained those few bottles he had bought the first time he had met you. Too ashamed to be seen by you, indulging in his destructive ways. «Yeah, no, thanks. I’m good.» «No problem, Sir.» His legs find the pathway to the strong liquors, ready to squirrel up as many bottles as possible. «Actually—» What the hell is he doing? Standing in front of the counter and staring at the kid. What if she’s hurt? Or missing? Or— «What’s your name?» The kid looks up, straightening his back and leaving the comfortable hunched position he has been keeping, half-sitting on a stool too high to let him properly rest and a fully standing stance. Looking at his own chest and muttering a “damn” under his breath. «Oscar, sir— Sorry I forgot the nametag.» «Okay, Oscar, can I ask you where the girl working nights is?» The young boy looks visibly confused, then, pinning the nametag he has been rummaging for in the pockets of the company apron, he looks up in wonder. «Ah, oh, the boss told me she didn’t clock in today; we tried to call her, but her phone is off. I’m new, sorry for the nametag-thing.» He knew it. Not a choice. «Are you her friend? Ah, shoot, what was her name again?» Leon’s jaw works as if about to chew out a response, then something hits him fair and square. He doesn’t know that. «I— no, I just noticed you were new.» The kid looks visibly taken aback. «Oh, okay.» Shit. He totally passed off as a creep.

His hand reaches for a snack beside the counter, hung up on the displays framing the little boot. Beef jerky. That’s normal, right? That’s a normal person’s errand. «I’ll— I’ll just take these.» «Okay. Have a good night, sir.» «You too. Bye.»

That’s creepy. He should go home. The Hamilton ticking on his wrist slashes the minutes away at an alarming slow pace. 2:44. He should go home, not wait a few buildings from the store in the hope that you will eventually show up. That’s what stalkers do. And he is not a stalker.

Jerky tastes like shit as well. He should—

In the distance, the pitter-patter of slammed soles on the asphalt rolls over the quiet noises of the night. Someone’s running. Leon turns around in time to hear the wet sound of a puddle being stepped on. Hard, frantic. Perhaps closer than he had thought.

Someone comes crashing, full speed, against him. In seconds, he’s on his back, his achy, achy back, looking at the stars littering the sky… and your eyes. Wide, crazed, with soft puffs of air flittering your lips. «Fuck, sorry, sorry— I— you?! Oh God, I’m so sorry I— I have to run, sorry. Sorry!»

And just like that, you hoist yourself up and resume your mad sprint.

SLAM!

What happened was: you got yourself almost fired. You got yelled at by your manager and almost lost the fucking graveyard shift, the one nobody wants.

You ought to be the stupidest person alive. How did you even manage to sleep that many hours in the horrible position that had left you with a crick in your neck and a sharp pain in your lower belly, as if your muscles would never be able to relax ever again? With clenched teeth, you grit your way through yet another scolding, smelling of the stale air your building’s halls reek of. «Now get the fuck out of here before I decide to fire you for real. And you better get your ass in here at nine tomorrow.» «I will. Sorry.» «Sorry what?» Your teeth clench; you can feel the vibration of the pulling and grinding. You feel like a muzzled dog. «Sorry, sir.» Bile bubbling up, the acrid taste of your venom behind closed teeth. You’re supposed to bite; it’s in your nature. This is abhorrent.

When you exit, it’s colder. The night air cuts deep into your flushed skin.

The man stands leaning onto a wall, where you had body-checked him into the ground, a bit more to the left. His eyes deep into yours.

It’s not like you want to interact with anybody right now; you just know it would be extremely rude not to — at least — apologise. You so desperately want to pull a The Passenger Benson, but you do not own a shotgun, and there is no scrawny co-worker you’d like to bully around in your mad run for it. So you just take a deep breath, because despite not having a rifle, you still like ripping the band-aid off first instead of soaking it in warm water, even if your mama has always told you patience is a developable virtue. «Hi, I’m sorry for that—» «Are you okay? I heard yelling.» Your steps falter, stopping a couple of paces from his figure. «No, yeah, I was late—» «How so?» It is somehow frustrating, bordering on plain annoying, but you are too disoriented to discern if that is your bad temperament talking or if you actually have a basis for being pissed off by the question. «Ahh…» you drag it out, hoisting your closed fists on your hips. «That’s a long story, I fell asleep on my front step—» «Outside?» Can you please finish one thought? «Yeah, I— my door broke, I kinda locked myself out.» «Coming to work?» «No, going back. Yesterday— no, well, yeah, like yesterday at five or so… in the morning.» «Where did you sleep then?» The question is so simple, so stupidly earnest, that for a second you can’t really compute an answer. You just stand there, mouth gaping for an answer. Until you can no longer mouth at an answer that won’t change shape nor shame, no matter how many times you try to rephrase it with your teeth. «In the stairwell.»

The man’s eyes go wide; you only see the beginning of it. Avoiding the contact in a sharp inhale. The arch in your back deflated. «Listen, I’m sorry for… I dunno, bodychecking you but right now I need to go home and—» «Sleep outside of your door?» Dude got some guts, so many in fact, you don’t even have a rebuttal. You just stare at him dumbly for the second time straight this night, arms uselessly dangling at your sides. A shiver runs through you, and you suddenly remember that you’re deep into the night and you’re only wearing a light shirt. You hiss, «Yeah… yeah, well. It’s not like I know how to fix it.» but it lacks the usual venom. «Do you… want a hand?» Your spin straightens up slightly. Eyes looking for something in the streetlights. «Yeah…» A shout pause elapses. «I mean, are you offering?» The man shrugs. «Sure, why not.»

[4:09 am]

«I actually never caught your name.» Your hand slaps over the plastic pin on the heart side of your chest, head turning, your neck popping sharply. Wow. You really slept funny last night. «Did you really never read the nametag?» You know you're being unfair, childish even, but it’s an odd thing to realise. Especially since you only now seem to realise you don’t know his name either. His shoulders draw closer; you can see a dusting of pink over the tip of his ear peaking from locks of salt and pepper; he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. Shielding himself from your eyes.

Which is a stupid train of thought to follow. Because you know yourself and you know the machinations of your heart and brain. So you cut it at the root. Before the thought can even bud. «I mean, I don’t know yours either. It does seem fair somehow.» So you try to give yourself some semblance of dignity. Squeezing yourself into your own bones of your shoulders and praying the path home would just suddenly shrink on itself. «Are you cold?» but it doesn’t; and you’re still 13 streetlights from your turn. «No… I—» you are, but it’s fine. «Is it weird? The name thing,» your hand twitches over the badge, «did I make it weird?» The light overhead buzzes as you pass it. «No! no… I mean—» the man's hair looks like a halo under the yellowy light. You think you did make it weird. «I’m Leon. Here, you’re one step ahead.»

Your nose scrunches up. A laugh stuck in your lungs. «You’re funny.» And suddenly you’re at the corner where you need to turn to face your building, and you are left wondering where the rest of the street went. Your voice feels almost choked out in your throat. You hadn’t noticed just how much you had been staring. Your eyes scurry away to find refuge in the familiar sight of bricks chewed up by time. «This way.» Leon’s eyes don’t seem preoccupied with the same worries as yours. «I’m gonna have to read it on the doorbell, don’t I?» As you previously already noticed: he’s funny. Too bad on the doorbell; there’s still the old tenant’s name.

You stubbornly keep your palm flat against the nametag all the way up the flight of stairs. Leon, behind you, groans from time to time when a step is steeper than the rest or a tile in the landing is missing. «Digby?» he finally huffs when he’s in front of your door, and he squints at the yellowish piece of paper duct-taped over the bell. Your laugh rises softly. «Not even close.» Leon’s eyebrows arch up, but it’s such a knowing gesture you can’t really take his next words seriously. «Are you roping me into a breaking and entry?» «God knows I’d need the money.» You joke lightly. His eyes feel magnetised, staring holes through you, you’re still clutching your nametag like a kid. A giggle escapes your lips. Your hand slides down, a horrible pun about being glad Leon had not stare at your chest simmers behind your teeth, but you don’t let it bubble over. Leon’s eyes fall, reading your name, almost testing it on the tip of his tongue. «Nice to meet you.» he finally breathes. Your eyes tug at the corners. «It’s my pleasure.» And for a second, you remain like that, somehow you feel vulnerable, naked, as if undressed of your armour. For a name. Such drama.

«Come on. I don’t want you sleeping out here yet another night.» Yeah. yeah, that’s a good idea. «Yeah.» Your gaze falls as you rummage through your purse to get to your keys. «Here, this is the key. I passed a good hour or two yesterday bodychecking the door. The floor is yours.»

Leon’s brute force is definitely much, much more than yours, but all in all, what really makes the difference between yet another night spent outside your apartment and the lumpy bed you call “refuge” is his lockpicking ability. Something you won’t question; not if it gives you back your home.

You almost squeal in delight as the satisfying ‘click’ echoes through the hallway, followed by the clap of your hands, as if recognising his mastery over locks.

The sun has started to rise when you finally enter your apartment, Leon behind you, stuck on the doorway. «Locks busted.» is what he lands on, awkwardly lingering on the threshold. «Ask the landlord to change it. It should be fairly easy.» It’s awkward how he lingers sometimes; you noticed, at the counter, under the streetlamp outside your work, in front of the wide-open door he himself has fixed. He does tend to be awkward in himself, maybe more than plain weird, just unsure of his next move. «Come on, Leon, let me at least offer you something.» Like a puppet whose strings have just been tugged, the man enters the apartment. Not that you can pay him too much mind, your hand instinctively reaches for the bottle of water over the counter. It has, after all, been almost a full day since the last time you drank any water. «Do you have the number of any affordable locksmith?» you finally manage to ask after yet another starved gulp. Leon’s face scrunches up. «It’s fairly simple; your landlord should be able to manage on his own.» You giggle. «Yeah, in my wildest dreams. He’s not gonna do jackshit, and I know nothing of these things sooo… do you have a name?» Leon’s eyebrows do something complicated. «I mean, I could probably change it if I had the right piece.» Oh. «I— I do have the replacement piece. Bought it ages ago when I thought Jerry— the landlord would help.» Silence passes through the space separating you, thicker than air You feel like you misinterpreted his words. «If it’s not— sorry, forget it—» «No! No, that’s— that’s good. I can. If you want me to.» You still feel like you did misinterpret his words, but you’re also so, so very tired. «I mean…You would be a lifesaver.»

The screwdriver clatters back into the toolbox, Leon tests the lock once, twice, then hums; satisfied. «All done.» A groan escapes his lips as he slowly rises up from his kneeling position. You feel stupid just standing there doing nothing as you have been doing for the past fifteen minutes or so, but you don’t know what else to do. «Do you wanna try it out?» Leon leans onto the door, frame in hand and the new shining handle in the other; you’re beyond grateful, you really are, even if a good deal of awkward on your part. «You really can’t understand just how much you’ve helped me.» Your legs bounce on itself. «Thank you so so—» your words cut short; something other than the brass lock shines in the low light of your apartment. Under a thick leather jacket, tucked away between layers of soft clothes. A holster with a gun. A massive one. You freeze. Oh…

And suddenly you seem to remember that you don’t actually know this guy.

NEXT PART →

I KNOW! Please don't shoot, let me explain… I know I have way too many fic open… but this is only a two-chapter (three at maximum🥺) story… Plus, I was feeling overwhelmed by life and needed a messy protagonist to project onto. Sue me. As always, please let me know what you think. I love reading the comments <3 <3

The woman on the other end of the phone begins rattling off names of boutiques you frequent, the salon you visit bi-weekly for touch-ups to your nails and hair, the one store you always drag him into, and the other so he can watch you try on lingerie in front of a tri-fold mirror (he doesn’t mind going into that one with you, for obvious reasons).  

Thousands of dollars spent over the course of a few hours. It’s impressive really, and if he wasn’t so mad at you, he’d admit that it must be some sort of talent you possess, being able to drain his bank account in such record time. 

This must be your way of getting back at him for the comment he made last night as the two of you argued back and forth over something so trivial and stupid, he can’t even remember. Or maybe that’s just because he’s getting old. 

What was it again? Did he say you…fuck, he really can’t remember.

“It’s fine. I recognize those.”

“Are you authorizing these charges, Mr. Kennedy?”

“Yes, yes,” he says quickly, dismissing her concern. “That was me.” 

“Alright, then. Have a great day, Mr. Kennedy, and thank you for trusting Capital Bank for all your financial needs.” 

“Yes, yeah, you too.” Once the line is dead, he leans back in his rolling desk chair, stretching his arms back, clasping his hands behind his head. “Fuck.” 

You sit in the living room, with one recently waxed leg crossed over the other, anxiously shaking your recently buffed and polished foot, flipping your recently dyed and blow dried hair over your shoulder as you wait for Leon’s return. There’s a mountain of shopping bags, stuffed with items you neither need nor particularly wanted, still wrapped up in tissue paper and tied with satin ribbons blocking the front door. You hope it’s the first thing he lays eyes on when he walks inside. Which, you glance down at the glittering watch on your wrist, should be any moment now.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Leon’s shoulders fall as he crosses the threshold, tossing his keys into the bowl by the door, his folded jacket onto the hook beside it. His eyes fall to the massacre around his feet, and he kicks the bags and boxes out of his way. “Where are you?” 

You don’t answer, letting him take another step down the hall to meet your eyes across the living room.

“Are you serious? Almost ten thousand dollars in four hours. What the fuck?” Voice as exhausted as it is thick with incredulity, the whiny sound almost makes you feel sorry for the man. “Are you insane?” 

You stay seated, your arms crossed over your middle, waiting patiently for him to approach. Maybe when he gets close enough, you’ll kick him right in the balls. He deserves it. For what? You can’t exactly remember…

Did you accuse him of cheating? 

Perhaps he forgot your birthday?

Or an anniversary?

It made you mad last night, though, and you were still pissed when you woke up to buttery sunshine and chirping birds this morning, so it had to have been something serious…right?

“Ten thousand dollars,” he repeats, loosening the silk tie around his neck. Before he can get to close, you jump out of the chair and trudge down the hall, toward the stairs. “Don’t you walk away from me, young lady,” he calls out after you. 

“Can’t hear you,” you shout back, beginning your trek up the stairs. He nearly catches you, taking the steps two at a time, forcing you to quicken your pace, rounding the corner of the landing until you run to refuge in your bedroom. 

His stride is much longer than yours, however, and he’s hot on your trail, storming into the room after you. 

“Ten thousand dollars.” Almost. “Why? What could possibly have made you think that was okay?”

“You–you are never home, Leon,” you say, trying to improvise on the spot. It surprises you just how easy it is to fall back into the argument that took place last night, all the puzzle pieces finally fitting together. “You’re always away, off getting shot at, thrown around my mutant creature-things. Do you want to get yourself killed?” 

His eyes widen as he fumbles with the buttons at the top of his dress shirt. “I did today after I got that call from the bank. Damn near put in a request for another assignment once the lady told me how much you spent.” He’ll probably have to save another relative of the president to recoup the cost of your adventure.

You roll your eyes. “See? Everything’s a joke to you, huh? Can you not be serious for one moment?”

“You’re returning all that shit tomorrow,” he barks back, ignoring you completely, making quick work of his belt, sliding the leather through the loops of his slacks.

“I am not,” you say, folding your arms, jutting out your hip. 

“Yes you are.” He takes another step toward you, unfastening the cuffs of his crisp, white shirt so he can roll the sleeves up his forearms. 

“No, I’m not.” 

He groans, tossing his head back, muttering to himself. “What the fuck have I done in my life to deserve this?” But save people, save his country. Maybe you’re his karma for some deed that went unnoticed, unpunished. 

A delicious punishment, indeed. 

Except Leon doesn’t punish. He loves. He doubles down on his affection, smothering you with his gentility and compassion until there’s nothing left for you to do but relinquish your obstinance. 

You step to move past him, but his hands are too quick, snatching you up by the waist, grabbing you into his arms. He’s too strong, and you know better than to think you could successfully evade his grasp, but you try anyway. Unrelenting, you squirm around, trying to sink to your knees to duck away but his forearms wrapped around your back keep you on your feet.

Futile…of course. 

“Stop it,” he growls, forcing a kiss onto your lips. It’s ferocious and almost violent the way he presses his face against yours. You can almost feel the lines and ridges of his teeth through the skin. He groans into your mouth, the vibrations tickling your lips. “Let me love you.” There is such sincerity in the plea that it elicits pinpricks of tears in the corners of your eyes, softening your hardened heart. “All I want to do is love you. Why won’t you let me?” 

He places you onto the bed, flipping you over onto your front, your breasts squished between your weight and the cool fabric of the comforter, no place for your face to go but left or right. You screw your eyes shut, bottom and top lashes glued together by a smear of salty drops, and you rely on your other senses to betray the scene behind you.

Leon manually lifts your hips to place a pillow beneath them, and you hear a rustling of his dress shirt as he lifts the cloth of your robe, as he pulls your panties down the trembling flesh of your thighs. 

With his knuckles, he nudges your legs apart just an inch so he can bury two fingers inside of your aching cunt. 

“Are you gonna let me take care of you, baby?” He asks, plunging his digits in and out of you as his sugary words meet your ears. So soft. “You must have forgotten how much I love you. That’s why you acted out like that, huh?”

You nod against the mattress, unable to produce any sound beyond your soprano cries of pleasure. 

“Let me remind you then.” 

His other hand comes to the small of your back, pressing your lower stomach further into the mattress. The simple touch magnifies the intensity a hundred fold, the pressure on your front wall hurrying your approaching climax. He’s aware that this little trick is a guaranteed way to have your legs shaking for hours after your height of pleasure. 

“Leon,” you cry, grappling at the sheets above your head, searching for something to tether you to the earth, certain that if you don’t, you’re at risk of ascending to the heavens. 

He hardly has to move his fingers, only crooking them at the knuckle to push the spot behind your clit to shove you over the edge. Your first orgasm hits you like a wave, your abdomen tensing and releasing, your walls clenching around his digits, your toes going numb.

You cry out his name, lips stained with spittle and the swears that pass through them as your next climax already starts to build.

Leon chuckles darkly behind you, perfectly content with how you’re melting beneath him, putty in the palm of his hand. Yet he’s still not satisfied. 

“It’s not fair, baby, you know that. I work so hard to give you everything you want–anything you could possibly need to be safe and happy.” You can sense him shaking his head in disbelief as his fingers continue to dive rhythmically into your pussy. “The only things I want to do in my silly little life are to love you and make you happy. It’s just not fair when you go out and try to punish me like that.” 

You sob into the sheets, your second wave of pleasure cresting over you, this one far more intense and demanding. It has your thighs quaking and your stomach contracting, muscles already sore. 

“I can’t, Leon,” you manage to shriek, trying to shift your hips beneath his heavy hands, to crawl up the bed. He doesn’t let you, instead, keeping you pinned to the mattress. 

“Yes you can, sweetheart,” he assures sweetly, though his ferocious fingers are anything but. “One more, baby. Just give me one more. I want to make you feel good, remember?” 

But it doesn’t feel good. Pleasure quickly bleeds into pain as your throbbing clit refuses any more stimulation. And yet, a third orgasm slams into your body, somehow more violent than the last. It has you quivering from head to toe, and you lose feeling in your fingers. 

“No more,” you whimper, tears cascading down your numb cheeks. “No more.” Your bottom lip is swollen and bruised, no doubt a mirror image of your clit, which is being stabbed with aftershocks. “I can’t.” 

Leon removes his fingers from your pussy, and you use the last morsel of strength you have to glance over your shoulder, watching as he licks the evidence of your pleasure from them. He flips you over onto your back and bows down to press a nimble kiss onto your clit, still so red and sore, you yelp at even the lightest touch. 

He situates himself near the headboard and pulls you along the mattress into his arms, covering your sullied body with the curtains of your robe. 

“I feel so bad,” you cry into your hands, shaking your head against your palms, your tears lubricating the movement. “I’m so sorry, Leon. I’m so, so sorry.” 

Leon can’t stand to see you cry. For every unhappy tear you shed down your sweet, soft face, a crack in his old heart deepens. He just can’t take it. The sight makes him sick to his stomach, and he’d do anything–anything–to make you feel better.

“Shh, baby, baby, baby.” He pulls you further into his chest to cradle you in his arms, and you let him pet your head, smoothing your hair, playing with the strands between his fingers. “It’s alright, baby. You’re okay.”

“I don’t know why I did it. I can’t even remember why we fought in the first place,” you admit through another violent sob. “Not really.”

“Please don’t cry,” he pleads, cupping the side of your face. “I hate seeing you cry.”

You sniffle, wiping your wet eyes on the back of your hand. “I’m sorry.”

After a few minutes of him holding you like this, among the silent calm of the bedroom, Leon finally speaks. “If you want us to take that vacation we’ve been planning, you know you’ll have to return some of that stuff. Doesn’t have to be everything.” He shrugs. “Just a few things.” 

You nod against him, sticky tears drying down on your cheeks. “I know.” 

“Just not that lingerie, got it?” The corner of his mouth lifts into a half-smile, and the sight makes your heart skip a beat or two.

You break out into a giggle, the first time you’ve genuinely laughed since your argument last night, and it feels good. A sweet release.  

“The problem is,” Leon inserts into the conversation without any preamble, “is that I can’t keep up with the new lingo nowadays.”

You send him a slantways look, admiring him in profile—somehow, even in the depths of being utterly unmoored, he still cuts a dashing figure. Still broad-shouldered and endearing, as his brow furrows and that familiar crinkle of crow’s feet manifests in the corners of his eyes—utterly baffled.

This is why, in this dichotomy, these oppositional ends encapsulated in one man—you laugh. A genuine, ebullient noise, made to share in his pain. You can’t help it; you’re always charmed by Leon.

Even as he seems to maintain his gaze upon you in confused focus while you prop your head in the crook of your palm. An empathetic smile crosses your face as you look at your better—your elder, you suppose.

“That’s just how it goes, old man,” you say teasingly, without bite; this is why he’s emboldened to send you back what you would qualify as a sheepish grin—“—Times change and so do what’s cool.”

“Didn’t expect it to just creep up on me like that.” He continues, his voice coarse with the gravity of years suddenly catching up all at once. You giggle again, trying your best to smother it in the heel of your palm on Leon’s behalf.

“What’s the word, Mr. Kennedy?” You ask, prompting the swivel of his gaze up from the unerring table surface up to the minutiae of your face. At this, he makes a dispassionate sigh through his teeth, shrugging.

“Too many to count.” He admits—and this makes three laughs in short span of time—“—Sherry doesn’t mean to, but she keeps throwing in things that I just have to nod along to.”

“Give me something,” you urge him, holding your hand out to receive his answer. “At least one.”

He pauses now, retreating into the fog of stymied memories as he searches for something. Finally after the elapsing of a meandering second, he produces an answer.

“Cooked?” Leon asks, a crease manifesting between the knit of his brow. “But there’s two meanings to it—”

“Uh-huh,” You nod agreeably, “That’s right.”

He seems a little more heartened at this confirmation. “Okay. Also—”—He sends you a confirmatory squint through his confusion—“—Aura?”

“Yes, that one’s being repurposed,” You explain with a jovial grin; as time passes, it’s becoming more and more difficult to be able to repress another laugh threatening to make way. “They had that one back in your time though, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” He grunts dismissively, settling an impressive column of an arm back on the table, “But I don’t know if I really got it back then either.”

You know that you’re gracing him with a full-bodied smile, but you’re having too much fun now. Leon is making it too much fun; you cross your arms as you tick back in your own seat.

“Any others?” You inquire, because you don’t want this little dalliance in whimsy to pass by too quickly. He thinks, mellow as he considers one to make an even three.

“Sherry and her friends say that I have a—”—Here, he has enough sensibility to be somewhat abashed about this term—“—Dad bod.”

And this is when the dam breaks with finality; the laugh that bursts from you is explosive, rocketing you forward in your seat.

But there’s just something so adorable about this man who has saved the world multiple times over, fought countless enemies beyond most people’s mortal capabilities. And yet, he still remains confounded by that everlasting mystery of raising a daughter and having to interact with her friends.

“Poor Leon,” You chuckle, looking at the bracing grimace that he sends your way, “Still can’t escape the barbs of a girl with her clique, huh?”

“I didn’t know it was a barb,” He confesses, “Because they wouldn’t tell me what it meant.”

“Well, do you?” You ask with a teasing angle to the upturned corner of your mouth. “Have a dad bod?”

“I don’t know,” He says, and perhaps it’s because it’s the late, after-hours nature of the conversation. Perhaps it's the relaxed ambience that the two of you have happily cohabited in here, that has made your senses dulled.

“Is this a dad bod?” Is what Leon says next. Then, before you can conceive possible prediction for what he could possibly do, he slowly, almost shyly, hucks up the hem of his shirt.

And all you can do, for lack of better word, is stare at the mouthwatering display before you. Old he might be, but that word seems to falter in the space of the absolute testament before you. The one that proclaims in lurid display musculature sculpted by hard work and divine intervention.

He’s jacked—you think that you could grind meat on those abs, given the chance. When he takes in a protracted, shuddering breath, you see the flex of his stomach, the coil of exertion, and this draws your eyes down to the sharp v that ascends from his waistband.

You don't even realize you’ve been staring far, far too long at the fine layer of hair that composes a happy trail that you desperately, desperately want to see the end of the rainbow at. It's here that Leon speaks.

“You can touch it if you want to,” Leon says, and the muscles only coil taut at this, breaking the spell. Letting you catch that honeyed undercurrent in his voice, tear your eyes up to see the tentatively hopeful look he casts your way.

“You think it’ll help with my research?” You ask, because you’re always one to play games, now that you know the score. And lucky for you, from the quiet grin manifesting on Leon’s face, he’s eager to walk the walk with you.

“I hear that hands-on experiences are always the best,” He replies. There’s something rich and low that sends a shiver down your spine, to cause all the right locales of your body to perk up with interest.

“I prefer being wined and dined first, Mr. Kennedy.” You straighten up in your seat. Testing the waters that your superior, your better is making overtures at that you want to explore. And his hands finally lower at this, concealing the most-definitively not dad bod that you’re already missing sight of.

“I never said I wouldn’t,” He says, and there’s almost something offended at this—again, you feel a pang of fondness for this gentleman trying to offer his body to you.

But there’s still a wicked spark of mischief in his eyes as he maintains marked intensity with yours. “But I never heard there was any shame in a practice run.”

“You know,” You find yourself inching along, tethered by a force far more magnetic than verbal application can explain, “I hear that practice does make perfect.”

“Glad we’re on the same page,” Leon smirks, and his hand is so gentle as it draws up the landscape of your cheek, “Why don’t you come here so we can get started?”

“Aye aye, Mr. Kennedy,” You make breathless chuckle against the terrain of his lips. Looks like you’re going to get some extensive field experience with Mr. Kennedy’s dad bod after all.

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Your marriage with Leon was relatively new, being shy of just four years, most of your friends made sure you knew good and well how they felt about the relationship. Of course, many of your friends were supportive, because if you were happy and he treated you well nothing else mattered. They knew he was older, knew he had a job, spoiled you and cared for you like no one’s business.

But in every conversation where your friends would talk about their own boyfriends or their relationships, there would always be one person to remind you of the obvious.

It was painful, honestly. You knew the age thing would be controversial to some, and you knew the complications of it all. Hell, Leon was the one that kept rejecting you despite your adamance to be with him.

But you saw past the age difference and more at the man he was.

And being the doting, caring husband he was, he always put you before him. It didn’t matter the case, the situation or the scenario, if it benefitted you and made you happy, it was done. Which is why you were currently sprawled out naked on the warmth of the messy bed, legs spread apart as he propped himself between the softness of your thighs.

The two of you tried, key word: tried, to enjoy each other’s presences. A natural, soft kind of intimacy saved for nights where he wasn’t tired and felt particularly eager on pleasing you. And he so desperately wanted to please you. To soak in the warmth of your body against his, to press his lips against your neck and hear your soft little moans as he nudged his cock against the wetness of your walls.

Except that plan, that thought in his mind was evaporated about as quickly as steam from a pan. By the time he fished out his cock between slow mouth kisses and gentle squeezes of your ass, the damn thing just flopped out. Not hard, not even a half chub. It was like looking at deflated balloon, just soft and embarrassingly so.

The embarrassment had crawled up his spine and rushed to his neck so fast he nearly got dizzy. Of course, now was one of the times his dick decided to stop working. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to fuck you. How could he not when you were looking up at him so pretty and expectantly, glossy lips and wide eyes watching his every move.

It was terrible. Worse than anything he’s ever dealt with or any person he’s ever fought.

The arousal was there, the want was there. You were right there. But it was like his mind and body were disconnected, unplugged from the port. He tried giving himself a few strokes, busying himself with the smell of you and the taste of your skin hoping (and praying) that he would just get hard.

For a moment, he couldn’t even meet your eye. He was terrified. Would you take it the wrong way? Would you be disappointed? God, what would you think?

He tried to busy your eyes from anything but him, peeled off your shorts and guided you against him as he tried to work with what he had. The last thing he wanted was for you to see and immediately think the worse; the disappointment, the rejection, the dissatisfaction, the unattractiveness. Throughout all his inner thoughts and the waves of worries, he only thought about you.

And that’s how you suddenly wound up with a pillow under your hips and one leg pulled over his shoulder. He didn’t care for himself anymore, and despite the lack of warmth from your bodies pressed together just five minutes ago, he was more than happy to focus on the pretty wetness of your pussy.

His mouth was placed sloppily against your cunt, eyes glued onto your face to soak in every little gasp and reaction you had. His tongue dragged up in long almost frantic slides, moving up and down, then side to side. Your hips jerked forward, feet digging into the mattress below you as you moaned softly.

His lips were swollen and glossy with the thin sheen of your own juices, mouth inching further and further up to suck at your clit. Two of his thick fingers were shoved knuckle deep into the weeping mess of your cunt, pumping in and out in slow squelches. His digits turned, scissoring and curling against your walls as he flicked the tip of his tongue against your clit.

His other hand gripped tightly around your thigh, squeezing the flesh and guiding your hips against his face to literally smother himself in the taste of you. He let out a low, vibrating groan into your pussy, eyes fluttering slightly as you ran a hand through his hair.

Your fingers curled into his hair, back arching as his mouth latched around your clit again. His nose buried against the dampness of your skin, fingers pulling out with a quiet, wet pop. You let out a whiny moan at the loss of his fingers, pussy clenching around the cold air. “W-what, why’d you stop?”

You can feel his grin against your folds, eyes shifting up from the slick in front of him to the verbal disappointment on your face. “Patience, baby. Just getting a better angle, ‘s all.”

You huffed impatiently, shifting back as he gently tucked the pillow further under your hips. He planted his lips against your inner thighs in teasing, soft kisses as he angled your hips up just another fraction or two. Staring down at him, you let out another little noise of impatience only to be met with a smug grin from your husband.

“God, baby. Don’t get all worked up now.”

“Leon. Hurry up.”

He laughs, warm and muffled against your thigh before giving you a slow nod. He nips at your inner thigh, enjoying the way you squealed and squirmed against the bed. “Okay, okay. ‘M sorry.”

He gives you approximately two seconds to prepare yourself before immediately diving back into your pussy. He presses a firm hand against the soft of your stomach, forcing you still as he mouthed open kisses to your slit. Whimpering shakily as he firmly pressed a calloused fingertip against your clit, he dragged the base of his tongue along the slick of your arousal.

He peppers your folds in kisses, spreading your lips apart to gently slide the tip of his tongue against your fluttering entrance. He’s met with momentary resistance, before gently pressing his tongue an inch further.

“Oh, fuck.” You gasp heavily, fingers digging into his scalp as you subconsciously buck your pussy against his face. He sloppily slides just the tip of his tongue inside, curling the pink muscle and rotating it slightly. His thumb presses firmly against your throbbing clit, rubbing quick, tight circles against the nub.

Between your frantic squirms, moany gasps and the audible sounds of your pussy, Leon’s subtle sounds of approval are barely heard. A growing warmth spreads from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes. Tugging mindlessly on Leon’s hair, though he doesn’t seem to mind, his eyes are entirely fixated on you. He watches as your body tenses, hips stuttering forward at the heavy pinch of your clit.

Your orgasm washes over you abruptly between airy moans, an intense heat sprouting in your gut before breaking off into a long simmering buzz. Your thighs twitch against his head, his large, calloused palms wrapped around the flesh of your thighs to soothe you. He pulls back slightly, watching your chest rise and fall in labored breaths as he laps at the mess of juices against your slit. He licks the gloss from his lips, splattered with your own arousal and juices before hesitating.

You’re completely oblivious to the moment, slowly coming down from your high as he strokes your thigh. His eyes dart down momentarily towards the growing tent in his boxers and the persistent throb of his cock finally coming to life. Without thinking twice, he lets out a small chuckle, gaining your attention as he moved to wrap an arm around your waist.

“What’s so funny?” You asked between labored breaths, shimmying against him as he gave your hip a small squeeze. You ran a hand up to his forearm, glancing down as his other hand moved to free himself for the second time tonight.

“No nothing, hon’.” He rubs his thumb up and down the expanse of your waist, looking down at you as he allowed his hand to roam. “Just thinking.”

You smiled slightly, a bit dazed and confused as you tilt your head at him. “About what?”

“How many times I can stuff that pretty pussy full.”

He wasn’t quite sure where to go. Thought about seeing one of the many national parks he has free access to but never the time, or maybe visit Europe without worrying about a zombie on his back every second. Hunnigan suggested somewhere tropical, and with no other ideas, he splurged a bit with the excessive amount of money he doesn’t use and booked a flight to Hawaii. Can’t really get more tropical than that.

Didn’t have anyone to drag along with him either, so here is, watching the ocean by himself. The beach isn’t too crowded, at least. A couple kids playing in the water, a family a bit aways to his right and an old couple to his left. There’s a group of girls he can hear giggling nearby but doesn’t pay too much attention to it.

The most surprising part is that Leon actually feels relaxed. For once in his life, the DSO has promised not to call him no matter the emergency. He doesn’t really believe them, but the gentle lapping of the waves on the shore washes it away from his mind for a while. The beer helps too, but that’s a given.

He lets his thoughts wander for a while, rawdogging the view with not even a phone in his hand. Old fashioned, he’d say. After a couple hours, the beach gets a little more full and his beer is gone so he sighs and gets up. Groans quietly as he stretches and feels his joints pop.

Well, the sun’s setting now. No other idea of where to wander himself off to, he spots a beach bar and decides a fruity cocktail wouldn’t hurt.

Your older cousin is helping you get instagram pictures a bit aways from the bar, in her natural habitat getting your best angles as you pose in front of the sunset. Usually you’re very adamant on not taking pictures because you end up hating them all, but she insisted, and you’ve fawned over her perfectly aesthetic and cool photo dumps since you got the app in middle school. 

“Oh, right there! If this isn’t your profile picture after…” she trails off as she locks in again. Your ‘right there’ pose is a look of shock thanks to the sexiest man you’ve ever seen alive that just walked past you. Older, taller, morally gray, not to mention the biggest god damn biceps you’ve ever seen. Daddiest of daddies. The same age as your own dad, if not older.

”God, you look so good in that bikini. Do you remember when our moms made us get those matching—what’s with that look on your face?” She follows your gaze, squinting before finally realizing it must be that guy who’s just sat at the bar. She knows you like older guys, and thus knows exactly what you’re thinking.

“Oh… okay, the other ones I could get behind because at least they were early thirties, but that one is at least 45!”

”Nat, look at his fucking biceps!” You whisper yell a her, taking your phone back as you finally snap out of your starstruckedness. Your eyes, however, are still staring at Leon, the way his muscles move under his skin when he hands his card to the bartender. You’re not the best at flirting, but you’d be an idiot not to try.

”Don’t do it…” Natalie warns, giving you a look as she sees your lips quirk up. You squint, waiting for him to turn… yes! No ring!

”It’s fine, he’ll probably turn me down anyway, I just wanna say hi,” you reply, glancing behind her at your other cousin who’s just returned from the bathroom. They both share a look and a sigh, knowing they’re not gonna be able to hold you back.

”Fine… but be careful, girlie. Give us a look and we’ll come save you,” your other cousin says, crossing his arms. You do a fist bump of victory, trying to brush your nerves off before approaching.

Leon thanks the bartender when he gets his drink, some fruity paradise bullshit with a stupid name that he knows he’ll probably order four more of. He’s having a grand old time in his own world, until he gets pulled out of it by someone sliding onto the stool next to him.

”Excuse me, mister, aren’t you too hot to be sitting here all by yourself?” You question with a sly smile, deliberately crossing one leg over the other and leaning against the bar in a way that subtly pushes up your chest. Leon looks immediately, and then curses himself for doing so. He's not a perv, you just caught him off guard! He swears!

”Oh, you think so? You’re pretty good at flattery, sweetheart,” he says, turning towards you. Somehow, getting hit on is just about the last thing he was expecting from this trip. Especially not by a younger girl. He thought he was long out of the game. 

“Just calling it as I see it,” you hum, letting your eyes take the lead in imagining what’s under his shirt as you ‘absentmindedly’ trace the hem of your bikini top, teasing. You try to think of something your parents would ask for small talk. “You on, uh, a solo trip?”

”Sure,” he shrugs, not wanting to bore you with the details. It’s not something our twenty-something mind needs to worry about. He glances around, spotting several boys much closer to your own age. Taking off his sunglasses, he turns back to you. “What’s brought you next to me, hm? Takin’ pity on me?”

”I think it’s the other way around,” you reply with a short laugh, bouncing your foot that’s not supported, lightly brushing his leg. 

“You want me to buy you a drink then? Is that it?” He questions, lips quirking up in a smirk. You falter slightly. You could say yes, but our cousins are watching, and if you drink something they’re definitely putting a stop to this. It’s so early to drop the bomb, though.

”Uh, I hate to say no, but… I’m not quite old enough to drink, mister,” you decline, shaking your head, looking a little more shy compared to your bold flirting. Leon blinks. He thought you were in your mid twenties, but you can’t even drink. Can you even drive?

”…no? You’re not 21?” He clarifies, brows furrowing now. He almost feels like he needs to push his drink away from your eyesight now. God, you’re so gonna get him in trouble. “How old are you then, cutie?”

Your hesitation is enough of an answer as it is, not to mention the way you glance away again. It’s cute, but hes way more focused on your response. You tap your nails on the bar. “I’m… almost 20.”

Almost 20. You’re 19, barely even legal. You’re literally less than half his age. He already felt like a creep, sitting next to you with grey streaks in his hair and a salt and pepper stubble. Now he feels like he needs to go turn himself in, get an ankle monitor too. That’s his brain telling him it’s the right thing to do, he's annoyed at his guts for not twisting with guilt. Not even a pinch. 

“Jesus, girl. You’re just a baby,” Leon chuckles in disbelief, scratching his cheek. Why isn’t he turning you away? “I couldn’t take a chance on a chick like you.”

”No? But mister, I promise I know what I want,” you whine playfully, just playing it up for the fun of it now. You know you’re not getting in his pants, as much as you’d like to dive right in. “I’m not a kid.”

”Uh huh. Does your mother know that you’re out, honey?” He scoffs, but not meanly. What the hell kind of daddy issues have you got that pushed you to flirt with him? “You sure you don’t have a curfew?”

You're trying hard to keep up with the flirty game, but do you really stand a chance when he says those words to you? With that deep, rough voice of his and the crows feet at the corners of his eyes when he smirks at you? You could melt into his lap right now.

“I’m an adult, mom’s not in charge of me anymore,” you giggle, trying to play sly still. It’s like you’re playing in mom’s makeup, though, with the way your eyes are all sparkly and swirling with warmth as you stare up at him.

”I can chat with you, baby, since you think it’s so funny. But you should slow down,” Leon warns teasingly, still not sure why he hasn’t patted your head and told you to run along. He brushes some hair from your face. “Flirting with men twice your age is no way to go.”

”I’m just… making conversation,” you murmur, a little distracted by his touch even though his fingers never actually kiss your skin. If you’re being honest, this is the closest you’ve gotten to actually getting with an older man. “It’s called being polite, mister.”

”Call me Leon, sweetheart,” he says, shifting slightly when he feels the toe of your flip flop brush his calf again. You give him your own name in return, feeling your cheeks turn a bit pink for a reason you can’t quite identify.

”Leon,” you say in a lower, softer voice. You pause, glancing at your cousins and the lack of brightness in the sky. You turn back to him, your pretty lips giving him one of those smiles. He knows what that means

”Look, princess, you’re cute. I like your style. But you’re still just a teen, little girl,” he sighs, eyes betraying him and finding your lips as his hand comes up to hold your chin, thumb rubbing so gently at your jaw. You almost visibly melt at his touch, and do you even know that you're giving him puppy dog eyes right now?

Jesus, this is low, even for him.

”I think you would be better off with a boy your own age, cutie.”

”Well I think I would be better off spending the night with you,” you say quietly, your foot now deliberately rubbing up and down his leg. You’re stubborn, he’ll give you that.

”I’m really too old for you, miss. You’ll get me in trouble.” So why is he still here, letting you sit next to him?

“Please? You won’t even notice I’m there,” you plead, trying really hard now. You’ve never put so much effort into flirting before.

”That’s not true. I can’t keep my eyes off of you,” Leon admits as his thumb swipes over the corner of your mouth, becoming more and more bemused by your lips. When did you get so close, anyway?

”Just one night, mister,” you whisper, looking up at him with big doe eyes that you desperately hope are working as you turn your head slightly to press a kiss to the pad of his thumb. He sighs, brows furrowing as he watches you, conflicted. “No one has to know.”

“One night. Then you need to find a boy your own age,” he finally relents, kissing your cheek. He's on vacation, anyway, and you’re clearly not gonna give up. He’ll never see you again after this, and all will be well.

The second Leon closes the door behind him and provides you the privacy of the suite he spent a little extra money on, you eagerly reach for him, tugging him into a kiss. He lets out a small sigh against your lips, his hand that had been on the small of your back wrapping around your waist now.

”Someone’s impatient,” he murmurs, kissing you back and lightly biting your lower lip. You can feel your heart beating in your chest, your whole body thrumming with excitement.

His hand finds the back of your neck, tilting your head so he can slip his tongue in your mouth. You gasp softly, making his lips twitch into an almost smile. He figured you’d be at least a little inexperienced, but you’re a better kisser than he expected. Must be a natural.

Your arms wind around his neck as he picks you up, forcing a surprised noise out of you. God, you could tell he was strong, but he scoops you up like you’re nothing. It’s way hotter than it needs to be.

He sits on the edge of the bed with you in his lap, pulling you as close as he can. You literally fit into him, just like a puzzle piece. His hands wander your half naked body, leaving hot trails of pleasure that your skin doesn’t know how to react to. It’s never felt like this before.

“You’ve done this before, right?” Leon asks just in case, kissing along your jawline now and down your neck. He can feel you trying your best not to squirm, sensitive little thing.

”Uhm, only a couple times,” you reply, your legs squeezing his waist as you try to stay still. Were you always this restless? You don’t quite remember. “Is that bad?”

”No, princess. ‘S good,” he shakes his head, finding a sensitive spot on your neck just under your ear. His hands squeeze and rub your thighs, trying to get you to relax and not turn yourself to stone on his lap. “Relax, girl. I don’t mind if you squirm.”

You tilt your head to the side, biting your lip to at least muffle the little whimper crawling out of your throat. He's way better at giving you hickies than any of the boys you made out with in high school.

Leon pulls away after a moment, finger slipping under your bikini strap as he gives you a look. You don’t have to think before you nod. He pulls the string around your back and then the one around your neck, letting your top fall away.

You're pretty sure your brain loses a circuit when he licks his lips, staring right at your breasts. One arm stays around your waist, his free hand gently cupping one and kissing the soft skin. You're worried your nails might rip his shirt with the way your grip tightens when he starts laving at the nipple.

”Shit, haven’t gotten it up this quick in a while,” he grunts with a short chuckle, his hand coming down to your hip which is only just now making you realize you’ve been rocking your hips this whole time. Fucking dry humping him and you had no clue. The friction felt so good that you just didn’t even recognize it, but now there’s no mistaking the firm tent you're sitting on.

“Can I eat you, baby?” He asks in a raspy voice, looking up at you. A little breathless, you don’t respond for a moment, threading your fingers through his hair. Then you smile.

”You’re giving me puppy eyes,” you giggle, your gaze darting between his sharp blue eyes, the little sparkle in them as he gives you an expectant look. Like an old dog still begging for a treat. “Yeah, you can eat me… daddy.”

”Cheeky girl,” he groans, turning and laying you down on the bed. He’s been called that before but it’s different coming from you. He asks before taking off your bikini bottoms, smirking as he feels how wet they are.

”Good thing these are made to get wet, would’ve soaked them otherwise,” he teases, tossing them aside. Leon sighs as he finally spreads your legs and gets a good look at you. 

“What’s that look for?” You ask, half joking and half worried something’s wrong. The answer you receive is a kiss to your clit and a broad stripe licked up your slit. Humming in pleasure, your hand finds his hair again, keeping him there.

Leon quite literally makes slurping noises as he laps up your slick, dipping his tongue in your hole when he’s licked your chubby lips clean. His rough stubble scratches your sensitive skin, making you shiver.

”God, you're… f-fuck—really good at that,” you moan softly, only able to keep your thighs open with the help of his hands keeping a nice hold on them. One of them leaves the plush skin to thumb little circles on your clit—didn’t take him long to find it, unlike last time you got laid…

He doesn’t pull back for a breath once, just keeps rubbing your clit and eating your pussy. Holds your ankle to the back of your thigh, lets out hums and moans of satisfaction especially when you tug on his hair a little. The incredibly lewd, wet sounds that would put a nun in a coma is something that you didn’t particularly expect to turn you on.

“Close? You’re quiverin’,” he mumbles against your chubby pussy lips, his tongue dipping inside your hole and licking up the walls of your cute cunt. Every ridge and crevice that he can reach doesn’t go unexplored by his tongue. Leon faintly hears you whine out a yes, too distracted otherwise.

Only takes a couple more circles on your clit before you're pulling harder on his hair and arching your back. Mumbling something about “Leon, Leon, daddy”—you're serious about it this time around, don’t even realize it’s slipped from your pretty lips. Your poor daddy issues cant help it.

”Uh huh, there you go, atta girl,” he rumbles, rubbing up and down your soft thighs to help you down.

You melt into the bed as he kisses up your belly and then your cheek, and you can smell your own scent on his mouth. Always makes you ick when it’s on your fingers, but somehow it’s hot on him.

”Ready for me or need another minute?” He asks gently, and you blink your hazy eyes to look up at him. Already going for round two like he didn’t just give you the best orgasm of your life. Hey, when did his clothes come off?

Your finger traces down his forearm to his own digits before you decide.

”Mmh, ready…” you murmur, almost feeling sleepy when his big hand rubs your side. You wake up when you hear something tear open, seeing him open a condom with his teeth. You feel yourself frown slightly.

You've always been very adamant on safe sex—God only knows what teenage boys carry. But you're on the pill, and he’s so hot and so sweet to you…

”Nnh, wait. ‘M on the pill,” you stop him before he can roll it on. You can see the gears turning in his head as he looks up at you.

”…It’s okay, sweetheart. Still shouldn’t risk it with a man you barely know,” he says, shaking his head as he tugs the latex down his length.

Damn it. Did he have to be hot and considerate?? Aren’t old men supposed to be perverts who would jump out of their pants the second a bit of cleavage is shown?? He’s middle aged and rough inside and out, shouldn’t he be refusing to do anything but raw skin to skin?!

Well, not like you’re gonna protest or anything, cant scare him away. Leon grunts as he leans over you again, one hand holding him up by your waist, the other rubbing his thumb up your slit to make sure you’re still wet. He hisses a breath through his teeth when he feels your warmth against his tip, guiding it up and down over your cunt.

”Ready, baby? You let me know if it hurts too much, yeah? Don’t wanna see your pretty face in pain,” he says gently, but you can feel the roughness in his voice down to your bones. One hand clutching the sheets and the other on his forearm you nod, eyes glancing between his and his cock in his hand.

He takes a deep breath, staring down at your entrance. He prods your hole with the pink head, his brain seeing through the sex fog to wonder if he’s really about to fuck a girl almost a third of his age. Doesn’t take long for the fog to cover back up as he puts the tip in, making you both moan.

”Yeah… relax for me, princess. I know, it’s a stretch, huh? It’s okay, I’m right here,” Leon doesn’t even know if you can hear him, you look so lost, but he says it anyway. “A little more—ngh, yeah, good girl. Doing so good. Gonna go slow for you, honey.”

Your poor little pussy, doesn’t know what to do with such a big cock! You try to relax as much as you can, but you’re already trying to squeeze him. For a second you think you might be inadvertently trying to push him out, but that’s cut off by your whine as your greedy little cunt sucks him right back in.

”Fuck. Almost there,” he sighs, hand leaving his dick to grab your thigh again, but he still watches. His sweet blue eyes flick back up to see your face, and he coos at your glossy eyes. “Oh, don’t cry baby. Daddy’s right here.”

The way his tone is just slightly mocking makes your body lubricate itself just enough to get him the rest of the way in, earning a groan from the both of you. A couple tears slip—happy tears you claim, you’re just a little overwhelmed. 

For fucks sake, you're so pretty when you cry. Leon’s not sadistic but your watery, shiny eyes and the small little hiccup from your throat is just fucking adorable. 

“Aw, sweet girl, it’s okay. ‘M right here. Just needed me to take care of you, hm? Needed it so bad,” he teases in a sweet tone as both of his hands rub up and down your thighs now, holding them up. Look so pretty like that. You sniffle and nod, then a moment later, tell him meekly that he can move.

He nods, grunting as he pulls back just a couple inches and then sinks right back in. God, your pussy doesn’t want him to leave. He starts a shallow, slow rhythm, building it up as you start to relax more and get used to the feeling of his sized cock filling you out.

“There we go. Takin’ me so good,” he grunts, fingers squeezing your thighs as he presses your knees a little further towards your chest. This way he can see the way your swollen little pussy sandwiches his cock. 

“Really good, daddy,” you whine, squirming when he really grinds into you. Your hands reach up, grabbing onto his shoulders, trying to pull him closer. 

Leon never exactly expected to be calling himself daddy to a barely legal girl, but here he is whispering, “good girl, love it when daddy fills you up, don’t ya?”

He has your legs hooked over his elbows, folding you as he presses weight on top of you. You just want him so close. He rests his head on your chest, letting out gruff sounds against your skin as he slides in and out of you.

”Shit, squeezin’ real tight there. Greedy little thing doesn’t like it when I leave,” he says mindlessly, not really sure if he’s talking to you or himself. 

Your sweet little moans are music to his goddamn ears. You’re not crying anymore, but your eyes are still glossy and your breath gets a little hitch every now and then. It’s got him giving a little twitch inside you.

“Oh! Oh, Leon!” You gasp, squirming beneath him. He props himself up on his elbows, looking down at you as you tilt your head back into the pillows with a heavy breath. Must’ve hit that good spot, he realizes.

”Yeah? Right there, baby? Use your words,” he encourages softly with a grunt, picking the pace up a little. His hands are at the perfect angle to gently hold onto your biceps. His fingers almost wrap all the way around.

”N-ngh… uh-huh, right there daddy,” you whine, nails scratching up his back. He can hardly understand you, but he’s not gonna be mean, he gets the gist.

Leon grunts in approval, sitting up just slightly to let your legs fall back on the bed, but you choose to wrap them around his waist instead, plush thighs encasing his sides. 

You feel so good—he can’t remember the last time he genuinely felt blissful during sex, but right now he’s completely lost in you. So pussy drunk, cant think of anything other than how beautiful you are and how good your sweet cunt is.

He keeps up the thrusts, letting out quiet grunts and groans when you squeeze him real good. Doesn’t notice how bad you’ve been whining until you're digging your heels into his lower back and clawing at his shoulders, babbling about being close.

”Oh, uh-huh. Gonna cum? Want daddy to let you cum?” He mumbles in your ear, his rough voice making you squirm as you nod eagerly. 

“Wanna cum, wanna cum, wanna cum,” you ramble breathlessly, mewling when he starts rubbing at your clit. You’ve never sounded more pathetic in your life; not that it’s on your mind. Head’s too fuzzy for any kind of big girl thinking.

”Almost there, sweetheart—fuck—right there, I’m right there with you,” he whispers in your ear, looping his arm around your waist to hold onto you as he rubs your clit a little harder. 

The little knot in your belly gets tighter tighter tighter until it finally snaps, your back arching up into him and hand desperately gripping onto him as you moan his name loudly, eyes rolling into the back of your head. You’ve never came that good.

”Shit—Jesus, there you go, such a good girl,” Leon sighs, his breath fanning your cheek as he rams into you harder and harder. With your pussy still squeezing him as he rides you through your orgasm, he gets one last firm thrust in before he stills, a gravely moan being muffled by your chest as he grinds his hips into yours.

Finally letting his muscles loosen, he lowers himself onto you as slowly as he can so he doesn’t crush you. Once he's got his head on your chest and his legs stretched out, you still seem comfy so he relaxes on top of you.

”Mmh… good girl,” he mumbles absentmindedly as he pets your side. He listens to your heartbeat start to slow down and your breathing even out, your body relaxing as well. You hum softly in reply, eyes half lidded as you smooth over the scratches you left on his skin, feeling a little bad about those.

”Sleepy?” You hear his gentle voice next to your ear, giving your hip a pat before rolling off of you, pulling out as well. His back aches a little and reminds him he’s definitely not young anymore, not like you are.

You nod, watching as he pulls the condom off. Leon spends a few minutes taking care of you, wiping you clean with a warm towel and getting you some cold water. Massages your achey thighs and kisses your tummy as he tugs your bikini bottoms back up your legs because you told him you don’t like to sleep naked. Pulls his shirt over your head for you as well.

“Damn, little lady,” he sighs when you cuddle up against his side, laying your head on his chest. His rough fingers start to detangle your messy hair. “Turning me into a spring chicken again.”

”Gross, don’t say that,” you mumble against his pec, your heavy eyes falling closed as his warm chuckle rings in your ears. He says something else that you don’t quite hear, too sleepy. A little longer and you're off to dreamland, thinking of the big arm wrapped around you and the scruffy stubble in your neck or between your thighs.

”Goodnight princess,” Leon whispers to you even if you don’t hear him. He rubs up and down your back for a little while before the post-sex sleepiness settles into his mind too.

You squint at the sudden light pooling into the room, rousing you awake. Takes your sleepy brain a little while, grasping remnants of sleep like a lost soul climbing out of hell. You finally let out a little sigh, sitting up. It’d be hard to miss the sleeping lump to your right. 

A half a smile tugs at your lips at the sight of the red lines going down his muscular back. You can’t help yourself, reaching for your phone to take a picture of the almost cinematic scene before scrolling through your notifications. You check the time and see your cousin wants you back within the hour.

Reluctantly, you slip out of bed and slide on your flip flops, gathering your things. It’s a little chilly so you decide to keep his shirt, thinking Leon wouldn’t mind.

You really don’t wanna go, though… you had such a good night and he’s so nice and sweet. You debate for a while before leaning over him to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek, savoring the scratch of his stubble. With one last glance over your shoulder, you quietly slip out of the hotel room, leaving behind a night of memories.

It’s quite the slow day at work today, as always is mid-morning on a Monday in a coffee shop. It’s been a few weeks since you’ve gotten back from the best vacation of your life, and you’d be lying straight through your teeth if you said you hadn’t thought about your little summer fling every second since. You couldn’t get him out of your head for the life of you.

Messing around with your coworkers serves for a nice distraction though, laughing your ass off as one of them makes a mess everywhere. You almost don’t hear a customer come in if not for the annoying bell your manager insisted on putting on the door.

Leaving the mess to your friend, you warn her to be quiet despite your giggling as you turn around to the register. It’s a little messy, so you don’t quite look up yet as you greet the customer so you can shove some of the stuff aside.

”Hi, what can I get for you today?” You smile briefly up at the person as you're actively putting ingredients away and wiping some trash into the garbage.

”Hey, just a medium coffee. Black,” an oddly familiar voice says with a hint of amusement. Still not looking up, like an idiot, you nod as you select the options on the computer screen. You grab a cup and a sharpie next.

”Sure! What’s the name on that?”

”Leon.”

You look up, eyes wide.  Not just the vacation fling you thought he’d be after all.