Dominique

You’ve dealt with your fair share of speed-boosted infected; limbs windmilling, clawing and careening, all bursting energy and no finesse.

These aren’t blisterheads. They have stamina. They’re keeping up.

You twist and shoot one whose fingers are uncomfortably close to swiping the back of Leon’s shirt. The nearby white paneled wall goes bright, splotchy red.

“Intel’s getting a new one ripped if we make it out of this,” you pant, breath dry and ragged in your throat. Your lungs are burning.

“We’re making it out,” Leon tells you. Conclusive, no room for argument. He dodges left, hand once again grazing your arm to pull you with, but you’re already there, a perfect shadow.

This hall is wider, brightly lit with glass cases set in between the wall panels.

You’ve only got eyes on one thing as you run.

EXIT

It’s a final sprint.

You grit your teeth, breath loud in your ears, arms and legs pumping hard, trying to build a gap that allows for a sudden smack into the double doors, a loss of momentum and reversal of motion to slam the barrier closed.

‘Slam’ turns out to be optimistic. It’s a hydraulic close. Glacially fucking slow.

“Fuck! Force it!”

You almost bash heads with Leon, throwing your combined weight against the doors as the calamitous wall of infected catch up, arms reaching through the diminishing gap, scratching and clawing at you.

With a roar of effort, the doors finally give way under pressure and close with a crunch. An arm, hand, and various fingers fall onto the concrete.

“Bar it! Bar it!” Leon’s braced against both doors, his body a wedge, jarred by the furious thumping from the other side.

There are massive pneumatic rod locks on either side of the door. The control panel is dark.

“There’s no power!”

“You’re armed!”

Oh, right.

BANG T-SHUNK

Smoke curls from the barrel of your gun. The blasted hole in the control panel sparks weakly, fizzes, then goes dark.

Leon pushes away from the secured doors, rubbing at his ear. Your head’s ringing like a struck bell and you’d been back at arm’s length, not parallel with the barrel.

“Say something?”

“Something.”

“Yeah, can’t hear shit.”

"You only look like it.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

He’s flipping you off.

You grab it like a pinky promise, linking middle fingers, and he rolls his eyes.

“Alright. Let’s bounce,” you say.

He pulls you back. Urgent, abrupt. It bumps you against him.

“Wait.”

You’re in a greenhouse.

Rows and rows of lush, overgrown plants stretch unfamiliar leaves towards a glass-paneled sky. The walkways between rows are made of industrial metal grating, a stale funk rising from the darkness underneath.

No breeze is stirring the air. The back of your neck starts prickling; your animal brain tugging on your metaphorical hem and pointing.

The plants are rustling lightly.

Leon half-turns his head towards you, keeping his eyes on the jungle ahead.

“What’s the sitrep on the door?”

It’s still thumping against the locks, battered by the relentless undead. You glance at the panel you’d shot, burst and gutted, the wall above it blackened.

“Fucked.”

“Other doors?”

It’s just wall. Wall, and wall, and wall, smooth and inhospitable.

“Negative.”

“How long can you hold your breath?”

“I don’t think that’s the concern.”

You’re playing back the last hallway. White walls broken by glass panels, streaking by as you run. Behind every glass panel, a bright orange suit, thick like leather.

Bite-proof.

“Fuck.”

“So you tried to bypass it underground.”

“So we tried to bypass it underground,” you confirm. You watch the man nod, taking notes. He’s a leftie.

“Good thinking.”

“Yeah, well. Apparently not.”

The metal grating isn’t light. Thankfully, you and Leon aren’t weak.

The daylight sits like oil on top of water, only greasing weakly off of the reflective metal of more walkways below; descending levels disappearing into the dark.

“Oh, good. Can’t see the bottom.”

“Endless possibilities,” Leon says. “Cover me.”

The first level is an eight foot drop. Leon swings his legs into the gap, scoots forward, and eases himself down slowly, like he’s waiting for something to file a violent complaint. When nothing does, he drops onto the walkway, the metal clanging despite his rubber soles.

He shines his flashlight forward.

“Ugh.”

“What?”

“Love what they’ve done with the space.” He pockets the flashlight, reaching up to you. “It’s a charm you have to see in person.”

His hands are firm on your sides, your shirt riding up a little as he supports you down onto the platform with him. He absently fixes your rucked hem as you shine your flashlight into the gloom.

“Ugh,” you agree.

Roots.

Long, white, spidery roots hang from the ceiling in lengthy clumps and bundles, like massive, cobwebby chandeliers.

Leon’s eyes narrow, scrutinizing.

“Hey. Look.”

He steps forward, reaching into the nearest nest of gauzy filaments. He pulls his hand out, fingers curled around a narrow, dark plastic tube.

You come closer with the flashlight.

The dark color is red.

“It’s warm,” Leon adds, horribly.

The tube snakes off into the darkness below. You point your flashlight down and catch a glint off of something flat, circular, and shiny.

Leon’s separating more tubes from the leggy mass of roots. Only the one is red, but the others don’t look any less… organic.

“God. Which way do you think they run?”

He glances at you. “Three guesses.”

“Plants don’t bleed red.”

“Not typically.”

You share a resigned look, then he brushes past you, face set.

You turn to find him making quick work of the stairs down to the lower levels, hand on his gun.

You check your pistol's chamber and follow.

“A line of tanks.”

“Life support tanks, yes. Dozens.”

“Which way were the tubes running?”

“Both ways.”

“So…”

“The tanks were feeding the plants, and the plants were feeding the tanks.”

“Life support, you said. So there were … humans? Inside the tanks?”

“Yeah,” you say, looking away. “Used to be.”

There’s a thick film of slime on the tank, like growing snot. Your flashlight can’t make out anything coherent inside.

Leon shines his flashlight down the row; cylinder after cylinder, standing like a row of human-sized batteries, all mucky with slime and tickled by the trailing ends of roots from the massive bundles overhead.

Somewhere ahead, a steady dripping, echoing. You don’t appreciate the cliche.

“When was the initial outbreak?” Now that you’re on solid ground, your voice seems to suck right into the floor.

“All the lab logs and entries stop around six months ago.”

“So no one’s been down here for half a year.”

“Yeah.”

Leon shares a long look with you, mouth tight. Then, hesitant, he wipes a window through the muck on the nearest tank.

The beam of his flashlight illuminates the chamber. You can see a vague shadow suspended inside, like a bug in rough, raw amber.

He steps back, jaw tight.

“Dare I even ask?”

He shakes his head. “It’ll put you off soup.”

You shine your flashlight upwards; the root balls catch it and glow, high overhead.

“What was so wrong with good ol’ hydroponics?”

“Let’s just get out of here,” Leon says, heading off down the line of tanks.

“Twist my arm.”

“You didn't see it?”

“It was behind one of the tanks. In the dark.”

“You didn't hear it?”

“It was a little noisy at the time,” you say, annoyed.

Third tank from the last, everything goes spectacularly tits up.

Glass shatters outward, slimy and wet as it ricochets off your defensively raised arms. The body in the tank falls forward and swipes for Leon’s legs.

It’s not like the infected you’re used to, desiccated and dry as jerky.

This one is wet. This one is dissolving, skin sloughing from muscle sloughing from bone. Entrails spill from its body cavity, slippery, spreading across the hoary concrete as the disgusting thing writhes for a claim on your partner’s ankle.

Leon stumbles out of reach, gun aiming at the mucky skull. It explodes like a sixpack in a hot car and you’re shouting, ducking behind your arm again—

That’s when the other thing strikes.

Leon shouts in pain and tries to tear free. The pale, rubbery thing keeps hold of his shoulder like an overexcited dog with a rope toy.

“Leon!”

It’s too close to his head and he’s thrashing, you don’t have a clear shot. Something glints in the shadows behind his hip.

The hatchet. He’s already grabbed it.

A roar, a swing, the song of a sharp blade slicing clean through something organic.

The pale thing hits the ground with a sound like a rotting squash, the vine swinging empty into the darkness behind the tanks.

Leon falls to one knee with a grunt, the hatchet clattering onto the concrete.

“Leon! Leon,” you’re touching his back, crouching down with him. He’s breathing hard through his nose, clutching his shoulder. The fabric is darkening under his hand.

“Let me see. Leon.”

You shove his hand clear, unzipping his collar and yanking it aside.

His skin is patterned with circular rows of bleeding dashes. Lots of them.

“What the fuck.”

The pale, rubbery thing lies flaccid on the floor behind Leon. At first glance, it looks like a starfish collapsed on itself.

At second glance, you start to see the teeth, fine and triangular, in diminishing rows like a shark.

Pink with blood.

“Shit. Hey.”

Leon’s still on one knee, head down. You push his hair back, leaving a bloody streak on his skin, and tip his face up. There’s sweat on his forehead.

It takes him a moment to focus on you.

“Tell me what you’re feeling.”

He grunts. His pupils are a little too big, even for the dim lighting, and they’re not reacting right when you pass your flashlight closer.

You’re trying not to panic.

“Can you get up? Can you walk?”

He lets you haul him to his feet but shoves you off when you go to duck under his arm. You don’t take offense; it’s a good sign. He’s steady enough on his own.

“Grab that,” he tells you, voice rough. He’s holding his shoulder again, pointing down at the beheaded plant. You pick it up by the little stem of vine, grab his hatchet, and follow him close, ascending fast while he calls for extraction.

You don’t wait for your debrief to finish writing.

“What did the labs say?”

“They’re still running tests.”

“What did Medical say?”

“They’re still running tests.”

“What, with a potato? Where's the sense of urgency, here?”

“At last report, Mr. Kennedy was stable,” he says, capping his pen.

“He was half delirious coming off that chopper!”

“They’ve determined he’s in no immediate danger.”

“How can they know if they’re still running fucking tests?”

You get your name in an admonishing tone. You stand up, your chair screeching against the floor.

“I wanna see him.”

“He’s in precautionary isolation.”

“I was exposed to the same bullshit he was. I wanna see him.”

“You weren't bitten.”

“What, you think he’s gonna bite me?”

Your debrief just looks back at you, calm and level, his hands folded prim over the closed folder containing your account of the whole goddamn shit-spackled mission.

“He’s in precautionary isolation,” he repeats.

Your teeth grind, a muscle in your jaw jumping.

“Are we done here?”

“Yes. You are free to go.”

Medical stops you at the door. They aren’t fooled by your purposeful stride, your bored but intent expression. They hook your arm and yank you away like it’s goddamn Looney Tunes.

“We were told you might try that.”

Fucking debrief.

So now you’re sitting at home, dialing the Medical desk every fifteen minutes, certain from the complete non-activity of the past four hours that they’ve filtered your number as spam.

Assholes.

You should go to bed. Medical’s kept you both alive thus far, through hell and high water. Leon’s in good hands. Stable. No immediate danger, they said.

You rotate your phone in your hand, over and over. Upside-down, rightside-up. Staring at nothing.

You call the labs.

Some poor idiot actually picks up.

“I-I-I can’t give you that information,” he stammers, when you demand an update on Leon. On the biting plant. On fucking anything.

“I’m his partner! I was ground zero when it happened!”

“I-I can’t verify that over the phone.”

“Then I’m coming in,” you say, prim. You hang up on more panicked stammering, tossing your phone aside on the couch.

You’ve barely made it to your feet when your phone starts ringing.

Incoming Call Leonnedy

You stub your toe on the couch in your scramble to pick up.

“Leon! Are you okay?”

Immediately you can tell he’s not.

“I need help,” he says. Croaks.

Cold sweat breaks on your skin.

“Where are you? What’s wrong?”

“I’m… I can’t…” He gasps.

You’re a whirl of activity. You’re grabbing your wallet, your keys, pulling a jacket on over your pajamas. There’s no fucking time to change.

“Leon, where are you.”

“Home.”

“What?” You stop cold in your mad dashing, gripping the phone too hard. “They sent you home like this?”

“They said I could take care of it.”

“Take care of what? They won’t tell me fucking anything, Leon–“

He groans through clenched teeth and oh boy, Medical’s gonna find out just how creative you can be when it comes to revenge. You shove your feet ungracefully into some shoes and grab for the door handle.

“The venom,” Leon’s panting in your ear, and then he gets to the zinger. “It’s an aphrodisiac.”

You feel it like lightning, a surge throughout your entire body. Your visual of his situation, based on the noises he’s making, takes a dramatic turn.

“Leon.”

“It’s been six goddamn hours,” he grits out.

“Jesus christ, can’t you just–”

“I’ve tried,” he says. “I’m just goddamn edging myself.”

“Did you call Medical? There’s gotta be something they can–”

“Fucking useless,” Leon says, confirming your hypothesis. “They told me to hire an escort.”

“What?”

“I’m not— fuck— fucking doing that.”

You thump your forehead against your front door, your grip on the doorknob tight enough to crush.

“Leon, if you… there’s no shame. They’re professio–”

“No,” he cuts in. “I don’t…” He breaks off, breath hissing through his teeth, and then fails to elaborate.

That’s alright; you’ve got a pressing question.

“Why’d you call me?”

For a moment, he doesn’t answer. You just have to listen to him breathe like this.

Your vivid imagination is a fucking curse.

"I trust you,” he finally tells you. “I know how this… I don’t have… I trust you.”

You’re partners.

No, you’re coworkers. What he’s asking is… can he ask this? What happens to your partnership in the aftermath? Can you go back to–

“Please,” he breathes in your ear, and tops it with your name.

You wrench the door open.

Before you hang up, he gives you the code for the garage door, and fair warning.

You’re still not prepared.

As partners, you’ve seen each other in various states of undress. Usually partial. Usually because you’re bleeding somehow. Always clinical.

This doesn’t feel like the far end of the same spectrum. This feels like a g-force journey into a different dimension.

Leon’s on his couch, head back, knees wide. Taut like a bowstring.

Completely, stark, buck-ass naked.

His shoulder looks like a bisected watermelon, his skin dewy and pink, dotted with the dark little toothmarks from the venomous plant.

His chest is heaving, his hips restless.

His cock is flushed dark, painfully engorged, thick and pulsing against his stomach. There’s a wet smear on his skin; when his cock lifts, straining, it trails a sticky little string of precum.

“Christ,” you rasp, tossing your jacket aside.

He lifts his head and his eyes can barely focus on you. He looks on the verge of passing out, but he reaches out, reaches for you. You shove a bottle of lube out of the way on the couch cushions and take his outstretched hand.

“I’m here. What do you–“

“Touch,” he pants, barely coherent. “Touch me.”

And here you are in the deep end, no time to brace, no time to breathe. You’re touching him, chamois soft skin, hot and unyielding. His hips jerk on a gasp, a groan dragging from somewhere deep within as he lets his head fall back on the couch.

The hot, swooping sensation in your stomach physically bends you, punches your breath out.

You’ve never handled a dick this hard in your entire life.

You’ve maybe never handled a dick this big in your entire life. He’s long and thick, the head flared, cerise and glistening. You pass your thumb over his slit, smearing through the precum, and his stomach tautens as he pushes up into your hand, his breath rushing out hot, hissing back in. He’s desperate.

He breathes your name. His ass keeps flexing with the helpless motion of his hips and his eyes are closed, forehead knotted.

It’s intense concentration. His world narrowed down, only as wide as the circle of your fist.

Six goddamn hours.

You tighten your grip, trail your other hand up the lightly furred inside of his thigh, teasing his balls before stacking your fists and starting to pump him in a steady rhythm that answers the flex of his body.

His hand lands on your thigh, searing, his fingertips firm on your flesh and pulling. Your knee presses tighter against his leg.

He’s just grappling for a hold on something, for an anchor. His other hand is doing the same thing to the arm of the couch. You just hope he doesn’t move his hand any further to the left on you or he’s gonna find you a little too slippery to hold onto.

Fuck, you’re only goddamn human.

You jerk him faster, his hips starting to meet you in earnest, his body rolling as he chases his disobliging release.

And why couldn’t he get there himself?

What if… what if you can’t get him there, either? You don’t know anything about the venom, they’re still running tests. Maybe this is the result. Maybe he’s just… stuck like this, heightening, exacerbating, until he, what, pops?

What a fucking epitaph that would be.

No, you’re not scripting headstones. That’s not happening.

You start to twist on the upstroke, a flick of the wrist, and Leon moans loud.

“That’s it. Come on, Leon.”

His balls are tightening, drawing up, his forehead beaded with sweat, his mouth open. He’s right on the edge.

“Look at me.”

He opens his eyes, glassy as they are. You make sure he can see you, and then you bend low.

His skin is velvety soft around the firm rounds of his balls. You fit your lips to one of the shapes, touch your tongue to it, tasting the salt of him.

He cries out, thick ropes of cum hitting his chest, his stomach, spurting and spilling down his shaft, smeared by your hand as you milk him through it, relieved.

You can’t stop your breathy laugh, almost lost under his aereous groans. He just keeps going.

“A little pent up?”

He doesn’t quip back. The situation is dire.

His dick gives one last pulse, the final beads of his release dribbling down the head of his cock. You rub it away with your thumb.

There’s a very noticeable issue.

He’s still incredibly hard.

When you meet his eyes, they’re a little clearer. He’s still sunset pink and breathing hard – messy, now, too – but he can track your face better.

“Do you feel any different?”

“Fuck. Barely.”

"What if you're stuck like this?"

“Don't say that," he says. You’re still stroking him, slow, like an afterthought. He drags his hands through his damp hair, hissing when it stretches the scabs on his chewed shoulder.

"It was venom, do you need some sort of antivenom?"

He doesn’t appear to be listening. His hands grip the back of the couch, his hips rolling, cock pushing through your sticky fist.

You grab his hips and force them down.

“Leon.”

He bucks hard against you, bratty.

"You think I know?”

“Don’t give me an attitude.”

“Don’t fuckin tease me,” he snaps, unwisely.

You move fast.

A whump, a gasp, the silence of breath caught in the shadow of a predator.

His breath fans out over your face; slow, tremulous.

“I’m doing you a favor,” you remind him, low, your face inches from his. “I could just leave.”

He’s not moving, trapped under you.

You’re straddling him, your fist tight at the base of his cock.

“What do you say?”

“Fuck.”

“Leon.”

“I love you.”

It rattles you like a gunshot, strikes you and spreads.

It takes your advantage, crumples it up, and throws it in a trash compactor. And then it lights that trash compactor on fire.

“That’s not fair,” you breathe.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and kisses you.

He’s upgraded your permissions. You kiss him back, heated, and let go of your leash.

He breaks from your mouth to gasp when you sit on his hips, his hands catching your waist and gripping.

“Shit.”

“So we’ve learned that I’m not a monk,” you say, a verbal roll of the eyes.

It’s not just a few tepid inches of water in your basement. At this point, your flood’s halfway up the damn walls.

He rocks his hips, rubbing himself against the soaked fabric of your pajama shorts. You keen and pick up the motion on your own.

God, you’re aching.

“You should have said something,” he says, breathless.

“That wasn’t on the invitation.”

“Aren’t you a saint.”

“Yeah. Because when you said ‘I trust you’, I heard ‘take advantage of my compromising situation’.”

“Fair,” he says, then pulls you down to speak in your ear, his scruff a ticklish rasp against your skin. “Fuck me.”

Well don’t you make the perfect pair. He’s hard as granite and you’re wet enough to sink a dinghy.

Taking off your clothes is too much fucking bother. You just shove the wet fabric to the side.

He doesn't watch where you’re taking his cock into your body, the hot, hard length of him sliding in tight past your pussy lips.

He’s watching your face. You don’t know it until you’ve got him in to the hilt, your mouth falling open on a sigh, your forehead smoothing out as you gyrate your hips, a delicious little circle, fully seated on his lap.

"Oh my god, Leon."

He comes.

Your name is somewhere in the long groan sieved through his clenched teeth before his mouth drops open, diced breaths tumbling free as he pulses inside of you, so deep, so hot and thick.

He’s still looking directly at you.

You watch his eyes clear just a little more; sharpening, focusing. Smoke becoming a mist.

“Can I tease you about premature ejaculation.”

“No.” He starts unbuttoning your pajama top. The fabric is wrinkled at your sides where he’d been gripping, almost hard enough to bruise.

“Why, because you’re still hard?” He is, but it’s different. You couldn’t bend steel around him anymore.

“Yeah,” he says simply, and grips your open collar, pulling you down into a kiss.

You arch your back, easing him to just the tip, bottoming him out again, cycling his affected breath through your own lungs. He runs his hands down your chest, grazing your nipples, his tongue reaching into your mouth to taste your sigh.

His hips press up into you, lifting you, a gentle swell. You ride it; start to rock your hips.

The fabric of your shirt whispers down your arms, chased by the skim of Leon’s palms. Goosebumps raise on your skin.

You brace your arms on the back of the couch, riding him faster. He trails his lips down the column of your neck, his scruff a pleasant scratch, his humid breaths printing your skin.

He runs the fan of his fingers over your nipples.

“Leon.”

“Lean back,” he murmurs, his teeth grazing your shoulder. “Let me see you.”

You sit back on his hips, brushing your hands over the caps of his knees. He scratches lightly down the flex of your thighs as you start slapping down on him harder, dropping your head back, gasping.

“Fuck, gorgeous, just like that.”

“God, Leon.”

Your thighs are burning. He starts meeting you, hips snapping, and you look down.

It almost does you in.

Those broad shoulders, that flushed chest. Muscles rolling and bunching under his glistening skin. Hair sticking to his forehead, wet pink lips, blown eyes hooded, watching you, too.

His hands fall to your hips and he growls, fingers bunching in your pajama shorts. Feral. Like he’s going to tear them.

He hooks his arm around your back and surges up, laying you out on the sofa. You whine when he slips out of you, but he’s lifting your hips to yank your shorts and panties down, surprisingly coordinated for the way he’s wound up.

A small part of you expects them to hit the floor with a wet slap. The rest of you is reaching for Leon, impatient, empty.

He brings your knee up, hooks your leg around his hip and pushes back in, one long thrust, his breath a humid narration. You keen, head falling back against the cushions, feeling his lips at your jaw.

He digs his arms under your shoulders, his body rocking you, fluid motions pushing and pulling as he fucks you slow, deep. You grip his back, obsessed with the animal flex of his body.

You can feel every inch of him, stroking your walls. In, out, a steady tide. You arch your back, your stomach pressing to the rippling heat of his abs.

He’s still sticky. You don’t fucking care.

“Score’s two to zero,” he tells you, breath hot against your cheek. “You gonna catch up?”

“I’m not the medical concern.”

He brings your other leg up onto his hip, adjusting. Seeking.

He finds it. You groan loud, raw, and feel him smile against your neck.

“There you are.”

Your jaw hinges open, your vision glazing over as he rubs the head of his cock against the bundle of nerves inside you. He snaps his hips, jolting a gasp out of you, then goes right back to massaging your g-spot.

“You’re not real,” you pant. He nips your skin, sharp.

“River in Egypt, sweetheart.”

You dig your heels into his glutes, pressing in like spurs, urging him faster.

“Come on, cowboy– ah!”

He pushes up onto his hands, skin slapping loud as he starts pounding into you hard and fast. You were already tightening, coil building, and he’s hit your fucking warp drive.

“Fuck, fuck, like that, Leon!”

“Shit, you better hurry,” he says through gritted teeth. His hips are stuttering, rhythm starting to fall apart.

“I told you–“

His thumb circles your clit, just one rotation, and that’s it. The bastard’s got you. Screaming, even.

You come apart beneath him, your foundation shaking, walls clenching around him, wracked by seismic waves. He gasps your name, watching you climax on his dick, then slams in deep and comes with a long, stuttering groan.

The third time, it seems, is the charm.

When his phone starts ringing, you don’t hear it at first. His head is blocking your nearest ear.

“Leon.”

“Mm.”

“Your phone.”

“Mmph.”

You shift like you’re going to try to reach for it yourself, but he’s beautifully heavy on top of you, so you don’t try very hard.

You nuzzle your face into his hair and bring your arms around him instead, closing your eyes. He hums, content.

The ringtone stops, bending to your private moment.

Five seconds later, it starts up again.

“Fuck.”

You grouse when Leon shifts up, but his reach is longer than yours and he doesn’t go far.

“Huh. Medical,” he says.

“Oh,” you say, with mock optimism.

He hits answer, settling back on top of you. You run your hand up and down his back, petting him.

“Kennedy.”

He doesn’t have his volume turned up very high. You get vague shapes of words, spoken quickly, and then Leon’s short responses, felt as much as heard, his voice thrumming through you.

“Yeah. … No. … Don’t need it. … I know. … I know. … No, I’m fine. … Sure. Bye.”

“Fucking useless,” he mutters, his phone clattering onto the coffee table. “Antivenom’s ready.”

You start giggling.

“They want me in for reassessment in the morning.”

It turns into laughter, smothered into his shoulder, and he rolls into the couch crease so he can look at you.

“What?”

“All their overtime hours,” you say. “No match for your partner’s Magical Healing Vagina.”

He laughs, a real one, his hand pulling at your hip to twist you towards him, pressing you against his body. You’re both a fucking mess, and the couch might be a write-off.

It was an emergency.

“Should get you certified,” he says. You make a skeptical noise.

“There’d be a demand.”

His arm tightens around you, minuscule. Almost imperceptible. Might’ve been completely imperceptible, if his arms weren’t so big.

“Mm. We’re sticking to best-kept-secret.”

“How selfish.”

He nuzzles your mouth with his, sharing breath.

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” you mention, to his invading tongue. He retreats and lets you speak. "Did you mean what you said, or was it just self-defense?"

"What I said?"

"Don't be obtuse.”

He brushes his lips against yours, just a snag of soft, moist skin.

"I've never lied to you," he says.

"There's a first time for everything," you say. "You're skirting the question."

He brushes your hair back, studying your face. Content to take forever, it seems.

"If it helps," you say, "I can put you back under duress."

You slide your hand to the front of his hip, laughing when he flinches away.

"Ass," he says, and rolls you onto your back again, dipping to kiss you.

"Yeah. I love you," he says, and maybe it's a little gruff. "And isn't that just a shitload of complications."

"A metric fuckton," you agree, stroking his cheek. His stubble rasps against your fingertips.

His eyes are completely clear, gaze steady looking back at you.

“But maybe it helps that I love you, too,” you murmur.

It's not a kiss this gets you. He's been dishing out all manner of kisses tonight, their significance has shifted. No.

Instead, he nuzzles his face against your neck, wraps his arms around you, and holds you. Holds you like he intends to for a very long time, like you're the only thing that matters, like your beating hearts need to carry out a close and personal conversation.

Good. They can work out the details. You're just gonna lay here and pet the hair of the man you trust most – the man you can finally admit that you love – glowingly content in his arms.

On AO3

Y'all mind if I just give our man a bad good time real quick

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You’ve dealt with your fair share of speed-boosted infected; limbs windmilling, clawing and careening, all bursting energy and no finesse.

These aren’t blisterheads. They have stamina. They’re keeping up.

You twist and shoot one whose fingers are uncomfortably close to swiping the back of Leon’s shirt. The nearby white paneled wall goes bright, splotchy red.

“Intel’s getting a new one ripped if we make it out of this,” you pant, breath dry and ragged in your throat. Your lungs are burning.

“We’re making it out,” Leon tells you. Conclusive, no room for argument. He dodges left, hand once again grazing your arm to pull you with, but you’re already there, a perfect shadow.

This hall is wider, brightly lit with glass cases set in between the wall panels.

You’ve only got eyes on one thing as you run.

EXIT

It’s a final sprint.

You grit your teeth, breath loud in your ears, arms and legs pumping hard, trying to build a gap that allows for a sudden smack into the double doors, a loss of momentum and reversal of motion to slam the barrier closed.

‘Slam’ turns out to be optimistic. It’s a hydraulic close. Glacially fucking slow.

“Fuck! Force it!”

You almost bash heads with Leon, throwing your combined weight against the doors as the calamitous wall of infected catch up, arms reaching through the diminishing gap, scratching and clawing at you.

With a roar of effort, the doors finally give way under pressure and close with a crunch. An arm, hand, and various fingers fall onto the concrete.

“Bar it! Bar it!” Leon’s braced against both doors, his body a wedge, jarred by the furious thumping from the other side.

There are massive pneumatic rod locks on either side of the door. The control panel is dark.

“There’s no power!”

“You’re armed!”

Oh, right.

BANG T-SHUNK

Smoke curls from the barrel of your gun. The blasted hole in the control panel sparks weakly, fizzes, then goes dark.

Leon pushes away from the secured doors, rubbing at his ear. Your head’s ringing like a struck bell and you’d been back at arm’s length, not parallel with the barrel.

“Say something?”

“Something.”

“Yeah, can’t hear shit.”

"You only look like it.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

He’s flipping you off.

You grab it like a pinky promise, linking middle fingers, and he rolls his eyes.

“Alright. Let’s bounce,” you say.

He pulls you back. Urgent, abrupt. It bumps you against him.

“Wait.”

You’re in a greenhouse.

Rows and rows of lush, overgrown plants stretch unfamiliar leaves towards a glass-paneled sky. The walkways between rows are made of industrial metal grating, a stale funk rising from the darkness underneath.

No breeze is stirring the air. The back of your neck starts prickling; your animal brain tugging on your metaphorical hem and pointing.

The plants are rustling lightly.

Leon half-turns his head towards you, keeping his eyes on the jungle ahead.

“What’s the sitrep on the door?”

It’s still thumping against the locks, battered by the relentless undead. You glance at the panel you’d shot, burst and gutted, the wall above it blackened.

“Fucked.”

“Other doors?”

It’s just wall. Wall, and wall, and wall, smooth and inhospitable.

“Negative.”

“How long can you hold your breath?”

“I don’t think that’s the concern.”

You’re playing back the last hallway. White walls broken by glass panels, streaking by as you run. Behind every glass panel, a bright orange suit, thick like leather.

Bite-proof.

“Fuck.”

“So you tried to bypass it underground.”

“So we tried to bypass it underground,” you confirm. You watch the man nod, taking notes. He’s a leftie.

“Good thinking.”

“Yeah, well. Apparently not.”

The metal grating isn’t light. Thankfully, you and Leon aren’t weak.

The daylight sits like oil on top of water, only greasing weakly off of the reflective metal of more walkways below; descending levels disappearing into the dark.

“Oh, good. Can’t see the bottom.”

“Endless possibilities,” Leon says. “Cover me.”

The first level is an eight foot drop. Leon swings his legs into the gap, scoots forward, and eases himself down slowly, like he’s waiting for something to file a violent complaint. When nothing does, he drops onto the walkway, the metal clanging despite his rubber soles.

He shines his flashlight forward.

“Ugh.”

“What?”

“Love what they’ve done with the space.” He pockets the flashlight, reaching up to you. “It’s a charm you have to see in person.”

His hands are firm on your sides, your shirt riding up a little as he supports you down onto the platform with him. He absently fixes your rucked hem as you shine your flashlight into the gloom.

“Ugh,” you agree.

Roots.

Long, white, spidery roots hang from the ceiling in lengthy clumps and bundles, like massive, cobwebby chandeliers.

Leon’s eyes narrow, scrutinizing.

“Hey. Look.”

He steps forward, reaching into the nearest nest of gauzy filaments. He pulls his hand out, fingers curled around a narrow, dark plastic tube.

You come closer with the flashlight.

The dark color is red.

“It’s warm,” Leon adds, horribly.

The tube snakes off into the darkness below. You point your flashlight down and catch a glint off of something flat, circular, and shiny.

Leon’s separating more tubes from the leggy mass of roots. Only the one is red, but the others don’t look any less… organic.

“God. Which way do you think they run?”

He glances at you. “Three guesses.”

“Plants don’t bleed red.”

“Not typically.”

You share a resigned look, then he brushes past you, face set.

You turn to find him making quick work of the stairs down to the lower levels, hand on his gun.

You check your pistol's chamber and follow.

“A line of tanks.”

“Life support tanks, yes. Dozens.”

“Which way were the tubes running?”

“Both ways.”

“So…”

“The tanks were feeding the plants, and the plants were feeding the tanks.”

“Life support, you said. So there were … humans? Inside the tanks?”

“Yeah,” you say, looking away. “Used to be.”

There’s a thick film of slime on the tank, like growing snot. Your flashlight can’t make out anything coherent inside.

Leon shines his flashlight down the row; cylinder after cylinder, standing like a row of human-sized batteries, all mucky with slime and tickled by the trailing ends of roots from the massive bundles overhead.

Somewhere ahead, a steady dripping, echoing. You don’t appreciate the cliche.

“When was the initial outbreak?” Now that you’re on solid ground, your voice seems to suck right into the floor.

“All the lab logs and entries stop around six months ago.”

“So no one’s been down here for half a year.”

“Yeah.”

Leon shares a long look with you, mouth tight. Then, hesitant, he wipes a window through the muck on the nearest tank.

The beam of his flashlight illuminates the chamber. You can see a vague shadow suspended inside, like a bug in rough, raw amber.

He steps back, jaw tight.

“Dare I even ask?”

He shakes his head. “It’ll put you off soup.”

You shine your flashlight upwards; the root balls catch it and glow, high overhead.

“What was so wrong with good ol’ hydroponics?”

“Let’s just get out of here,” Leon says, heading off down the line of tanks.

“Twist my arm.”

“You didn't see it?”

“It was behind one of the tanks. In the dark.”

“You didn't hear it?”

“It was a little noisy at the time,” you say, annoyed.

Third tank from the last, everything goes spectacularly tits up.

Glass shatters outward, slimy and wet as it ricochets off your defensively raised arms. The body in the tank falls forward and swipes for Leon’s legs.

It’s not like the infected you’re used to, desiccated and dry as jerky.

This one is wet. This one is dissolving, skin sloughing from muscle sloughing from bone. Entrails spill from its body cavity, slippery, spreading across the hoary concrete as the disgusting thing writhes for a claim on your partner’s ankle.

Leon stumbles out of reach, gun aiming at the mucky skull. It explodes like a sixpack in a hot car and you’re shouting, ducking behind your arm again—

That’s when the other thing strikes.

Leon shouts in pain and tries to tear free. The pale, rubbery thing keeps hold of his shoulder like an overexcited dog with a rope toy.

“Leon!”

It’s too close to his head and he’s thrashing, you don’t have a clear shot. Something glints in the shadows behind his hip.

The hatchet. He’s already grabbed it.

A roar, a swing, the song of a sharp blade slicing clean through something organic.

The pale thing hits the ground with a sound like a rotting squash, the vine swinging empty into the darkness behind the tanks.

Leon falls to one knee with a grunt, the hatchet clattering onto the concrete.

“Leon! Leon,” you’re touching his back, crouching down with him. He’s breathing hard through his nose, clutching his shoulder. The fabric is darkening under his hand.

“Let me see. Leon.”

You shove his hand clear, unzipping his collar and yanking it aside.

His skin is patterned with circular rows of bleeding dashes. Lots of them.

“What the fuck.”

The pale, rubbery thing lies flaccid on the floor behind Leon. At first glance, it looks like a starfish collapsed on itself.

At second glance, you start to see the teeth, fine and triangular, in diminishing rows like a shark.

Pink with blood.

“Shit. Hey.”

Leon’s still on one knee, head down. You push his hair back, leaving a bloody streak on his skin, and tip his face up. There’s sweat on his forehead.

It takes him a moment to focus on you.

“Tell me what you’re feeling.”

He grunts. His pupils are a little too big, even for the dim lighting, and they’re not reacting right when you pass your flashlight closer.

You’re trying not to panic.

“Can you get up? Can you walk?”

He lets you haul him to his feet but shoves you off when you go to duck under his arm. You don’t take offense; it’s a good sign. He’s steady enough on his own.

“Grab that,” he tells you, voice rough. He’s holding his shoulder again, pointing down at the beheaded plant. You pick it up by the little stem of vine, grab his hatchet, and follow him close, ascending fast while he calls for extraction.

You don’t wait for your debrief to finish writing.

“What did the labs say?”

“They’re still running tests.”

“What did Medical say?”

“They’re still running tests.”

“What, with a potato? Where's the sense of urgency, here?”

“At last report, Mr. Kennedy was stable,” he says, capping his pen.

“He was half delirious coming off that chopper!”

“They’ve determined he’s in no immediate danger.”

“How can they know if they’re still running fucking tests?”

You get your name in an admonishing tone. You stand up, your chair screeching against the floor.

“I wanna see him.”

“He’s in precautionary isolation.”

“I was exposed to the same bullshit he was. I wanna see him.”

“You weren't bitten.”

“What, you think he’s gonna bite me?”

Your debrief just looks back at you, calm and level, his hands folded prim over the closed folder containing your account of the whole goddamn shit-spackled mission.

“He’s in precautionary isolation,” he repeats.

Your teeth grind, a muscle in your jaw jumping.

“Are we done here?”

“Yes. You are free to go.”

Medical stops you at the door. They aren’t fooled by your purposeful stride, your bored but intent expression. They hook your arm and yank you away like it’s goddamn Looney Tunes.

“We were told you might try that.”

Fucking debrief.

So now you’re sitting at home, dialing the Medical desk every fifteen minutes, certain from the complete non-activity of the past four hours that they’ve filtered your number as spam.

Assholes.

You should go to bed. Medical’s kept you both alive thus far, through hell and high water. Leon’s in good hands. Stable. No immediate danger, they said.

You rotate your phone in your hand, over and over. Upside-down, rightside-up. Staring at nothing.

You call the labs.

Some poor idiot actually picks up.

“I-I-I can’t give you that information,” he stammers, when you demand an update on Leon. On the biting plant. On fucking anything.

“I’m his partner! I was ground zero when it happened!”

“I-I can’t verify that over the phone.”

“Then I’m coming in,” you say, prim. You hang up on more panicked stammering, tossing your phone aside on the couch.

You’ve barely made it to your feet when your phone starts ringing.

Incoming Call Leonnedy

You stub your toe on the couch in your scramble to pick up.

“Leon! Are you okay?”

Immediately you can tell he’s not.

“I need help,” he says. Croaks.

Cold sweat breaks on your skin.

“Where are you? What’s wrong?”

“I’m… I can’t…” He gasps.

You’re a whirl of activity. You’re grabbing your wallet, your keys, pulling a jacket on over your pajamas. There’s no fucking time to change.

“Leon, where are you.”

“Home.”

“What?” You stop cold in your mad dashing, gripping the phone too hard. “They sent you home like this?”

“They said I could take care of it.”

“Take care of what? They won’t tell me fucking anything, Leon–“

He groans through clenched teeth and oh boy, Medical’s gonna find out just how creative you can be when it comes to revenge. You shove your feet ungracefully into some shoes and grab for the door handle.

“The venom,” Leon’s panting in your ear, and then he gets to the zinger. “It’s an aphrodisiac.”

You feel it like lightning, a surge throughout your entire body. Your visual of his situation, based on the noises he’s making, takes a dramatic turn.

“Leon.”

“It’s been six goddamn hours,” he grits out.

“Jesus christ, can’t you just–”

“I’ve tried,” he says. “I’m just goddamn edging myself.”

“Did you call Medical? There’s gotta be something they can–”

“Fucking useless,” Leon says, confirming your hypothesis. “They told me to hire an escort.”

“What?”

“I’m not— fuck— fucking doing that.”

You thump your forehead against your front door, your grip on the doorknob tight enough to crush.

“Leon, if you… there’s no shame. They’re professio–”

“No,” he cuts in. “I don’t…” He breaks off, breath hissing through his teeth, and then fails to elaborate.

That’s alright; you’ve got a pressing question.

“Why’d you call me?”

For a moment, he doesn’t answer. You just have to listen to him breathe like this.

Your vivid imagination is a fucking curse.

"I trust you,” he finally tells you. “I know how this… I don’t have… I trust you.”

You’re partners.

No, you’re coworkers. What he’s asking is… can he ask this? What happens to your partnership in the aftermath? Can you go back to–

“Please,” he breathes in your ear, and tops it with your name.

You wrench the door open.

Before you hang up, he gives you the code for the garage door, and fair warning.

You’re still not prepared.

As partners, you’ve seen each other in various states of undress. Usually partial. Usually because you’re bleeding somehow. Always clinical.

This doesn’t feel like the far end of the same spectrum. This feels like a g-force journey into a different dimension.

Leon’s on his couch, head back, knees wide. Taut like a bowstring.

Completely, stark, buck-ass naked.

His shoulder looks like a bisected watermelon, his skin dewy and pink, dotted with the dark little toothmarks from the venomous plant.

His chest is heaving, his hips restless.

His cock is flushed dark, painfully engorged, thick and pulsing against his stomach. There’s a wet smear on his skin; when his cock lifts, straining, it trails a sticky little string of precum.

“Christ,” you rasp, tossing your jacket aside.

He lifts his head and his eyes can barely focus on you. He looks on the verge of passing out, but he reaches out, reaches for you. You shove a bottle of lube out of the way on the couch cushions and take his outstretched hand.

“I’m here. What do you–“

“Touch,” he pants, barely coherent. “Touch me.”

And here you are in the deep end, no time to brace, no time to breathe. You’re touching him, chamois soft skin, hot and unyielding. His hips jerk on a gasp, a groan dragging from somewhere deep within as he lets his head fall back on the couch.

The hot, swooping sensation in your stomach physically bends you, punches your breath out.

You’ve never handled a dick this hard in your entire life.

You’ve maybe never handled a dick this big in your entire life. He’s long and thick, the head flared, cerise and glistening. You pass your thumb over his slit, smearing through the precum, and his stomach tautens as he pushes up into your hand, his breath rushing out hot, hissing back in. He’s desperate.

He breathes your name. His ass keeps flexing with the helpless motion of his hips and his eyes are closed, forehead knotted.

It’s intense concentration. His world narrowed down, only as wide as the circle of your fist.

Six goddamn hours.

You tighten your grip, trail your other hand up the lightly furred inside of his thigh, teasing his balls before stacking your fists and starting to pump him in a steady rhythm that answers the flex of his body.

His hand lands on your thigh, searing, his fingertips firm on your flesh and pulling. Your knee presses tighter against his leg.

He’s just grappling for a hold on something, for an anchor. His other hand is doing the same thing to the arm of the couch. You just hope he doesn’t move his hand any further to the left on you or he’s gonna find you a little too slippery to hold onto.

Fuck, you’re only goddamn human.

You jerk him faster, his hips starting to meet you in earnest, his body rolling as he chases his disobliging release.

And why couldn’t he get there himself?

What if… what if you can’t get him there, either? You don’t know anything about the venom, they’re still running tests. Maybe this is the result. Maybe he’s just… stuck like this, heightening, exacerbating, until he, what, pops?

What a fucking epitaph that would be.

No, you’re not scripting headstones. That’s not happening.

You start to twist on the upstroke, a flick of the wrist, and Leon moans loud.

“That’s it. Come on, Leon.”

His balls are tightening, drawing up, his forehead beaded with sweat, his mouth open. He’s right on the edge.

“Look at me.”

He opens his eyes, glassy as they are. You make sure he can see you, and then you bend low.

His skin is velvety soft around the firm rounds of his balls. You fit your lips to one of the shapes, touch your tongue to it, tasting the salt of him.

He cries out, thick ropes of cum hitting his chest, his stomach, spurting and spilling down his shaft, smeared by your hand as you milk him through it, relieved.

You can’t stop your breathy laugh, almost lost under his aereous groans. He just keeps going.

“A little pent up?”

He doesn’t quip back. The situation is dire.

His dick gives one last pulse, the final beads of his release dribbling down the head of his cock. You rub it away with your thumb.

There’s a very noticeable issue.

He’s still incredibly hard.

When you meet his eyes, they’re a little clearer. He’s still sunset pink and breathing hard – messy, now, too – but he can track your face better.

“Do you feel any different?”

“Fuck. Barely.”

"What if you're stuck like this?"

“Don't say that," he says. You’re still stroking him, slow, like an afterthought. He drags his hands through his damp hair, hissing when it stretches the scabs on his chewed shoulder.

"It was venom, do you need some sort of antivenom?"

He doesn’t appear to be listening. His hands grip the back of the couch, his hips rolling, cock pushing through your sticky fist.

You grab his hips and force them down.

“Leon.”

He bucks hard against you, bratty.

"You think I know?”

“Don’t give me an attitude.”

“Don’t fuckin tease me,” he snaps, unwisely.

You move fast.

A whump, a gasp, the silence of breath caught in the shadow of a predator.

His breath fans out over your face; slow, tremulous.

“I’m doing you a favor,” you remind him, low, your face inches from his. “I could just leave.”

He’s not moving, trapped under you.

You’re straddling him, your fist tight at the base of his cock.

“What do you say?”

“Fuck.”

“Leon.”

“I love you.”

It rattles you like a gunshot, strikes you and spreads.

It takes your advantage, crumples it up, and throws it in a trash compactor. And then it lights that trash compactor on fire.

“That’s not fair,” you breathe.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and kisses you.

He’s upgraded your permissions. You kiss him back, heated, and let go of your leash.

He breaks from your mouth to gasp when you sit on his hips, his hands catching your waist and gripping.

“Shit.”

“So we’ve learned that I’m not a monk,” you say, a verbal roll of the eyes.

It’s not just a few tepid inches of water in your basement. At this point, your flood’s halfway up the damn walls.

He rocks his hips, rubbing himself against the soaked fabric of your pajama shorts. You keen and pick up the motion on your own.

God, you’re aching.

“You should have said something,” he says, breathless.

“That wasn’t on the invitation.”

“Aren’t you a saint.”

“Yeah. Because when you said ‘I trust you’, I heard ‘take advantage of my compromising situation’.”

“Fair,” he says, then pulls you down to speak in your ear, his scruff a ticklish rasp against your skin. “Fuck me.”

Well don’t you make the perfect pair. He’s hard as granite and you’re wet enough to sink a dinghy.

Taking off your clothes is too much fucking bother. You just shove the wet fabric to the side.

He doesn't watch where you’re taking his cock into your body, the hot, hard length of him sliding in tight past your pussy lips.

He’s watching your face. You don’t know it until you’ve got him in to the hilt, your mouth falling open on a sigh, your forehead smoothing out as you gyrate your hips, a delicious little circle, fully seated on his lap.

"Oh my god, Leon."

He comes.

Your name is somewhere in the long groan sieved through his clenched teeth before his mouth drops open, diced breaths tumbling free as he pulses inside of you, so deep, so hot and thick.

He’s still looking directly at you.

You watch his eyes clear just a little more; sharpening, focusing. Smoke becoming a mist.

“Can I tease you about premature ejaculation.”

“No.” He starts unbuttoning your pajama top. The fabric is wrinkled at your sides where he’d been gripping, almost hard enough to bruise.

“Why, because you’re still hard?” He is, but it’s different. You couldn’t bend steel around him anymore.

“Yeah,” he says simply, and grips your open collar, pulling you down into a kiss.

You arch your back, easing him to just the tip, bottoming him out again, cycling his affected breath through your own lungs. He runs his hands down your chest, grazing your nipples, his tongue reaching into your mouth to taste your sigh.

His hips press up into you, lifting you, a gentle swell. You ride it; start to rock your hips.

The fabric of your shirt whispers down your arms, chased by the skim of Leon’s palms. Goosebumps raise on your skin.

You brace your arms on the back of the couch, riding him faster. He trails his lips down the column of your neck, his scruff a pleasant scratch, his humid breaths printing your skin.

He runs the fan of his fingers over your nipples.

“Leon.”

“Lean back,” he murmurs, his teeth grazing your shoulder. “Let me see you.”

You sit back on his hips, brushing your hands over the caps of his knees. He scratches lightly down the flex of your thighs as you start slapping down on him harder, dropping your head back, gasping.

“Fuck, gorgeous, just like that.”

“God, Leon.”

Your thighs are burning. He starts meeting you, hips snapping, and you look down.

It almost does you in.

Those broad shoulders, that flushed chest. Muscles rolling and bunching under his glistening skin. Hair sticking to his forehead, wet pink lips, blown eyes hooded, watching you, too.

His hands fall to your hips and he growls, fingers bunching in your pajama shorts. Feral. Like he’s going to tear them.

He hooks his arm around your back and surges up, laying you out on the sofa. You whine when he slips out of you, but he’s lifting your hips to yank your shorts and panties down, surprisingly coordinated for the way he’s wound up.

A small part of you expects them to hit the floor with a wet slap. The rest of you is reaching for Leon, impatient, empty.

He brings your knee up, hooks your leg around his hip and pushes back in, one long thrust, his breath a humid narration. You keen, head falling back against the cushions, feeling his lips at your jaw.

He digs his arms under your shoulders, his body rocking you, fluid motions pushing and pulling as he fucks you slow, deep. You grip his back, obsessed with the animal flex of his body.

You can feel every inch of him, stroking your walls. In, out, a steady tide. You arch your back, your stomach pressing to the rippling heat of his abs.

He’s still sticky. You don’t fucking care.

“Score’s two to zero,” he tells you, breath hot against your cheek. “You gonna catch up?”

“I’m not the medical concern.”

He brings your other leg up onto his hip, adjusting. Seeking.

He finds it. You groan loud, raw, and feel him smile against your neck.

“There you are.”

Your jaw hinges open, your vision glazing over as he rubs the head of his cock against the bundle of nerves inside you. He snaps his hips, jolting a gasp out of you, then goes right back to massaging your g-spot.

“You’re not real,” you pant. He nips your skin, sharp.

“River in Egypt, sweetheart.”

You dig your heels into his glutes, pressing in like spurs, urging him faster.

“Come on, cowboy– ah!”

He pushes up onto his hands, skin slapping loud as he starts pounding into you hard and fast. You were already tightening, coil building, and he’s hit your fucking warp drive.

“Fuck, fuck, like that, Leon!”

“Shit, you better hurry,” he says through gritted teeth. His hips are stuttering, rhythm starting to fall apart.

“I told you–“

His thumb circles your clit, just one rotation, and that’s it. The bastard’s got you. Screaming, even.

You come apart beneath him, your foundation shaking, walls clenching around him, wracked by seismic waves. He gasps your name, watching you climax on his dick, then slams in deep and comes with a long, stuttering groan.

The third time, it seems, is the charm.

When his phone starts ringing, you don’t hear it at first. His head is blocking your nearest ear.

“Leon.”

“Mm.”

“Your phone.”

“Mmph.”

You shift like you’re going to try to reach for it yourself, but he’s beautifully heavy on top of you, so you don’t try very hard.

You nuzzle your face into his hair and bring your arms around him instead, closing your eyes. He hums, content.

The ringtone stops, bending to your private moment.

Five seconds later, it starts up again.

“Fuck.”

You grouse when Leon shifts up, but his reach is longer than yours and he doesn’t go far.

“Huh. Medical,” he says.

“Oh,” you say, with mock optimism.

He hits answer, settling back on top of you. You run your hand up and down his back, petting him.

“Kennedy.”

He doesn’t have his volume turned up very high. You get vague shapes of words, spoken quickly, and then Leon’s short responses, felt as much as heard, his voice thrumming through you.

“Yeah. … No. … Don’t need it. … I know. … I know. … No, I’m fine. … Sure. Bye.”

“Fucking useless,” he mutters, his phone clattering onto the coffee table. “Antivenom’s ready.”

You start giggling.

“They want me in for reassessment in the morning.”

It turns into laughter, smothered into his shoulder, and he rolls into the couch crease so he can look at you.

“What?”

“All their overtime hours,” you say. “No match for your partner’s Magical Healing Vagina.”

He laughs, a real one, his hand pulling at your hip to twist you towards him, pressing you against his body. You’re both a fucking mess, and the couch might be a write-off.

It was an emergency.

“Should get you certified,” he says. You make a skeptical noise.

“There’d be a demand.”

His arm tightens around you, minuscule. Almost imperceptible. Might’ve been completely imperceptible, if his arms weren’t so big.

“Mm. We’re sticking to best-kept-secret.”

“How selfish.”

He nuzzles your mouth with his, sharing breath.

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” you mention, to his invading tongue. He retreats and lets you speak. "Did you mean what you said, or was it just self-defense?"

"What I said?"

"Don't be obtuse.”

He brushes his lips against yours, just a snag of soft, moist skin.

"I've never lied to you," he says.

"There's a first time for everything," you say. "You're skirting the question."

He brushes your hair back, studying your face. Content to take forever, it seems.

"If it helps," you say, "I can put you back under duress."

You slide your hand to the front of his hip, laughing when he flinches away.

"Ass," he says, and rolls you onto your back again, dipping to kiss you. "Yeah. I love you."

You stroke his cheek, his stubble rasping against your fingertips. His eyes are completely clear, gaze steady looking back at you.

You don't take forever to say it. The forever you want to take is the one that opens up on the other side of it: four words, a door.

“I love you, too.”

On AO3

Y'all mind if I just give our man a bad good time real quick

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The spoonful of sickly sweet vanilla ice cream in your mouth practically sizzles against your tongue upon contact. It's disgustingly humid and the heat is sweltering - you're desperate to cool down, and there's no better way of doing that than taking a dip in the ocean. Unfortunately, you and Leon were supposed to have a weekend trip to the West Coast, but that was abruptly canned since his work called him in for an urgent mission, despite Leon already lodging his leave well in advance.

The whole situation vexes you - on one hand, you know you signed up for this when you began dating him; the life of a government agent isn't exactly predictable and work hours aren't always fair. But on the other hand, Leon still deserved to relax and use his leave like any other employee should - so why is this now the third time they've disrespected his leave request? You chew the inside of your cheek absentmindedly, your eyes staying glued to the TV screen as you try to focus your eyes on the scene of Mr Darcy confessing to Elizabeth in the rain, but your irritation was still simmering beneath the surface, despite your mental attempts to slam the lid on it and hope it doesn't overflow.

Your eyes dart to the handle of the front door pressing down while your hands are still under the cold running water of the tap, rinsing your ice cream spoon. Leon's tired figure trudges into the living space, purplish dark circles hanging under his eyes, chapped lips, and a dullness to his skin that isn't usually there. Your heart clenches at the sight of him - it's clear the mission he just went on did an absolute number on him. But it's what made you all the more irritated and upset; he's a human outside of his work, yet he's being treated like he's a power tool getting yanked out of a shed whenever he's needed. The most frustrating part is that it seems as if he just lets them do it as they please too.

"Hey." Leon is the first one to break the silence, his bag still dangling from his arm.

"Hey." You reply, popping the spoon on the drying rack.

"I'm sorry I had to leave suddenly again." Leon purses his lips, walking towards you slowly as if he were approaching a skittish animal.

"It's okay." Your reply is a little too quick, and your gaze is anywhere but his eyes. You're afraid that you'll take one look at him and say something you don't mean out of sheer annoyance for the situation.

Leon drags a hand over his weary face before placing his bag on the floor, leaning it against the kitchen island as he takes a seat at the kitchen stool. "It's not… I'm sorry. I know we had it all planned and I had to cancel everything."

"…Yup, for the third time." You sigh. "Leon, I know work is important, but they have hundreds of other capable agents they could send off. You only lodged leave for four days, with three month's notice too. They really couldn't find anyone else? They really had to cancel your leave two days before you were meant to go?"

"The situation was urgent and there was a limited pool of agents they could deploy for it. The consequences if nobody were there to contain it would have been catastrophic." Leon explains.

"But they could have called other agents. I know global threats don't respect leave requests, but the DSO still has plenty of capable agents that would have held the fort just fine until you got there. How are you meant to go through all these harrowing missions without having proper downtime? You're not a tool they can just pull out at their disposal, you're a human." You cross your arms.

Leon pauses; there's no anger or irritation in his eyes. He simply nods. "It's hard to say no." You can hear the fatigue in his voice, but it only serves as proof that he shouldn't keep saying yes to more work.

"Of course it is. It's the literal United States government asking you to do something. But by never saying no, you're setting a precedent for them to do it again. And besides… I also booked leave on Monday. I don't mind lounging around, but it is a shame I wasted a day of annual leave, especially when I was really looking forward to our trip. It's not fair to me either." You chide him.

"I was looking forward to it too." Leon's sentences remain short; a telltale sign of his exhaustion.

You approach Leon slowly. "I know… I didn't mean to tell you off the moment you walked through the door. I know it was tough on you, but this is the third time it's happened now, and I've been keeping my frustrations bottled up." Kissing his cheek, you give his bicep a short and gentle reassuring squeeze. "I'm gonna wind down for bed. There's some leftovers in the fridge if you're hungry." You notify him, turning to leave. Before you can even begin to take a step, you feel Leon gently grab your hand. You let out a soft "huh?" as Leon hops off the kitchen stool, kneeling down as he wraps his arms around your hips, his face pressed against your torso as he looks up at you.

"L-Leon, you look exhausted. You know if you fall asleep down there I won't be able to lug you up the stairs, right?" You chuckle, your fingers threading through his blonde silky strands. He leans into your touch, staring up at you with soft puppy eyes.

Leon is rarely like this. The only other time he's grovelled like this is when you saw someone from his past try to reach out once more; and while he didn't have her number saved, it wasn't blocked at the time, which really pissed you off. Clearly ditching three planned holidays in a row has made him feel guilty.

"I'm sorry for abandoning the third holiday we've tried to go on. But you're being so patient with me anyway. I'm so sorry." His voice barely above a whisper.

"Hey, it's fine. I'm just feeling frustrated, and it's upsetting to see you burn the candle at both ends. We're good, okay?" You murmur.

Leon shakes his head with a sigh. "It's not fine. I've abandoned our plans in favour of work three times now. I'm sorry… I want to make it up to you. I'll do anything." He looks up at you, his arms tightening around your hips.

"Anything?" You raise a brow.

"Anything." He nods.

"Okay. I want you to get up from the floor, eat the leftovers, take a nice hot shower, and get an early rest." You chuckle, knowing that he was planning on trying to apologise through sex. But as much as you'd like that, all you really want is for him to just get some rest.

"Really? You don't want me to eat y-"

"Nope. Get up from the floor, drama queen."

You're sitting on the bed, legs sprawled on top of the French flax linen sheets with a book in your hand. The amber glow of your bedside table illuminates the words, as you try to wind down and take your mind off things. Despite being peeved about the last minute cancellation of the holiday, your thoughts were mostly fixed on how burnt out Leon has been looking lately.

As you flip the page, you hear the bedroom door open, the smell of aldehydes and sandalwood flooding your nostrils. Your eyes dart to the sight of Leon - he's only wearing a pair of loose grey sweatpants, the water droplets from his damp hair sprinkled onto his muscular chest. He shakes his head twice, like a dog shaking its coat after being drenched in water, and you smile to yourself.

"Hey." He greets you, shuffling into his spot next to you.

"Hey. Feeling better?" You ask him as he settles close to you.

"Yeah. Much better." Leon nods, before clearing this throat. "I also, uh, lodged my leave again and managed to get an even nicer hotel to stay at for next weekend. I know you need to lodge that extra day of leave, so the entire trip is on me. It was my bad for cancelling in the first place. And if they ask me to come in, this time I'm saying no." He adds. You glance over and give him a small smile.

"Good. If you're exhausted then it's pointless throwing yourself in a dangerous situation. You need to take care of yourself." You hum, going back to your book.

"But nobody is taking care of you. That's meant to be my job." You catch a rare pout from Leon, which earns him a giggle from your lips.

"Hey, I'm holding up just fine, even when you have those missions that last for like two weeks." You respond, as Leon repositions himself on the bed between your legs, his calloused palms gently rubbing the side of your thighs.

"That's part of what I meant." He responds, dipping his head down and kissing your inner thigh. You peer at him from your book before setting it down, then lifting your hips up as he drags your shorts and panties off in one go. "Just let me take care of you. Go back to reading your book, baby." Leon whispers, pressing a kiss on your hip before he spreads your legs a little further.

"Missed this view so much." He murmurs in appreciation, before sticking his tongue out to lick a long, flat stripe against your cunt. Your body already begins to twitch at the sensation, your fingertips digging into your book so tightly you're already beginning to make little crescent-shaped divots in the soft cover of your novel. "Missed you so much." Leon adds, the very tip of his tongue flicking at your clit.

"I… Fuck…" You're already losing composure. The words on the page seem to jumble and swirl around as if you're looking into a bowl of alphabet spaghetti.

"You're not gonna turn the page?" Leon asks, his mouth separating from your pussy for a moment as his thumb moves against your pussy in slow but firm strokes, causing you to roll your hips.

"Forgive me, it's a little challenging to read right now." You bite your lip, staring at him. He's staring up at you with a soft gaze and parted lips, glossy with your own pussy juice. Fucking hell, he's so pretty.

"That means I'm doing my job right. Go on baby, get back to your book." Leon responds with a ghost of a grin, before dipping his head back down between your legs, sinking his tongue into your folds. You try your best to focus on the sentence before you.

'But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the-' …You can't fucking focus like this. But you pretend you're reading anyway, despite your breaths turning staccato as you feel the repeated flicks of his tongue against your clit with just the right amount of pressure. The crisp sound of a page flipping happens just a little too suddenly, and it's so clear your eyes are anywhere but on the words. Leon knows, but he doesn't say anything. He just looks up at you with an adoring gaze as he hums a low groan of pleasure while he continues to fuck you with his mouth. Just as you attempt to read another sentence - or at least try to, you feel Leon sink his index and middle fingers inside of you slowly, causing you to let out a breathy whine.

"F-fuck, oh my god." You gasp at the sensation of his fingers now slowly pumping in and out of you, watching as his fingers disappear into your folds and pull out, covered in your slick, syrupy pussy juice. You don't even remember what page you're on anymore.

"Atta girl." Leon whispers, kissing your inner thigh as he curls his fingers upwards, hitting that spot that makes your eyelids flutter. His mouth returns to your pussy, continuing to relentlessly lick and suck at your clit, as he keeps an almost mechanically perfect pace and pressure with his fingers hitting that perfect spot, over and over again. Your legs are now shaking, and your book is now teetering on the edge of the bed as your body pulls taut.

"I'm, hah… I'm gonna cum… Fuck…" The flesh of your lower lip is pinned under your teeth as you feel that familiar warmth pool in your stomach, your hips bucking into Leon's face as you grind your sopping wet cunt against his mouth. It earns you a deep, guttural groan of pleasure from Leon, as your body finally lets go, your orgasm completely shattering you as his name loudly falls from your lips.

Leon moves from his elbows to his knees, caging your body with his as he kisses you deeply. You realise that since he walked through the door, the two of you hadn't shared a proper kiss, and it made your heart clench a little. Breaking the kiss momentarily, you look up at him with a soft, doe-eyed gaze, your lips glossy with the mix of his saliva and your arousal. "Hm?" Leon hums; it's a gentle and caring tone with a carnal undercurrent - as if he's asking you what he can do for you next. Your hand finds the back of his neck as you pull him in once more, giving him another kiss. Leon softly moans, his lips parting as your tongues meet. You feel yourself pouring all of your love and tenderness into every stroke of your tongue against his, and he returns with equal fervor.

"Lay down. I don't want you undoing a stitch." You instruct him with a soft chuckle.

"Yes ma'am." Leon gives you a lazy smile as you hitch your leg over his thigh, his cock already hard and weeping with precum. Your hand moves from his lower stomach, tracing over his muscular abdomen as it finally rests at his jaw gently. You study his face for a moment - his eyes are locked onto yours with a soft fondness, and you can't help but smile. "What is it?" Leon asks, tilting his head in question.

"Nothing." You hum, grabbing his cock and sinking down on it slowly. You take him inch by inch, until he bottoms out inside of you. Leon lets out a soft groan of pleasure, your name echoing from his lips as you slowly begin to move your hips. The feeling of him is a toothsome stretch, his cock filling you up as if he was made just for you.

"Oh, fuck… Just like that." Leon huffs out, his calloused hands instinctively reaching for your hips as you begin to ride him a little faster. The sound of your own juices mixing with his makes an obscene wet slap with every downwards jut of your hips. Peering down, you watch as your cunt greedily swallows his cock whole, the lewd visual of your wet folds sinking down on his dick driving you insane. Leon removes one of his hands from his hip to briefly wet the pad of his thumb, before placing it on your clit and making frantic little strokes on it.

"G-gonna cum so fast if you keep doing that." You manage to say through breathy whines.

"Good, because I don't know how much longer I can last when you're riding me like this…" Leon lets out a strained grunt of pleasure as your hips burn with your quickening pace. Your breathing becomes more ragged as the tip of his dick continues to slam into that perfect, sweet spot, while his thumb relentlessly drags over your clit.

"Oh, shit…" A loud moan leaves your mouth.

"Yeah, yeah. That's it baby, ride it out for me." Leon coos in that deep, teasing voice, before a moan leaves his own mouth too. And that's all it took. Between whimpers, his name falls from your lips as you cum, your body shuddering with pleasure. As your walls grip onto Leon's cock tightly, it causes him to spill hot, white ropes of cum inside of your pussy, his hand on your hip gripping just a little tighter. Your hips slowly grind as you ride out your high, your eyelids fluttering in pleasure before you finally pull yourself off of him.

"You distracted me from my book." You pout as you roll over onto your side of the bed.

"Sorry baby, maybe you can read the rest by the beach next weekend?" Leon smiles softly at you, giving you a tender kiss on the forehead.

The sun glows a striking amber against the stripes of pale cornflower blue and magenta twilight as you turn the final page of your book. You hear the faint shuffling of feet in the sand, and you look up to see Leon standing over you with a grin. A part of you wishes you could take a photo of what you're seeing right now - the sea water clings like crystalline droplets onto his skin and damp blonde hair, the vibrant sunset behind him illuminating every peak and valley of his muscles. You watch as he shakes his head and arm twice to rid himself of the water, much like a dog shaking its coat after a bath.

"So, was the book good?" Leon asks, his knees sinking down onto your sailor blue and white terry cloth beach towel as he sprawls himself next to you, one heavy, muscular arm draping over your waist.

"It was, actually. Have you had enough of a swim?" You smile at him.

"Almost. You got dry from sitting out in the sun. You want one last dip before the sun fully sets?" Leon asks.

"Hmm, sure. I should make the most of the ocean." You nod in response. Before you can do anything else other than placing your book to the side, Leon rises from his position and scoops you into his arms, carrying you princess style in one easy, fell swoop. You yelp in surprise, but your yelp quickly turns into a giggle as he kisses the crown of your head as the icy ocean water touches your body.

"Oh my god, it's freezing!" You whine.

"That's because you were out of the water for so long." Leon lets out a small laugh, pulling you into his arms, holding you flush against him as you both watched the sun set below the horizon.

He really does love to take care of you.

Zoro bites his tongue and clenches his jaw when you announce that you’re going to stick with Sanji and Luffy in Loguetown. He was going to casually tell you to keep him company and not get into trouble, a plea disguised as an order, but it wouldn’t make sense anymore – he’d have to be your boyfriend, such a high-sounding title, to demand every second of your time. Because he is definitely not in love with you, Zoro simply refuses to comment on the arrangement. His silence earns him a questioning look from Nami but he pretends not to notice it. He’s good at ignoring things.

For a man who is not in love, Zoro thinks about you a lot. Although ‘a lot’ is an adorable euphemism. Ever since you disappeared into the crowd with Sanji and Luffy, Zoro’s thoughts have been occupied solely by you. Whenever his eye is caught by something in the shop window, he wonders whether you’d like it. Would you gush about the dress? Say a mean quip about a rather interesting top hat? Then his thoughts become more grim. You’re somewhere out there, going for a stroll in a fish market with Sanji by your side. Is the cook minding his manners or being sleazy as always? What cheesy line has he thrown at you this time?

Zoro’s eyebrows furrow. His face becomes almost the same colour as his hair. What if Sanji’s sleaziness is working?

The man takes a deep breath and clenches his jaw again. Why would he be even thinking about Sanji trying his chances? It’s not like Zoro is your boyfriend and has any right to be jealous about other men being interested in you. He’s not even in love with you, so why should he care about Sanji’s constant flattery?

He manages to push those thoughts away but they remain with him, lingering in the back of his mind. If he’s not careful, he might think about you and Sanji again. Perhaps there’s another, ‘friendly’, explanation…

When Zoro arrives at the square, two new swords adorning his hip, he immediately notices the absence of something. Well, to be exact, it is the absence of someone – you’re nowhere to be seen. Sanji appears to be perfectly content with holding a rather large fish as though the meat is going to be tonight’s date, not dinner. Whether it’s you being gone or Sanji having no care in the world, Zoro’s anger reaches the boiling point. Of course, it’s not because the girl he’s in love with seems to be gone and, possibly, in danger. He’s just looking out for his friend, while the blond dishie boy can’t split his attention between fish and people.

Zoro crosses the distance to Sanji in long, hastened strides. "Where is she?" he asks in a low voice. Despite appearing collected, there’s a sense of urgency in the way he speaks. This is the sound of a man holding on to his sanity by a thread. The question is when, not if, reason leaves him entirely.

Sanji, too busy admiring the fish in his arms, doesn’t notice Zoro’s angered tone. "Around,” he answers. The man lifts his gaze from the meat and looks to his right, then left side. "Somewhere…” His smile drops when he realizes that you’re not next to him. Sanji can’t quite remember when was the last time he saw you.

"This town is crawling with Marines, you idiot,” Zoro drones out. He gets even closer to Sanji. If it wasn’t for the fish in the cook’s arms, the two man would be touching foreheads. Something dark stirs in Zoro’s eyes; something that betrays all they lies he’s been telling himself. Only love can breed such anger. “How could you lose her?”

Sanji stares back at Zoro with apparent confusion. Since when is the swordsman so hot-headed? "Oi, pipe down, mosshead, will ya? She's a big girl, she'll manage.” It doesn’t escape his attention how the furious look in Zoro’s eyes only intensifies. Then, as if suddenly recalling long weeks of shared travels, Sanji completely understands the emotional outburst. His confusion subsides only to be replaced by a mischievous smirk. “Besides,” he begins in a teasing tone, “you should be the one looking after your girlfriend."

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Zoro answers, a little too quickly. The deadpan delivery rids his words of any credibility. He appears like a child, who just recently learned that they can lie. While trying too hard to sound honest, they give away their deception entirely.

Sanji’s smile only grows. He’s very much amused by Zoro’s poor attempt at hiding the truth. Weighing his chances of being skewered on a sword, Sanji decides to get under the other man’s skin just a little more:

“So you won’t mind if I pay her a little late-night visit?”

In a flash, Zoro grabs the collar of Sanji’s shirt. The blond man’s smirk doesn’t falter. It’s as if he’s been expecting such a reaction. Even more – he wanted to see it. The truth is, Sanji is counting on Zoro conducting a smidge of introspection to accept his fairly obvious affection for you. Maybe if the swordsman realizes that most people wouldn’t throw hands at others by the tiniest suggestion that their friend is unaccounted for, he’ll finally understand that the flutter of his heart is not excitement or nervousness.

Before Zoro can actually skewer Sanji, Nami steps in. “Now’s really not the time, boys.” She gives each of them a stern look and both of them know better than to defy her at that moment.

Although Zoro knows that Nami is right and he can set the record straight with Sanji after you’re safe and sound, he doesn’t let the cook have the last word. "If something happens to her, you'll be the first person I try my new swords on,” he says. It’s not a threat, as much as it is a warning; Zoro is not trying to scare Sanji, he’s simply informing him about the natural consequences of his actions.

Zoro lets go of Sanji’s shirt. His angered gaze lingers on the other man for a moment longer, before he turns around, ready to head back into the bustling city in search for you.

"Save some of that energy for the missus,” Sanji calls out.

The man stands still, hand gripping one of the swords. He looks over his shoulder, debating whether Sanji’s quip deserves an answer. As much as Zoro itches to respond to the annoying dishie, his mind is set on a different goal. Somewhere out there, you might be in danger. Whether its Marines or other pirates, a malevolent pair of hands could be reaching for something it has no right to touch. The thought makes his skin crawl.

With a sense of urgency in his step, Zoro leaves his crewmates at the town square. 

- Leon isn’t very big on public displays of affection, although he will hold your hand through a busy crowd, or place his hand on the small of your back if he’s guiding you somewhere.

- That being said… On the occasional subway ride, Leon refuses to let you touch the grimy grab handles. He insists you hold onto his bicep instead. Not like you’d complain.

- When he’s at home with you, Leon is practically your shadow - putting his head on top of your chin or in the crook of your neck while you’re attending to a task, such as a typing away at a report or cooking something. He also pulls you in super close whenever you’re sat on the couch or lying in bed, and he absolutely hates letting go.

- Leon also enjoys physical touch, but from you and only you, since he sees you as a safe space. He especially loves when you rake your fingers through his hair, lightly touching his scalp. It reminds you of a dog leaning in to nuzzle the hand petting it. He’s more touch starved than he lets on.

- Even after a long day at the office or returning from a mission, Leon is the one who will cook you both breakfast the following morning, or he’ll notice that oil leak from your car and fix it for you before you even spot it yourself. Leon would never let you lift a finger, unless you wanted to.

- He always gets a little surge of pride when he’s able to be the hero for you - especially if it involves brute strength, such as opening stubborn jars or moving a piece of heavy furniture. It’s a bit amusing watching him try to play it cool when you thank him for his help.

- Words and grand romantic gestures aren’t Leon’s strongest suit - but he doesn’t go a day without saying “I love you”.

- Leon is not really big on the gift giving and receiving front, but he always gathers information by asking your friends and paying attention to what you’re looking at in the mall so he can get you a nice gift. His preferred gifts from you are handmade, since he’s quite sentimental.

- When things became serious, Leon told you that he trusts you with his card, and you can buy whatever you want with it. For whatever reason, you still kind of hold back on using it… So sometimes Leon will just straight up ask you to visit a luxury store and put his card to use, because he has no clue how else he’s going to spend all that money otherwise.

- Making corny jokes is just a reflex for Leon at this point. If you say something that reminds him of a joke, he will add an awful one-liner after your sentence before you can even stop him. In response, you usually stare at him with a deadpan look, while he’s staring back at you looking pleased with himself.

- When you eventually move in together, it’s likely that a pet becomes an addition to the home some point. Actually it’s more like you found a stray dog/cat and you took it in, so Leon had no say. Leon would lean as a dog person, but he would be happy to own either a cat or dog. He loves animals, and animals love him.

- Leon is a very clean guy, he sometimes showers twice a day. He has a very strong soapy aldehydic scent, which is softened only by a fraction from his sandalwood aftershave and his natural skin musk. He smells a lot like freshly washed linen.

- Since beginning to work for the DSO, Leon became an extremely organised and tidy person; he’s meticulous in the way he arranges and stores his belongings at home. He doesn’t leave his inbox piled up with over 2,000 notifications. Hell, even his desktop computer is free from clutter, with dedicated files and subfiles with strict categorisation. He’s so organised that you’re usually the one asking him where something is.

- Leon would not give another person the time of day if they’re hitting on him. Since you began dating, Leon ignores any advances from other people to the point where he becomes visibly annoyed if they don’t take a hint the first time. He said it himself - he’s a one-woman type of guy.

- Leon runs hot at night. He also doesn’t have difficulty falling asleep, but he has trouble staying asleep because he often has nightmares. He instinctively reaches for you when he wakes up from a nightmare.

- Speaking of emotions… Leon used to cope with his trauma and emotions with alcohol before he met you. Leon wants to be present whenever he’s with you, and he wouldn’t be able to do that if he were drunk in his free time. Being in a relationship with you also gave him the boost of motivation he needed to change his drinking habits, because he wants to be a dependable partner.

- Leon is a very jumpy person. He hates horror movies and jumpscares. Anything with zombies is totally off the table - for very good reason. You’ve developed a habit of announcing when you’re home, and purposely making a bit of noise before approaching him if he can’t see you. You hate seeing him jump out of his skin when he’s caught off guard - it makes your chest clench a little because of the reason behind it.

- Leon is a starer. He’ll often admire your face with a small smile.

- People who work with Leon have noticed that he’s gotten his spark back since he began dating you. Leon was previously known for being a brooding person, who always walked around the office with a furrowed brow. One time, Leon cracked a small smile at someone’s joke in the break room - his colleagues were so used to seeing him frown all the time that the room was momentarily stunned into silence.

- He’s the one who usually drives. Surprisingly, he’s actually a good driver in every day life, even though you’ve heard the vehicle auditors at the DSO chide him over the phone about the amount of vehicles he’s totalled on missions.

- When he doesn’t hear you the first time, he leans close to you and does a little “hm?”- it gets you flustered every time. He knows what he’s doing.