#leonkennedy

Chapter 8: Oranges

They surprised each other. Leon with an enormous bouquet of white gladioli, and Grace with the keys to her home.

He already knew his way around her apartment well enough to put the flowers in water himself, which wasn't unanticipated. His instincts, his ability to keep every tiny tactical detail filed away in his mind, never really switched off. In this case, that meant knowing exactly where Grace kept the scissors and her largest vase.

He had just placed the flowers in the exact center of the dining table when Grace slid a small ring with two keys across to him. Only then did it occur to her that she probably should have replaced the Baby Yoda keychain she'd ordered from AliExpress. Her heart had already been hammering in her throat—she had never voluntarily given anyone access to her home before—but as she waited for Leon's reaction, the tension made her feel as though fine cracks were spreading through her body.

Leon's eyes widened ever so slightly, the light in them softening at the same time.

"Are you sure?" 

It was mind-boggling how much tenderness lived inside that large, powerful body, inside those arms and legs that could have taken Grace's life in an instant, yet chose instead to protect her.

Unconditionally.

That was why she'd decided it was finally time to show Leon that he belonged here just as much as he did in his own place. That this was his home, too. That she truly trusted him.

Even if it had taken her a long time to believe it, someone like Leon S. Kennedy could still have doubts about himself. In fact, if she'd had as many one-dollar bills as Leon had self-doubts, she'd never have had to work another day in her life.

"Is... is it too much?"

He gave a quiet shake of his head.

"Not at all, Grace. I just need you to know I don't expect this. It's... a big gesture."

Instead of answering, Grace picked up the keys and pressed them into his palm. She buried her face against his chest, nestling between the two firm muscles that had rested so reassuringly against her back in the bathtub.

The keys might belong to the place where she lived.

But her home, in the truest sense of the word, was him.

Trying to put that into words would have been impossible. Nothing but sentimental nonsense would have stumbled out of her mouth, a jumble of stammered syllables.

She was so, so bad at this.

Still, the moment Leon had a key to her apartment, certain problems seemed to disappear as if by magic. The faucet over the bathroom sink suddenly stopped dripping. The refrigerator mysteriously refilled itself by the time Grace and Emily returned from one of their walks—this time they'd gone to see the State Street Bridge. Fresh salt found its way into the water filter.

Emily, without any prompting this time, told the Office Lady all about Leon, her fairy godmother. Grace even caught one sentence that made her ears burn.

"Grace's been really happy lately. She doesn't cry as much anymore."

Embarrassing as that was to hear aloud, Miss Van Valkenburg received the news with unmistakable delight.

"In light of all this," she said, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her bun, "I can confidently recommend that you begin expanding Emily's comfort zone. She's ready for it now. In small steps, of course," she added, glancing down at her pink tablet. "I'll send everything over electronically, including the specialist's recommendations."

Even armed with all the tips and tricks she'd been given, Grace still had no idea where to begin. Mostly because a single day wouldn't have been enough to list all the ways Emily was different from other children her age. All the things that had been denied to her.

Fresh air, instead of the heavy, filtered oxygen she'd breathed during the first years of her life. Lullabies. Proper clothes that didn't leave her feeling exposed. Her twin sister.

Grace watched the back of Emily's head, her ponytail swaying as she carefully hopped over the cracks in the pavement.

"They're lava," she had declared. "If you touch them, you'll burn into ashes."

Guilt settled inside Grace like molten lead.

Emily had never learned exactly how Marie had died.

She already suffered from enough nightmares, and Grace couldn't bear the thought of adding another—of Emily imagining her twin sister melting into a foul-smelling heap of mutated flesh.

They stopped for a short break on the long flight of pale stone steps outside the Chicago Gallery, which Emily insisted looked just like sand dunes. She wandered up and down them, hopping from step to step, occasionally creeping toward a pair of pigeons pecking at a discarded ice cream cone.

"S-sure... th-that's wonderful news," Grace stammered into the phone. On the other end, Leon listened patiently. "B-but what if the other children ask about her scars?"

"They might."

"O-or what if they d-don't want to play with her?  I-I'd flip out if this ended badly for her."

"It's possible there'll be a few bumps along the way." A door closed somewhere on Leon's end of the call. From the background came the faint pulse of generic workout music and the mechanical squeak of exercise machines.

Grace could picture him without even trying. A towel draped over one shoulder as he trotted from the gym floor to a quiet corner of the café. Damp strands of blond hair clinging to his forehead. His muscles still straining beneath the compression shirt after another impossible workout.

"But," Leon continued, "she might just hear, 'Hey, wanna come play on the seesaw with us?' That's just as likely. The important thing is that she's prepared for either."

Grace sat down on the steps, drawing her knees to her chest.

"I know. W-we already talked about what's okay to tell other people... and what belongs j-just to us."

After all, Emily's chances of making friends probably wouldn't improve if she started conversations with stories about medical experiments and crashing helicopters.

"Don't be scared, hunny." His voice softened into the familiar warmth that always seemed to reach her, no matter the distance. "I've got you."

Not for a second did Grace doubt him.

The DSO's most seasoned operative—the decorated hero of former President Graham—was now walking beside them on the woodland path leading toward the playground, Grace's white handbag slung over one shoulder.

"It's basically military supplies."

"It is not."

Leon stole a quick glance inside the bag. It contained two kinds of wipes (wet and disinfecting), neatly folded rain ponchos, a brand-new box of crayons, drawing paper, five oranges, a bunch of bananas, several kinds of medication, and a bag of salted almonds.

You could negotiate a hostage situation with this much food." He looked toward Emily. "If the FBI thing doesn't work out, your mom could always open a traveling convenience store, right, Em?"

"Right!" Emily sang back, though it was doubtful she'd actually heard the question.

She was already several steps ahead of them, both arms stretched wide as though she could touch the rich tapestry of scents drifting through the air. Berry bushes lined the trail beneath pale-barked birches, black oaks and towering hickories, their leafy crowns casting cool shade across the path. Grace suddenly realized she'd dressed a little too lightly. Expecting warm weather, she wore nothing more on her upper body than a thin cashmere sweater whose sleeves hung over the face of her watch. 

The mild late April weekend had drawn plenty of families outdoors. A grandfather gently pushed a pair of twin-toddlers on the swings while children of every age worked together in the sandbox, constructing what appeared to be a medieval castle complete with moat. On the grassy field beside the playground, a group of boys chased a soccer ball while their parents lounged on nearby benches, swinging their smartphones and reusable water bottles.

Grace had researched everything online beforehand. Bathroom? Check.

She immediately spotted the portable restroom.

Snack stand? Also check. A small seasonal kiosk sold soft drinks, beer, and toasted sandwiches.

A small flashlight peeked out of the pocket of her khaki trousers.

Leon noticed. He simply chose not to comment on it until they reached the playground.

Emily stopped where the woodland path opened into the playground. Her hand immediately found Grace's. She squinted at the weathered wooden climbing fort, its dragon heads worn smooth by generations of children. Next to it, three little girls sat around a picnic table, covering its cracked surface with colorful chalk drawings; flowers, smiling faces, plump cats.

"We d-don't have to stay long," Grace reassured her, crouching beside her to straighten the twisted strap of Emily's Raven backpack.

"O-okay."

She pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt before giving the girls a tentative little wave. "Do you think..."

"I-I think t-trying can't hurt, Chikadee."

The girls, about Emily's age, noticed her almost immediately. One, with a unicorn hairclip and denim dungarees, waved back. "Do you want to draw with us?"

"I... I only brought crayons," Emily mumbled.

"We've got chalk!"

Problem solved.

Emily climbed onto the bench beside them. Her movements were still a little hesitant, still just slightly different, but the girls didn't seem to notice.

"That's why I like kids." Leon's warm hand settled at the nape of Grace's neck, gently kneading the muscle that had gone rigid with tension. "They haven't learned to look for flaws in everything yet." His gaze drifted to the flashlight sticking out of her pocket. "...Hm."

"I b-brought it in case..."

"Easy, hunny" he smirked. "Truth to tell... I've got one too."

Grace chuckled, and tucked her hands in her pockets. "O-of course y-you do."

"You're making fun of me, huh?"

"N-no, I… yeah. Sorry, I am."

They settled onto a bench beneath a flowering black locust tree. Leon never took his eyes off Emily, and this gave Grace the rare luxury of noticing something else: that several people couldn't stop looking at Leon. It wasn’t only his looks. Even without the gun holsters and tactical boots, occupied with peeling one of Grace's oranges he radiated a presence that Grace’s fellow Gen Zs would have called alpha energy.

Or big d—

She was still getting used to that, also to the fact that some people had absolutely no qualms about gawking. A father in an expensive designer tracksuit gave him a jealous once-over. Two middle-aged women nearby leaned together, whispering behind the pug lying across their laps. Grace could almost hear their conversation.

Do you see that guy? Good Lord.

He could knock the wrinkles out of your underwear.

So what on earth is he doing with that twig beside him? He could be her father...

She was pulled out of it when Leon quietly shrugged out of his black leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders. The warmth trapped inside the leather enveloped her instantly, carrying with it the familiar scent of him. Warm skin. Protection. Cologne.

Home.

"W-what are you doing?"

"You've been shivering for the last ten minutes," he replied. "It looks better on you anyway."

Grace hid her rapidly reddening face behind the collar of the jacket. "You're biased, L-Leon."

"I object. I'm not." He leaned back against the bench. His fingers found their way among the orange wedges, separating them. Some fresh juice clung to his skin, and he licked him thumb absentmindedly. "I'm demonstrably correct."

"That's n-not how o-opinions work."

"No," Leon agreed. "But it is how my super-hot girl looks in my jacket."

That one left Grace completely defenseless. She buried herself even deeper inside the jacket, failing miserably to suppress her giggles.

She waved at Emily, calling her name to make sure she noticed. A moment later, Emily looked up and waved back with the pink stick of sidewalk chalk clutched in her hand. She still wasn't saying much around the other children. Fortunately, they more than made up for it. Especially the little girl with the unicorn hair clip had taken to her almost instantly. She traded colors with Emily while enthusiastically designing their team's official mascot: a spaghetti cat whose whiskers were made of cheese.

Leon rested an arm across the back of the bench behind Grace's shoulders.

He looked relaxed.

Still, Grace could tell this wasn't entirely familiar territory for him. Even if he'd wanted a family all those years, he'd never really had the chance to spend an afternoon lazing around in the woods, snacking on almonds without expecting his phone to ring, summoning him to yet another life-threatening mission. "The DSO's game dog," he'd called himself more than once, always with that dry, self-deprecating edge.

"I d-didn't really have any friends when I was little," Grace said quietly. "It always looked s-so easy for everyone else... but I n-never knew w-what I was supposed to say. P-people thought I was... weird."

Leon rubbed his stubbled jaw with his free hand.

"I wasn't exactly captain of the football team, either."

Grace found herself thinking of the young rookie officer smiling back at her from the Raccoon City files. Kind eyes, bright eyes. A face that hadn't yet learned what the world could do to it.

No... however handsome Leon had undoubtedly been, he'd probably been too gentle, too earnest to ever be one of the popular boys.

And now he was here, looking at her as though she'd somehow become the most interesting person in the park. A question flickered through her mind, just for an instant. She swallowed it before it could escape; this wasn't the time. Or the place.

Leon noticed anyway. The uncertainty must have shown somewhere behind her eyes, peeking through like light between half-closed blinds.

He nudged her gently with his shoulder. "What?"

Grace shook her head. "Nothing."

"Grace."

She caught herself chewing on the edge of a fingernail. Leon followed her gaze for a second.

"So..." He lowered his voice, even though no one was close enough to hear. "Is it the sex?" He lowered his voice on the last word, though there wasn't anyone close enough to overhear. Only a few sparrows rustled through last year's leaves.

She stared at him - bull's-eye. Of course he'd guessed.

"W-we'll talk about it l-later."

Leon simply nodded, didn't press. Even without saying it aloud, the question had been hanging between them for nearly two weeks now.

When?

She wasn't used to being the one who thought about it first. Usually it had been the man.

Not that Leon could fairly be compared to her previous two boyfriends, who were simple as fence posts, both of them. After all, for more than six months she'd been hopelessly fantasizing about a man nearly twice her age. And some of those fantasies had already come true.

Barely a day before, Leon had clamped one hand over her mouth, and with the other he finger-fucked her to the edge of delirium.

On her couch, those same hands had gripped her head like a bear-trap while he had been cumming down her throat.

Considering everything Leon had entrusted her with, how he'd quite literally placed himself in her hands - the vulnerability in his eyes, the softness of his hair beneath her fingers - while he spoke about Gideon.

Grace couldn't bring herself to suggest taking the next step. She just… wanted to.

"Mom! Mom!" Emily's voice echoed the radiant smile lighting up her face. Colored chalk dust coated her palms, and her hood had fallen back as she ran. Beside her sprinted the girl with the unicorn hair clip. "Can I introduce you to Nixie?"

Grace went completely speechless.

Mom.

That... had been meant for her.

Grace couldn't find her voice. Emily herself didn't even seem to notice. 

Fortunately, Leon stepped up with friendly ease.

"Hi there." He greeted Emily's brand-new friend. “Name’s Leon, and this is Grace, Em’s mom.”

The little girl beamed.

"My name is N-I-X-I-E," she said proudly, spelling it out. There were daisies embroidered over her pockets, her long hair dark and thick as per her eyebrows and lashes. "That's my dog, Roxy." She pointed toward the pug, who lifted its wrinkled face at the sound of her voice. "The redhead lady is my aunt. My moms are on vacation."

Grace, finally remembering herself, fished an orange out of her inexhaustible handbag and offered one to each of the girls.

"Em," Nixie asked, "do you want to pet Roxy?"

"Can I... Mom? Grace?"

"Mom," Grace repeated softly, answering the question Emily hadn't realized she'd asked. She cupped Emily's cheek, her thumb brushing away a streak of pink chalk. "Of course y-you can. J-just be v-very gentle."

By the time the girls reached the pug and the women doting on it, Grace was already crying. Wordlessly, Leon brushed her tears away with his thumb, then pulled her closer, comforting her with his devoted lips.

His relationship with the apartment had entered a new phase.

After that initial sense of unfamiliarity, he'd gradually begun to make it his own. The rooms had acquired personalities, and the objects had soaked themselves full of memories. Grace cheekily stroking his leg with her foot while they sat on the couch. Snoring beside him in his bed. Applying lip gloss in front of the bathroom mirror.

Now he found himself thinking that maybe he ought to buy a house instead. A big one, somewhere in a quiet neighborhood, where it would be easier to withdraw from the world, to rest, to raise a child.

Leon put away his shooting gear. The lockbox containing his pistol and hearing protection went onto the top shelf of the wardrobe. If Emily was going to spend more time here, he'd need to buy a proper gun safe, he reminded himself.

He let out a sigh, hands settling on his hips. A year ago, stepping into a father's role again after Sherry hadn't exactly been on his BINGO card. He'd been much more convinced that the RCS would eventually destroy what was left of his body and that, once he started coughing up blood, he'd sooner or later end up putting the barrel of a gun into his mouth.

Grace had changed all of that.

She hadn't only bought him more time to keep polluting the atmosphere. Somehow—almost incomprehensibly—he was given him the love of a radiant, breathtakingly beautiful young woman.

And Emily.

The little girl he'd once shot.

Even she'd granted him a second chance.

To such an extent that he could no longer think of her as anything but his own, despite feeling no more prepared than the scatterbrained twenty-something he'd once been. Sherry had turned into an incredible woman, hadn't she? Maybe he wasn’t so bad at this.

He started gathering up his dirty laundry before taking it downstairs to the laundromat. Grace's apartment key, with its little Grogu keychain—for Christ's sake, could this girl possibly be any more lovable?—he placed carefully on the nightstand.

When he turned one of his worn cargo pants inside out, a small piece of white fabric slipped from one of the twisted pant legs and fluttered onto the floor.

It was incredibly soft. A thin elastic strap stretched between his fingers as he picked it up.

Fuck.

Grace's panties.

They'd probably gotten tangled up with his pants when they'd changed into their pajamas after the lemongrass bath. It would be damn near impossible to convince anyone he hadn't stolen them on purpose. He quickly set them on the edge of the sink because he had no desire to feel like an even bigger creep by, say, smelling them or lingering over the impossibly soft fabric in his hand.

The fact that Grace was officially his girlfriend now didn't make respect any less important.

His outrageously young girlfriend.

Almost as though she'd somehow sensed exactly what was going through his head, she sent him a picture.

His phone vibrated in precisely the same way it always did whenever another notification arrived about the utilities for the Sarasota house. At first, he assumed Grace had sent him another meme—one he had roughly a fifty-fifty chance of understanding. Cats. Bernie Sanders. Some bizarre cartoon.

Instead, it was Grace herself.

She stood before a mirror far too wide and far too harshly lit to belong to her own bathroom. She had her back to it, her face mostly hidden behind the reflection of her phone, while her ash-blonde hair glowed around her head like a halo.

Her other hand, meanwhile...

...had hiked up her black pencil skirt all the way to her hip, revealing the milky, smooth curves of her backside and the teasing line of a black thong disappearing between them.

Leon leaned against the doorframe, the bag of laundry he'd just gathered slipping from his grasp and landing on the floor with a soft thud.

His tongue swept across his lips, wetting a mouth that had suddenly gone dry.

Jesus.

She'd taken this in a women's restroom—probably at the FBI office.

She must have been terrified of getting caught, yet some part of her had undoubtedly been thrilled by the risk. As innocent as her eyes looked, she could be astonishingly wild. Leon had already learned that firsthand.

The mere memory of how eagerly she'd knelt before him, of the shameless wishes tumbling from between those lips she'd bitten rosy red, sent a sharp pulse through him beneath his jeans.

And this picture...

He couldn't help himself. He tapped the call button.

"Hi, Leon," Grace answered, her voice coy.

Cute.

"You're home already?" She answered yes. "Hm." Leon smiled to himself. "This picture you sent me... when did you take it?"

Grace let out a tiny laugh that sounded almost like a hiccup, tasting of embarrassment sweetened with excitement. Like fruit wine.

"A-at the office," she admitted. "During my lunch break."

Bed springs creaked somewhere in the background, and Leon could picture her perfectly: flopping backward onto the burgundy bedspread in that tiny room of hers, the same room where dawn had found the two of them cuddled together more than once.

"I s-shouldn't have, should I?"

"Grace..." He laughed under his breath. "This is kinda embarrassing, but I can't stop looking at it. You have absolutely no idea what you do to me."

His gaze drifted to the pair of women's panties resting on the edge of the sink. "...Is now a good time?"

"Y-yeah. Emily's h-having a m-movie night at Nixie's. Nixie's moms are r-really sweet."

Leon was genuinely glad to hear it. Emily and Nixie had clicked almost instantly, as people liked to say. He knew exactly how much that meant to Grace, and that, for Emily, it marked another quiet milestone in the long road back toward an ordinary childhood.

"I accidentally took your panties home with me the other day. I only just found them."

"Oh. So that's where they went."

Leon scooped up the white underwear and dragged it slowly across the line of his fly. He was already half hard, and he switched Grace to speaker so he could keep talking to her while admiring the picture she'd sent.

"I've n-never s-sent anything like that to anyone before," Grace murmured. "I-I never trusted anyone this much."

Leon sank down onto his bed, completely forgetting about his plans for the laundromat. He pulled down his zipper, and from Grace's sharp intake of breath he knew she had heard. He didn't hold himself back, because this wasn't what Grace wanted from him—if it had been, she wouldn't have sent him a close-up of that tempting little ass.

"If I remember correctly..." he said, "you wanted to talk about this. Tell me what's on your mind, hunny."

"Well... it's just th-that..." Grace hesitated. "I want you, Leon."

"Hm?"

"I want..." Even through her voice he could hear how deeply she'd blushed, her breathing growing faster. Leon freed himself from his jeans and wrapped Grace's panties around his cock. A rough groan escaped him. "...I want us to do it. All the way."

Leon decided to tease her a bit, mostly because the situation was unbelievably arousing.

"Meaning?"

"You know!"

"I'm afraid I don't," he replied, tightening the delicate fabric around himself. What he wouldn't give for Grace's eager, wet mouth right now, let alone that tight little body. "Be specific."

"Oh," Grace gasped. "You... you really m-make me s-say everything."

"Come on."

"I w-want you." Her voice trembled. "I love what we do a-already. I love the way we t-touch, your t-tongue, your hands... but I'm going crazy if y-you don't finally... if y-you don't finally fuck me, Leon."

A deep, almost painful groan tore out of him.

Damn it.

Grace really was going to be the death of him.

The best possible kind.

"Believe me, baby," he breathed. "I want that too. I just didn't want to rush anything. You... and everything between us... It's special to me too. I had to learn how to trust again."

His voice faded for a moment as he heard clothes rustling on the other end of the line. Grace had probably slipped out of one of her little sporty outfits, and her slender fingers had begun their journey.

"My own body."

"O-oh. Was there a time w-when...?"

"When it didn't work?" Leon finished. "Yeah." He moved his hand over himself, the cotton wrapped around him carrying the delish scent of Grace. "But not with you. Even now..." His breath caught. "Ah, fuck. I'm so hard because of you."

A small silence fell between them, broken only by the rhythm of his movements and the quiet, wet sounds coming from Grace's side of the call.

"How?" Grace finally asked, a little impatiently.

Leon smiled.

"How what?"

"How do you imagine it?"

"That I'm inside you, Grace." She moaned breathlessly. "Are you turned on?"

"Y-yes," she whispered.

"Your fingers?"

"Yeah."

"Or your vibrator?"

"My fingers."

"Get your vibrator."

"B-but you're so much bigger."

Grace certainly knew how to stroke a man's ego.

He started jacking off faster, more desperately, his breathing becoming ragged, as if he were standing before a great leap; fifty meters of tense sprinting, the push-off from a rooftop, a gloved hand catching onto a rusted ladder.

He was moving and fighting and reaching.

Trying to reach her.

Trying to reach the love of his life.

"Fuck, Grace."

Looking at the daring picture she had sent him, Leon finally gave in. He couldn't hold himself back anymore and let her hear him.

His sticky, hot cum spilled over him, and the fabric of Grace's panties absorbed it as he clutched them tightly and completely lost himself. Grace made a small, helpless sound on the other end of the line, like a kitten, repeating his name. Leon, Leon, Leon.

Eventually they agreed to give each other a few minutes to collect themselves. Grace called him back once he'd changed into comfortable clothes and stretched out on the couch, inattentively flipping through television channels.

"I'll ask Ummi to watch Emily," she said. "Maybe... Saturday? At your place?"

Saturday sounded perfect.

It also meant only one week remained until the FBI gala.

Leon's contacts were still moving frustratingly slowly, and that festering boil named Dempsey was still Grace's boss. Sherry had made him promise not to cross certain lines.

That nobody would come out better if he did.

"If I keep staring at that picture you sent me until Saturday," Leon said, drawing a tiny chuckle from Grace, "I swear you won't be getting out of bed for the rest of the weekend."