Work Text:
“So he returns,” Chris’ voice echoes ominously across the dark hallway, freezing Leon in his tired stride. It’s well-past midnight, likely easing it’s way into the wee hours of the morning, and the lights of the DSO’s medical wing have been dimmed for the evening. His scent, and therefore his presence, were disguised by the sterile scent surrounding them. But Leon can scent him now. Wafts of rage and worry call to him from the darkness.
“I was wondering when you were going to make an appearance,” Leon says with a sigh, turning to face the hulking silhouette of the other alpha where he rests against the sterile white wall.
Chris stands amidst the shadows, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his brow furrowed and his dark eyes alight with anger. At Leon’s words, his nostrils flare and Leon can almost imagine the steam pouring from his ears. His scent pours forth from his body like a forest fire. He’s beyond pissed.
“Oh, were you?” Chris laughs and it’s dark, “Wonder why.”
Leon doesn’t entertain him with an answer this time, too old, too tired, and too sober to play these games like they used to. Instead, he settles back onto his feet and hooks his thumbs into his belt loops, cocking an eyebrow. He lets his scent do the talking, damp paper exhaustion and soft cotton relief leeching from his scent gland.
“Do you have any idea the panic you incited?” Chris comes off the wall, uncrossing his arms, “How scared you had everyone? How scared you had me?”
“Someone had to go, Chris,” Leon rebuts with another sigh.
“That much we agree on,” Chris holds a hand up with a bitter laugh, “But it didn’t have to be you, let alone when you were already on death’s doorstep.”
“Sherry and Claire—“ Leon begins to argue.
“Sherry and Claire’s lives are no more valuable than yours, Leon!” Chris’ voice booms around the empty hallway with the force of a grenade blast, “You had no business investigating this on your own.”
“The DSO wasn’t doing anything,” Leon argues back, his scent taking a swift turn into the sharpness of gunsmoke, “I wasn’t gonna stand around waiting to die with my thumb up my ass!”
“And the only reason you didn’t get yourself killed on this mission was because of a tech analyst who had no business being in the field in the first place!” Chris roars, pine smoke drifting from him in waves, laced with a hint of rosemary and cigarette smoke. He’s worried. And has been, for days.
But Leon can’t let that statement stand because, “Grace would be dead if I hadn’t been there because of the FBI’s incompetence!” He thinks of the horrors he’s been faced with in the past few days and then he pictures that shaky, anxiety ridden blonde with a gun to her head, blood staining her white t-shirt, the light in her eyes dead and gone. She’d had no business being put in the middle of this mess, but she’d stood her ground for him. He owes her more than he’ll ever be able to give. And he will not let Chris minimize her sacrifice.
“And you’d both be huddling in the dark right now, waiting for a slow death together, if Sherry hadn’t called me,” Chris says, fresh rosemary wafting from him, “You were lucky I was able to mobilize a squad as quickly as I was.”
“I know,” Leon has to concede that much, recalling the panic of the BSAA’s spotlights fading into relief when he’d recognized the Hound Wolf Squad’s uniform, “I owe you for my life, again, just like I’ll continue to owe you and all the others until the day you put me in the dirt, that doesn’t give you the right to be mad at me for doing my job and finding a cure for the disease that was well on it’s way to killing everyone you and I care about.”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” Chris’ head falls, his gaze trailing along the cold white tiles. All Leon can scent from the other alpha is burning rosemary. The angry scent of a fire twisting the sharp, almost minty quality of fear. “But this does.”
Chris holds up his left hand, the silver band on his ring finger catching the light as he holds aloft a folded piece of notebook paper. The very same note Leon had left in his messy scrawled writing on the pillow he should’ve been sleeping on beside Chris’ snoring form before snagging the keys to the Porsche and leaving in the dead of the night.
Leon swallows, feeling a bit ashamed at the sight of it. A week ago, it’d seemed like the only option, but where he stands now without wheezing breath, black veins crawling along his skin, blurry vision, or the sickening nausea in the pit of his stomach, it feels like a foolish decision.
Scrawled along the lines of the paper in blue ballpoint ink reads, ‘Chris, I’m sorry. I can’t saddle you with my burdens anymore and I can’t rest with the weight of this on my shoulders. I love you, don’t come looking for me. — Leon.’ He’d been in a haze when he’d torn the sheet from a notebook and written this vague, ominous thing that he’d hoped would throw Chris off his trail long enough that the other alpha wouldn’t have to watch him die.
In his mind, it was a final message because Leon did not imagine a universe where he managed to survive this mission, his only hope had been making it long enough to discover something new, something that might lead Sherry to a cure for herself and the others.
Now, all he can envision is his husband rolling over to find his side of the bed empty, the sheets cold, his scent distant but laced with fear, and this note left on his pillow. Leon admits, he’d be pissed too.
“This,” Chris snarls at the crumbled paper held in his hand like it might come alive and try to kill them itself, “Sorry excuse of a goodbye, not only did you write me a suicide note but you had the nerve to go like a coward? Take the easy way out, again?”
It’s a bit of a low blow, a callback to all those years ago before Chris found him in Colorado and dug him out of a completely different kind of hole. Those years where it felt like everything was catching up with him, all the losses he’d suffered and all the pain he’d been dealt at the hands of the government and BOWs alike, when it all felt like he was suffocating beneath the weight of the shitty hand he was dealt and he’d felt like there was nothing left to live for once Sherry was no longer his personal responsibility. The years he spent in the bottom of a bottle because it was easier than reaching for his gun. Chris’ words sting when they land, the way liquor used to burn going down. Leon finds he has not missed the feeling, fingers sliding into his pocket to parse over the texture of his sobriety coin.
“That is not fair—“ Leon’s voice shakes when he speaks and his scent gives way to shame, the metallic scent of dried blood filling the space between them.
“No, it’s not,” Chris laughs, still a blazing bonfire, “But neither was this.” The paper in his hand crinkles as he tightens his fist around it for emphasis.
Leon has thought about putting a gun in his mouth more times than he could count. Since 1998, he’s entertained the thought of ending it all at least once a year. He’s gotten close to success three times. And all three of those times, Chris, whether he intended to or not, in some cosmic twist of events, managed to save him. And he continued to save him, over and over again, every day of their lives that Leon chose to stick around and see what came next.
When they’d exchanged the matching platinum bands on their left hands, they’d whispered promises. Simple promises, an oath of everlasting love and protection and haven, and more complex things, like Leon’s sobriety or Chris’ tendency to vanish without warning. Amongst those promises, Chris had asked him to try. Had whispered a soft plea into the darkness of their bedroom, asking Leon to fight to come home to him. In return, Chris would be there come hell or high water, in sickness and in health and no matter what happened, Chris would be the one reliable thing Leon had ever had.
They’d both been doing pretty damn well on keeping up their ends of the bargain until this. Until Leon, in a moment of weakness, refused to face his husband and keep that promise, when Leon instead chose to throw himself on the pyre and hope it would be worth the consequences in the end.
The ring on his finger had never felt so heavy before, holding all the weight of his actions, Chris’ angry stare carrying the consequences. Against all odds, Leon had somehow survived once again. And now, the chickens had come home to roost, in the form of his furious alpha. Time to pay the piper.
“Do you have any idea,” Chris began, his voice beginning to tremble, “How fucking scared I was? To wake up and not know where you were? If you were even alive? With only this bullshit to comfort me?” The tang of tobacco hits Leon like a truck, intermixing with all of Chris’ rage and fear. Like one last bastion of his devotion. “Knowing you were somewhere out there, sick and fighting all alone with no one to help you? No one to watch your back?”
“Sherry—“ Leon tries to deflect but Chris waves his hand.
“Don’t,” he says it softly, like the word itself was cradling glass shards, “I already had a long talk with Sherry, don’t use her as an excuse for your own actions.”
So Leon closes his mouth. And Chris continues. “But then to find out you went back…after all this time, to know you were back in Raccoon City, alone and in pain and on death’s doorstep? Like some sick twist of poetic justice? For it to end where it all began, that’s the cheesy kind of shit you’d appreciate, wouldn’t it be? Except it didn’t end, through no effort of your own, no! Instead, some poor underprepared and traumatized FBI agent saved your life on a hunch and it was my turn to pull your ass out of the fire once again.”
Once, probably over a decade ago now, they’d been arguing like they always did in those days, and Leon had been drunk and in a not-so-kind mood, and Chris had finally lost his cool and yelled, “Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to save someone over and over again when they refuse to save themself? How tired I get of dragging your lifeless body back to shore and begging you to breathe every time you let yourself sink?” It had been a visceral image to be confronted with and Leon, at the time, drunk and resentful, had come back with something equally cruel and the whole argument had devolved from there into the angry mess of two alphas with overprotective instincts, volatile emotions, and intense personal trauma that they’d been back then.
Leon is, in this moment, reminded of that imagery once again and he can’t help but picture another version of reality where Grace didn’t trust her gut and Chris’ squad had to tell their captain that they only found one survivor. Where they had to tell their captain that they were too late and his husband was lying cold in the rubble. Where they had to haul his lifeless body out of the ground with cables and Chris would have to stomach seeing whatever was left of him and decide where to go.
In a crueler reality, Chris wouldn’t be able to corner him in a medical wing hallway and yell at him because Leon would be laying cold on a mortuary table somewhere while Chris was left to plan a closed casket funeral. And picturing that, envisioning the man stood before him still trembling with rage having to tell Sherry that they’d lost him. Having to go home to Rose and try to explain that Leon wasn’t ever going to come home again. Having to navigate a world without him and bearing every burden that death bore. Having to go home to their empty bed, blanketed in a stale, lifeless version of Leon’s scent, hugging his pillow close for whatever semblance of comfort the lingering notes of him could offer. Knowing he’ll never scent their bedroom again.
It’s a bleak image, something Leon struggles to process as it floods his mind, and he shakes his head in an attempt to rid himself of it. Unbeknownst to the storm playing through Leon’s mind, Chris persists, “You made a promise to me, Lee.”
The nickname pulls Leon from the visions of every different version of his corpse Chris could’ve had to take home and he returns to the present, his gaze falling back on Chris, who’s standing closer than before and has softened at the edges. His gaze has faded out of anger and fallen into melancholy. A hint of petrichor enters his scent, dampening the edges.
“The day you gave me this,” Chris holds up his left hand, wiggling his ring finger, “We had an agreement.”
“I know,” Leon bows his head, swallowing thickly as his eyes meet the floor.
“And you broke it,” Chris’ voice breaks. Gone is the ever-steady tree-trunk of an Alpha that most people have come to expect from Captain Christopher Redfield. Before Leon stands a man withering in the wreckage of the home they’d built together, his deep eyes lined with tears, smelling like a cigarette in the rain.
“I’ll never be able to apologize enough to fix that, Chris,” Leon says with shame, aching at the sight of Chris’ tears. It was so hard for him to picture Chris as the type of man to cry, even when the other alpha was shockingly sensitive and could be moved to tears quite easily. It’s just not the image of Chris he has in his head. So being confronted with Chris’ actual tears always hurts more than he expects it to, especially when it’s his fault.
“But I can say one thing,” Leon allows himself to reach out and grasp for his husband, his palms finding the side of Chris’ face and turning the taller man’s gaze squarely onto his own, “I fought to get back to you and I am so glad that I did.”
“God, I thought I really lost you this time,” Chris’ voice, teetering and crackling on the edge, finally breaks, as he rips forward and engulfs Leon in his arms. In a blink, Leon is surrounded by the warm, overwhelming grasp of his mate, thick arms wrapped around his back and a nose burrowed into his hair, pressing his face into Chris’ neck. There, he’s flooded with the scent of fresh rosemary and earthy rain, but much more than that, is the tang of cigarette smoke. Chris’ bone-deep devotion for Leon’s very body and soul leaks from his every pore. And Leon inhales, deeply, almost moved to tears of his own at the realization that he could’ve lost this for good.
Standing there, feeling warmer than he has in years, he’s more thankful to be alive than he ever has been.
• • •
Walking through the front door of their den, Leon is dead on his feet. He hasn’t slept in three days, not since he left the care center in pursuit of Grace. At least, he hadn’t until Chris packed him into the passenger seat and set the music as quiet as it could go, the hum of the truck’s engine rumbling low and soothing like a cat’s purring, surrounded by Chris’ scent. He’s cat-napped throughout the entire drive home and he’s still exhausted when he crosses the threshold of their home.
Their combined scent in the space rushes him and his mind begins to finally settle out, some of the tension in his body leaving as his alpha recognizes the space as ‘home’ and ‘home’ as ‘safe’. He’s in less pain than he has been in years. He knows where his mate is, that he’s safe. He knows where everyone else that his alpha has adopted as pups somewhere in his subconscious are, that they’re safe and healthy once more. The world feels a little quieter and his mind, for the first time in months, begins to relax. He could lean against the wall in their entryway and fall asleep right there if he tried.
It’s Chris’ hand on the small of his back that steadies the waver in his steps, as feelings of safety and calm overwhelm him, countering the adrenaline he’s been running on for days. The warm touch of his husband grounds him into the moment and Leon takes a deep breath, leaning into the hold.
But before he can crash, he has a list of priorities to go through. He kicks off his boots in all of their mud-caked glory, leaving them by the front door to be cleaned, then lets Chris guide him to the bathroom of their shared home as if he couldn’t find it on his own. Chris carries his go-bag full of clothes and gear, all direly in need of cleaning, and he leans in the doorway of the bathroom, watching Leon strip away the blood and dirt soaked fabric he’s been wearing for several days.
“I lost my favorite jacket,” Leon says mournfully as he peels the quarter-zip off, wondering when he’ll learn to stop wearing clothes he likes on missions or where the expensive coat ended up after he was knocked out, “Again.”
“I’ll buy you another one,” Chris says with a smile that says he’s trying not to laugh. It’s been a long-running joke for years that Leon cannot come home from a mission with the same jacket he left wearing. They were discussing finances once, not long after they got legally married, and Chris jokingly said they needed to add a space in their budget for missing jacket replacements. He also buys Leon a new jacket every year for Christmas. The fact that the lost jacket was a gift from his mate is part of the reason Leon mourns it as much as he does in that moment.
Leon continues to strip and he feels Chris’ eyes on him all the while. Tracing the filigree of new scars lacing his skin where black veins had once nested. A swirling pattern that almost looks like tree roots runs along his entire right side, branching out along his chest and crawling up the side of his throat in cleanly healed, white lines of scar tissue. Arguably the prettiest addition to his myriad of marks, if you were able to ignore the fact that it nearly killed him. And that there’s surely much, much more of the same scarring lining his insides. He’s not looking forward to his next physical.
He steps out of his pants, then pulls off his socks, handing each item to Chris, who takes them in his hands without ever letting his eyes leave Leon’s porcelain-pale skin. Chris’ eyes linger when he steps out of his boxers, and when he takes them, he takes a steadying breath before pivoting on his heel and leaving their bedroom altogether.
Leon hears the washing machine start up in the other room and chuckles to himself before climbing in the shower, practically moaning at the hot water. If he wasn’t sure he’d fall asleep, he’d take the world’s hottest bath and soak for the next hour. But he’ll be lucky to leave the shower awake, so he stands under the hot spray for a moment longer to appreciate it before he gets to work scrubbing off the layers of mud, blood, concrete dust, and zombie gunk along with a few layers of skin.
By the time he leaves the shower, he feels cleaner than he’s ever felt, his skin pink from the heat of the water snd the vigorous scrubbing. His scalp tingles after three rounds of the mint shampoo he saves for after-mission showers because nothing else ever feels clean enough. He runs a comb through his hair, idly wondering when he needs to schedule his next haircut, before stepping into the bedroom where a folded pile of clothing awaits him on the dresser, a hot pink sticky note resting on top of it.
The sticky note reads, “I threw these in the dryer for you so they’d be warm” with a little scribbled heart in Chris’ neatly printed handwriting. Leon smiles, feeling the soft cotton that is, in fact, soft and warm to the touch. He unfolds the shirt, finding one of Chris’ old band tees, one of the ones that he’s carried around with him since he was still a member of STARS. It’s well worn, the fabric thin and soft with wear, the collar almost stretched beyond function.
Leon pulls it over his head, feeling the clean, warm cloth swath him like a blanket. This same shirt has been his favorite to steal from Chris ever since the first night they spent together. Back then, it hung from his lean frame like a toddler in a nightgown, drowning him in the oversized fabric, hanging slightly off his shoulder. But since he’s started to fill out more, bulking up the mass in his shoulders and arms, it fits more true to size. Still stretched out and comfortable, but almost something he could wear in public.
The last time he’d worn it had been the first time Chris had made a comment on his change in physique since Leon had started focusing more on strength training to compensate for the waning agility as his joints aged and grew more tired of his antics. “Damn,” he’d said with a stunned laugh, “You’ve really gotten big in those shoulders, huh?” He’d put his hands on Leon’s arms, kneading at the muscle with his fingers and grinned, “Not that I’m complaining.” That evening had turned into them wrestling for dominance in bed, their alphas gnashing teeth at the need to claim.
Leon pulls on the sweatpants that Chris laid out and tucks the sticky note into his sock drawer, where most of Chris’ little notes have lived ever since they moved in together, and then he leaves their bedroom.
He finds Chris stood over the stove, throwing together a quick meal for them both. He crowds in on the other alpha, nestling his head into the back of Chris’ neck while his arms twine around the taller man’s waist, squeezing gently where his hands rest over Chris’ stomach. Chris lets out a little rumble from the back of his throat, the type of soft sound he only ever makes at home, his way of saying something makes him happy.
Leon replies with his own vocal trill, a little noise from his vocal chords somewhere between a hum and a growl. He digs his nose even further into Chris’ scent gland, huffing away at the scent of fresh pine, morning dew, and tobacco. All content, relaxed scents.
As Chris continues to cook, Leon lifts one of his wrists and begins scenting his husband. He makes a pleased sound as their combined scent begins to cloak the other alpha, clean cotton, old books, and freshly poured coffee mixing with all of Chris’ natural scent profile.
Together, they smell like a quiet morning on the porch of a cabin somewhere deep in the woods, fresh laundry on the line while they sit together on the porch swing. Chris smokes a cigarette while Leon reads a book, his reading glasses perched on his nose and Chris’ arm over his shoulders. They share a cup of dark, bitter coffee between them, listening to the peace of nature waking up all around them. It’s a daydream that Leon likes to indulge every time he scents Chris and smells them together like this, this image of peace he can only hope they’ll find together one day. It’s something he always goes back to in his darkest moments, the imagery playing through his mind in the faded few moments between his collapse and the cold plunge of an injector in his neck. This thing for him to chase after, something to keep him going long enough to make it home.
And finally, for the first time in months, his alpha hindbrain can finally settle. His pups are safe, the threats are gone, and his mate is in his arms with Leon’s scent marking him. It makes another satisfied sound leak from his throat, a low rumble leaving his chords.
Chris presses back into Leon, their hips grinding together ever-so-subtly, and Leon makes a noise between a grunt and a groan. Suddenly, the whole room feels like it’s tilting on it’s axis as the realization that they haven’t had sex in three months comes into a sharp awareness. Chris was gone on a mission for a month and when he got home, Leon was sick. Neither of them, at their age, could muster a libido when they were both so scared and worried all the time, let alone with illness plaguing Leon’s weakening body. Now, that’s gone though. And Elpis is having unknown consequences somewhere in his body, playing with his hormones. Leon realizes in that moment that the stupor he’s in, that the scent of their home has sent him into since he passed through the front door, it almost feels like a rut. It’s not, not quite the same thing, but it’s similar enough to justify the comparison.
“Baby?” Chris questions lowly, testing the waters. It’s been days. They both need a meal and sleep, Leon especially. It’s frankly not a great idea. But the hunger is there, this feral need growing in the pit of his belly and it’s showing in his scent, the dark bitter coffee notes shifting until they almost smell like dark chocolate.
“Think you started something, big guy,” Leon chuckles a little breathlessly into the back of Chris’ neck.
Needing no further invitation, Chris flips the stove off and turns the oven on a very low temperature. He practically tosses the sandwiches he was toasting onto a baking sheet, shoving it into the oven to keep warm. He plucks the bowl of salad he’d pulled together while Leon was in the shower and all but chucks it into the fridge. And then he turns back to Leon, an animalistic glint in his eyes, a low growl rumbling from his throat.
Leon leans up and seizes Chris’ lips with his own, drawing his husband into a deep kiss. Chris meets him with equal ferocity and it quickly becomes a grasping battle for dominance, their hands digging palm-shaped bruises into each other’s hips and biceps.
Leon growls into Chris’ mouth, feeling like a wild animal as his adrenaline kicks high and wide. He hasn’t felt like this in years. Not since he was in his twenties. The rut he went through when he got back from Spain is the most similar, the baseline urge to ‘claim’, ‘keep’, ‘protect’.
But that had sent him into a frenzy of scenting and nesting for the mate and pups he didn’t have in the safe house he was in at the time, pacing a line around the whole perimeter and checking locks and latches the whole way. That had him stripping his weapons and reassembling them, arranging them safely within reach as his eyes traced the curtains for potential threats. His cock had been stiff in his pants from the way adrenaline was pumping through his veins but it hadn’t been his focus.
He’d only entertained his erection when all fears of threats were soothed and it had become an annoyance more than anything. He’d knotted his own hand to the memory of Luis’ smirk when he’d yanked him close by the chain to growl in his face and his clinical beta scent that was tainted by cigarette smoke, to Ada’s piercing gaze and the sound of her alpha chords rippling with a growl with his knife at her throat, to Ashley’s big, wet eyes as she looked to him as the only thing that could get them out alive and her omegan sounds of distress when she was scared. He’d felt like shit after, staring at the ceiling with his cock in his hand and tears rolling down his face, wondering what was wrong with him and what it would take for someone to stick around. He’d turned, burying his nose into the few items of clothing he had of Sherry’s, wondering where his pup was and if she was okay. If all of his work, his suffering was paying off in keeping her safe.
It was only about a year after that when he met Chris for the second time. Years had passed since their first meeting, when Leon was still a shaking leaf of a thing and Chris was well past jaded. They weren’t friends, they were barely acquaintances. And a part of Leon had wondered for years what might’ve happened if he’d had a normal first day, if he’d maybe started working for RPD a year earlier and he got to know his coworkers and he and Chris met somewhere in the halls of the police station before their lives were ruined by corrupt men and the apocalyptic destruction of a city Leon barely got to know. If maybe, in that universe, they could’ve been friends before the world made them into worse people.
That second meeting, they were on different missions for the same reason. They bumped into one another and butted heads over separate goals, Chris’ men watching on from a distance. Leon, by then, had lost any semblance of the kindness that had once been a core part of his person and Chris wasn’t much better.
They both cared too much, investing themselves into this war on bioterrorism with everything in their beings. They were both headstrong and stubborn, both the very epitome of true stereotypical ‘Alpha’, Chris was quiet but focused and Leon was quippy but sharp, Chris only knew how to lead and Leon worked alone, but at the end of the day, their goals were one in the same. Save lives and go home.
After clashing for the entire mission and neutralizing their threat together, saving each other’s lives for what would become the first of many times, the adrenaline crash hit hard. Leon had every plan to find a safe space to spiral like he always did but Chris was kicked into a rut like no other and his alpha claimed Leon as a new charge, someone he needed to herd in and protect.
That ended up being the very first time they slept together, when Leon could not soothe or satisfy Chris’ alpha until he offered up his body. And that kicked off years of butting heads and arguing in the field that later led to hookups in the reckoning before they’d go their separate ways and not speak for a year or more at a time. Which later led to everything that happened in China, then Colorado, then Alcatraz. And somehow, in some way, that bumpy, uneven road full of cracks, bumps, and potholes, had led them here. To a home they both shared with a matching set of rings and bite marks. To the only scent that could ever mean home and hands that knew when to push and when to pull and what each sound coming from his throat meant.
Chris places one of his massive hands on the back of Leon’s neck and he squeezes. Not enough to hurt, just enough to knead away some of the tension, to coax Leon’s biting kiss into something softer, open-mouthed and wet.
When Leon’s hands began grasping and tugging at Chris’ clothes, the same t-shirt and tac pants he’d been wearing to come get him, Chris grabs his hands and, ignoring the frustrated growl Leon lets out at being stopped from touching his mate, he leads them into the bedroom. Once they’re past the threshold, he slides his own shirt off and then reaches for the hem of Leon’s as Leon’s hands find bare skin as soon as it’s available to him.
He lets go just long enough for Chris to pull his shirt from his shoulders before his hands return, tracing at Chris’ body. He’s as muscular as he’s ever been, the very same strong and broad body Leon had met for the first time. But he’s softened some with age, a layer of fat padding across the dips and curves of his strength. Leon kneads at the softness, grasping at the newly formed love-handles that he’s worshipped with his hands and his mouth more times than he can count.
He traces Chris’ scars as well, everything from claw and bite marks to gunshot wounds, this menagerie of storytelling that lines his skin. Every line he traces has a memory, some he’s heard from Chris’ lips and others he’s witnessed himself. He categorizes every mark on Chris’ body, every mission, every cause, everything from the appendix scar he’d gained as a teenager to Wesker to Romania.
He eventually reaches the mating gland on Chris’ throat, tracing the shape of his own teeth. He remembers the night they’d traded the bite. Chris had spent a large part of the evening explaining to him what had happened in Dulvey with The Bakers and talking about the Winters family. He’d been in absolute awe of their dedication to each other’s survival and especially to Ethan’s persistence in saving his wife as a lone omega with no idea what he was doing. His head had been laid down in Leon’s lap, Leon’s hands playing with his hair, as Chris seemed so in awe at the concept of loving someone that much, at the difference it would make to share that part of yourself with someone.
That had led into the topic of mating-slash-marriage in general, as the two men had very different experiences with the two things. On one hand, Leon’s parents had both been betas, so while they hadn’t shared any sort of bite or mating claim, they’d been married. And that hadn’t ended well for anyone involved, by the time his mother had tucked him into bed with bruises on her face for the very last time before downing half a bottle of sleeping pills and his old man drank himself to death when Leon was only fifteen. Leon presented the year after and upon learning about mating and his innermost need to claim someone as his own, he began to wonder if one or both of his parents had been alpha or omega, if maybe they’d have managed better. Or avoided each other altogether.
On the other hand, Chris’ parents were the textbook ideal for what love could look like. They, too, were married but shared no marks despite Chris’ father being an alpha. He and Claire got to watch them dance around the kitchen together, smiling as their rings glinted in the evening light, and look at old wedding photos, listening to all the stories about what went wrong and how they wouldn’t change it for anything. He’d always been the sentimental sort, enough so that when he buried them alongside each other at only nineteen-years-old, he’d had their rings set into their shared headstone.
But his first example of mating had come in the form of Albert Wesker, a powerful omega who saw him as the perfect impressionable young alpha to suit his needs, someone he could groom into a subservient role who would go against every instinct in his own body to serve the wants and needs of his captain’s omega. He was young, impressionable, and he looked up to Wesker. There was a time he would’ve done anything for the man. And he’d let Wesker put his bite on him. Wesker refused to wear his mark, holding it instead over Chris’ head like a reward for good behavior. He promised Chris they’d be properly mated when Chris proved himself worthy, but that he would wear the bite until then. Two months later, Chris was sent to Spencer Mansion and he began to learn the limits of good faith and trust.
He’d still worn the mark when Leon met him. And the scar hadn’t truly faded until Wesker was dead. But wearing that mark, the mark of a traitor, for so many years had jaded him. And he’d sworn up and down for years afterward that he didn’t believe in the concept of mating. Not until the Winters showed him all of the forms that devotion could take.
So Leon had asked. He’d offered his bite so long as he wore Chris’ in return. Chris’ rebuttal had been only if they exchanged rings and vows like he’d listened to his parents wax poetic over for years as a child. And Leon had agreed. When he’d sunk his teeth into Chris’ mating gland, the taste of blood and pheromone flooding his mouth, he’d clutched Chris’ hand in his own like a promise, already wearing the matching mark on his own throat as it weeped blood into his shirt.
He traces his fingers over the mark, counting each indent where his teeth had sank into the skin and he finds great relief in the soft rumble Chris gives in response. The mark was never meant to hurt and it soothes Leon to know that his mate knows that now.
In return, Chris’ fingertips graze ever-so-softly over the new white lines lacing his body where infection had once run rampant. From his cheeks down his neck, along his shoulders to his arms and hands, then back to his collarbones and down his chest, stomach, hips, and thighs. They continue on down his legs all the way to his feet but Chris would have to kneel to reach them, so instead he follows the lines back up to Leon’s heart where he rests it’s palm, seeming to count the beats as the seconds pass.
He closes his eyes, leaning even closer to the feeling and Leon takes his spare hand, pressing the thumb to his carotid. Just enough to feel his pulse. He breathes steadily, slowly, letting Chris affirm to himself that he has in fact brought his husband home alive.
When Chris has had his fill, he retreats and instead of pulling Leon back into a kiss the way Leon is expecting, he starts unbuckling his belt. He tosses it aside with no care for where it falls and then unbuttons his pants, pulling them down with his boxers in one go. His cock bobs, slapping against his stomach as he does and Leon’s mouth waters, eyeing where his knot is already slightly swollen at the base.
But then Chris shocks him again because while they would normally take to the bed and begin to playfully tussle, growling and nipping and pinning each other in place until one surrendered to decide who’d be taking a knot for the night, Chris instead climbs onto the bed on his own.
He crawls on his knees until he’s in the middle of the bed and then he drops to all fours. He looks behind himself over his shoulder, meeting eyes with a stunned Leon, and he wags his ass back and forth like a tail with a slight upturn of his lips. Presenting for him.
It’s a more submissive and vulnerable position than either of them usually go for and yet, something in Leon’s alpha hindbrain goes haywire at the sight of his alpha mate on all fours waiting for him. He can’t help himself, he pounces. He leans over Chris’ back, one hand holding his hip while another finds his shoulder, and he kisses Chris over his shoulder, melding their lips together.
When they pull away, they’re both panting for air and Chris turns so he’s facing forward again while Leon buries his nose at the nape of Chris’ neck, huffing like a dog as he inhales lungful after lungful of Chris’ addictive scent.
Chris presses his hips back into Leon’s still clothes erection and Leon groans, nipping at his nape with a chiding squeeze of his hips. Chris’ love handles feel so soft under his hands and he can’t take it anymore, sitting back up on his knees.
Chris makes a noise that isn’t quite a whine but is close enough that it shocks Leon a little at the loss of contact.
“ ‘M not going anywhere, baby,” Leon promises, holding Chris’ hips, “I swear.”
“Please,” Chris whispers into the air, fragile as his shoulders curl in. Leon doesn’t let that stand, pressing a kiss to Chris’ spine. Chris gives that noise again, like a high-pitched grunt, and it comes out like a plea.
So Leon reaches into their bedside table, pulling out a half-empty bottle of lube. It’s almost collecting dust on the top for how long it’s gone unused and he opens it hurriedly, squirting a generous amount into his hand. He rubs it between his fingers to warm it a bit before he takes one finger and begins gently rubbing at Chris’ entrance.
Leon watches Chris’ fists tighten in the bedspread as he tries to massage lightly at his hole, coaxing him to relax. Chris is wound tight, though, so Leon takes his free hand and massages gently at the base of Chris’ spine.
With a sigh that turns into a hum, Chris forces himself to relax and only then to Leon coax the tip of his finger into his mate’s entrance. He’s hot inside and wound tight after so long. Leon focuses first on spreading the slick on his hand around, gently massaging at the tense muscles until they give way. He adds a second finger and that small addition has Chris’ head dropping between his shoulders as a groan leaves his mouth.
“Please, Lee,” he pleads hoarsely from his place on the bed and Leon kneads at his hip.
“I’ve got you, big guy,” Leon promises, “I’m not going anywhere.” He hears Chris’ breath hitch slightly, like he’s stifling a sob.
“Need you,” Chris says a little brokenly as Leon strokes along his insides.
“You’ve got me,” Leon promises, separating his fingers a bit to stretch Chris open. He can’t afford to be lazy with prep tonight, not with Chris this tense. “Always have, always will.”
“You don’t know that,” Chris exhales through the words, “You can’t promise me that.”
“I can,” Leon responds with an assured tone, “Because nothing, not even death, could keep me from you.”
Leon slides a third finger in alongside the first two and presses his front to Chris’ back once again, ignoring the cry Chris muffles. He presses his mouth to his mating bite and whispers against his skin, “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”
“I don’t want to,” Chris pants, his eyes glazed over and his mouth open as Leon pets at the inside of his hole. “Want you forever.”
Leon slides his free hand into Chris’s, their rings digging into their skin as they squeeze one another’s hand tightly. “That’s what these are for, big guy,” he squeezes their hands again for emphasis, “These are forever,” and then he dips his head to kiss at the scarred over bite on Chris’ throat, “And this is beyond.”
“I was so scared, Lee,” Chris says, letting himself be vulnerable as tears well in his eyes again.
“You don’t have to be scared anymore,” Leon presses another soft kiss just behind his ear, “I’m alive.” He bucks his hips, his still-clothed and throbbing erection pressing against Chris’ bare ass, “And my cock is throbbing because I want to be inside you right now so bad that it hurts.”
Chris groans both at his words and as Leon brushes his fingers against his prostate, and he pleads with a low groan, “I need you inside me, now.”
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Leon says with a light chuckle, pulling his sweatpants halfway down his thighs. His own cock bounces up like a heat-seeking missile and he pulls his fingers out of Chris.
He reaches for more lube and hisses at the cold touch as he impatiently slicks himself up. As soon as he’s sure there’s enough, he presses the head of his cock to the heat of Chris’ opening. In an instant, he surges forward.
Twin groans leave their lips and Chris folds under him, tipping forward so his face is buried in Leon’s pillow. Leon watches his hands clench at the blankets so tightly that his knuckles turn white and he’s concerned he’s hurt him for a moment. But Chris’s knees slide further apart, spreading himself wider and his back arches as Leon bottoms out. He cries out, the noise muffled in the pillow and Leon watches his legs twitch. And Leon realizes he’s fighting every instinct in his body that is screaming for him to flip them over and take control. He’s forcing himself to submit because he knows he needs it and Leon’s next exhale comes out hitched.
His hands find Chris’ hips, gripping tight in an attempt to ground himself as he feels Chris’s hole twitch and clench around him. It’s been so long since he fucked his husband properly and he didn’t even know how badly he missed it until this moment.
He gives a shallow little thrust and feels the way Chris starts to tremble. Leon can feel his own heartbeat in the pulsating of his throbbing cock and he wonders if Chris, too, can feel it. If maybe that’s why he wanted to bottom tonight, so he could feel Leon’s heartbeat in all of it’s strength the entire time.
“You feel it, baby?” Leon asks with a grunt, pulling out only halfway to sink back in, “Feel how alive I am? How my cock’s standing on end for you, full of blood and life, ready to fuck you within an inch of your life?”
Chris moans, another muffled, “Please,” escaping him as Leon pulls back again.
“You want it faster than this, you’ve gotta ask,” Leon pants, “I could do this all night, just watching you shaking under me.”
“Lee, please,” it’s so close to a whimper that Leon’s knees feel like they could buckle under him, “I need more.”
“You’ve got all of me, baby,” Leon promises, stroking his hands up Chris’ sweat-slick back.
“Lee,” Chris tilts his head up off the pillow, his pleas no longer muffled, “Faster, please.” He sounds ragged already and they’re just getting started.
“Sir, yes, sir,” Leon says with a smirk just to hear Chris give an unimpressed groan that transforms into a moan when Leon picks up the pace.
Feeling the lube starting to get a little tacky, Leon reaches over and pours more over his cock, watching as he fucks it into Chris’ hole. They both moan at the chill of it and then the slick, squelching sound that ensues.
Leon lets his thrusts get a little more shallow, only fucking about half of his cock in and out and he watches Chris’ frustration grow once more as he does so.
“This what you needed?” Leon asks, pressing a hand to the arch of Chris’ back to keep his ass tilted out, “Your alpha’s fat cock deep inside your hole? That what you wanted?”
“Need it deeper,” Chris groans, “Now.”
“I think you’re forgetting who’s in charge here, Redfield,” Leon growls, giving a harsh thrust that pulls a whimper from Chris’ throat.
“Alpha, please,” Chris pants, “Please, need you deeper.”
Leon growls again, plunging deeper. He leans over Chris as Chris moans, loud, and settles his teeth into the back of Chris’ neck.
Chris leans into the feeling and Leon digs his teeth in harder, going deeper and faster with the press of his hips. It takes an immense amount of trust and vulnerability for Chris to let him dig his teeth in, Leon knows this. Not just because of his history with mating marks but also because there isn’t a mission they do where they don’t go home riddled with bites from BOWs. It’s telling that Chris can feel Leon’s canines digging into his skin and know it’s just his alpha at his back scruffing him like a cat in heat.
“Come on, is that good?” Leon asks against Chris’ skin. Chris nods his head. “Yeah, you feeling it where you wanna feel it? Feel me hitting your sweet spot over and over again?”
“Yes,” Chris moans, bucking his hips back against Leon, “Feel you everywhere, Lee, feels so good.”
“Good, baby,” Leon pants, feeling his stomach begin to clench in anticipation. He’s close. His body’s exhausted. He’s lucky he’s made it this far.
He groans, “Awww, fuck,” he pants for air, “Where do you want it, baby?”
“Inside,” Chris begs, “Wanna be filled up.”
Leon grunts, reaching a hand down to fist his knot, “Okay.”
But Chris swipes a hand up, ripping Leon’s hands back to either side of him, holding his hands in his.
“Chris?” Leon’s voice shakes as he questions his mate, on the very edge of his release. It’ll feel so hollow without something around his knot but if that’s how Chris wants to punish him tonight, so be it.
“I said inside,” Chris growls and his voice is dark when he says it, pressing his hips back onto Leon.
Leon moans, placing his forehead against Chris’s back as Chris pushes back on him. He feels Chris bear down as he approaches his knot on every single thrust until he finally gets past the threshold. With one final thrust from both sides, Chris’ hole swallows Leon’s knot and they both moan, loud. Leon’s legs trembles as he falls apart, cum shooting from his cock and filling up Chris’ insides.
His knot begins to swell and Leon’s sanity returns amidst his orgasm for a brief moment. “Chris,” he says, still panting for air, “Are you sure you can take it?”
“I want it,” Chris growls, grinding down against the sheets in a search for the stimulation he needs to fall over the edge. The swell of Leon’s knot pushes on his prostate and he moans, but it’s not enough. And without something around his knot, it won’t be satisfying. Leon knows this and so, he pins Chris’ hips in place as the last of his cum spills forth into Chris’ body.
Chris growls when Leon stops him and Leon says, “I’ll get you off in a second, baby, you know that’s not enough.” So Chris relents, sinking into the bed as they wait for Leon to stop trembling.
Only when Leon’s body doesn’t feel like TV static does he slide his hands under Chris’s chest and turn them. He does it slowly so as not to tug on their connection and even still, they both wince as they turn to their sides.
But that’s where he finds his target. Chris’ cock is so hard the tip is turning purple and his knot is visibly throbbing, pre-cum leaking from the tip.
“Knot my hand, baby,” Leon says, mouthing at the back of Chris’ neck as he reaches around to grasp the base of Chris’ cock in his hand. He makes his fist tight, like a cocksleeve, and holds it still so Chris can thrust as he pleases.
Within seconds, Chris starts rutting forward and back. Forward into the tight, warm grip of Leon’s hand and backward onto the swell of his still-pulsing knot, moaning every time he feels it press against his prostate.
All the while, Leon whispers into his ear. “I’m here, alpha, I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere, I belong to you the same way you belong to me and I’m going to keep you safe in this bed the same way you keep me safe every day by just being here, I’ve got you, it’s okay, you can fall apart now, baby, I love you so much.”
It doesn’t take long for Chris to rock forward into Leon’s hand and still as his knot swells into Leon’s grasp. He moans, shaking apart as they both watch him shoot thick rope after rope of cum over the comforter and side of the bed. The clenching of his hole around Leon’s knot has Leon biting into his shoulder again as he milks more cum from Leon’s cock. When Leon glances at his stomach, he can see Chris is full to burst, a little bulge forming at the base of his tummy.
It takes a minute for them both to come down from their orgasms and when they do, they both slump with exhaustion.
“You can let go,” Chris says in a low, shaky voice and Leon nods, letting go of his oversensitive knot. They’ll both stay swollen for the rest of the evening and well into the night, meaning they’re stuck together for a while. Neither of them is complaining for the forced closeness, sinking into each other’s arms.
There was a time when this period, when they were stuck together because of a knot, was the only real intimacy they shared. Leon had cherished it even then. He cherishes it more now, nuzzling into Chris’ sweat-damp hair and inhaling deep. Pine trees and tobacco overwhelm his senses and he feels high. There’s no drug on planet Earth that could do to him what Chris does.
Chris pulls his hands around his waist, holding them there in his grasp. He turns his nose into the pillow, inhaling Leon’s scent just as deeply.
“I love you,” Leon vows against Chris’ skin, “More than words can capture.”
“I love you too,” Chris whispers, hoarse, “And I don’t wanna lose you.”
“I’m right here,” Leon reaffirms, squeezing his arms around Chris’ waist, “And nothing, not even death, will take me from you.”
“You’d come back from the dead just to annoy me,” Chris huffs, though Leon can hear the smile in his voice. Leon laughs.
“Maybe,” Leon kisses his shoulder, “Maybe I’d come back because I couldn’t bear an afterlife without you in it.”
The silence hangs over them for a moment and Leon hears Chris sniffle. When he looks up to his face, he sees tears.
“You add up all the stars in the sky,” Leon starts, watching Chris’ face pinch, another tear falling, “And that’s how much I love you.”
“All the way around the moon and back,” Chris whispers in a hoarse voice, “Twice.”
Leon smiles. Once, Chris had told him about that expression. How it was something his parents used to say to each other and then to him and Claire. Since then, Leon would say it when Chris needed to know he was serious.
He leans up, pressing a kiss to Chris’ cheek. He tastes the salt of his tears and runs a hand back through Chris’ short hair.
“Nothing will ever stand between us,” Leon promises, “Even when we’re mad, even when we’re tired, even when the whole world’s crumbling.”
“Nothing,” Chris vows with a shake of his head, clearing his throat, “Now you need some sleep.”
Leon chuckles, “Always taking care of me.”
“Well, if I don’t, who’s going to?” Chris side-eyes him but it’s said with warmth. They both laugh. Because it’s true.
“I’m right here,” Leon promises, laying back down, “Rest.”
And despite his exhaustion, Leon doesn’t fall asleep until he hears Chris’ breathing ease.