Archive of Our Own

"I dreamt about killing you again."

Jack Krauser slept with his gun under his pillow, another in the drawer next to the bed, a knife in a holster strapped to the underside of the bed frame. He slept next to one Leon Scott Kennedy, who kept his own semi-automatic 9mm handgun on the floor by the bed, in the space between the wall and the frame. He always slept facing that wall, with ample room between him and Jack. And when Jack would get up and sit at the edge of the bed, checking everything was still in its place, Leon wouldn't move until he was gone again.

This was the first time Leon had said anything to him this early in the day. Most of their time was spent in silence, coexisting like ghosts haunting the same hollowed-out space. Leon had felt like a ghost ever since Spain, since Racoon City, really. He hadn't yet decided if he were shaken out of that feeling or simply more convinced he was a dead man walking after Jack had shown up to the door of his apartment only a day after his return. The same Jack he remembered killing with his own hands. Jack who had tried to end him on the edge of a knife's blade. The day Leon had returned, faces and voices passed through his mind like a waking nightmare. He could feel the Plagas crawling through his veins like it had never really left. He hadn't slept. Keeping his eyes closed for too long made his heart race in his chest like he was in danger of dying at any moment.

The day after Jack arrived, Leon slept through the night.

"That why you were moving around so much in your sleep?" Krauser didn't turn to look at him. Leon could hear the snap of the fasteners on his knife holster under the bed. He should sleep with one on his side, too. "I put up a fight for you?"

Leon stirred uneasily. It was disturbing how much the man could make light of all this. He steeled himself, trying to keep a host of unprocessed emotion from making an appearance and giving him away.

“You kidding? You weren’t even the biggest challenge out there, let alone in my dream.”

A silence. Leon hadn’t quite succeeded in injecting enough believability into the jibe. Maybe it was true that he’d faced more physically overwhelming threats in Spain. Maybe. He wasn’t sure. But nothing had turned him inside out like seeing the major there, on the opposite side of the field.

“That so?” Krauser said softly, so that it almost wasn’t a question.

Leon shivered at the sound of it. He hadn’t fooled anybody.

A silence fell between them. Leon looked at the plain, peeling paint of the wall. He had a feeling that if he didn’t speak now, they would fall right back into their cycle of near-silence. His limbs felt heavy, devoid of fight and not nearly as on edge as he ought to be. His eyes dropped to the handgun on the floor. Could he even reach it before Krauser drew his knife on him? Did he want to?

“Do you still have it?” Leon asked quietly.

“Going to have to be more specific.”

“You know what I mean. It. The Plagas.”

“What is it to you?”

Leon sat up then, angry. “What is it to me?! What do you think I’ve been doing for the last week?! What do you think I’ve been doing since the start of any of this?! Trying to contain disasters that thoughtless people like you let run rampant! Trying to give people out there some semblance of safety from-...”

“From…?” Krauser glanced at him mildly. He was lying on his back, looking at Leon with pale, empty eyes. He hadn’t even reached for any of his weapons. His knife was beside him on the bed, unsheathed but untouched.

Leon ground his teeth, annoyed that Krauser hadn’t even registered his outburst as a threat. It was a threat. They were enemies. They were nothing to each other. They’d tried to kill one another. Leon had killed him. Hadn’t he? The dream was fresh in his mind, like it had been yesterday and the day before and the day before.

“From… their governments?” Krauser supplied.

“Please,” Leon said bitterly. “Don’t make this out to be some big system conspiracy. You were out there for yourself, and whatever that Saddler was doing, it sure wasn’t for some government.”

“You sure?”

Leon balked. This kind of big picture talk always got him on edge. He wasn’t going to let anyone try to obfuscate the facts though, least of all Krauser. Before he could retort, Krauser was speaking again, in that clipped reprimanding tone that always tripped Leon straight into guilt.

“Wouldn’t be the first time you thought you understood all the players involved and made a few errors, would it, Rookie?”

Leon flushed. His breath came faster. He threw himself back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. It was callous of Krauser to bring up old missions Leon had confided to him in better times. In better times. His chest ached. He ached for the times when he’d only been betrayed once or twice, and he still approached new opportunities with fresh-faced hope and determination. People had been fickle in the past, but this time would be different. This time his trust wouldn’t be misplaced. This time-...

Leon rolled back onto his side and stared at the wall again.

He was angry, but not at anything in particular. Not even at Krauser. If he had to put a name to it, he was probably most angry with himself. Even now, he wasn’t done being that foolish kid who’d turned up for his first day on the job at a ghost town. His temper slumped into a banal despair.

A silence reigned in the room again. Leon couldn’t even hear Krauser breathing. He could do that. Go absolutely silent, like a predator stalking its prey. Leon wished he wouldn’t. He wished he could hear that breath, and be sure he wasn’t alone. Be sure Jack wasn’t dead again. His chest shook with a silent, bitter laugh at his own thoughts. Krauser would have felt that movement through the bed. He still didn’t speak though. He thought he knew Leon so well; thought he read all his movements.

Throw him off then, a jaded voice inside Leon dared. Turn the tables and make Jack Krauser have to play a different game.

“I’ve slept better since you got here.”

“Thought you were having nightmares.” Krauser was replying quickly. Good. Leon had him off guard then.

“Who said they were nightmares? I just said I dreamt about killing you.”

“Which is it then, Boy Scout? You want to kill me, or you want me next to you?”

Yes, thought Leon.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to. Who had really caught who off guard.

“I’m going to hand you in tomorrow,” Leon said.

“Sure.”

“I am. You’re a traitor. A biohazard. A terrorist.”

“Sure.”

“And we’re nothing alike.”

“Anything you say, Boy Scout.”

Leon’s face was growing hot. His temper was making a return as well. He tried to keep his cool.

“I’ve got other people, you know. Friends, colleagues. Normal people.”

“And how’s that working out for you.”

Terribly.

There was a chasm between Leon and the rest of the world. There was a chasm and the people on this side of it with him were so few and far between that the moment one showed up on his doorstep, from the bottom of his gut to the tips of his ears he’d felt this overwhelming relief. He swallowed.

The telling silence had gone on too long.

Leon was tired. Very tired. There was an uncleanness crawling in his veins. The Plagas, maybe. Maybe it had been there before that. Maybe it was the thing that separated him from other people –  let him keep going back to look at horrors and joke in the face of them. Because the chasm just kept getting wider. Every experience made it bigger, deeper. And everything he saw was just a little less surprising than it had been before. Until, when he walked in the street and saw people, normal people, people he’d sworn to lay down his life for, living their lives unaware of what was out there, he realized he wasn’t one of them any more. He wasn’t a person.

“You’re getting too up in your head, Rookie. It ain’t that complicated.”

The words warmed Leon like a fire on a frozen night. He wasn’t surprised Krauser knew where his thought patterns had gone. The man had once known him better than he knew himself. Maybe he still did.

And just then, Leon desperately wanted his old commander back. Someone who would sort out his head, think for him, tell him it would be alright. Someone who understood.

“It’s not going to get easier, is it,” he whispered. “The better I get at this, the less I’ll have to come back to.”

“That’s why you need a partner, Rookie. People you’re close to. You can’t do this shit alone.”

“People like you?” Leon didn’t trouble to hide the bitterness in his voice.

“Yeah, people like me,” Jack said, matter-of-factly. “You caught me a little too late, just before I was tossed. But I’d have kept you straight a decade or so if you came to me earlier.”

Leon’s chest ached again. He was shivering, but didn’t move to draw the covers over himself any.

“We all got an expiry date on us, Leon.”

At the sound of his name, something inside Leon broke. He did duck under the covers then, and curled up into himself. His shoulders shook. His spine bent and he bowed his head tight to his chest, fighting to keep a freeflow of tears silent. Somehow, despite this. Krauser’s hand still found him. It pushed into his hair, ruffling it as it settled heavy on his head. Leon gave a muted hiccup and pushed into the contact. That hand was a rope tethering him to the world, holding him here, reminding him he was human, that he still needed the things other people needed, that there were limits to the superhuman he tried to present himself as.

The irony of that feeling didn't escape him. Superhuman strength had been exactly what Krauser was after. What had changed him from the Jack that Leon thought he knew to the one he was coming to blows with in a battle that was no less than life or death.That’s what he’d assumed, at the very least. But it didn't matter, somehow. He hated that it didn't matter now. Every want and every power that played them like pawns on a chessboard was superficial when the basic human desire to belong took precedence.

Things could be like they used to be, just this once, if he closed his eyes and stopped thinking so much and just focused on the here and now. Jack was alive. In some way, shape, or form, he was alive. Leon wouldn’t focus on the part of him that still wondered if this was all fake, if Jack was waiting to betray him again, if he were a ghost or a vision and he’d finally lost it. He was real now.

Some time between poorly hidden sobs, Jack had coaxed Leon out of curling into himself, sliding closer behind him and fitting them together the way Leon was used to. Even now, so far away from what they used to be, it came natural, like breathing. The space he had kept between them for this long proved to have served a number of purposes. If there was no contact, Leon wouldn't get attached again. Nothing would change when Jack inevitably left, however it happened. If there was no contact, Leon could pretend just superficially that Jack wasn't there to begin with. Even when having him there had muted the storm eroding him from the inside out. But that space was gone, and Jack was warm against him like a real human being again, for once.

Leon shuddered at the feel of the broad chest against the planes of his back. The arm that looped over him, bicep thicker than his neck, was heavy, possessive, safe. The same arm that had been injured. The same arm that had altered, grown bladed, chitinous, warped into something monstrous. Leon shuddered again and closed his eyes tighter, moving a hand to run over that arm, making sure it was real, human, no longer just a weapon. Jack’s breath was hot on his nape, disturbing his hair. Finally, Leon could be sure he was there, that he was alive.

“Tighter,” Leon whispered. His voice sounded strung out, haggard.

Jack complied without a word. His arm wrapped around Leon, tightening over his chest and pulling him back against him. Leon drew a sharp breath in as he felt more of the angles of Jack’s body press into him. In the all-enveloping warmth, he became distinctly aware of the bulge against his ass, pressing close like the hot breath on his neck. Everything with Krauser was two things at once: never a gift without an obligation, never camaraderie without an order. But for Leon that made it better. It meant he understood the dynamics of where he stood. There was something mutual going on - take and receive. A transaction less likely to hide duplicity. Or maybe there was another reason he liked it. I want you. You want me. I need you. You need me.

“This why you’re here?” Leon asked. He meant it to sound collected, maybe even cocky. Instead it just sounded… thin, and a little desperate.

“Where else would I have gone?” Krauser growled in his ear. The sound of his voice, low and close, shot a tremor straight down Leon’s spine. “Not like anyone dances with me the way you do, Rookie.”

Leon managed a slight laugh then, still higher than usual, and a little thready.

“Could have fooled me, the way you trash-talked my knife-fighting.”

“I gave you ample praise when it was due.”

That shut Leon up. His face went flaming hot and he swallowed. He’d gone tense all over and an unmistakable heat was pooling in his loins.

“Oh? Something I said?” Krauser asked.

Leon swore softly. He felt Jack laugh, like a rumble rippling through the two of them. The sound of it lightened Leon though, took him back to better times. Some of the tension left him. One of Jack’s hands found its way back to his hair, and stroked through it. Leon’s eyes flickered closed.

“Same old Leon.”

The words hit Leon at so many depths that it was briefly overwhelming. He was the same. He didn't feel the same. Not even from day to day. Another layer shed off him each time he closed his eyes. He couldn't even be sure if he thought it was good or bad, living in that image that Jack still had of him. But combined with the proximity and the hand still running through his hair, the warmth and feeling of security that wasn’t so fleeting for once, it felt like something good.

He tried to keep playing into their game, though. If he kept playing, he didn’t have to think too hard.

“Oh yeah? If I’m the same, why’re you taking so long to cut to the chase, old man.”

There was a soft hiss of breath close to Leon’s ear. It made him shiver again. There was a pleasant thrill of danger that came with treading the line like this.

“Still mouthy too.” Krauser’s voice was soft with threat. His arm tightened further across Leon, so that it was almost painful.

Leon felt something then. Near the small of his back, just above his hip, on the side pressed to the bed. A prick, solid like the tip of a needle. Something tiny but painful. His breath drew in a sharp inhale as he realized it was a knife point. His entire body froze, tense, and back in fight or flight. He forced himself to breathe, to relax, to keep up appearances.

“You always sleep with that? Most folks go for a teddy bear or-”

“A nine millimeter?”

Leon was running out of flippant ways he could take this conversation. He lay still and silent and tried not to think of the unhealed scars that knife had cut into his flesh. The first thing Krauser had done when he entered his apartment was silently reclaim his knife from where Leon had left it as some sort of uncomfortable, bittersweet trophy-memento on the sideboard. 

Leon’s arms were trapped under the weight of Jack’s, but he could move if he fought, if he were quick, sudden. He didn’t have a good idea of where the handle of the knife was, nor how much control Jack had over it. Maybe he could take it from him. Maybe…

“Want me to put the knife away, Rookie?”

Did he?

Now that the question had been asked, now that choice was involved over conflict... A confusion was in Leon’s chest. Because really, what did it matter? The lethality the man behind him posed wouldn’t be lessened by the absence of that knife. While its presence there… He couldn’t deny there was an interest in his taut muscles. His body answered for him then, pushing back to let the knife point press a little harder.

A soft, answering chuckle leveled close to him. Then the prick of the knife was gone. Leon twisted, trying to refind its cruel pressure.

“What-?”

“Got my answer. That’s all I needed.”

“But I-”

“Wanted it?”

Leon swore again. He squirmed, previous melancholy now all but evaporated into irritation. Krauser’s other arm pushed under him though and snapped across his chest, holding him in place, while the other started to roam. Leon’s thoughts slowed all the way down then and his chest rose and fell more heavily. The callused hand that brushed down over his stomach settled him, even as Jack traced out the scars he’d made there only last week, thumb running over the raised, angry lines. Despite it all, Leon was melting away, boneless in the embrace. He tilted his head all the way back and closed his eyes.

The hours of his life had been such a constant tempo of violence that he felt like he’d forgotten that bodies could ever be these tender things. They weren’t just diseased automatons ready to split open under gunfire. They were real, fragile people, capable of feeling, whether it be a hard, rough palm running over his skin, or the emotional refuge of being known.

“You’re thinking again, Rookie. You never used to think so much.”

“Thought I was the same,” Leon quipped back automatically.

Jack chuckled, managed not to falter. “Guess I was wrong, then.”

The arm around Leon’s chest moved, pressure easing up, and just as Leon had come up with some complaint that would keep their game going at the pace it had been, Jack’s too-large, too-warm hand moved to instead put a similar pressure at his throat. His other hand continued lower, purposefully, down to Leon’s thigh, fingers at the hem of the leg of his boxer shorts.

Leon’s heart immediately awoke into excitement. He fought to keep his breath steady, getting just enough air in between the light squeezes at his throat that had a careful and measured weight behind them. That same grip was used to tilt his head back a little more, so that Jack’s face was at the corner of his vision. Leon didn’t want to be made to think outside of himself, didn’t want to consider why there was a thrill at the point of a knife or under the threat of having his throat crushed in an instant, if Krauser still had any control over the Plagas he’d been infected with. His voice was a growl in Leon’s ear.

“Maybe I should’ve said I preferred it when you didn’t think so much.”

Jack’s voice and the pressure and the danger all had Leon sighing, pressing harder against him. He had just enough air to let out a breathless laugh.

“You like a plain ‘yes sir’ better, then? No thinking behind it?”

The hand at his throat squeezed harder this time.

“You’ve got it.”

The fingers at the edge of his shorts were gone, momentarily, replaced instead by the knife that had been pressed into his back earlier. Leon didn’t question how he’d managed to move it so quickly without him noticing, thinking instead of how completely he was in Jack’s control now. Safe and simultaneously defenseless in his hands. The knife at his leg cut a slit along the side of the fabric, up to his waistband, hooking into the elastic deliberately when Jack turned the blade to the side, held the duller spine against it while the edge stayed close to Leon’s skin.

There was a dangerous thrill in the mixing of pain and pleasure. More thinking Leon didn’t want to do. The edge of the knife was well taken care of, and just the lightest press of it was enough to mark Leon’s skin, not deep enough to draw blood, just hard enough to sting. Jack tilted the knife, keeping the elastic of the waistband intact and using the pull of it to press the knife’s tip into Leon’s hip, light like the first cut, the threat of a wound more impactful than simply slicing him open immediately.

Despite playing along, Leon didn’t know how to stop thinking. A knife at his side and a hand wrapped around his throat - he was completely at the mercy of one Jack Krauser. How was this any different from Spain or from the dream that kept running through his head, powerless against the major once more, unsure if the matter was lethal. Rather, why was it different.

Leon swallowed against the tight clasp at his neck and shifted his hips so that the knife point pressed firmer. Jack’s masterful control kept the tip from nicking him despite the careless movement. Maybe it was because the mission was done. Everyone who’s safety mattered was out. And now, with no directives left to fulfill, what was pitting him against Krauser? He was paid to finish the job, not to work overtime by… not letting this affect him.

Why was Krauser the one who was here anyway? Weren’t Leon’s employers concerned about following up on their agents? Didn’t they need to psych eval him or something after all he’d dealt with? They hadn’t even called him in for so much as a debrief. Why was it that a man who’d tried to kill him was here, knowing his every need, when the people he was meant to rely on were radio silent the moment he wasn’t useful. And again his thoughts kept rolling back to what Krauser had said in Spain, that the moment he wasn’t strong enough, he’d be discarded. Could he fault a man who’d been abandoned for that, for then going on to seek a way to overcome those weaknesses? Would that be him, years down the line, crippled and with only his physical strength to rely on for a sense of accomplishment? What lengths would he himself go to not to feel so discarded, so-

The hand at his throat tightened and thought fled him for a brief respite of bliss.

“Stay here, with me.” That came as a low reprimand. Leon shuddered.

To reinforce the words, the knife slipped out of his waistband and traced a pattern, skating over the toned skin of his stomach. Leon didn’t try to conceal the sharp inhale that drew from him. He lifted his hips and ground back against Jack. He got a rumble of approval for that and it heated him all the way through, muddling his thoughts to places more primitive and needs more simple. He tipped his head back further, letting the grasp on his neck press firmer against the lump in his throat. Jack’s fingers squeezed in a slow, massaging rhythm, cutting off all air for brief seconds, before giving Leon back a window of breath, just enough to gasp in a draw before the next squeeze.

Dizzying. Maybe that was it. He needed to be distracted to keep himself from thinking. Needed to be cut off from breathing a little, needed to be handled. Leon realized this was the thread that needed to be snapped. He needed to give himself over entirely or it would always be this way, traipsing the edge until he fell into a gulf of thoughts that didn’t need to matter. What mattered was here, and being here.

Leon moved to put a hand over Jack’s where it held the handle of his knife. Jack stilled in response, giving him another slight, dangerous squeeze as a warning, but allowed for the move. Leon guided the blade himself now, lower, hooking it into his waistband again, and turned toward Jack as much as their positions allowed.

“I’m here. Want these off.”

Jack hardly hesitated. With a twist of his wrist his hand was free of Leon’s again, and the point of the knife was precarious between the waistband of Leon’s shorts and the skin of his lower belly. The elastic snapped easily over the edge of the blade, and Leon only had a moment to come down and think he should be upset that a perfectly good article of clothing was completely unsalvageable now, before the cheek of the blade was trailing dangerously lower.

His mind hadn’t quite caught up yet to much more than the danger of it, focused instead on the chill of the metal against his skin, temperature muted where it was instead pressed against a tangle of hair. Leon’s breath caught in his throat, even without Jack pressing any harder than he already had. He was too scattered just then to stop the almost pathetic noise it pulled out of him. That sound was met with another press of the blade, millimeters lower, and suddenly it was gone.

Quick, forceful, Jack had stabbed the blade into the wall just in front of them. The sound of the impact and the point being buried a few inches into the wall made Leon tense, another spike of adrenaline, it was purposeful.

Leon was breathing hard, pulse thick beneath the hold on his throat. He could see the details on the knife hilt - its functional beauty and the black snake curling near the top of the blade. He remembered looking at it from below, as it plunged towards him, and he wrestled to keep it from burying in his heart. Leon wondered if he could draw it out of the wall before the hand at his neck choked him out.

“You want this, Leon?”

Leon shivered again at his name. He watched as Jack’s fingers stroked over the wrap of the knife hilt, gentler with that weapon than he was with Leon. He opened his mouth to reply but the hand at his throat tightened.

“Want to finish the job? Follow through on that dream of yours?” Jack asked.

Leon attempted to shake his head, but the grip there was much too strong.

“Can’t hear you.”

Krauser let up slightly on his grasp. Leon took the chance while he had it to gasp,

“No.”

“No, what?”

Leon’s heart beat faster.

“No, sir.”

There was another hum.

“Good, Leon.”

A soft, needy sound escaped Leon then. He let his eyes disengage, drawn away from the knife. He focused instead on all those places where they touched - the solid wall of warmth behind him and the way that hold encased him.

He didn’t need to worry about anything. Either Krauser would end him, or nothing would. No one could hurt him while Krauser had his back. That was just the way it was. There were no other threats beyond the present, beyond Jack Krauser. With surrender, the fear of even that threat subsided.

Jack seemed to feel that revelation, because Leon recognized the touch leveled to his hip as one of praise. The hard calluses of Jack’s fingertips brushed lower, following the path the knife had earlier. Leon squirmed with how slow the descent was, angling his hips to try and meet Jack sooner. There was a squeeze of reprimand at his throat. Leon held still again, but a soft, petulant whine untangled from his lips.

“Patience, Leon,” Krauser growled. “I taught you better than this.”

Leon quivered, done with smart comebacks in the face of urgent need. Krauser’s fingers still lingered, trailing down his thigh now. Leon flexed restlessly. He turned his head as much as he could, and nudged his nose to Krauser’s jaw in request.

“Major…” he murmured, drunk on the present and the promise of that touch, so close to what he needed.

“Finally remembering your place, huh, Rookie?”

Krauser’s fingers came together and pinched at Leon’s inner thigh. Leon gave a small yelp, cut off by a constriction at his throat.

“Shhhh…,” came rough in his ear.

Leon wondered what he could do to ingratiate himself, bring the major round to giving him what he needed. It was harder to come up with a gameplan when his hand was roaming again, soothing over the mark Leon was sure would be left on his thigh, then finding another spot near to it and still far from what Leon wanted and repeating the pressure. Cyclical pain and comfort, marking him to make sure Leon knew he’d really been there.

He could put himself together, just briefly, just long enough to win or at least get what he wanted out of this trade. He had to time it. When Jack was letting up on his throat again, Leon expended the just-enough air in his lungs to chuckle, low and short, enough that Jack would notice. It gave him time to speak when there was hesitation before he was cut off again.

“Dreamt about this, too, you know.”

Jack hadn’t moved to choke him again yet, fingers moving instead to his jaw, thoughtful.

“Admitting you had wet dreams about me, Leon?”

The fingers still at his throat applied a slighter pressure than before, the others running along his jaw and tilting his head to one side. Jack had found a position for his thumb that required only the lightest press to keep Leon from getting too greedy with how he was breathing, limiting his voice.

“Yeah.” It came out shaky. “But in my dreams I would’ve come three times over by now.”

Jack’s first response was a hum, only a half-step above a growl.

“I can believe that. You were always fast.”

Leon wanted to respond with some false indignation, keep playing along, but his plan had hit the mark and so had Jack’s wandering hand. The words died before they could even formulate in his head, replaced instead with a sound so soft and broken and telling that it was almost embarrassing.

It hadn’t exactly been a lie. The dreams where they were clashing didn’t coincide with the ones where they were close like this. Usually. But they were both just as real. Or unreal. Or wherever it was that dreams fell. The more carnal dreams had simply held a greater presence in his mind; had persisted longer only because they'd had the time to.

Leon heard a smug, satisfied sound from behind him. It hardly mattered now, though. As far as Leon was concerned, he'd won this. The hand roughly and inelegantly pressing against him between his legs was proof enough of that. He chased that sensation down and for once Jack was gracious enough to keep his hand still for Leon, letting him decide the pace and angle, how hard or soft without having to worry about him withdrawing again.

"Easy, too." Jack’s voice was husky. Leon took some small pride in being able to affect him that way.

"I'm the easy one?" Leon tilted his hips back purposefully, pressed himself against the hardness that had been against his back. "You’ve made it real clear how bad you wanna use this on me. A little cuddling gets you that worked up?"

It was Jack’s turn to grind against him.

"Only when it's you."

Leon wasn’t sure if he wanted the sentimentality of that statement to mean anything to him. He wasn’t even sure if it was really as sentimental as he was taking it. That felt like complicating things again. Staying physical meant staying out of his head.

He was lucky. Jack was either thinking the same thing or willing to pretend he hadn’t said it in the first place. His hand moved away again, too fast to allow Leon time to complain, and grabbed at the now tattered fabric of his shorts, ripping the rest away like it was no effort.

Leon waited, frozen in the moment of silence and stillness that came after, quivering with anticipation for the return of that touch. He glanced to the side, as much as he could. Jack was looking back at him.

“Want something, Leon?”

Leon tried to turn his head further; let Krauser get a full dose of the indignation he was glaring. Instead, the fingers on his jaw gripped tighter, holding him in place. They only loosened when Leon kept obediently still. A finger ghosted further up, tracing out the line of his mouth. That rough fingertip caught in slight friction over his soft lower lip.

“Show me how much,” Krauser murmured, and pushed his index and middle finger past Leon’s lips.

Leon caught them both lightly between his teeth. Krauser drummed the fingers of his other hand idly on Leon’s thigh, for once offering the carrot and not the stick. At that promise, Leon relented, and let those fingers pass into his mouth. Krauser wasted no time in sinking them just further than was comfortable, so that Leon had to work to keep from gagging, sending his thoughts abruptly to other scenarios, as was no doubt intended. Leon’s cheeks heated, but he had no intention of letting the major win at this so early.

He ran his tongue up the underside of Krauser’s fingers, and was rewarded with a hiss from behind him. Leon sucked then in earnest, eyes canny and bright as he felt Jack stiffen, so clearly affected by the willing response.The major’s hand slackened a little at his throat, allowing Leon freer movement of his head. He dipped and pulled then, making sure he was audible as he sucked on Krauser’s fingers, lathing his tongue generously over the wet digits. Just as he was starting to feel a semblance of control at the hitched sounds Krauser was making, Leon felt the full return of a hand to his crotch. His hips pitched into the contact and a muffled gasp escaped around Jack’s fingers.

Like that, Krauser was leading again, tipping Leon’s head back against his broad chest, thrusting his fingers in and out of Leon’s mouth along the flat of his waiting tongue. His other hand echoed that tempo, finally touching Leon’s cock to start moving on him.

Leon’s eyes closed. Those dual sensations tipped his thoughts into such a welcome abyss of silence. The kind of silence Jack had been allowing his mind since he first turned up here. The silence of existing in the present, in simplicity, in animality, in carnality. 

The rough, careless heat of Krauser’s palm against him had him aching with interest. Leon arched his back, urging an increase in tempo. He'd been good enough now, he thought. He deserved it. He would have voiced as much if his mouth weren't still occupied. His teeth came down again, light on Jack’s fingers, just enough to get his attention. It felt like a mistake for a split second, when the hand that was finally giving him the attention he needed stilled against him, but it started again at that same pace that was quickly proving to not be enough.

“Told you you were fast.”

Leon risked biting a little harder in response to that. He was answered by nails pressed into the meat of his leg so hard that a squeak escaped him. Immediately, Leon was back to ingratiating those fingers, trying to tempt Krauser into playing nice again. He sucked dutifully until those nails softened to finger pads, stroking over the marks they’d made. Finally that hand moved back, thumbing over his cock to touch him the way he needed. Leon exhaled a ragged sigh. Krauser moved his fingers about his mouth, feeling out everything, his tongue, his teeth, his palette, until he gradually dragged his fingers all the way out. Leon chased after him, shifting to try and catch up his fingertips again.

“Enough. I want to hear you, Rookie.”

“Thought you were done with my smart jokes.”

“Ain’t your jokes I want to hear.”

Leon tilted his head back, fringe flopping to the side, and looked up at Krauser with a pleasure-drunk lethargy. His embarrassment had evaporated before an overriding lust and the freedom of surrender.

“Yeah? I’ll moan for you good, Major, if you make me.” Leon brought a hand behind himself, running it up along the taut muscles of Jack’s leg. He mirrored the path of Jack’s knife on his own leg from earlier, hooking his fingers into the fabric of Jack’s shorts, pulling the hem a little away from Jack’s thigh. “Provided you can still handle me. Catching up to you now, aren’t I? Not such a rookie anymore.”

“Oh, I’ll handle you alright, Boy Scout,” Krauser growled. Leon grinned, he’d practically handed him that one.

His confident demeanor faltered some when Jack made good on his threat, flipping Leon onto his front with an unsurprising ease. He felt closer now, with Jack over him and still so effortlessly holding him in place. Jack had one arm around Leon’s waist and the other pinning him by the back of his neck, a solid weight keeping him where he was. The position gave him the perfect angle to keep pressing his still-covered bulge against Leon’s bare ass, and the sensation almost had Leon caving and giving Jack the moan he wanted, but Leon held off from submitting just yet.

Leon peered back over his shoulder instead, as much as the position allowed, and attempted to keep their cat-and-mouse going.

“Is that it? Just showing off some of your old CQC?” The hand on the back of Leon’s neck tightened almost imperceptibly. “If that’s all, I can get that in my dreams, too. A little better, even.”

Krauser lifted up a fraction then, still silent, and Leon immediately missed the proximity. The hand at his neck traveled slowly, flattening and passing down his back, curving over each ridge of his spine. Leon’s fingers curled against the bedsheet, clasping tight. He drew his breaths in carefully, trying to keep them regular as that heavy, possessive touch roamed on him. There was a delicious vulnerability to being held down like this. Leon turned his face back into the pillow to keep silent another moan that was dangerously close to making itself known. Jack’s hand moved back up him, sliding up the nape of his neck to entangle in his hair. For a moment, his fingers pushed against Leon’s scalp with a tender, massaging pressure, then he tightened his hand into a fist and held Leon pressed face down. 

Deja vu hit Leon: the middle of their knife fight; Krauser catching him off guard; that immovable hand coming up behind him, gripping the back of his skull; Leon only just twisting away before a knife threatened to bury itself between his shoulder blades. He gasped against the material stopping his breath. Krauser kept him there a moment longer, just enough for Leon’s pulse to rocket and for all his danger senses to go off, then Krauser was tugging on his hair, giving him a few inches of space to drag air back into his lungs.

Leon gasped in as much air as he could, more than he needed, hands still gripping the sheets like they were the only thing keeping him grounded. Another shudder went through him when his body caught up to his head, and every part of him caught up to where he really was, in the present, still alive. Jack finally made some sound behind him again. A low chuckle. He could feel every movement Leon made, and was apparently pleased enough to start rocking his hips against Leon again.

“Was that like your dream, Boy Scout?” He didn’t expect a response, pulling the hair in his grip a little harder. “I get your heart racing this hard?”

Leon’s back arched at the tight pull on his hair, just painful enough on his scalp to keep his heart thumping fast. He scraped together his voice from where his senses had scattered it.

“Y-yeah. You always got my heart racing. No surprise I dreamt it that way too.”

“Not quite like all the other times though, is it,” Krauser’s lips were close to his ear. “Now that we’ve fought, really fought, it’s everywhere, isn’t it. In all your recollections.” He came even closer, so that his whisper sounded like it was inside Leon’s head. “And you like that.” His hand softened in Leon’s hair, dropping him back to the pillow. He laid his hand on Leon’s head then, carding his fingers through his hair with something that felt close to affection. “You like blending those edges together. You like bringing the thrill of a fight into this. Because this is how we feel alive, Leon. Violence is our life essence. A language of strength.”

Leon’s eyes flitted to part closed. Was that right? Honestly, he’d rather the major got to railing him and dispensed with the might-makes-right diatribe, but from the way he was being tended to, it looked like Jack wanted him to answer.

“Not sure about that, sir. Think maybe I just want to blow off steam with someone who knows me.” Something simple. A semblance of respect. Hopefully Krauser would leave off the topic and give him what he wanted.

“Hm… Well, you’re right about one thing, Leon. I certainly do know you.”

Leon wasn’t sure he wanted to process what that meant in connection to the rest of what Jack had said. It was easier not to think. Not to think about the way that knife had definitely interested him, about the way that each time Krauser’s hand closed on his throat, a faint flicker of fear made everything that much sweeter.

Krauser lifted himself again, using a hand at the back of Leon’s neck for leverage. He pressed down against him, hard, making a point of it.

“Don’t move.”

The pressure was suddenly gone, and the needier part of Leon’s mind was wrestling between the urge to do just as he was told and the urge to move and try to regain Krauser’s full attention. It culminated in him gripping the sheets harder, given enough slack by the hand now light on his neck to turn his head again. He felt Jack moving behind him, leaning his weight towards the edge of the bed, too high on pleasure and the promise of more to put together what he might be doing. It wasn’t until he heard the slide of the bedside drawer opening that a flash of panic hit.

The drawer. Krauser kept a gun there. Leon could hear the weight of it shifting slightly as the drawer opened. His entire body went stiff. It would be so easy for him to end it here. He could place the cold muzzle against the back of Leon’s head and squeeze the trigger. Leon tried to calm himself. Krauser had had any number of chances to kill him, if that was what he’d wanted, why he was really here. There was a gun under his pillow, too. There was the knife that had been within reach this entire time. Time still felt like it slowed to a stop. He’d come this far already, was he really going to start fighting now?

There was a rumble behind him. Krauser was laughing again, this time a little darker, something cruel about it. Leon considered moving just for that - disobeying, fighting back. His focus was still split between Krauser’s reactions and the gun within reach. He saw Krauser’s hand move in the drawer again, slow and deliberate. He did know Leon. He knew what he was thinking, how he would respond, and he used that to play games just like this one. There was a mix of emotions hot and bitter and exciting and the cocktail made the tense alarm in Leon’s muscles into something almost appealing, satisfying.

Jack’s hand pulled out of the drawer and back into view. Not his gun. A bottle, instead.

Leon’s mind was still coming back around in the moments after. He was alive. Of course he was alive. And the weight of Jack returning and leaning over him again was heavier. The attention he'd been missing was back. Constantly teetering between pleasure and anxiety, both of which Krauser initiated effortlessly, was eventually going to render him to nothing.

Maybe that was what he wanted.

“Good.”

Jack was close again, speaking low, and the word first registered to Leon as a direct response to his thoughts. He believed for just a moment that Jack could hear what he was thinking, feel it like it was radiating off of him. Even after that moment, Leon didn’t question it. Jack was leaning up again and keeping a hand at Leon’s lower back like he was steadying him. Leon heard the cap of the bottle open and heady anticipation thrummed through him. Jack pushed a knee between his legs, parting Leon’s thighs. Leon obliged by spreading further. He would have lifted his hips too, but Jack had them firmly pinned to the bed.

“Needy much, pretty boy?”

A little color rose to Leon’s cheeks at the pet name. He gave a huff, still highly strung from that most recent flirtation with death.

“Going to wither away until I’m almost as old as you if you don’t take me soon.”

“Hushhh,” Jack murmured, almost soothing. Leon stilled immediately.

A few more painstaking seconds, then Krauser’s arm was reaching down between them, still pinning Leon with the other. A hand clasped one cheek, and then Leon felt Jack’s thumb brush cool and wet over his hole, slicking it with lube. Leon moaned then, unabashedly. He arched his spine as much as he could - he needed more contact, needed Jack everywhere. Jack pressed down on him, looping a hand under and across Leon’s chest to grip his shoulder.

“I got you, Rookie,” he said softly, and dipped his thumb into Leon’s entrance.

The gentle, soothing words alongside finally getting what he’d wanted since this dizzying dance began pulled another broken moan from Leon’s throat, muffled into the pillow. He did his best in the small space left to press himself against Jack harder, still unsuccessful in that unyielding hold.

“Were you this good for anyone else while I was gone?”

Leon was almost too spaced out to respond, focusing only on the finger working into him. He looked back over his shoulder, made sure they met eyes again before he responded, that little bit of fight still in him,

“Why? That make you jealous?”

Jack’s expression didn’t change, and that was more of a sign than anything else that Leon was right on the money with his teasing. He didn’t get the chance to feel self-satisfied, though, with Krauser pressing deliberately inside him, each drag of his thumb harsh, still knowing Leon inside and out like no time at all had passed since the last time they were close like this.

“Just wanted to remind you what you were missing out on.”

He drew his thumb away again, almost completely out, clear bait to get Leon chasing uselessly after that sensation. He was pressing back in soon after, slow and measured, humming low in his throat like he was pleased to see precisely the reaction he’d expected. Leon laid the side of his face back into the pillow, petulant at being called out so easily, responding on auto-pilot; a defense mechanism:

“Missing out, huh? And whose fault would that be?”

The hand at Leon’s shoulder squeezed a little harder then, edging on painful.

“Yeah. Whose.”

It ended there, at least for the time being, and that was fine with Leon so long as Jack's hands were still on him, still keeping him from getting lost thinking again. Jack moved with more purpose now, working Leon open while the other hand stayed firm around him, keeping Leon still despite the antsy anticipation threading its way through him. Jack knew what he was doing. He always seemed to know. There hadn't been a moment that he wasn't in control of the situation, that he didn't have the upper hand, that he wouldn't be able to wrest back control should Leon really fight against him. That much wasn't surprising, but the feeling of giving over power and being so openly and willingly submissive only served to get Leon more wound up.

Pressed near-flat underneath Krauser, Leon managed to rut against the sheets, hardly enough friction or firmness for it to amount to much, but he was edging on oversensitive, looking for whatever contact he could find. He managed to hit a spot just right, pushing back onto Jack's hand on the instroke and against the mattress as he pulled away. Jack's breath was hot, heavier, lacking in the restraint he'd had earlier, and the feel of it at Leon's neck only mixed with all the other sensations to make the pleasure more potent.

Leon was inching towards the edge, tortuously slow; an orgasm that was far enough away it almost seemed unrealistic, yet close enough that he couldn't stop himself working towards it even if he'd wanted to. It wasn't enough anymore, it was so much and yet not enough. He gave up a moment on being difficult or combative, peering back over his shoulder again and finding his voice without caring to steady it this time.

“Jack– please.”

He felt a huff of air against his back. Jack looked up from where he’d been apparently admiring the muscles of Leon’s back, the way his shoulders flexed while he was busy chasing after the euphoria Jack wasn’t allowing him. He wore a smirk that almost ignited that mouthy streak in Leon again.

“Please what, Rookie?”

Leon groaned, equal parts pleasure and frustration.

“Please will you hurry up and fuck me. Sir.”

That got Leon a hum of approval.

“Don’t forget rank again or I’ll leave you high ‘n’ dry, Soldier.”

Leon’s heart skipped a beat. Would he really? He might just. With Krauser, anything was possible. 

Jack’s thumb drew away then and Leon’s fists curled tight, crumpling the bedsheet to stop from whining out a protest.

“Good,” Jack murmured again, reading the taut pull of Leon’s muscles as he stiffened beneath him.

Leon’s breath rose and fell fast. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take of this slow game Jack was playing. He heard the bottle cap open once more. At least he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. 

Jack was reaching down between them again. To Leon’s surprise, Jack’s fingers were back at his entrance, and before he could fully process the thought, two fingers were pressed up inside him. Leon arched up into Jack, another full moan blooming from him. Jack shifted his other arm, catching up Leon’s throat between thumb and forefinger as he writhed with that full pleasure. Leon let his weight lower into Jack’s hand, choking himself on that study grip. Jack gave a soft, dark laugh at Leon’s proactive submission. He began moving his fingers in earnest then, scissoring and thrusting so that Leon slipped into a pleasure-induced haze. He gasped and groaned into the action, and checked his own breathing, lifting and lowering into the gentle crush of Krauser’s hand at his windpipe as he needed.

“Missed how pretty you look like this.” Jack’s voice was almost a growl in his ear.

Leon had missed the way Jack maddened him and drove him to the brink before he ever gave him anything. He couldn’t say as much though because he’d sunk his throat into that choke, and his brain was fogging to a simpler state, and because thinking about missing people hurt and not the good kind of hurt. He had missed this though. Not just this. Jack. And not just because he wanted him carnally. He wanted him in other ways too. As a teacher, a comrade, a friend. Leon pressed harder into the choke.

“Easy, Rookie,” Jack whispered. “Don’t want you whiting out on me.”

Jack’s hand moved then, shifting so that Leon’s face dropped to the pillow. He pushed his hand up into Leon’s hair, alternating carding and tugging there. Leon’s eyes closed. He wished Jack had let him dull a few more of his senses before he released him. Jack drew his fingers out of him then, and just crowded close, massive shoulders darkening Leon’s world as he leaned over him.

“Need distracting again?” Krauser asked.

Leon didn’t question how easily he was read. He nodded.

“No point dwelling on the past. Keep moving on,” Jack said. He was talking in that tone he used for instruction. Hours and hours of tuition under him had conditioned Leon into calming at the sound of it. “I came back for you, didn’t I? Knew you’d be shacked up here with your nightmares.” 

Jack stroked his hand back through Leon’s hair. Leon leant into the touch, complicated things stirring in him at how tender that was. It was always easier when Jack was rough with him. When he was gentle, Leon started getting ideas. His heart would start aching. He’d start wanting more - promises and trust. It was the same old story with him. No matter how many times he was left, he still wanted to hold on.

Leon realized, with a touch of mortification, that he was on the verge of tears again. He buried his face further into the pillow. The hand at his hair slowed to a stop, low on his nape, but Jack didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Jack knew him. He knew Leon so well that he was certain from the moment he’d appeared at Leon’s door he wouldn’t be turned away. He knew that he could sleep with his back to Leon, with Leon’s handgun easily within reach, and not be in any danger. Not because he was any stronger or faster, purely because he knew Leon needed him here.

Maybe it wasn’t healthy. Maybe it wasn’t something Leon should have been desperately trying to drag into the present with him. But the present was louder in his mind than almost anything else, now. 

Jack thumbed the back of his neck, slow and methodical. Leon drank it up like he was knocking back whiskeys in a bar. That was what he needed. More of that pressure, taking him back to where everything felt good. The major’s breath was on his neck, lips brushing there, almost a kiss. The hand that had been between them moved back down, and Leon could feel Krauser shifting behind him as it did. After a brief moment without contact, the air chilling his skin, Krauser was back against him. Leon had lifted his head only enough to breathe clearly, still shaky, still a minefield of nerves, and he closed his eyes as Krauser's hand slid away from his neck, down his side. He heard the bottle open again, and a few more agonizing seconds passed with only the sounds of Jack moving behind him and the urge to keep his own breathing steady to keep him distracted.

An arm wrapped under his waist to lift his hips. Leon moved without any struggle, eager and pliant. Jack’s thumb was at his hole again first, then the tip of his cock. He moved slow and careful, even after all the danger, all the adrenaline, giving Leon only that side of him that he was still reluctant to call affectionate. Leon exhaled with a trembling satisfaction. His muscles flexed with anticipation and he heard Krauser inhale appreciatively at the tactile responses Leon made under him. Jack moved gradually until he pushed all the way in. The intimacy of that moment, held and filled, gave Leon a rush like all the rest of the play could only hope to match. The tight captivity of that safety alone crushed down so much of the mush his head had turned to after the last mission.

Jack started moving then, and Leon gave him his promised moan, full and unabashed as that lethargic pace hunted out the points that felt good. Jack had leaned back over him, the arm that had gone under Leon to prop up his hips moving so that his hand was free to return attention to Leon’s cock, working it roughly between his fingers. The sensation was almost overwhelming when paired with Jack’s slow, measured thrusts. Leon found himself all too soon back at that high, the edge where he was close to toppling over into nothingness. He wanted to cling to that precipice, drink up as many moments of this as he could, with Jack’s hand moving ungracefully against him and his hips stuttering, uneven with every few thrusts as he ground against Leon, chasing purely after his own satisfaction.

Leon’s fingers twisted in the bedsheets, bunching them up as he gasped. Each roll of Jack’s hips pressed him up inside him, hitting a point that sparked pleasure through bundles of nerves. Jack’s thumb beneath him, working back and forth, had Leon trying to both grind forward into his palm but also back onto his cock. Krauser stilled a little, and Leon knew he was interested to see him play that out in full. Leon moved as best he could, rocking between that hand between his legs and that hardness inside him. Jack’s dead weight prevented him from reaching the pace he needed though, and he was soon whining in frustration. Jack didn’t let up. Leon’s teeth ground together.

“Jack… Major Krauser… sir…” Jack’s names spilled from him as he remembered the forgetting rank threat. “Please…”

Leon felt the jolt of pleasure hearing him beg sent through Jack. He liked it when the stoic major came undone in response to him, knew how Jack got hot for that kind of submissiveness. Sure enough, Jack began moving again, harder than before. He hit home more firmly and his pace started to racket up in earnest. His thumb began to flick quicker over Leon’s cock, and he didn’t object when Leon ground desperately into the heel of his palm.

Leon wouldn't last much longer. He would have kept himself at that edge for a few more moments, at the very least, if he weren't already so sensitive from all of the build-up before. Maybe if it were anyone else but Jack, someone who didn't already know him so well, who hadn't already had him mapped inside and out, it would have been a simpler endeavor. But now, every other sensation was being muted in favor of the physical. The almost crushing warmth at his back, the callused fingers working his cock, the length inside him, all of it was so loud.

Leon could feel his orgasm building up, prickling at the base of his spine like something ready to combust. His hips fell out of the rhythm he'd found and he was instead led entirely by Jack, pressed harder against the mattress and the hand underneath him on every instroke. His breathing went more uneven, between gasps and moans either buried into the pillow or let out unrestrained, and each sound only seemed to incite more pressure on Jack’s part.

Jack thrust into a point that had Leon tumbling words of request and need. He wasn’t even sure what he was saying. Jack’s name was in there, and a string of half formed pleas for ‘more’, ‘harder’, and a decent littering of curses. Krauser pounded that same place over and over for him, and dimly Leon heard Jack’s voice close to him, raw and undone.

“Fuck, Leon. Missed how chatty you get as I end you.”

Leon wasn’t even sure what kind of end he meant, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered except the intimacy of being known, and the power in the way Krauser took him. Leon came apart then, gasping noisily through an orgasm that had his whole body tensing harder around the cock inside him. The touch between his legs stilled and Jack brought both hands to his hips, lifting up to finish himself with firm thrusts deep and fast into him.

Through the last few aftershocks of his own orgasm, Leon heard Jack groaning through his final moments, grinding hard into Leon so that he pulled soft, muted whimpers from him. Krauser pushed a hand into Leon’s hair, fist closing tight there as he steered him to where he wanted. All at once, Krauser was done, hips finally stilling and breaths coming heavy. He sat back on his knees and let Leon flop boneless to the bed before him.

Leon was a dazed mess, breath stuttering to regulate and eyes lidded and drowsy. Jack drew his hard length out of him slowly, bringing another low moan from Leon.

“So well-behaved,” Krauser murmured, running a hand up into Leon’s hair and mussing it.

Leon turned to look at him then, eyes filled with requests he’d never dare speak out loud. He looked towards the wall again, as quiet now as he had been vocal in the height of his pleasure. He heard Krauser unstrap, and felt the bed shift as he did. Leon wondered if he’d leave. Just go, now that he was done with him. The bed shifted again and a weight behind him threatened to roll him toward the center of the mattress. Leon shivered. He felt cold and suddenly alone. Afraid even. Abruptly though, there was a warmth behind him again. Leon breathed a deep sigh of relief and shuffled back into Krauser.

An arm went around him, and Leon briefly wanted to interlock his fingers in the hand that came to rest at his forearm. He wondered when he’d gotten so soft, or if he’d always been that way, and that, combined with how unsure he was of the reaction he’d get from Jack even now, stayed his hand.

A comfortable drowsiness was taking him. And an uncomfortable myriad of thoughts. Did this change anything? Did it mean something now? He wasn’t sure if there were still things Jack wanted to convince him of, a side he wanted Leon to take, one that might be impossible for him to come to terms with. And what then? If they disagreed, would Krauser really leave quietly?

The arm around him tightened again. Leon took himself out of his thoughts to focus on his breathing. He knew his heart must have been nearly beating out of his chest, but he at least still had an excuse for that.

“Yeah. No way you used to get this in your own head.”

Jack’s voice was close behind him, almost muffled. Something about how casual it was, how calm and content he sounded now, made Leon unsettle again. He put up some small resistance, freeing his arms slightly from the hold Jack had him in. Jack was unmoving behind him, sign enough that the action made him wary. Leon waited a moment longer. Tried to put the words together in his head and still sound firm when he was feeling anything but.

“...You made me think you were dead. Then you come back, and you make me think I killed you. And now? …You just show back up as if I asked you to be here. Waltzed in like nothing happened, like you just disappeared for a few days and it was nothing out of the ordinary.” Leon paused again, kept his voice even. “Did you not have anyone else? None of the people that helped you in your big conspiracy against The States wanted to see you? –Or maybe it’s just that none of them wanted to sleep with you?”

Krauser kept still. His breathing was going quiet again.

“You want a real answer to that?”

The question was almost unfair. No. He didn’t want to know. He needed to.

“I don’t think you’ll give me one. I don’t know what’s real and what’s fake anymore. Maybe I died back there fighting Saddler and I never really made it back. This is all just some fucked up purgatory.”

“Would that be a bad thing? If this was your purgatory?”

It was. It was unbearable. It was also the closest thing to calm Leon had felt in a long time. Safe, or some semblance of it, satisfied, able to sleep almost-peacefully for once. But it would be torture, too. If his purgatory were these repeating nightmares bookended by a man he still couldn’t convince himself was alive, then it was a purgatory perfectly tailored to him.

Leon was quiet for a time, feeling that post-coital comedown more like a slump than the relaxation it should have been. When he spoke again, it was baring parts of himself he wouldn’t have before.

“You know… before Spain, I thought Ada might be dead too.”

There was a shift behind him, and that arm tightened slightly across his chest. Krauser was always the jealous type.

“Never got what you saw in her.”

Leon rolled his eyes, a little of his usual self returning. “You wouldn’t. But… I thought you were all dead… Thought I was alone.”

“What can I say, you know how to pick ‘em, Leon. ”

“That Luis, though. He was different. He had some real heart. Wasn’t always just in it for himself.”

Jack was slightly more rigid behind him, the mention of Luis no doubt stoking another bout of jealousy.

“Want an apology? If your little boyfriend hadn’t donated his mind to Los Iluminados, maybe none of that would have happened out there.”

“At least he was trying to correct his mistakes and live up to his own sense of honor.”

“Angling to piss someone off with that comment, Rookie?” Krauser’s tone was superficially light. Leon could hear the edge in it though. He reminded himself that the knife buried in the wall was only a few inches from Krauser’s hand at all times.

“No…” he gave, subdued. “Just… tired. Never seems worth investing time in anyone. Everyone dies. Or leaves. Not sure which is worse.”

“Not sure which is worse? Looked like you were enjoying me being alive a few minutes ago.”

Leon could feel parts of him aching after being the sole subject of Krauser’s attention for so long. It was a good kind of ache, not like the one in his heart. 

“I mourned you when they said you were dead, you know. Drunk myself stupid. Broke my fucking heart.”

Silence. He’d said too much. This took the game from lust to… something else.

“Broke your heart?” Krauser sounded softly mocking.

Leon was mortified just then. He sorely wished he’d been more guarded with his words.

“Yeah. Was devastated I wouldn’t hear any more of your shitty humor and drill sergeant 6AM wake up calls.” It was too late. Shallow humor wasn’t going to hide this from Jack. He was done for.

“When will you learn, Leon. This is a cutthroat world you’ve stumbled into. You should’ve stayed a provincial cop, patrolling his streets and giving old ladies directions.”

“Provincial cops can’t best army majors in knife fights and stab their comrades to death on the battlefield,” Leon snapped.

A beat.

“No, they can’t,” Jack allowed. “You’re good at what you do. Though it still doesn’t suit you. Doesn’t matter any way you look at it. They’ve got their claws in you now. They know where they want you, and even if you wanted out, they wouldn’t let you. Not until they’ve used you up, wrung you out, and hung you up to dry.”

"So you've said."

They were falling into the same long silences again. The ones that had been persistent when Jack had first appeared out of what felt like thin air. Leon didn’t disagree, he knew where the government wanted him and what they wanted him for, knew what lines he had to remain in to keep things running smoothly, but knowing that didn’t make agreeing with the sentiment any easier for him.

He turned his face slightly more into the pillow.

“What do we do now?”

“Fake your death and come join me.”

Leon turned, trying to give Jack a skeptical side eye.

“You’re not using your joking voice.”

“Ain’t joking, pretty boy.”

“What, become some mercenary crusading for cash and power?”

“Same as your current job, ‘cept you get to choose what missions you take and who you work for.”

For a moment, Leon could really see it. He could really imagine leaving all of this behind, and following Krauser. Having his old commander back and only taking jobs when and where he wanted. He’d be a two man team – no more having to go out on his own on insane jobs. He’d be able to cruise when he just wanted to obey orders and not have to make all the decisions. He’d be able to voice his opinions when he wanted to, and Jack would respect him as his near equal when it came to tactical decisions. And he’d be able to come home to someone’s arms; work the stress and nightmares off with Jack pounding him into oblivion. Tempting. Very tempting.

“We were a team before, Major,” he said, with a real note of sadness. “It didn’t work out.”

“Because my injury meant that-”

“No-” Leon interrupted. “No, not just that. We’re different, you and I. Don’t you remember, in South America, when we found out Manuela was infected?”

“I said we should kill her. You wanted to hold out and try to save her…”

“Yeah,” Leon said, quietly.

They fell silent then. They were pressed together, but Leon wasn’t sure they’d ever been so far apart as right now. Even when they’d fought each other.

“You’ve got too much heart, Leon. You’re going to keep getting it torn up. It’ll kill you.”

“Yeah…” Leon agreed, slow and resigned. “Just the way these things have to go sometimes.”

They were silent after that. Leon had time to notice sunbeams tangle in the cheap curtains he’d never bothered to replace because he was rarely home long enough for it to matter. He could feel Jack’s grip loosening. It felt like a metaphor for something. Eventually, Jack rolled onto his back. He exhaled and put his hands behind his head.

“Got any coffee left in this shack?”

Leon heaved a sigh and sat up. He winced. He was aching all over. He stretched and his eyes fell on the knife. He tugged it out of the wall, then turned it over, admiring its perfect weighting and simple engraving. He handed it hilt-first to Jack. The major took it and spun it expertly in his hands before holding it out in front of him sidelong, a false show of a threat.

“In case you put milk in my coffee.”

Leon gave a plainly unamused huff at that. It was too soon for jokes about lethal encounters. And he’d made Krauser a thousand coffees in a hundred different shoddy dwellings, not one of which had had milk added.

Leon got up and sought out his boxers before he remembered they’d been shredded. He gave up then and padded naked to the kitchen. He pulled open a cupboard and reached in for the instant coffee jar. There was precious little else in there. He’d have to go shopping. Jack was a wanted man, and ate like a horse. What little Leon had got in had been devoured between them in a day or two.

Leon rubbed sleep from his eyes as he spooned instant coffee into two cups. He’d forgotten to put any water on. He rummaged for a jug and filled it up, before sticking it in the microwave for a few minutes. He leaned against the counter and found himself watching it turn round and round with a hypnotic quality. His movements felt sluggish, uncertain, like he was occupying some limbo. 

When the water was hot enough, he poured it into the mugs, stirring until all the grounds disappeared. It smelled good. He made Jack’s darker, and slipped a spoon of sugar into his own cup. He lifted the mug and inhaled. Yeah. That was good. 

He navigated out the kitchen with both cups, trying not to spill any on his already coffee-stained carpet. He pushed the door open with his bare hip, focused on keeping the cups level.

“Even managed to remember you like it black, after all of twenty four hours since I made you your last black coffee.”

The bedroom was empty. Krauser was gone. All trace of him was gone, in fact. No clothes, no boots, nothing. The cheap curtains were open, and so was the window. Stabbed into the windowsill was Krauser’s knife.

Leon stood in the doorway for a moment, two cups of coffee in hand. He looked down at Jack’s cup. It was too strong for him to drink, it would taste all bitter. He set it down on the windowsill. He tugged the knife out and turned it over. He let it drop from his hand onto the bed, then stood in the sunlight, looking out the window, looking at nothing really. 

He sipped from his cup. The coffee was good. The morning was bright. Jack Krauser was gone again.