Warnings: no beta, OOCness, English is not my first language, inconsistent tenses, i am very bad at prepositions, implied sexual content, mentions of alcohol
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Dedication: For 09/20/2020—a day of good food and nostalgia.
A/N: wow i can't believe i actually wrote aeon fluff hahaha
17:53
Leon entered his flat and immediately sensed another presence inside. He drew his gun from his holster, closed the door quietly, and carefully edged his way inside, navigating his way in the dark.
Suddenly, the lights went on, revealing the other presence in his living room.
"What are you doing here?" Leon asked as he tucked his gun back into his holster.
"Waiting for you," Ada answered.
"In the dark?"
"You know me." Her hand was still hovering from the light switch on the wall. "You need to get groceries, by the way."
"And you need to stop breaking into my flat," Leon replied as he headed to his kitchen. He could use a nice, cold can of beer after a long day of work, especially now that he had an unexpected—although not unwelcome—guest.
"If you really wanted me to do that," Ada replied as she followed Leon into the kitchen, "you wouldn't make it so easy for me to break in."
Leon turned from his fridge to face her. She was right. He could keep her out if he wanted to, but he didn't. Even though he changed locks and passcodes periodically, he didn't try too hard to keep her out of his flat.
"What are you really here for, Ada?" he asked.
"I needed a shower and a change of clothes," she replied, walking towards his bedroom. "Your place is nearer than my hotel."
Leon followed her. He leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms, watching her rummage through his drawers. There was a drawer box dedicated to her clothes, and she took a red dress out of it, folding it and putting it inside her duffel bag. He could still remember slipping the straps of that dress off her shoulders almost half a year ago, when they were drunk on both wine and kisses.
"So you're working nearby?" he asked.
"Sort of," she answered.
"Why didn't you just use my shower, take your clothes, and leave?"
Ada looked at him, her red lips forming into a smirk. "I told you, I was waiting for you." She headed towards the bathroom asked him over her shoulder, "You coming?"
Leon was a rational man. He had a good head on his shoulders and he knew when to work and when to play, but right now, he wasn't working, and the woman he held closest to his heart was just right there, in his own flat, asking him to join her for a shower.
Leon uncrossed his arms and followed her into the bathroom.
18:37
After their shower (and more), Ada changed into a pair of trousers and underwear that she kept in Leon's drawers, then grabbed one of his shirts—a red T-shirt one or two times her size. Leon usually wore dark colours, but he would never admit, not even to himself, that he bought that T-shirt for the sole purpose of seeing Ada wear it.
He didn't have a claim on her—no one owned Ada, and certainly not him—but during the times they spent together, he always made sure that they belonged to no one else but each other.
"Come on, let's grab dinner," she said, "and then we can go grocery shopping afterwards. Your fridge is pitiful."
So what if his fridge contained a few cans of beer, a block of butter which may or may not have already expired, a loaf of bread about to go bad, and a tray of eggs that he couldn't remember buying? He was a single man living alone and he always ate out because he didn't have time to cook, thanks to his demanding job. He couldn't see any merit in keeping fresh produce in his fridge.
"There's nothing wrong with my fridge," he mumbled petulantly as he followed Ada out of his flat. He wanted to give her a key to his place, but what use was a key to a spy who could get into almost every locked door and window?
He locked his door and Ada hooked her arm in his as they walked towards the lifts.
20:01
Leon's dreams of a normal life shattered into smithereens at the same time Raccoon City got wiped out of the map. He knew he would never be the same wide-eyed, idealistic rookie cop he was back then. No more white picket fence, no more 2.5 kids running in the backyard, no more nameless, faceless wife sitting on the porch with him as they watched their children chase the dogs. That was what normal people had, and Leon wasn't a normal person.
But this was the closest thing to a semblance of normalcy he could have—him pushing the cart along the cereal aisle, and Ada crossing things out of a freaking grocery list she had apparently made earlier. It was so strange and so domestic, and he had the odd thought that if a nuclear missile were to attack this city, Leon would die a happy man.
"You sure you don't need cereals?" Ada asked as they headed to the dairy section.
"No," Leon replied, "I always eat breakfast at the café near the office."
"Married to your work, aren't you."
"Like you're not?"
And that was why Leon could never be a normal man. He was dedicated to his job, and the only woman he has ever thought of spending the rest of his life with was equally dedicated to hers, only that they worked for different sides of the war. It may look like there were on opposite sides, but with Ada, no one could ever be certain.
They ran across Sherry Birkin at the (unhealthy) snacks aisle. She was with Jake Muller.
Sherry stared at them like a deer in the headlights while Jake gave them an unreadable expression. Sherry's eyes darted between Leon and Ada, and she looked like she was having one million thoughts per nanosecond. By some unspoken agreement, they pushed their carts in opposite directions, pretending not to know each other.
Leon didn't know why, but he felt like a teenager whose parents caught him making out with a girl he secretly brought into his bedroom.
"Even mercenary soldiers go grocery shopping, huh," Ada said as she placed a pack of potato crisps into the cart.
"Says the mercenary spy doing grocery shopping with me," Leon retorted.
Ada huffed a laugh.
In another universe, Leon would be a police captain married to an FBI agent. They would live in a house in the suburbs enclosed by a literal white picket fence with their bloodhound and German shepherd. He and his wife would go grocery shopping at the nearby store, running into friends and neighbours, catching up on each other's lives at the queue to the register.
In this universe, though, Leon was an unmarried and overworked government agent living in a bachelor pad, and grocery shopping with the woman he would never get to call his would almost reduce him into tears.
09:16
Helena was staring at the plaster on the side of his neck. It was high enough that it couldn't be covered by his shirt's collar, and just the plaster being a pink Hello Kitty one made it stare-worthy.
"You got that while shaving?" Helena, tying too hard not to sound amused, asked as she dropped a sheaf of papers on his desk.
Leon grunted. It wasn't an affirmation, but it also wasn't an outright lie.
"And you only had Hello Kitty plasters available?"
Another grunt.
"And you didn't think of buying, I don't know, normal plasters?"
He had thought of it, but he couldn't bear to remove the damned Hello Kitty plaster. He had woken up with Ada still in his arms—what a rare, rare treat—and took another shower with her. She helped him button his shirt and cuffs, and when she was done, she patted Leon's chest as if admiring her handiwork, and then left a hickey on his neck.
Ada had bitten her kiss-swollen lips—probably in an attempt not to laugh and make fun of Leon—as she stared at the red-and-purple mark she left. She had retrieved the plasters from her duffel bag and stuck one over the mark.
"Where'd you get those?" Leon had asked, eyeing the plasters with distaste.
"Last night, at the grocery," she had replied. He didn't see her get them.
She didn't stay for breakfast. She never did. But this time, however, she stayed long enough to give him a knee-buckling goodbye kiss before saying, "You're not the only one who likes to claim ownership, you know."
After that, how could Leon even think of throwing the plaster away?
"Didn't have time to buy normal plasters," Leon said.
"Okaaaaaaaaaay.…" Helena replied as she returned to her desk.
A few minutes later, Sherry came over and gave him a folder. She still wouldn't meet his eyes, but he didn't miss the snort that came out of her mouth.
"What?" Leon asked, feeling oddly defensive of the garish pink plaster on his neck.
"I didn't know you liked Hello Kitty," said Sherry, her mouth twitching into a smile.
"And I didn't know your gentleman friend was in town last night."
Sherry blushed.
"Oh?" Helena said, coming over to them and slinging an arm over Sherry's shoulder. "What's this?"
"Jake and I ran into Leon at the grocery last night," said Sherry.
Helena gave Leon a disbelieving look. "I didn't expect that you'd know what a grocery is."
"Well I do," he replied.
Helena still didn't look convinced, but she dropped the subject and told Sherry, "I thought Jake couldn't make it."
"Well he suddenly could, so there's that," Sherry replied.
Leon looked askance at the two. "Is there something I'm missing?"
"Sherry told me Jake was visiting," Helena explained.
He turned to Sherry. "And you didn't tell me?" So what if he was somewhat affronted?
Sherry groaned. "It's embarrassing. It's like telling your dad you're going on a date."
Leon couldn't argue with that.
"Anyway," said Sherry, a shit-eating grin forming on her face. "Who was that lady with you last night?"
Helena's eyebrows rose to her hairline. "A lady, huh?"
"Oh, shut it, you two," Leon said, turning to his computer, "and get back to work."
"Yeah, and a really pretty one too," said Sherry in a teasing tone. "Asian, short black hair—"
Helena suddenly had coughing fit. Sherry patted her back, and after Helena drank from a bottle of water, she said, "So she was with you last night."
Leon ignored them and made a show of typing on his keyboard.
"Ooh, you know her?" Sherry asked, looking like a cat that got its cream.
"I'm guessing that plaster isn't covering a shaving nick," Helena said with a suggestive arch of her eyebrow.
"Agents," said Leon, "please go back to your desks. We're not getting paid to engage in idle chatter."
His co-workers thankfully went back to their desks, but not without ribbing him for a few more times.
Leon wasn't a normal person; he was a highly trained government agent skilled in various weaponries and martial arts. Sometimes, he dealt with monstrous creatures and virus outbreaks. Sometimes, he clacked away on his keyboard as he tried to fend off nosy co-workers. When he wasn't in a battlefield, a warzone, a creepy backwater town, or an underground laboratory, he was in a government office, typing away on his keyboard from nine to five. He drank beer while watching the evening news, ate out for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, went to the gym four times a week, visited the shooting range at least twice a week, and hung out with his friends and co-workers when they extend invitations to him.
That was what his normal looked like, and while it wasn't something that he chose or approved of, he had grown to live with it.
But then there was Ada Wong, who always managed to derail his normal in the most wonderful and wicked of ways.
Until a better normal came along, he would treasure those little aberrations Ada always caused, filing away each disruption like it was a state-guarded secret.
Leon wasn't a normal person, not by any means, but having given his heart to someone meant he was normal to some degree, right?
He pored over the files on his desk, wishing for the next aberration to come sooner.
Maybe one day those aberrations would become his new normal.
A/N: i was really determined to not go past my target word count this time. i finally succeeded, ha!