Warnings: no beta, OOCness, English is not my first language, inconsistent tenses, i am very bad at prepositions, alcohol, sexual situations, curse words
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Feeling the burn of the whisky sliding down his throat wasn't a new experience. Likewise, having a girl break up with him wasn't something new. But still, every time he got dumped, Leon felt the need to go to the nearest pub and drink his…well, not his sorrows away, because he didn't feel sorrowful, did he? There was disappointment, but he wasn't sad or angry. It was like he already knew he would eventually break up with his current girlfriend. And this might make him sound like a scumbag, but he didn't think he actually loved any of his girlfriends. Sure, he cared a great deal for them, but love? The only woman he had been in love with for more than half of his life was—
"Didn't think I'd see you here."
Leon turned around and saw Patrick sitting on the stool next to his. He ordered a glass of Guinness and told him, "I thought you had a date tonight."
Leon snorted and took a sip of his whisky. "Thought so too." He slid a small bowl of peanuts towards Patrick, but the other shook his head.
Patrick took a gulp of his beer. "Trouble in paradise?"
Paradise? Was Leon really in paradise, though? No, he wasn't. Paradise for him wasn't a feeling or a place—it was Ada, and none of his past girlfriends were Ada.
"She broke up with me this morning," Leon said. He could feel Patrick's eyes on him.
"I…I'm sorry, Leon," said Patrick, patting Leon's back awkwardly. "I'm not gonna press for details, don't worry."
Leon wasn't drinking because he was heartbroken—he was drinking because he was so damn stupid.
He recalled what had happened earlier that morning. He had woken up in his girlfriend's—or rather, ex-girlfriend's—bed, and found her in her kitchen making breakfast. He had been about to give her a good-morning kiss when she pushed him away and told him to leave now and never come back.
He had asked her what was wrong. She had told him that when she was playfully smushing his face after she had just woken up, Leon had apparently mumbled, "Ada, stop it."
He couldn't even remember saying it. But there was no point in denying it, not when this relationship was over before it had even started.
"For what's it worth," Leon had said before leaving his ex's apartment, "I'm not cheating on you. I haven't even seen her since we started dating."
And that had just made things worse, because Leon had made it seem like his ex was his rebound—which, well, in some sort of way, she was.
A lot of people think Leon was an exemplary human being. He was a hero, always putting other people's lives first. He had spent his whole adult life keeping civilians safe, sometimes at the expense of his own happiness. But he wasn't the saint people that made him out to be. He had his own desires, and one specific desire that came in the form of Ada Wong.
Were Leon a selfish man, he would have staked his claim long ago, but Ada wasn't someone whom anyone could claim. He knew when to let her go, just as how he knew that she would eventually come back to him.
And he would always come back to her.
So why then was there a need to date other women when Leon's heart was already set on one woman? It was simple—what Leon wanted and needed were two different things, and Ada couldn't be both of them. It was Ada who said it herself—she wouldn't be able to give him what he needed, so he should look for it elsewhere.
But she kept coming back to him over and over again, and he kept welcoming her back, undoing what little progress Leon had done to find a woman who could give him what he needed—stability and certainty. There were no mixed signals involved; Ada wanted him and he wanted her. But the older he got, the more he craved commitment, a sense of belonging to someone—to Ada.
"I'm not gonna tell anyone she dumped you," Patrick said.
Leon chuckled. "Whether you tell anyone or not, everyone at the DSO and FOS would soon know. And it would be just another evidence of Leon Kennedy being a manwhore." He emptied his glass of whisky and flagged the bartender for another.
When he felt Patrick's questioning look on him, Leon turned to his co-worker.
Patrick said, "You're not…"
Leon laughed lightly. "Don't worry, it doesn't affect me." He sighed. "How will I find true love if I just sit around waiting for it to come to me?"
Patrick gave him a…He looked like he was pitying him.
"I don't think that's the case for you, though." Patrick swirled the beer in his glass before taking a sip. "Are you really trying to make your relationships work, or are you subconsciously sabotaging them?"
He stared at his friend for a loaded second before saying, "Are you psychoanalysing me?"
Patrick chuckled before eating some of Leon's peanuts. "Leon, I've known you since 2006. Ashley sometimes teases you about an unnamed woman. And now Helena makes vague comments about this probably same unnamed woman." He shrugged. "I don't know, Leon, you tell me."
Leon sighed and took a long swig of his whisky. "I'm looking for something that I've already found, only that it wasn't mine for the taking. Or rather, she doesn't want to be. She has told me a million times to look for true love elsewhere, so that's what I'm doing."
"I'm guessing you haven't found it elsewhere?"
"And thus Leon the Manwhore was born."
"Stop calling yourself a manwhore."
"Why?" He drank more of his whisky. "That's what they call me."
Patrick clapped his shoulder. "I don't call you that. Your friends don't call you that. You're just…"
"Just what?"
Patrick drank his beer. "Just…You don't need to demean yourself like that. People date around to find the best partner for them. Some of us just happen to be lucky enough to find the one we love early in life."
I found love early in life too, Leon wanted to say, at the of age twenty-one. It was taken away from me, and then it came back, but I could never hold on to it.
"When did you know," Leon said instead, "that your husband was the one?"
Patrick preened as a sickeningly sweet smile formed on his face. He covered his face with his hands, but Leon could still see how red his ears became.
"You gotta get used to calling him your husband," Leon said, patting his friend on the back. He was happy for him, really, but it made Leon feel the more alone.
The United States Supreme Court legalising same-sex marriage in all fifty states three months ago was a moment for the history books, marking the end of Patrick and his husband's years-long wait to get married. They have been waiting for more than ten years to be legally wed, and it astounded Leon how this was the only obstacle that prevented them from getting married. He could get married anytime he wanted to, but no one was willing to marry him.
"Let me ask you this," said Patrick as he turned to face Leon, his face still slightly red. "Did you ever feel like any of your past girlfriends could be 'the one'?"
It bothered Leon how quickly he shook his head.
Patrick sighed. "This may sound trite and insincere, but when you know, you just know." He took a sip of his beer. "As for my husband and I, I knew he was the one pretty early on in our dating stage. There's no fanfare or anything. You'll just feel it in your bones."
"And if it doesn't work out in the end?" Maybe this was what scared Leon the most—that after ten years of dancing around with each other, he and Ada would turn out to be incompatible as a couple. As sexual partners, yes, there was no denying the physical chemistry they had—sex with Ada was always a mind-blowing and out-of-body experience—but as a couple in an actual relationship? Could they do that?
"And what if it does?" Patrick answered. "Sometimes you just gotta go for it. If it ruins things, then maybe you weren't meant for it all along, and all you did by being scared was prolong things that would inevitably end."
Leon took a long gulp of his whisky. "But the timing's gotta be right."
Patrick propped an elbow on the counter, resting his chin on the back of his hand. "I don't know exactly how long you've been in love with this mystery lady of yours, but from what I can tell, it's gotta be at least ten years, give or take."
He took another sip of his drink. "That sounds about right."
"Then it's long overdue." Patrick grabbed more of Leon's peanuts. He initially rejected it, but now he practically ate them all…. "Aren't you tired, Leon?"
Leon rubbed his face with his hands. "I'm goddamn tired."
"And you've never told her you love her?"
He laughed, but there was no joy in his voice. "She'd stop seeing me if I did."
He had never told her that he loved her because he feared that she would run away, but surely she knew. Surely she felt it. Surely he didn't need to express it in words. Weren't their irregularly regular meet-ups enough? Weren't the gifts enough? Weren't the emotions expressed in touches instead of words enough?
They had complex and uncertain relationship, but there was only so much uncertainty that Leon could tolerate. Eventually, he was going to reach his breaking point.
Before that could happen, though, Leon supposed that he could try to ascertain uncertain things.
He needed to have a conversation with Ada, and whether this conversation would end their current relationship or begin a new one was something that remained to be seen.
"But you're right," Leon continued. "It's long overdue."
Patrick clasped his shoulder. "Good luck, buddy."
"Thanks. I'm gonna need it." He drank what remained of his whisky. "What are you doing here anyway?"
Patrick reached for Leon's bowl of peanuts, but frowned when he realised that there was none left. "Waiting for the husband."
"Don't let me get in the way, then," Leon said as he stood up. He ordered another bowl of peanuts and gave it to Patrick. "See you on Monday, pal."
The moment he returned to his flat, Leon sent a message to Ada.
Hey. When are you free?
He didn't need to tell her that he had just broken up with his ex that morning—he never contacted Ada while he was in a relationship with someone else—so for him to be initiating contact only meant one thing: he was single again.
The reply came an hour later. Six a.m. tomorrow, Constitution Gardens Pond. Take the train.
Leon's brows furrowed. Why would she want to meet so early? And why would she want him to take the train?
He shrugged. Whatever. She had her reasons. If he was lucky, she would tell him why.
Leon had been sitting on the bench alone for half an hour, people-watching and constantly looking at his wristwatch. The autumn air was cold and the overcast clouds didn't help; rain was imminent, but he didn't have an umbrella with him. Maybe he should have listened to the weather forecast earlier.
But finally, Ada arrived. He hasn't seen her in the six months he had been dating his ex, and her arrival was like the warmth of the sun after a cold and dreary winter night.
She was wearing a black cape-style coat, red knit dress, and thigh-high black boots. Last time he had seen her, she had chin-length hair, but now her hair was at least an inch past her shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed red with cold, but Leon guessed that if he cupped her face, she would feel warm.
"You're late," were the first words he had spoken to her in person after half a year.
"A spy is never late, Leon S. Kennedy," she said, walking closer to him, but not close enough that he could touch her if he stretched his arm. "Nor are they early. They arrive precisely when they mean to."
He rolled his eyes as he stood up from the bench. "Come now, my precious. The ducks are waiting."
"The ducks?"
"I wanna feed the ducks."
He wanted to hold his hand out to her, but he didn't know where he now stood in her life. Would they go back to the way they were—to their passionate nights in hotel rooms, and to their days of careful handholding in distant cities? Would it be all right to hold her again, or would that be too soon in the wake of his breakup with a woman he had never been in love with?
Everything he wanted was within his reach, but he was forbidden to touch. He could only longingly gaze at her profile, and pretend that the few inches separating them weren't a chasm.
The ducks, regrettably, weren't waiting for them. They were happily swimming in the pond, oblivious to their arrival until Leon produced a small bag of torn pieces of bread from his coat.
He tossed some crumbs into the water, and the ducks gathered around them. Leon and Ada sat on a nearby bench, watching the ducks compete for the crumbs.
"I'm assuming your girlfriend broke up with you?" She was sitting at the opposite end of the bench, her hands neatly folded in her lap and her gaze on the ducks in front of them.
"Why are you assuming that she broke up with me?" he said. "What if I broke up with her?"
Leon felt Ada give her a look.
He sighed. "Fine. She broke up with me yesterday morning."
"And you immediately contacted me after." She scoffed. "Pretty tactless of you, Mr Kennedy."
"I wanted to talk to you." He looked up to the sky—it was steadily growing dark—as if it could give him answers, but he knew that only thing capable of giving him answers was the woman sitting so close yet so far away from him. "About…"
"About what?"
His nerves were frayed and his heart was beating a thousand times per second, so in a futile attempt to calm himself down, he walked towards the pond and tossed more bread into the water, but the distinctive sound of Ada's heels followed him.
"You know, you're not supposed to feed bread to ducks," she said. "It offers them no nutritional value."
He didn't look at her; he kept his gaze on the ducks. "Look, they go wild for bread. They love it." As if to prove a point, the ducks honked happily, and Leon tossed them more bread.
"Just because they love it doesn't mean it's good for them."
Leon finally faced her. "I know they can only have it in moderation, but it's what they want."
"You shouldn't indulge them too much. Give them what they need, not what they want."
"Why couldn't they want what they need?" He stepped closer to her. "Couldn't those two be the same thing?"
Unexpectedly, Ada chuckled. "Are we still talking about the ducks?"
"I don't know, you tell me." He took another step closer, close enough that he could kiss her if he wanted. But he didn't. Instead, he said, "You asked me to take the train and meet you here at six in the goddamned morning, but you arrived late."
"Someone's tailing you. I thought taking the train would be a good way to lose whoever was after you, and I'm right. I don't see them anywhere nearby. I should know; I checked. That was why I was late. If they managed to follow you, there wouldn't be a lot of people at this time of the day in a public place. It would be easier to single them out."
He raised an eyebrow. "I didn't notice anyone tailing me."
She crossed her arms. "That's because they're good at their job."
"How did you know someone was after me?"
She gave him a small smile. "I need to keep track of my favourite human, make sure he's not in trouble."
"Gee, thanks." He sighed. "And? Why did you meet with me?"
She looked away from him, turning her gaze to the pond instead. "It's been half a year, Leon. I missed you."
It was all too easy to answer her with an I missed you too and Do you wanna go back to my place? It was all too easy to fall back to their usual dynamic of lingering touches and desperate kisses, but should they? Should Leon allow it? No, he shouldn't, not when the uncertainty was slowly festering inside of him, and not when he could feel his breaking point start to crack with every failed relationship.
He stood beside her but kept a small distance between them, looking at the pond, at the ducks, at the trees, and at the Washington Monument beyond. "What do you want from me, Ada?"
He felt her gaze on him. "What do you mean?"
He sighed. "Are we just gonna go back to the way we were? To the not-dates in foreign cities? The meaningless fucking? Me constantly asking you to stay the night? How long are we gonna continue this 'arrangement,' huh?" He looked at her, and her wide eyes worried him. Was she scared? Was she pitying him? Was she going to run away? "What am I to you, Ada?" His voice broke and wavered. "What are we?"
She uncrossed her arms. "Do we really need labels?"
He shook his head. "We don't. We didn't. But it's been ten years now. I think a little bit of clarity is needed."
"I don't see the need for labels when you'll just flirt with the first woman who smiles at you at the bar."
"You were the one who told me to find my happiness elsewhere," he said, perhaps a bit too accusatorily. "You know I tried. You know they all ended, that they all failed. You wanna know why?"
She stared at him with eyes as stormy as the dark clouds above. "You're really blaming me now?"
His eyes hardened. "I was just doing what you said—find my happiness elsewhere."
"And did you find it?"
He felt the sting of tears behind his eyes. "Would I be talking to you right now if I did?"
She scoffed. "So what, you'll hit me up every time you get dumped because you're lonely?"
"What about you? Why are you always coming back to me? Is it because you're lonely?" He breathed deeply, trying to stop his tears and to calm himself. "I couldn't go on like this, Ada. Maybe you could, but not me. I have my breaking point and I'm reaching it. I need—I need something clear, something certain. Because I…I…"
"You what?" He expected her to be angry, but instead she sounded tired. Her eyes were getting red too.
"Do I really have to say it? Do you really not know?" He blinked quickly, trying to hold his tears back. He put his hands in his pockets and looked away from her, then looked back at the monument just so he could have something to stare at. "I didn't want to say it because I didn't want to drive you away, but if I had to, this wasn't how I wanted to say it."
He had imagined a romantic dinner, or a fancy date, or the morning after, or somewhere with a breathtaking view behind them, when he finally told her how he felt, but not like this, not when saying it might mean the end of something he had been desperately trying to hold on to for the last decade.
He picked up a nearby rock and tossed it into the pond while avoiding the ducks, making it skip three times. He thought that by tossing it, he could also somehow toss his feelings into the water, but it did nothing. He was still nervous, anxious, and scared.
He didn't look at her. He didn't want to see the pity in her eyes. "You know that I love you. You must know. I never said it because I didn't want you to run away, but I never hid it. And I've tried and tried to find someone whom I'll love more than I love you, and each time I failed. I don't think it's possible for me at this point in my life to settle down with someone else, because my heart yearns for only you. And I know I shouldn't, because really, what kind of future is there for us? As much as I love you, and as much as I want you," he shook his head and blinked his tears away, but they fell down his cheeks nonetheless, "you're not—" He took a deep breath. "You're not what I need. What I want is you. What I need is stability. Commitment. Because I'm so tired of not knowing who am I to you and what are we. And you…You're a leaf in the wind, never settling permanently in one place." He turned to her and found her looking at him not with pity but with watery eyes. He continued in a shaky voice, "I love you, but I gotta start loving myself more." He sniffled. "Is there even a future for the both of us?"
Ada remained quiet. She remained staring at him with those red eyes that stubbornly refused to let the tears fall.
"Just…Just tell me that you don't love me back so I can finally let you go and move on."
He wondered if he could really do that—forget her, let her go, and move on.
Maybe he would, but definitely not in this lifetime.
Ada looked at the pond. A long moment of tense silence passed before she spoke again. "I know I'm not capable of caring about anyone, but I don't want to lose you."
Leon felt his thundering heart skid to a stop when he heard those familiar words.
"I wanted you so desperately to find someone else because I wanted you to stop chasing me." Her voice was calm and steady, but he wondered if she felt as nervous as he. "Because every time you chase me, I always feel this irrational need to come back to you. I didn't want these feelings. I hated developing feelings for anyone."
His heart was once again beating a mile per minute. "Why are you speaking in past tense?"
She blinked, and tears slid down her cheeks. She wiped her face with a handkerchief and said, "I have my breaking point too, and when you contacted me last night, I think I've reached my limit. It took me a long time to accept these emotions, but lying to myself for so long did nothing to tamp down what I feel for you." She finally looked at him. "You asked me why I met with you." She bit her lip. "I'm already what you want. Now I'm ready to be what you need. And it scares me because I don't know how to be that," she balled her fists and her face took on a fiercer expression, "but I'll be damned if I let you sleep in another woman's bed again."
The ducks honked, the wind blew, the sky darkened even more, and the cold autumn air bit at his cheeks. His face was flushed, although he didn't know if it was because of the cold or Ada's words.
She crossed her arms. Maybe it was because of the cold. Maybe it was because she wanted to make herself look smaller. Maybe it was because she was feeling insecure. But a lot of what was happening right now—Ada crying, them having an honest Conversation with a capital C—was also new. They were treading on unfamiliar territory and Leon didn't know how to proceed.
"A large part of why it took me this long is because of my employers," she said, staring at the pond, "but I realised that I was just using them as an excuse. After all, I've been meeting with you secretly for the past ten years, and to this day they don't have any idea. For the past ten years I thought that I'm better off alone so I could do my job properly. I thought that I'd be happier if I saw you being happy with someone else, someone who doesn't come with a lot of baggage like me, so I won't have any weakness that anyone could exploit. But…"
The wind blew, messing up Ada's hair. Leon dared to extend a hand and tuck her hair behind her ear.
"But what?" he asked.
She looked at him with misty eyes, but there was a small smile on her face. "I've always thought you were the foolish one because you never stopped chasing me, but maybe I'm a fool too, because I've been spending this past decade chasing away my feelings for you. But guess what? They come back stronger every time. You'll date someone else, I'll think my feelings for you are gone, but then you'll get dumped and I'll see you again and I'll feel like I can't breathe."
He canted his head to the side. "So you're saying—"
"I'm saying that what you feel for me, I also feel for you, and it's high time that we stop acting like foolish children and do what we should have been done years ago. Labels? Commitment? Fine, let's do those. I wasn't ready then, but I'm ready now." She breathed deeply. "But I don't know how to be a proper partner, so you'll have to guide me through this."
There were a million thoughts crossing through Leon's mind right now, and he felt like his brain was going to explode from being overworked. "W-what? We're really gonna do this?"
"You asked me if there was a future for the both of us." She stepped closer to him. "I say why don't we find out together?"
The wind howled, the sky rumbled, and rain fell from above. He brushed the water droplets—whether the rain or tears, he didn't know—away from her cheeks, and he felt her melt into his touch.
The ducks honked, probably overjoyed by the rain, and Leon, who was just beginning to process what Ada had just said, didn't notice his arms envelop her.
"I wasn't lying when I said I missed you," Ada said, her breath tickling his neck. "It's been half a year—enough time for me to think about the future."
"Did you think this was gonna be the end for us?" One of his hands was at the small of her back, while the other was caressing her cheek.
She snuggled deeper into his hold, laying her head on his shoulder and not minding the rain one bit. She closed her eyes, saying, "Half of me wanted you to be happy with her, but the selfish half of me wanted you to be happy with me instead."
"I am." He nosed his hair and tightened his arms around her. "I am now. Everything feels…right."
She chuckled. "We still have lots more to work on."
"That we do. But you said we're gonna work on it together."
She met his eyes, her expression softening. "We will."
She placed her hands on his shoulders and leaned in, their lips meeting for an unhurried kiss. The raindrops drenched their skin, their clothes, and the soft earth beneath them, but neither cared; all that mattered in that moment was the coming together of two individuals who thought they were better off separated.
The rain was getting stronger and he could feel each drop that pelted him. They parted, and the softness in Ada's face was mirrored in Leon's.
"I've always wanted to kiss you in the rain," he said, giving her a quick kiss and tasting the rainwater on her lips.
She gave him a small smile. "We've kissed under the shower. How is this any different?"
The smile he gave her in return reached his eyes. He brushed the hair and rainwater away from her cheeks, saying, "Because I love you and you love me."
She turned her head away, her hair covering her face. She looked shy, when Ada was anything but shy.
When she looked back at him, the confidence was back in her expression, although she was still looking at Leon like he was some holy light. "That I do." She cupped his face, her thumb brushing his stubble, her eyes gleaming, the corners of her mouth slightly curling upwards. "I love you dearly."
There was no one proper way to fall in love—some did gradually, and some did quickly. For Leon and Ada, it all happened on one miserable night, when the looming threat of death amplified and expedited what could have been a slow, sweet, and sensual descent into love. There was nothing normal about the way they came together, when even their first kiss was initiated by a woman supposed to be on death's door.
But maybe this time around, they could do what normal people did and start over from the beginning.
"Let's get out of the rain?" he asked.
She nodded.
He extended a hand in invitation, and she accepted it. He clasped her hand in his, and together they sought shelter from the rain.
There were a lot of things that they were going to do together. This was just the beginning.
After Leon hastily paid the cab driver and left a hefty tip—his and Ada's clothes were wet from the rain, and he didn't want the driver to have to clean up too much—he took her back to his apartment, her hand still in his. He didn't think that he actually let go of her hand from the moment she took it.
As soon as he had locked the door to his flat, Ada immediately pinned him to the wall, her greedy eyes taking him in with the hunger of a person who had been starving for months.
Maybe she was. It had been half a year, after all.
She licked the shell of his ear then latched onto his neck, her mouth leaving red and purple spots on his skin.
"I am so goddamned attracted to you," she purred, raining kisses on his jaw as her fingers removed his coat and unbuttoned his shirt. "How do you want me?"
He was breathing heavily, and his trousers were growing tighter by the second. "On your back," he said, kneading her ass and baring his neck to her. "I wanna see your face."
Now this—Ada's body—was familiar territory to him. Even with his eyes closed or blindfolded, he knew how to please her, how to extract those scandalous moans out of her pretty mouth. He knew how to make her breathing ragged, and how to make her eyes shut close from too much pleasure. He knew the map of her skin just as well as she knew his, and he knew every spot that would make the indomitable Ada Wong beg.
She always indulged him in the typical bedroom fantasies—bondage, schoolgirl, teacher-student, office, maid, and BDSM, to name a few. Seeing his necktie tied around Ada's wrists, for example, or having her tie him to a chair so she could suck his brains out were among his favourites.
But Leon's favourite was definitely the slow lovemaking in his apartment, where they cast all of their pretences aside along with their clothes, baring themselves to each other in more ways than one. There was no need for calculated roleplaying; they operated on pure instincts and emotions, sometimes moving frantically, and sometimes savouring each second.
And Leon was going to make this day last for as long as he could.
"Well aren't you the romantic," she said, beckoning him towards his bedroom.
When Leon woke up later that evening, he felt Ada staring at his face.
He felt her fingertips trace the line of his nose, the dip above his lips, and that scar on his cheek that he had obtained from a knife fight ten years ago. He felt her brush the hair away from his face, and the stubble on his jaw that he hadn't shaved that morning.
If he said Ada, stop it this time, at least he wouldn't be making an asshole out of himself.
He could still feel her staring at him, but rather than open his eyes, he puckered his lips instead.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Waiting for my good-morning kiss," he replied before puckering his lips once more.
"Leon, it's six in the evening."
His lips remain puckered.
Seconds later, instead of getting a kiss, Ada playfully smothered him with a pillow.
His laugh was also smothered by the pillow, so after successfully shoving it off his face, he grabbed Ada and pulled her down to the bed, still laughing.
He pinned her down and hovered over her. "I asked for a kiss, not a pillow."
"If you demand more kisses, you're gonna get more pillows."
"Is it wrong to ask for a kiss from my beautiful wife?"
She scoffed. "I'm not your wife."
He laid down on the bed beside her and stared into her eyes, tucking her hair behind her ear just so he could have an excuse to touch her. "My wifey."
"I'm not your wifey."
"My laopo. Loupo."
Ada rolled her eyes. "We're not married, Leon."
He smirked. "I can change that."
She sighed. "Do you want another pillow to your face?"
"I'm not kidding. You said we're gonna do this together. A pair of matching rings would be a nice start."
"Don't you think it's too early in our relationship to be talking about rings?"
"If you ask me, it's long overdue." He sat up. "Come on, let's go ring shopping." He grinned. "The One Ring for my precious."
She sat up too and started heading towards the en suite bathroom. "One more word out of your mouth and I'm going to smother you. This time for real."
"Can't I even get a proper answer out of you?"
She looked at him from over her shoulder. "You can't have everything you want, Leon."
"If I can I have you, I would already have everything."
She didn't say anything. She just walked back to the bed and grabbed a pillow, and Leon ran for his life, laughing.
An hour later, they were both freshly showered and starving after a pillow fight that had evolved into, well, something else. They were at his kitchen, where Ada was at the dining table scrolling through her phone, while Leon was rooting around his fridge for something to eat.
"Do you wanna go out for dinner?" he asked. "Or I can make you something. Look, I bought a waffle maker." He smiled proudly. "I can make you waffles now."
"Leon, it's seven in the evening."
"Who says you can't make and eat waffles at seven in the evening?" He tied an apron around his waist. "Come on, I'll make you some."
She gave him an indulgent smile. "With cream cheese?"
"I've got cream cheese, whipped cream, jam, peanut butter, cookie butter…" He spread his arms out as if to encompass his whole kitchen. "I've got everything you want."
"Yeah." She propped an arm up and rested her chin on her palm, then looked into his eyes. "I've got everything I want."
His cheeks reddened. "…Are we still talking about waffles?"
She raised an eyebrow and smirked. She got up from the chair and walked towards him, her hips swaying. He subconsciously stepped backwards until his back hit the counter.
She stopped just a couple of centimetres in front of him. "I don't know," she said, softly biting his lip. "You tell me."
His breath hitched. "I, uh…I'm really hungry right now. For food. Actual food."
"Let's go out." She stepped back. "I want hotpot."
He couldn't help the pout that formed on his lips. "I thought you wanted waffles."
She smiled. "You can make me some tomorrow."
Tomorrow, huh?
He smiled softly. "That I could."
They got dressed and stepped out into the autumn night-time. The rain from earlier was gone, although puddles still remained. As they waited for a cab, Ada reached for his hand, and Leon took it without hesitation.
Happiness was in the little things, like Ada wearing his shirt, her fingers interlocked with his. Ada was everything that Leon wanted, and blessedly, everything that he needed too.
For the first time in a long time, he felt genuinely happy.
A/N: every time i call leon a manwhore i mean it in the most affectionate way
Mini playlist for this fic:
"Hummingbird" by Never Shout Never
"The Moon Represents My Heart" by Teresa Tang
Some notes:
1. 老婆 (Mandarin: laopo, Cantonese: luopo) - this means "wife" or "wifey" (more the latter, I believe), but unmarried people address their partners using this word too
2. Why did I give Patrick have a husband? Back in September, I learned that Patrick's voice actor in the JP dub of ID is Kenji Nojima, who also voices Natsuya Kirishima in Free!, a.k.a. the gay swimming anime. I ship Natsuya with my beloved Nao Serizawa, and from then on I was like "hey what if Patrick used to be competitive swimmer like Natsuya" and "i bet he has a bf, i bet he's as pretty as nao " That was really just my reasoning
3. Ada saying "We still have lots more to work on": This is a direct reference to "You still have lots more to work on," the catchphrase of the main character from Prince of Tennis, Ryoma Echizen. Ada in the JP dub of the franchise shares the same VA with Ryoma, Junko Minagawa.
4. sorry not sorry for the lotr references ️