The idea of Chris meeting rookie Leon before shit hit the fan. But not in some significant way, just passing through, maybe a word or two spoken between them. Leon’s bright attitude and easy smile forever confined to slivers of Chris’s memories as when they meet again, that Leon is gone.
He’s haunted, brooding, drinking, angry at the world yet doing his damned hardest to keep it safe. He’s still good, Chris cannot imagine Leon not being so. But the light is dim and Chris loves him. He loves him and he’s glad that they could re-meet and get to know each other properly.
But some nights, he lays awake watching Leon. His face relaxed and so similar to the rookie that old Chris never bothered to know.
Now under the cover of darkness and with the moon as his only witness, Chris swears that he would give everything up, just to go back and have at least one day with that rookie.
To map out his smile, to pay attention to the hope in his eyes, to his light tone and carefree laughter. To listen about his old nerdy hobbies, that Leon now scoffs at and waves off as unimportant. To kiss him and taste the shitty coffee from RPD’s break room, instead of tears or whiskey as nightmares hunt him daily.
To have more than glimpses of that Leon, before the tragedy that was their lives.
“Chris…?” Leon muttered, opening his eyes lazily, “What’s with the frown? It’s gonna stick one of these days.”
Chris said nothing, as Leon’s fingers reached out to smooth out the crease between his brows.
And then Leon smiled. It was sleepy and lazy, but now with his hair mussed and face soft with sleep.
That rookie who lived inside his head. That Chris never bothered to talk to, if it wasn’t needed. Too busy, too important, too caught up in stuff that didn’t matter.
Because Leon mattered the most. He saw it now.
Touching Leon’s soft face, Chris’s lips trembled as he whispered what he wished, he said all those years ago in the middle of RPD’s confusing hallways.
