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@petrokhelidon
INDEPENDENT & EXTREMELY PRIVATE dash only multimuse consisting of various FFXIV and non-FFXIV npcs as written by curry. follows back from @ritterbloodā. carrd for info on rules and muses. mainly iconless, jing yuan icon border and graphics made by acgorecs, psd on some icons and promos by somresources
OTHER BLOGS @ritterblood - main blog, hiatus @tripleflamesā - ffxvi multimuse, semi-active
ššØšØš¤š¬ š«ššš š¢š§ š£š®š§š šš§š š£š®š„š²
ā ā ā ā ā stars
you weren't meant to be human ā andrew joseph white blood over brighthaven ā ml wang a parade of horribles (dcc #8) ā matt diniman blindsight ā peter watts manga series: witch hat atelier volumes 1-16 ā kamome shirahama
ā ā ā ā stars
the seven husbands of evelyn hugo ā taylor jenkins reid
ā ā ā stars
the three-body problem ā cixin liu
DNF
girl dinner ā olivie blake (DNF at 45%)
Reread
Dungeon Crawler Carl series #1-7 ā matt diniman Total: 30
Parsing Leon's words is a lot harder while distracted by the teasing weight of his palm against his length, the warm touch of his lips against his neck and the feel of his nails against his scalp. Any one of those would have been enough to have Sasha thoroughly distracted, in culmination it makes it so that he is fighting a losing battle against his need for more. Sasha's hands alight on Leon's hips as he steals a glance downward, watching as Leon's hand curls around him through the fabric of his pants.
Sasha shudders with want when Leon's fingers tighten, the friction the slight motion causes has him breathe in harshly, his heartbeat thrumming in his ears. He barely even hears Leon voice his concerns about Mikhail returning while they're in the thick of it, and it takes him several moments to process what Leon means before it clicks and he nods slowly. "R-Right. I'llā I'll text him. Let him know."
He doesn't move to do it immediately though, still too distracted by Leon's proximity. He lets his hands wander upward, fingertips straying beneath the fabric of his shirt, wandering ever so slowly up to run his fingers along warm skin, strong muscles working, flexing, as he lets his own touch firm to feel more of him, pull him down to feel his weight.
As he explores Leon's skin he feels some uneven areas beneath his fingertips, ragged edges, some long and angry, others smaller. Old scars, he realizes, and for a moment his touch gentles as he hikes Leon's shirt up just a little higher, his touch now more of a caress than a demand for more friction. He wants to know them all, these marks left by a life so far removed from what Sasha knows. He wants to catch even just a glimpse of the pain Leon has endured and offer something in return, something good, something kind, something to offset the shadows that haunt him.
He looks up at Leon when he speaks next, searches his eyes, although he isn't entirely sure for what. He finds his gaze, dark as his own, and swallows thickly at the promise in his voice, trying to swallow the wave emotion that comes with being wanted even as broken as he feels he is right now. He lets his hands trail down along Leon's back once more, briefly hesitates before moving them to cup Leon's ass to pull him that much closer. He leans in for another kiss then, something slow and deep, yet no less wanting than the first, enjoying it greatly when he feels Leon give into him after some time, his body relaxing more and more. Sasha finds himself thinking he could simply get lost doing this for the foreseeable future, find out just how exactly Leon wants to he kissed and touched, give him exactly what he promises Sasha. But in the end the urgency is still palpable between them, mounting with each movement against each other, and soon enough the kiss tips back over into heated and dizzying.
They break apart with equally laboured breathing and Sasha reaches up with one hand to the back of Leon's neck to keep him close, touching their foreheads together as they catch their breaths.
"Yes." Sasha answers belatedly, fighting to regain enough of his mental faculties to convey what he wants in a way that will make sense. He moves his hand from Leon's ass to his front, applying pressure in the same way Leon did to him before, stroking him through the fabric of his pants as best he can. "But only if you teach me how to do the same for you."
God, yes, he thinks. There's so damn much he wants to teach Sasha, the realization that Leon's very likely the first man he's ever been with sending a thrill of elation and even possessiveness down his spine. In fact, he means to start with his first lesson right now, as soon as he can pry himself away from Sasha's lap and stop rocking his hips into the hand cupping his erection to get his mouth on Sasha's own.
" Fuck, alright, " he mutters roughly and gives Sasha's cock one more firm squeeze before he shifts to take Sasha's wrists with his fingers, pinning them to the back of the couch before he catches Sasha's lips in another heated kiss. He can feel the erratic beat of Sasha's pulse beneath palms, feel the vibration of Sasha's moans and whimpers against his mouth even as the sound is nearly drowned out by the rushing in his ears, the thunderous beat of his own heart. He can sense Sasha straining against his hold, apologizes wordlessly by threading their fingers together and sweeping his thumbs along the back of his hands.
There's no more words to be said, really, unless they're encouragements for more; the heat and hunger in his gaze conveying enough how much he's into this when he pulls back from the kiss and almost pointedly shifts back until he can sink to the floor, pulling Sasha's hands towards his hair.
He tugs at the waistband of Sasha's pants and underwear, pulling both down far enough to free his cockā saliva practically flooding his mouth at the sight of him, thick and flushed, vein throbbing along the underside, tip already wet with precumā one hand loosely wrapping around the base of it so he can stroke the pad of his thumb against that vein and familiarize himself with the weight of it against his palm.
Then he lifts his gaze back to Sasha's, keeping their eyes locked as he leans in to run the flat of his tongue against the underside of Sasha's cock, from the circle of his fingers to the shiny tip, lapping up the fluid beading at the slit. He pauses only briefly, lips hovering oh so tantalizingly close, his breath likely hot and sensitive against the glans, his voice a rough rasp.
" You can be as rough as you want to be. I like getting my hair pulled when I'm on my knees. "
Then without waiting for Sasha's reaction, he sinks his mouth down in rhythm with the motion of his hand, taking Sasha as far down his throat as he can.
Despite his words, Sasha finds it hard to focus on anything other than Leon in front of him as they make their way deeper into the room. He has to force himself to pay attention to their surroundings, to take in anything aside from Leon's form, the way he is moving, the way his voice becomes softer when he tells him he's glad for Sasha's being here. After everything they've been through even just today it's enough to tighten his throat with emotion while simultaneously tugging at the corners of his mouth and making his heart beat a little faster.
However, the wave of affection he feels towards him is interrupted shortly after by a hint of embarrassment when Leon asks about where his distrust for Ada stemmed from initially. "She asked me to abandon you." He says curtly, an old sense of dread and anger resurfacing at the thought. He watches Leon's shoulders tense and then settle down again, and he doesn't even need to be facing him to know there is a slight frown of confusion on his face. Of course, Leon wouldn't remember. "Back in the sewers, after Annette shot you." He adds context while they round another corner, expression turning sour when he remembers how useless he had been back then. "Not immediately." He adds reluctantly. "She was the one to keep a level head when I was freaking out. I may have caught and carried you, but she found the safe room, and she was the one to dig the bullet out in the endā" He remembers the feel of Leon's blood under his fingertips, remembers the laboured breathing, the pale of his face and most of all the absolute fear that had taken a hold of himself when he thought that he was losing him.
"When we managed to stop the bleeding and it seemed you were going to be fine she decided we had to keep going, that we were losing time, that Anette was getting away. She tried a few things to appeal to my sense of justice or whatever she thought would get me to help her." He shrugs. "I told her I didn't care about any of it." He can still recall the look in her eyes when she realized that there was nothing she could do to convince him. A cross between annoyance and exasperation, and then a flicker of something softer. Regret maybe? Whatever it was, it still wasn't enough to have him consider her words. Even if she was right at the time, there was nothing that could have made him leave Leon's side that day. "Maybe she thought I was more like you." Now he really can't keep from smiling anymore. "Selfless, righteous.... Ready to risk it all to save people, make things right, keep things like this from happening again."
He shakes his head. "But the only thing I cared about back then was keeping you safe." Even though that had spectacularly backfired not soon after that because they ran into Irina and all the clearcut lines he was so fond of back then became blurry and things became harder to fit into categories.
He remains quiet for a moment as a thought occurs to him and he isn't sure how he feels about it. "...I think her and I may be more alike than I'd like to admit." But as much as he'd like to pretend that maybe that's where the initial animosity came from, and that he sensed something was wrong with her, Sasha can't ignore the very obvious other reason he disliked her from the moment he met her, although he was still too deep in denial back then to understand it.
"Also, I was jealous of her."
There is something to his tone that suggests his jealousy is not as far in the past as he would like. She never failed to imply all sorts of things about Leon and herself when Sasha and her happened to run into each other again, after all. She knows Leon is the one sore point, the one tender wound that if prodded will have Sasha react, have him rise to her taunts. And it's not that he blames Leon for any of it. They'd not been together anymore, he had no right to be jealous back then, nor does he have any right now. However, rationality never helped much with the hurt, nor the regret.
His fingers briefly rise to touch his shoulder when Sasha mentions the gunshot wound he'd received back in Racoon, a subconscious gesture borne each time he gets reminded of how it got there, what had happened leading up to it. The scar's been with him so long now he barely even notices it anymore aside from the occasional twinge, a certain stifness to the muscle; that doesn't make the memories attached to it any less significant or painful. To hear it from Sasha's perspective only adds to the layers of trauma they'd been forced to go through; that Sasha ultimately chose the way he did doesn't surprise him in the leastā though hardly for the reasons Sasha mentions.
He's about to say so, tell Sasha there's hardly anything selfish or unrighteous for wanting to stick with the one person that'd been with him along this fucked up journey almost since the very beginning rather than come with the somewhat shady acting FBI agent ( he can admit that in hindsight ), that he's grateful he didn't wake up alone, when the final part of Sasha's confession startles a bark of laughter from him, his own lips pulling up into a smile at the corners mirroring Sasha's own. He knew it. He'd always thought it wishful thinking back then, but the signs had been there. Then again, he supposes he was hardly any better; he can all too easily remember the sick sense of relief he felt upon unmasking Irina's real part in the story, regardless of the hurt that followed after when it looked like Sasha was choosing her over him.
" We already were a pair of idiots back then, weren't we? "
How much easier their lives would've been if they'd just been more open from the very start. But after everything... after all the secrets Leon has had to keep over the years, despite the guilt and regret he still feels for how things went, he knows there isn't really anyone to blame except for their circumstances being as they were.
" For what it's worth, " Leon runs a hand over his face, smile turning wry as he looks over his shoulder, " My supposed righteousness and selflessness aside, if our positions had been reversed I would've made the same choice. " Maybe with a bit more compromise, some more effort to potentially meet up again with Ada later once Sasha had awokenā which they managed to do after allā but he wouldn't have just left Sasha to fend for himself. Especially not then, considering the guy hadn't ever even touched a gun before Raccoon City became hell on fucking earth.
" I still would, at that, " and here, his voice softens, his shoulders lifting in a shrug at Sasha's widening eyes, the implication more than clear. " Regardless of whatever I feel or felt for Ada or anyone else throughout the years, it's never been a matter of choice. It was, is and will always be you. " Leon's simply no longer too afraid to admit it anymore, whatever hurt and anger he'd still held onto only a few hours ago thoroughly dashed and blown away by the fact that he'd almost had Sasha die in his arms right after one of their most explosive fights yet.
If he's already airing everything out, why not go all the fucking way?
Juuust got home from fanfest in Berlin, here some pictures of cosplay I wore + the group I was with:
Times are hard...draw hunks
"When all this is over. What do you intend to do, my prince?" Terence asks, as a palm caresses Dionās golden hair, head resting upon his torso. [ here have some softness.]
" Iā, " There is a sense of hesitation to Dion's tone, a slight hint of tension crept into the line of his shoulders as Terence asks him of the future; of his intentions, his plans, should he live to see it. It is a simple enough question, with a simple enough answer were he anyone else, he believes. But therein lies the problem, does it not? He has lived so long with the expectation of duty, of loyalty to the empire, his family, his people, has lived so long as an Eikon, ready to be deployed as a weapon in conflict and a threat during times of peace that Dion cannot honestly say he knows who he will be without the Empire. Without Bahamut.
Is it any wonder then that turning his thoughts towards the future fills him with naught but dread? A dread that somehow drowns out even the sweet, wishful dream of finding a life of peace with Terence at his side? How could he ever begin to explain this to the man he loves without feeling ashamed for the way he feels? For his cowardice, thinking that finding glory and accomplishment in death might end up being the easier path? " I haven't thought about it much, truth be told. It's hard to see past the confrontation still to come, " A cop-out answer, maybe, but the best he can give without breaking this sense of comfort they've found this eve, Terence' fingers in his hair just enough to soothe away the turmoil brewing. " Ask me again when this is all over? " @dragoonvowed
Higanbana
@petrokhelidon -- ;
"Hm, it's almost funny... This place hasn't changed... yet it seems so different at the same time."
" I merely means you have changed since last you stood here, old friend, " And enough time has passed since that even the sting of melancholy and loss has become more bearable, the memory of that time become all the sweeter for it. " Do you remember? "
turns a pose study into him...
it is almost familiar, the din of water and steel ā the metallic twang following each drip, the groan of the hull as it sinks lower into the earth. he does not miss the village, desolate and dull, but the factory? that had been his home, the only he can recall, half-built by his hands, as much a part of him as the engine that fills out his chest. gone, now. just like everything else.
it would easy to kill her here. to make it look like an accident. easier for it to be an accident. a single strike of lightening in the water and she would be floating, face down, a pretty little fish waiting to be gutted. he has not the restraint to resist the impulse of loosening the panels above them or crushing the hallway in tight ā it is only survival, a motive he has honed to outrank the cadou, that stops him, still his fingers flex, current burning fingertips black. even if it was an accident, completely free of his influence, he would be blamed. he would be punished.
"no," a quick rebuttal, too sharp and sudden to be anything but defensive, "nothing to get out of me. all metal and mold," no different to the lilting floors of the tanker they stand upon, wrought with web of rot and rust, "i don't get anything out of it. the food, i mean. mold takes what it needs and the rest gets burnt, not digested. haven't had a stomach for a long time now." spoken flatly, no acknowledgement given to the absurdity of the statement or what passes for his biology. he likes the sugar, but he doesn't need it ā an echo of humanity that has etched itself into the ruins of a life stolen. the rituals of resting, bathing, eating only performed because ethan had insisted ( had whined, batted his long lashes, stroked a thumb across his cheek ). he accepts rebecca's treats for reasons that are selfish and shallow : he might as well get something out of all of this, even if it's a small, unnecessary luxury.
unlike the target of his somewhat obsessive affection, he has no qualms acknowledging what he is ā he has not been human for a long, long time. sometimes, he wonders if he ever was : the blood of their dark god had marked him sacrifice since birth, a family tree consisting of gnarled roots that all led back to the fossilised mass at the heart of the village. if he were to peel his skin back ā and with it, the guise of humanity ā would she see him as any different from the shambling rot that have made a home of this ship? not that it matters ā a lord, even one of nothing but ash and dirt, cares not for the opinions of others.
"dunno. i've only got experience with the one molded from the e-series," teeth bared in wicked grin, he cannot help himself. unable to stay idle, he wanders, arms outstretched. fingertips leaving grooves within the fetid muck, staining his fingers black, getting caught under the blunted, irregular edges of his nails. the mold here is young, younger than him, but it clings to the wall stubbornly nonetheless. his grin widens ā it's familiar, that stubbornness. "it's not the same strain. it was made to be more aggressive, so, i guess we'll find out!"
It somehow speaks to just how deeply Rebecca's scientific curiosity runs, how far entrenched she's become in the weird, the dangerous, the absurd, that her first reaction upon hearing that Heisenberg doesn't even have a stomach anymore and could technically survive without ever needing to eat again isn't shock or disgust but a renewed sense of fascination. It's all she can do the keep focusing on the task at hand, keep her eyes fixed on the samples of mold she's trying to scrape off these rusted walls rather than give in to the questions crowding behind her teeth. God, just thinking about the implications of it all leaves her fingers itching for her equipment and not for the first time she wishes she could examine Heisenberg more closely, if only just once, to find out more about the relationship between parasite and host, the effects of it on both body and mind. What other organs is he missing? Which ones even remain? Is there even anything left of the man he once must've been before this transplant he refers to as the cadou, or does nothing remain but the outer shell / a shambler containing nothing but rot?
And if it were so, is there anything left to Heisenberg's being original to him as he was, or is that bitterness, that anger she sometimes senses from beneath that carefully crafted veneer of carelessness and apathy merely manufactured by the mold as well?
Heisenberg is not why she's here in the bowels of a rotting, mold-infested ship, however. If anything, knowing what the mold had done to him and his reminder that the sample she's been tasked to retrieve is an even more aggressive one should make her even more cautious about the amount of time she spends down here.
She stoppers the test tube in which she'd scraped her first sample, stowing it away safely within the padded, secured bag she hoists back on her back, raising her beam of light further down the corridor. The downward slope of the ship becomes obvious, here, by the rising level of water the further down the hallway she peers and she doubts she'd be able to get far without needing to submerge completely. There is, however, the outlines of a half open door a little less than half way, more tendrils of the mold snaking their way into whichever room or corridor it leads into. " Can you sense anything uh, alive in there? " This is lobbed back towards Karl, though her focus remains in front of her; her sense of fear and caution of the unknown bigger than her sense of wariness of her so-called companion. Naive, maybe, but better the evil she knows... " Or maybe some kind of exit? "
RESIDENT EVIL: The Darkside Chronicles (2009) dev. Capcom, Cavia
" hey-- queen is the correct answer. ding ding! a point for you, miss chambers. " he hoists himself off the wall with a dogged grin. he cranes his neck back, eyes following the seal along the right angles of the emergency hatch. he knows he is already late. he was late before he jogged into the building and slipped sideways into the elevator to ride it up to the floors above. at this point, was there any reason for him to go? if the meeting has already marched on without him, he was obviously not really needed. rebecca on the other hand, she had to be key to whatever meeting she was required to attend. " there was a pirate radio station i could get back in the greenbelt when i was a kid. they would only play queen for days at a time. "
the fragment of his childhood, grimy and dirty, skipping school to pursue adventures through the little patch of wilderness in the middle of the big apple, drifts through his mind. he could chart his own paths, play cartographer, draw little tents at the spots the unhomed lived in-- at least until a serial killer turned his travel partner into victim number seven. the first horrors of his life crawl down his spine, cutlery scratching glassware. a bad memory. box it up, put it back on the shelf. he wants a drink.
" i'm still stuck in the nineties with my tastes. " he drops his gaze back down to her. a confession with a worn, metal edge of overuse. " never managed to keep up with the time. the only change has been from my old walkman to cds to streaming in high fidelity over wireless earbuds. don't have much time for movies but i tend to put on old noir detective flicks when i can. something about the gum shoe era, i dunno. which floor was it you were going to anyway? was too busy looking at my phone to see which light was lit. "
" It was a good decade, " Rebecca counters with a lacksadaisical shrug, " music and movie wise at least, " and maybe mindset wise too. Digital advancements in the last ten to fifteen years aside, there's something to be said against having too much access to so much and oftentimes wrong, biased or contradictory information on the internet. She knows, she's experienced first hand, just how easy it is for any single mind to be influenced, changed, by what they see and hear around them. Nevermind how much easier it is now for organisations like Umbrella to get their foot in any door by simply spreading their poison digitally.
Still. It has its advantages too, just like anything else. Especially for people like her, whose whole livelihood rests in quantifiable data, its research and its results. Had it been any earlier in the decade, she doubts they would've been half as quick developing the antidotes and vaccines to the viruses people like Leon and Chris are exposed to all too often on the field.
" Uh, seventh. Weren't we going to the same floor? " Pulled from her musings, her gaze lifts back up to Leon and she watches him case out the elevator silently, not entirely liking where she thinks this is going even though she knows with the lack of response from pretty much anyone there's likely no other way of getting the hell out of here.
" What're you thinking? "
Sasha tenses when Leon bends down to pick up the thorn, reluctant to let him anywhere near a potential threat. He's uncertain if the biomass of the thorn itself may have been what caused the intrusion into his mind, or if there had been some sort of poisonous quality to it that messed with his brain, or even a different reason entirely he seems to be so susceptible, but he'd rather not find out by exposing Leon to it.
Rationally, he knows Leon has been in this line of work long enough āa lot longer than him evenā to be careful with things like this of course, but his protectiveness still flares high and he eyes him warily while he takes a picture of the thing before stashing it away for further analysis later. The worried frown on Sasha's face persists throughout Leon's actions and long after he stands up straight again, but he still decides to let it go.
"I've dealt with a few plant-type BOWs and the hallucinogenic qualities of their pollen before, but I never encountered one that could influence a person's mind quite like this..." He chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment, caught up in a flash of unpleasant memories. Yeah, there were other encounters, but if anything this situation is different in the way that it's never been visions of her before.
Leon's next words are what pull him from his ruminations, even though it still takes him a moment to process what he's saying, distracted by Leon's eyes as he is. He briefly compares what he is seeing now to what he remembers from a particularly nasty hallucination he had during a mission a few years ago and wonders just how he ever got fooled by the pale imitation his infected mind conjured up back then. But his fingers still twitch at his sides as if they're desperate to confirm Leon is real now. He refrains, but just barely. He blinks and clears his throat when he realizes Leon.is raising a questioning brow at him.
Sasha ultimately nods and busies himself by checking the magazine of his gun, grimacing at the amount of ammo āor rather the lack thereof. He sighs. "Maybe we'll get lucky for once in our lives and stumble upon an armory." He lowers the gun again. "Stranger things have happened."
He lets Leon take the lead, following him out of the room, determined to keep his head in the game no matter how surreal all of this still feels. He has to stay focussed, set past and future aside for now and remain in the presentā
Who taught you to hack like that?
Ah.
Sasha is acutely aware of his following silence being a little too long to not be suspicious, even with the pretense of having to focus on hacking another panel when they decide to take a look at a different door further down the hallway. It turns out to be a lot more complicated than the previous lock, which at least has him hope for something useful lying beyond that door.
He can feel Leon's eyes on him as he works. He considers lying in light of his question, thinks about saying he's entirely self-taught, that he had no choice but to be resourceful in any way possible. It is true to an extent, but he resents the idea of lying to Leon now that they've finally found common ground again. So, he decides to be honest, even though he'd rather not talk about this person at all.
"A mutual friend of ours." Is what he decides to say in the end, letting the statement hang in the air long enough for Leon to process the implications, although Sasha would normally not go as far as calling her a friend, nor is he unaware of the fact that Leon and her were never just friends. "Ada was there," he says, expression darkening as he thinks back on the war. "In Holigrad."
With that said, Sasha keeps working, but his shoulders become more tense with every second of quiet that follows after. Eventually, he speaks again when Leon doesn't fill the silence himself. "I ran into her on one of the last days of the war." At the time he thought it would be his last few days on this earth, too, and he was determined to make them count before his time ran out, but as it turns out fate had other plans. "It was when I found my way into a secret facility hidden beneath the presidential palace. It's where they kept the Plagaā" He hisses when a spark from one of the exposed cables hits his hand in a moment of carelessness, flinching and withdrawing his hand to shake the numbness before getting back to it.
The BOWs used by the resistance, their supposed salvation, their only means of fighting back... It had all been a setup. He still can't believe that he didn't see it coming at the time, and the thought still fills him with so much dread and guilt.
"Unsurprisingly, Ada was there for the BOWs, on her employers behalf." He says curtly. "She got what she wanted, too, in the end. Before the facility went up in flames she collected a few samples, alongside a grown dominant-strand parasite, as well as a full-fledged, semi-stable dominant strand plaga in a host's body..." He pauses. "...Me."
He disables one safety lock and moves on to the second. "She saved my life that day." He admits. A fact he still resents, if only because it still feels like she is lording it over him. "I don't know for sure if it was pity, or if she had an ulterior motive, but I'm sure that she is the reason I was approached by my current employer. Hell, for all I know she might have sold me to them in the first place." Another hidden statement hangs in the air between them, though: She is the reason I'm still here. Sasha is aware that he might still owe her more gratitude because of all that. After all, she gave him another option when Sasha thought the only thing left to do was dying a horrible death.
"I would be more grateful to her if I thought she changed since Raccoon City." He pauses, thinking back to the moments after Leon got shot and the way she had tried to rope Sasha into going with her instead after helping him dig out the bullet from Leon's wound, how she tried to make him abandon Leon. He works his jaw. "She has not."
He doesn't tell Leon that they still cross paths somewhat regularly, but something tells him that he doesn't really have to in order for Leon to get the picture. To this day Sasha isn't sure that those encounters with Ada are by accident at all, but more often than not he doesn't care if they run into each other by design or not, as long as she stays out of his way.
"In her defense: she did teach me a lot about this life. How to survive. How to numb yourself to it all." He sighs. "How to be ruthless..." As he says this the second security lock gives way and Sasha once again moves on to the next. "...And things like this."
There is a small quirk that tugs at the corner of his mouth as he remembers something else. "She stopped being as helpful when she realized I wasn't susceptible to whatever it was she was trying to do." He shrugs. "I don't know what it is she wanted exactly, but it doesn't really matter. I never trusted her. Never will." He huffs out a breath. "I guess I haven't changed all that much since Raccoon either ..."
At last, the door makes a beeping sound and pressure releases as it hisses open. The door leads into another corridor, a shorter one that makes a sharp turn a little further in. Sasha comes back to his feet from where he crouched down on the floor, drawing his gun once more as they ready themselves to enter this new room. They both pause to listen for any suspicious noises from within, but even after a few tense moments of silence there is none.
He takes a step back when he senses Leon readying himself to step forward into the room. "I have your six."
Of course.
The moment Sasha mentions a mutual friend, Leon feels almost stupid for even having asked. Who else could it have been but her? With how heavily involved she'd been with retrieving the plaga in Spain, Leon would've been more surprised had she not been present in Holigrad; he wouldn't put it past her either to have expected him to be thereā had circumstances been any different, he likely would've been tooā instead, she'd ran into Sasha. Sasha, desperate, dying, disillusioned and without recourse. An easy target for the likes of her, he thinks somewhat uncharitably, his lips pressing together tightly like he's tasted something bitter.
Leon knows he's being unfair. Regardless of Ada's motives, she'd done for Sasha what Leon couldn't in her own way; and while part of him somehow, foolishly, wants to think that her knowing how much Sasha had meant to Leon had played into her decision of saving him, offering him a way to continue, he's aware enough he's never been that important to Ada's goals or even the way she lived her life, no matter the complicated tangle of their relationship throughout the years.
It's that awareness that's always kept him from taking it any further than the occasional nights spent together here and there after all, kept him from opening his heart to her the way he'd done to Sasha before he managed to fuck it all up. If he wasn't who he wasā if she wasn't who she wasā
Or maybe he'd simply been deluding himself thinking she'd cared for him too, knowing that all these damn years since Holigrad, including whatever happened between them in China, she'd been in contact with Sasha, training Sasha, showing him the ropes while never betraying even a hint of it to Leon.
Even if she didn't owe him that, even if she had her reasons, it still stings like a betrayal nevertheless.
Which makes him feel all the more pathetic when his first instinct at Sasha's bitter assessment of Ada's character is to somehow defend her, insist that she did change, that she does care. There's an irony in there, somewhere, two decades after Raccoon City and they're still somehow locked in the same dynamic as back then: Leon too quick to trust, Sasha too quick to dismiss. At least when it came to Ada, he thinks. With Irina...
He shakes his head, swallows back against the knot in his throat and runs a hand over his face in order to dispell the complicated ball of emotions in his chest. " I don't..., " despite the roughness of his voice, he's careful to ban any hint of accusation or, god forbid, jealousy from his tone, focusing on the one good thing come out of all this instead, " I'm not gonna pretend I ever managed to figure out why she does the things she does, but... I'm glad she found you. If nothing else, it uh, " brought you back to me is what he doesn't say, his words stumbling a little awkwardly as he bites that back, the sentiment too much, too soon, no matter how much he means it. " It means you're still here. That's what matters. "
There is one thing that niggles at the back of his mind, though. A question he'd never bothered asking back then, because in light of everything else it'd never really mattered. He supposes it doesn't matter any more now than it did then, but that doesn't stop him from asking regardless, his eyes scanning the room they just entered just so he wouldn't have to see Sasha's expression. " I uh, did always kinda wonder what happened between you two, in Raccoon, for you to distrust her as much as you did. Not that you were wrong to, in the end, but... "
this sunday i promise i'm locking in!! apologies to everyone waiting.
I have finished the tunic for the yshtola cosplay for fanfest :D now just the wig and the pant
The way Leon looks at him now, the way he touches him, kisses him; it doesn't feel quite real. Sasha almost expects to wake up back in the bedroom, with the entire day being nothing but a conjuration of his mind. But then Leon smiles at him with that edge of teasing within this new softness they've discovered between them and the spark of mischief in his eyes reminds him that this is real. He listens to what he's saying, watches his lips move and curl at the corners when Sasha takes a moment too long to respond.
"R-Right. Yeah..."
He still doesn't want to let go, even less when Leon leans in for one more kiss that leaves him breathless before pulling away. Sasha has to actively fight the urge to hold on, but instead he runs a hand over his face to collect himself. He takes a deep breath to calm his mind and his heart, watching as Leon deals with the dinner still in progress, turning off the stove while Sasha follows every movement with his eyes and has to actively try to not reach for him again.
This is not what he expected when they agreed to this trip. This is not something he expected to ever feel again after he lost everything, and now that they've crossed the line in the sand there is no more turning back. But rather than be cautious and wary of what may lie ahead, Sasha feels ready to let himself fall into it, to just let himself feel the novelty of everything Leon brought into his life.
In the end, he does have to physically remove himself from the situation and the kitchen to not give in to the urge to just throw caution to the wind and ignore the twinge of pain in his back to push Leon up against the counter or pull him back down into another kiss. His mind remains a disorienting swirl of thoughts as he makes his way to the couch, doubts and hesitation creeping back in while he isn't preoccupied by this overwhelming need to touch Leon again.
He forces himself to think about what to say to him while he waits, keeps his hands busy by focusing his attention on hoisting himself out of the wheelchair and onto the worn upholstery. He finds himself thinking that he should have tried to put this into words first rather than letting his instincts take over, no matter that Leon met him in kind. He takes a deeper breath as most recent memory replays the feel and taste of Leon's body against his own, closing his eyes as he recalls the sounds Leon made, the uneven hitch of his breathing.
Sasha feels himself throbbing in his pants and tries hard to wrestle his thoughts away from the kiss and Leon's promise of more. Sasha lets his head drop back against the backrest of the couch and opens his eyes to look up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused. In truth, he isn't so much concerned with the fact that it happened, but rather with how needy it leaves him now, concerned that this blind want would spell the end for what they've built here.
But then he hears footsteps from the kitchen and sits up a little straighter to be able to look at Leon. They lock eyes and Sasha's mind empties out, the worry replaced by a sense of anticipation as Leon walks closer, his attention entirely in him. It's all Sasha can do to reach for him even before he's fully within range, the need to touch, to hold him, stronger than anything else when faced with the brightness in Leon's eyes and this private little smile Sasha has seen maybe a handful of times by now. Both are slightly obscured by his bangs, maybe because Leon's feeling as unsteady as he is, or maybe because his own attention lays elsewhere entirely. Sasha's fingers twitch with the need to push those strands of hair away to get a full look at the man who's made him feel like himself again for the first time in years.
"Come here." The words escape unbidden, gentle, hopeful, as he takes Leon's hand to pull him closer.
His fingers are trembling. Leon only notices the moment he reaches for the stove to turn off the heat, feels his eyes hone in on the tremor and then his breath hitch when it hits him just how affected he is by what was, by all means, merely a kiss. A really fucking hot kiss, but nothing more nevertheless. Yet here he is, feeling unmoored by it all, his head spinning and nerves buzzing with both physical arousal and emotional disbelief. Sasha isn't the first person he's been attracted to, not the first man he's kissed either, and he's hardly known for being shy about what he likes so why does this feel so different? So much more intense?
Is it because, despite the whirlwind that's been their relationshipā from antagonistic, to tolerating each other, to this budding friendship, to moreā he's somehow found himself utterly infatuated by Sasha's stubborn resilience, those flashes of sweet charm, warmth and kindness beneath the stoic, angry veneer coming through more and more often? Because he recognizes himself in Sasha's anger and tenacity? Or is it becauseā
He pushes the thought away before it can fully take root, not wanting that damn parasite to take over any other part of his life, ruin more than it already has. With Leon's track record, it wouldn't take the Plaga to ruin this anyway. He's well aware how foolish he's being even indulging this, not that there'd been any hair on his head even thinking of pushing Sasha away when he'd surged up to kiss him. He should stop it now, knowing there's no future in it. Knowing it would potentially only mess up what could be a good, solid friendship and fuck knows Leon's lacking in that department as it is.
But as he finally sorts out the stove and their dinner, joining Sasha in the living room, watching the way Sasha's gaze darkens with hunger, the way the other man immediately reaches for him, his own arousal sharpening to a throb as he catches sight of the way Sasha's erection is tenting his pants, wet spot already forming at the front jesus fucking christ, Leon finds he's too weak to resist.
He wants this. Selfishly and hopelessly. Wants the way Sasha is making him feel. Wants to make Sasha feel the same. Wants to put his mouth on him and coax the most exquisite sound from those kiss-swollen lips, until all Sasha feels is pleasure rather than pain. Joy rather than shame.
He goes easily, his knees on either side of Sasha's hips as he settles on his haunches, careful not to put his full weight on Sasha's legs. Tipping his chin back with the curl of his fingers, Leon doesn't hesitate capturing those lips in another kiss, letting his tongue sink into the welcome heat of his mouth to stroke against Sasha's own. His fingers card through Sasha's hair, blunt nails dragging over his scalp and down the back of his neck. And with his other hand he repeats the same motion from hours ago, gently cupping Sasha through the fabric of his pants, teasingly pressing down on the wet spot with the palm of his hand.
Leon smiles against Sasha's jaw when his friend breaks away from the kiss with a gasp, gently kisses down towards his throat. His voice sounds rough with want. " Maybe we should let Mikhail know to come by tomorrow instead, because if you let me continue this now, I'm don't know if I'm going to want to stop. " He moves his hand, fingers now curling around Sasha's erection through the fabric instead, the weight of it hot and thick in his hand despite the barrier; a little taste of what's to come, Sasha's reactions only fueling his own arousal. " Will you let me? I'll make you feel so good. "
