leon’s proceeding with ducking his head down, tongue wetting lips as the tip of his nose brushes idly across ashley’s jawline… a light smile present that disperses as quickly as it arrives - leon kennedy is not the smiling type. still, he can’t help but to be around her. “i don’t want to make you uncomfortable… and i respect your father.” he says, voice perhaps too loud for the occasion. so he simply lowers it, just above a whisper - voice low and vaguely deep, carrying an aura of demand. “so you should kiss me, if you want to.”
He's always extended an invitation. Emails, physical letters delivered to an address nobody's sure is his, door ajar if he should want to take that step. He hadn't until now; celebrations, usually around a table of something expensive, wine making every which thought bubble up and out, began and ended without Mr. Kennedy's attendance, and that - was okay. Whenever they just barely scraped by, whenever they finally felt the sun on their cheeks and illuminate their pathway out of that nightmare, Ashley knew: they wouldn't meet again, not anytime soon.
With Ashley came memory. Reminded him of a 'love' -- was it love? -- lost, retrieved, an embellished history now marred in lies, spent grief, betrayal, topped with another loss on each behalf. They knew Luis for only a short time, barely knew the man and only the shell he decorated himself in, but ... if nobody else, he made her laugh. Made them each think about something other than bioterrorism and control, what it means to have it, lose it, to have never obtained it in the first place.
For what little Ashley knew, she knew he felt his last breaths.
Ashley survived. Part of her didn't. Leon survived. Part of him didn't. Luis...
Ashley's presence served as a reminder of a time best left there.
So, whenever Leon skirted past the door, wore his best formal attire - a shock in and of itself, her being so used to his combat-related garb that the thought of him wearing anything else slid right off of her brain - Ashley... kept herself in check, or tried to. Really, she wanted to skip up to him, hug him, say hi fifty-two times, but... she bid her time. Let him lean against the wall, far back from anyone else, drinking something fizzy just to have it. Once pleasantries were over, she wasted no further time in nudging him elsewhere, away from political slog and uptight collars. Someplace quiet, but not far off. Ashley--
Wasn't stupid. She knew that someone sat stationed outside this very door, ear not pressed against it but keen. Aware. That's what her days have consisted of, mostly.
Their conversations were short-lived, flippant. Perhaps as a result of her actions being broadcasted, perhaps as a result of his schedule consisting of work, work, work, but as she meandered to the table - set with backups, spare drinks, other platings of finger food. Thankfully, she hadn't a drink in her hand whenever Leon -- carefully, she noted, strolled by, welcomed himself into her space. While hiding a pitiful sound, she fails miserably at suppressing the shiver that courses through her ... everything, she thinks.
"Not enough to not put his daughter in this situation," she breathes. "Leon..."
Even wrought in, Ashley previously thought to be hell, Ashley caught a amalgamation of scents; none brought about by musk, but notes of some cologne, body wash. Whatever it was clung to him through everything and back, and that same scent uproots forgotten nostalgia, unsettles her stomach in the best way. Complied with his voice, a voice she wasn't - had never been privy to, she...
It's a wonder, truly, how she managed that comeback.
"I want to, I do," she raises a hand to his chest, tries to locate his heartbeat, wonders about whether it's the same as hers. "Really. I thought of... umm. Back then, there were so many moments. Times that I - but I just figured it was, you know. Because you were my knight in shining armor."
It was easier to crush it down into that, to make it a sizable ball of minute existence. Nothing to unfurl, nothing to look too closely at. Just... an age old story.
"And you are," Ashley makes sure to state, eyes seeking his. "But won't that..."
She sustains that point, even as their lips, barely separated by a hair, brush together. She hopes her lipstick won't print, but partially hopes it does, if only for knowing what she's going to say next.
"Make it difficult for you? I think I've already made things... enough difficult for you already. You'll be followed. We'll be followed, everywhere. They'll say you 'took advantage' of your previous position, used it to get close to me, even if... obviously, we both know otherwise."
Like this, she can feel the scratch of barely-there stubble. Smell the alcohol on his breath, but not nearly enough to make him drunk. All of this comes from a sober, thinking mind, but even knowing that, Ashley treats it as something else. Does he know, fully? Has to. It's why he kept her at a distance. Ignored every look, every wayward flirt.
"I want to," Ashley asserts. "I want to."
Lowering his chin, she makes that want known with a firm, enduring press, heart fluttering, but not pushing. Surrendering, but not relinquishing entirely. She feels like she's in high school again, sharing her first ever kiss with someone that'll forget her come graduation, but she's far removed from that now. Kisses shouldn't make her knees wobble anymore, shouldn't make heat rise to her cheeks, but --
maybe that's just a special Leon Thing again. He's got a handful of those, doesn't he?
