Heart-to-Heart

[madimpossibledreamer]

I had this about 75% written but I took it in a different direction than the chapter immediately preceding it so had to tweak a lot.

Main Points:
Buffy/Devil May Cry/Resident Evil/Background NCIS Crossover
Chapter Summary: Leon finally calls Xander, and they have a long talk.
Word Count: 4130
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Leon/Xander

 

        “So.  I mean.  Hi.”  It’s been years since he’s been this tongue-tied, but in some ways, as necessary as it was, the time apart made this feel so much more of a big deal than anything in years.  Then again, it is bigger stakes than anything he’s done in years.  He’s forgetting everything he’d planned on saying.  Where did the easy banter go?
        “Leon.”  Xander, likewise, sounds like his heart is in his throat.  There’s a pause as both of them fumble for their words, before Xander, surprisingly, finds them first.  “Um.  Is there anything, y’know, I can do?”
        That almost takes his breath away.  Because, given their conversation when he’d first found out, Xander doesn’t take them just getting past this for granted.  He’s not offering because he thinks it’ll magically fix anything.  He’s offering because someone he cares about is hurting and he wants to help, even if it doesn’t do much.
        He pauses to think about that with the thought an offer like that deserves.  He could probably ask for anything he wanted right now, and Xander would comply.  “I want you to know it’s not exactly like you have to fix anything.  You had a plan to tell me.  It just didn’t quite work out the way you wanted.  I’d like to know exactly how far your NDAs—or the influence of your scary redhead—extends.  If possible, I’d like it if you could tell me things—it’d help me to talk about my work, sometimes, too, and I confirmed with Hunnigan I don’t need explicit permission if you’ve got a certain level of clearance.  Which, per your file, you do.  And I gotta say, the newspaper clippings got much better pictures than your official one.”
        Xander pauses, either embarrassed or trying to mirror his seriousness, before he rushes his sentences out so fast Leon almost doesn’t understand him.  “I can answer all the questions you can think of and the ones you can’t, right now.  You’re, uh.  The process for friends and…whatever we are is kinda informal for us founders, though at some point you’re probably gonna be vetted to make sure you’re not a brain-devouring monster.”
        “I’m guessing that’s one of the things you should probably codify when you’re figuring out the ISWC stuff,” he comments, smiling when it takes his friend a moment to process that.
        “I mean, there’s the monster-vetting plus shovel talk protocol, but we’ve had that for ages.  But yeah, figuring out the rest of that is probably a good idea,” he agrees.  “But yeah, go on and ask away.”
        He tries to get his thoughts in order.  He’d had it figured out before he hit the call button.  The banter had helped a little, at least.  “Okay, what do you know about me?”
        Fortunately, Xander understands the unspoken ‘without me telling you’, because he’d forgotten to add that.
        “Well, I’m guessing you already know what’s in your file.  I didn’t even know you’d been on our side of the tracks until I got my hands on that. Willow had actually had it for months, but I only gave into the temptation about a month ago?  So, uh.  It’s more about what you didn’t know about me than what I didn’t know about you.”  Leon thinks of zombies as his neck of the woods, so it’s a little odd hearing that coming from someone else.  He might be getting used to it sooner rather than later.  “I knew about the agent thing because you told me.  I guess I knew more about what that entailed because of my own stuff?  Both Dad and my own work, for different sides of it, obviously.”
        Leon decides to plunge in with one of the harder questions.  “Did you know about Ada?”
        Silence, then, “…who?”
        It sounds actually clueless.  Xander has issues faking not knowing something.  He’d pretended he hadn’t seen a couple of the movies for movie nights, even if it became clear pretty quickly he had, just not recently enough to remember everything.
        Leon thinks about the best way to put it and eventually settles on, “…the reason I have trust issues.”
        “Ah.”  Another pause.  “Do you know her last name?  Because I think there’s an Ada-something who’s a Slayer but she’s not one of mine so I think we’ve met once?  And there’s another one I’ve heard of.”
        He’s trying pretty hard; Leon’ll give him that.  “Ada Wong.”
        On the other end of the line, he can hear Xander shift around uncomfortably.  “Oh.  That Ada.  Not Slayer-Ada.  I didn’t know you knew her, and I didn’t have the run-in, but Buffy vowed she’d kill her the next time she saw her.  Something about a tired Carmen Sandiego schtick?  We got called in ‘cause an ex-Initiative—I got you clearance, by the way, that’s the Umbrella-lite project we dealt with in Sunnydale—member tried to recreate the specifically demon-testing part of the program and we were able to shut that down but she got away with some info that really shouldn’t have gotten out.”
        Leon sighs.  It sounds perfectly like her, and it’s disappointing.  “Part of me would really rather your Slayer friend not toss her around like a rag doll.”  Thanks to Xander, he’s worked with Slayers, so he has that frame of reference.  Or rather, thanks to his superiors (Hunnigan had been a little confused about the complaint, though).
        He really had loved her, he realized.  And she (probably) felt some attraction back, which was just enough to keep him hooked for a long time.  The single clue he’d needed to determine how he’d felt during that brainstorming situation was that he’d had stray thoughts about Xander, what he was doing, how his day was, with the same frequency as Ada, and it hadn’t even occurred to him at the time.  “But she’s…she made her own choices.  And those consequences are going to catch up to her sooner or later.”
        “You love her.”  It’s not hurt.  It’s raw, pained compassion. 
        Because he still loves Anya, Leon realizes.  Because his heart hurts the same.  Though Ada’s still alive.  It’s hard to tell whether that makes it better or worse.
        “Are you…jealous?”  There’s nothing he can do, really.  He can’t stop loving her any more than he can stop caring about Xander.
        “Jealousy and I have a torturous relationship.  I’ve been trying to wean myself off for years.”  Xander sighs, a heavy sigh that makes him sound every bit the old man his hair makes him out to be.  “I think my big problem, especially when I was a teenager making boneheaded decisions and hurting the people I cared about, was that I thought I was owed things.  Other people aren’t prizes to be won.  They’re real people who can make their own decisions, and they can’t change their feelings on command.”
        He sounds half heartbroken.  He really is taking this personally, isn’t he?  Of course, Leon did the same, before he’d sat down and thought about it carefully.
        “I hate what I did, you know, about the wedding.”  That had been a really heavy conversation, yeah, even the first time around.  “But at the same time, with a couple years difference, I can look back on it and think, you know, I’m glad it happened, because it taught me that despite what movies will tell you, love doesn’t actually fix everything.  Two people can love each other and still not get their happily ever after, because one of them, specifically me, isn’t mature enough.  The timing can be wrong, or they’re just not quite compatible.  I could’ve stayed, I could’ve married her.  And we both would’ve been miserable, because I hadn’t finished growing up yet.  Maybe I still haven’t, but this time I at least know I shouldn’t be getting jealous because you are not an object that I own.”
        That’s a surprisingly deep observation for the goofball Xander usually portrays, but then, maybe that’s the point, given the slight hint of self-hate he hears in the tone.  Maybe he intentionally keeps it light to try to stop himself from thinking too deeply.
        And that hurts, and it’s not like it’s not his problem, but he’s not responsible for it, either.
        “Hunnigan pushed me to go out and find a girlfriend because I was pining for Ada.  And she probably had a point, because that wasn’t healthy for me.  I don’t want her to die, but…”  Leon sighs.  “Consequences, like I said.”
        The hesitant tone tells Leon he’s probably not going to like what’s being said next.  “You should know, Willow implied she used some kind of spell to do with us meeting.  Not, like, ‘everyone’s going to fall in love with him’, because I’d done that and it was definitely not that, but kind of a…I dunno, I’m not the magic person, I’m not the one to be explaining this.  Manipulating luck so I just happen to meet someone I had chemistry with that night.”
        Leon tries to figure out how he feels about that.  Oddly enough, it doesn’t bother him as much as the secret-keeping, and definitely not as much as Xander’s worrying it will.  Maybe because Xander wasn’t involved.  Sure, he could be lying about that, but it doesn’t seem that way.  Having met Willow, Leon can completely see her meddling like a fairy godmother, and he definitely doesn’t regret having met Xander.
        “Sounds like she’s the one I should be interrogating about that one.”  Leon surprises even himself with the joke.
        Xander sounds shocked, but then, Leon’s also figured out what the man had meant by a ‘scary redhead’, when they were talking about NDAs.  “That, uh.  That sounds like a plan.”  The slightest hint of amusement creeps into his tone as he continues.  “The scary part is that she’d probably be totally fine with a coffee shop interrogation, but then, my friends aren’t exactly normal.”
        “I figured that out.”  He’s put some of it together on his own.  Xander’s demonic heritage, with Willow’s witchy powers and Buffy as a Slayer…of course they’d have stepped in when something like Umbrella popped up.
        Xander still sounds apologetic.  “You definitely didn’t figure out everything.  The, uh.  The part that you’re not going to like—I mean, after all the other parts that you’re not going to like—is that the Initiative was just the tip of the iceberg of weird.”
        Wait.  What.  “There was more?”
        “You remember that Hellgate Umbrella was trying to open?  Hellmouths are…similar?  Except they’re bigger and less localized, and they draw all sorts of other things, not just specimens of demonic nature.  Sunnydale existed on a Hellmouth.  I was kind of oblivious until I was fifteen and I met Buffy.  The Slayer.  And my best friend—other than Willow—got vamped, and I…”  A shaky breath.  “I had to stake him.”
        When he was fifteen.  Leon hadn’t even graduated from the academy by that year, let alone had to shoot his would-be coworkers when they became zombies.
        “That…never gets any easier.  I’m sorry.”  He has questions about the ‘vamp’ comment, but this isn’t the time.  “Do you…want to talk about your friend?”
        “Maybe…someday.  Thanks.  Generally, I hate talking or thinking or breathing about it, which is probably an indication that I should, at some point.”  Too raw for right now, and maybe not relevant to what he needs to share.  Leon’s quickly finding out he didn’t even want to know everything, just the big things.  Just to feel like he had a place in Xander’s life, that he wasn’t just an afterthought to keep in the dark.  “Well, there is one thing.  He might’ve been my first crush.”
        Damn.  “Xander—”  He’s not sure what he’s going to say, how he’s going to make it better, only that he has to try, but Xander cuts him off.  Now that he’s started, he’s off.  Maybe he’s trying to make up for not having shared enough by sharing everything now.
        “Who am I kidding?  He was my first crush.  But it’s not like my love life has been all that great.  I used to have thing for teachers, except I gave that up quick when my preying mantis teacher tried to mate with and then eat me.  A mummy girl liked me but tried to suck my essence out Imhotep-style anyway.  My only other gay crush outside of, you know, the usuals, like Hercules or Captain Kirk, was my bully for a while and then died by snake.  To be fair, he was a bully because of the whole ‘in the closet’ thing and got really cool once he sorted that out, but we didn’t really have a chance, and even Willow didn’t figure that out until I got blisteringly drunk after losing a Slayer in Africa and I should never do that again because of alcoholism in the family which is capital-letters Not of the Good.  There was a guy named Spike who I would’ve almost been interested in except due to the aforementioned friend getting vamped issue Vampire is still a dealbreaker for me, though I’m working through not being a total jerk to the kind of cool ones. The boneheaded love spell was my own fault.  I actually dated a different former bully.  And, uh, it’s humiliating and was kind of not my choice, but, um, Dracula.  Yes, that Dracula.  I continue to have a thing for Slayers, except one of those times turned out pretty badly and I don’t want to talk about that right now, if that’s okay?  I know you said you wanted me to be honest but that’s—I mean, I haven’t even told Willow under the influence of liquid persuasion, so.  I will tell you about it, just not at the time that is now—”  He’s started babbling, and he sounds more worked up than about his old friend.
        “That’s okay.”  Leon didn’t realize that before it came up, but it makes so much sense.  He’d have understood if he’d been told that Xander couldn’t talk about his work due to NDAs, after all.  It’s not knowing he doesn’t know that’s worse.  He’s guessing the silence on the other end is surprise.  “What?  You didn’t push me to talk when I first found out.  This is already a hard conversation.  If you need the space, that’s fine.  I’m just…happy you’re telling me there’s a story that I’ll find out later, if there’s a later.”  And as he’s saying that, he’s realizing, too, that he’s pretty sure there will be an if of some kind, even if they end up just staying as friends.  It’s uncomfortable to hear this now, and it makes perfect sense why he’s not sure how to even go about talking about this, even with just the introductory ‘so I’m not fully human’ bit that got him stabbed, but it sounds like Xander needs this—that, or he’s really not listening when Leon says it’s fine.
        “You know about Ahn, though I didn’t mention the part where she used to be a vengeance demon, specializing in helping out wronged women.  Except that could include pretty much anyone who wishes for something but doesn’t actually want it, and along those lines, don’t use the w-word because you never know what would happen.  And there was another lady who turned out to be a demon who just wanted a human sacrifice, and a couple women I asked out when trying to get over her when she was still alive, including one that nearly got killed when Anya briefly went back to the side of vengeance, so…”  He can practically see Xander’s self-depreciating shrug.  “I wouldn’t be surprised if I was cursed or something.”
        “And here I thought I had bad luck with women.”  It’s nowhere on the same level, but he quickly feels the need to elaborate, because he knows it doesn’t compare.  “First girlfriend broke up with me my first day on the job.”
        “…The one where you were a police officer for a day during what turns out to have been a zombie outbreak?”  This time it’s Leon’s turn to be quiet.  “I read your file, remember?”
        “Yeah, I…”  He’s still embarrassed about it, years later.  The part of him that’s still the quiet, nice boy scout, anyway.  “I was late because I was hungover, but then, that probably saved my life, so maybe I should have thanked her?”
        “Ouch.”  It’s sympathetic, and it makes Leon smile, so he doesn’t even mind the delivery.
        “Then there was Ada.  You know about that one.  Honestly, I never had a chance.  Messing with femme fatales isn’t worth your life.”  No matter, he adds silently, how much it seems like it is at the time.  “There’s also a couple who were definitely underage and I definitely whined at Hunnigan about that one.”
        “Yeeeaah.”  Sounds like Xander knows what that’s like.  “One of my best friends has a sister and I can’t tell if she still has a crush.  Either way it’s pretty awkward.”  In Leon’s case, it’s all the worse because it’s a president’s daughter, but yeah, that can’t have been great either.
        “So both of us have had a sucky love life,” Leon summarizes, surprising Xander into a chuckle.  “And you grew up in Demon Central.  Anything else you want to get off your chest?”
        Xander’s voice is actually trembling as he continues.  It’s too bad he’s not here to get hugged, because it sounds like he needs it.  “Like you, I was born human, without the hair, or the devil part of me.  I used to be Joe Normal, without even the training you’d had.  And then one Halloween I went and got my costume from a sketchy new shop I should’ve realized was a trap.  Picked up Alastor and a version of the costume you saw me fight in, and a spell turned me into Dante.  He’s a real son of Sparda.  That’s why the demons call me the Parasite, because I wasn’t born with the Sparda legacy.  Just kind of…put in the nest.  Like a cuckoo. Only I didn’t change back.”
        Leon smiles.  “Making someone feel normal—that’s mutual, you know.  It doesn’t bother me—like you said, it just makes us more similar.”
        Xander splutters for a minute, which is endearing, before he makes a quiet offer.  “Actually, um…if you wanted to know more about the Inner Workings of the Slayer’s and Watcher’s Council, you could maybe help out?  Willow would probably be on board, since once she gave up on getting together with me she started playing fairy godmother, with the caveat that if you break my heart or spill important secrets she’ll make good on her shovel speech.”
        Leon swallows down how touched he is by that.  It’s odd to call it a romantic gesture, but they’re not exactly normal, either.  Because thinking about it, they’re both very similar in some ways.  Who’s the last person he was honest, truly honest, with?  Hunnigan, mostly, though even then he’d stopped talking about Ada because he was sick of the arguments.  And there are times he’ll hide things, like the time with the Plagas he passed out that he really should’ve reported it, because he can’t be honest with himself or because he’s protecting the other person.  He wanted Xander to be honest because he wanted a guarantee that he wasn’t like Ada—and sure, Xander’s not Ada.  But maybe he’s demanding Xander be honest because he can’t be, either.  He can work on it, just like Xander, and maybe somewhere in the middle they can find a relationship they need.  “Is this you trying to get out of some of the work?” he teases, and only listens to his friend splutter in protest for a moment or two before he continues.  “I’d love to help.”  Because it’s also a message saying ‘I want you to still be in my life’, and he has to agree with that.
        Xander sighs in relief, and it helps heal Leon’s heart a little, too.
        He closes his eyes and takes a moment to think about the absurdity of his life where it’s easier to headshot a zombie than talk about his feelings before he continues.  “And—I’d like to apologize, too.”
        “What the hell.”  Xander’s too surprised to even have much of a tone in his voice.
        It’s easy enough to clarify.  “I’m demanding that you be honest, but I wasn’t very honest with you, either.  Tell me, and I want this to be honest too—were you mad at me?”
        “I got it; it’s not like you can wear a sign around that goes ‘it’s perfectly safe to go talking about zombies around me, I promise’.”  Xander’s hurt and defensive and he’s almost certainly lying, which is oddly comforting.  That Leon’s learned, or beginning to learn, Xander’s tells, that he isn’t the only one making an ass of himself.
        “Xander,” he repeats, gentle and patient.
        “Leon, you have every right to be mad at me.”  It’s still evasive, but the pain in his voice says there’s something else there.  Trauma, probably; Leon’s had to talk to a lot of survivors after BOW attacks.
        “And what, you have no right to be mad at me for being a jerk?  Or for stabbing you, even if you turned out to be fine?”  It’s meant as a joke, but the sudden, hushed silence speaks louder than anything Xander could say on the subject.  “That wasn’t a trick question.  Of course you’re allowed to be angry when I’m acting like this is all your fault, when we both could be more honest, and it’s not like you didn’t have perfectly understandable reasons to avoid it.”  Ordinarily, he wouldn’t continue, worrying about hurting Xander’s feelings by pointing it out, but the point is to be honest and dammit he wants to make this work.  “And the fact that you don’t think you can be worries me.”
        “I’m trying to not be the selfish jerk I was when I was a teenager,” his friend answers eventually, sounding small and fragile.
        “Caring about yourself isn’t being selfish; it’s called self-care.”  He chuckles darkly to himself because he’s been verging on alcoholic for years. “Of course, I’m one to talk; I’ve only read about it in magazines and the self-help section, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a marketing lie for once.” 
        At least Xander’s voice sounds a little more bold this time.  “Yeah, okay, I was…annoyed, for a bit.  Because when I read your file, it was like, ‘hey, I’m here, I can relate, you can talk to me’ and you weren’t, but then I realized it made no sense because there was no way you’d know what Sunnydale was like when I was censoring pretty much all of my stories.”
        “Well, think about it this way—the next time a zombie or demon horde is a pain in the rear end, we can call and complain about our day.”  They’ll both have to work at it, of course, being out of practice, but still.  They can actually be honest now.
        “Within your NDAs.”  He definitely sounds cheered up, at least a little, now.
        “Don’t ruin it,” Leon responds, grinning.  “I’ll look into it.  Your people probably know more than we do about our ops, anyway.”
        Xander’s quick enough to disagree.  “We go into the magic stuff, not the science stuff, but given that Umbrella’s starting to dabble, maybe.”
        “I think we’ll have to go slow with this, but we’re smart, handsome, creative guys.  We can manage it, right?”  With a few mistakes along the way, sure, but Leon’s optimistic for the first time in a while.
        “With a little help and prodding from our friends, absolutely.”  The man’s voice is warm and flattered; the flirting didn’t go unnoticed, and it’s not unwelcome, either.  Good, because Leon hopes to continue.
        “And, uh, just in case I wasn’t clear, I wanted to say it, plain and honest—I want to flirt and maybe ask you on a date sometime soon, depending on our schedules and how slow you want to take it.”  He feels ridiculous being so hesitant about it.
        “I…”  Xander pauses.  “I probably shouldn’t ask you if you’re sure, because I’m guessing you are and I’m just being really insecure, so I should probably just tell you I’m looking forward to it?”
        Leon tries to be as reassuring as he can.  “Great.  I’ll text you.  Or maybe you will, if the ISWC needs help first.  That being said, I wouldn’t mind it if you randomly texted me first.”
        “That’s a plan.”  Neither of them want to hang up, so it takes them both a bit to end the call, but this time Leon feels much more settled about the whole thing.