The last few weeks had been a blur of sealed reports, sleepless flights, and places that never stayed quiet long enough for him to think. Whatever the mission was called in official channels, it followed Leon home anyway, clinging to him in the form of muscle memory and unfinished paperwork.

He worked through it the same way he always did. Methodical. Detached. Long hours hunched over a dining table that wasn’t meant to carry classified files, his laptop humming while the rest of the apartment stayed dark.

Even off the clock, Leon didn’t fully stand down. The tension stayed put, heavy in his shoulders and jaw, easier to ignore than to fix.

You shared the apartment with him now. That fact lingered in the quiet, subtle but constant, threading itself into his routine without ever being addressed.

That night, he was hunched over the table, papers scattered beside an open laptop, dinner untouched and long gone cold. He only looked up when the door closed behind you.

Leon exhaled softly and glanced over his shoulder.

“…Oh. You’re back.

Welcome home. Sorry about the mess. I’ll clean it up once I’m done here.”