Just a Little Push

Epilogue

Tomorrow was the day.

Leon wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that. He was currently standing in his kitchen, leaning against his dishwasher as he flipped through the mail that he'd just collected from his box. Bills, junk, nothing interesting. He'd just gotten out of the shower a few minutes ago and was not-very-efficiently rubbing a towel against his damp hair. These past two weeks had been quiet. Possibly the quietest they'd ever been since he'd moved here. None of the usual random visitors in his apartment at all hours of the day and night. No dealing with Gill-related chaos… Unless you counted his little trek down to their camp. Even his grandmother had been quieter than usual.

Tomorrow they'd have returned, though. If he remembered correctly, Gill had said they were coming back tonight, but hopefully he wouldn't have to deal with any of her mischief until the morning; he was too tired to handle anything more complex than sorting mail right now.

If he were entirely honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he was rather looking forward to their return. Gill and co. were exhausting, but things had been rather—dare he say it?—boring these last few weeks.

Although he knew that even thinking was just asking for these next few weeks to be filled with chaos and then paperwork about the chaos. And it had been nice to spend more time with co-workers. He'd gone out for drinks with Jenny, Shaunette, Emmanuel, and Quill on Friday and that had been very enjoyable and normal.

Leon sighed and tossed the stack of letters on his dining table with the vague thought that he'd deal with them later. Now, he was going to go and settle in bed with a good book and mentally prepare himself for Gill's inevitable descent on his home. And he had to admit that he was a bit interested in hearing about what all had happened.

These plans were interrupted, however, by the sudden tapping at his door. Not pounding, which meant it wasn't Gill…

It took Leon a matter of seconds to identify the knock, which probably said something that he didn't particularly want to think about. He sighed, glanced longingly toward his bedroom, and crossed his apartment to open the door.

And was immediately greeted by a tray of something that was pressed almost into his chest.

"Bonjour, cher! I have brought you a peace offering!"

The fact that he could identify Francis by knock probably said something about the precarious state of his mind, but right now he was a bit distracted from those thoughts by the sweets that had been thrust at him. They looked like some sort of cupcake things. "Peace offering?"

"Oui." Francis was at least staying outside of his apartment and not strolling his way inside like he owned the place. "Strawberry cheesecake, since I know it is one of your favourites."

Leon blinked, glancing back down at the treats. Yep, those were definitely strawberries on top of the little cupcake-shaped things.

"A peace offering, and in return you will lift your silly little 'three feet' rule." He was trying to look as innocent as possible, while holding out his obvious bribe.

And it was a pretty impressive peace offering. Particularly when you took into account the fact that these last couple days free of the usual shenanigans had given Leon time to cool off…

Still, he wasn't about to let Francis get off the hook that easily. So he took his time to respond, leaning casually against the doorframe as if they had all the time in the world to just stand there. And then he waited, just long enough for Francis to shift his weight a couple times. "You do know why I was rather pissed off at you, right?"

Mainly because Francis sometimes had terrible timing. He'd been out, on duty, with probably the most unpleasant, and apparently homophobic, officer in the entire division. And Francis just had to have noticed him and decided to come over, grope him in plain sight of the entire street, and kiss him.

Leon had been absolutely terrified that he'd been about to lose his job.

And thank God he hadn't—although the lecturing on appropriateness while on duty had been extremely unpleasant in and of itself—because if he had, then he'd probably have to kill Francis right now.

"Oui, and I apologise, cher." He was looking at him expectantly.

And sometimes Leon wanted to curse his own softness. He sighed, moved aside, and motioned Francis inside the apartment. "So what time did you get in? I thought you were getting back later tonight."

"A few hours ago." He strolled across the room and into the kitchen, immediately heading to the fridge and sliding the cheesecake inside. "Which means this technically isn't complete, cher, as it needs to sit overnight." He turned and leaned back against the door. "So you will have to be patient."

Leon closed the front door. "So my peace offering technically isn't even completed? That doesn't seem right." He headed toward the couch, sitting down and resting his feet on top of the coffee table. Which he probably should clear off sometime soon. There were a few empty coffee mugs resting here and there. "Did your plan work, then?"

Leon was pretty sure it had. He craned his neck over the back of the couch and watched as a smirk stretched over Francis's, although he tried to hide it as he busied himself with the coffee machine. Even though it was way too late for coffee… Although knowing Francis, he probably wanted to tell Leon about everything that had happened, so coffee might be a necessity.

"Oui!" He immediately left the kitchen and draped himself over the back of the couch, sending Leon his most smug grin. "Allison and our cher Arthur have finally admitted to their amour!"

"And how did you manage that?" He was pretty sure that he was going to get the other side of the story at some point tomorrow. Hopefully Arthur wouldn't show up too early in the morning. And hopefully he wouldn't be having a panic attack… Maybe he should go the store for a quick tea run when he woke up tomorrow…

"I just tricked him into getting lost with her in the woods." He suddenly rolled over and crushed the arm Leon had draped over the back of the couch under his weight. Ignored his noise of protest and continued. "It was a bit unfortunate that I forgot to tell Allison how to get back to the group… I would've thought that Arthur would take advantage of their time alone together, but he is an idiot."

Somehow Leon rather doubted that Francis had just forgotten to tell them. He frowned as he attempted to free his arm. He was pretty sure Francis was actively pushing back to pin it. "Mhm, so who won Gill's contest thing then? And get off my arm."

He ignored the order, of course, and tilted his head back with a slight frown. "Nobody knows for sure. Gillian and Allison are both absolutely positive that their teams won. It only complicated matters when cher Arthur and Allison disappeared halfway through the paintball game and Monsieur Roma had to go find them. And you should have heard Gill and Allison arguing over it on the bus." He shrugged slightly, which gave Leon the split second needed to extricate his arm. "Unfortunately, I think it's still ongoing."

Great… Leon could imagine the headache that an ongoing Ally versus Gill competition would cause. And he'd probably get drawn into the middle of it because that's what Gill liked to do.

"I'm surprised she's not here right now…" No matter how late it was; he didn't particularly want to look at the clock.

"I think she was overly-stimulated by the whole camping experience. She fell fast asleep on the bus ride back after she finally stopped fighting with Allison. Right on Mattie's shoulder, which was very cute and absolutely enraged Allison. Arthur had to distract her."

"Anything else exciting happen, then? Nobody drowned in the lake or started a forest fire?"

And he was a little surprised when he saw Francis's expression flicker for a moment. It was hard to actually identify the foreign twitch, but he definitely hadn't looked happy. He was very quick at returning to his usual smirky-smile and straightened up.

"I think the coffee's almost finished, cher. If we're going to talk about everything that happened, then we'll need some caffeine in our systems, oui?"

"Uh…" He'd pulled himself upright and was now watching as Francis hurriedly pulled down a pair of mugs and opened the fridge door to retrieve the milk. "I…guess… Did something bad happen?"

Francis flashed him a smile that was just a fraction too wide. "Of course not, cher! Something very good happened. A true expression of l'amour! Our cher Antoine asked his sweet Lovina to marry him!"

And that was definitely not what Leon had expected… And didn't really explain why Francis was now moving too-quickly and Leon watched as he actually spilled coffee onto the counter, some of it splashing onto his arm.

He was on his feet and in the kitchen in a few seconds, taking the coffee pot out of Francis's hands and forcibly pushing him toward the couch. "Sit before you hurt yourself. Tell me about everything that happened."

It didn't take a genius to figure out that something was up, which meant he was probably going to need this coffee… And much more of it in the next few days.

A/N: AND DONE.

OH MY GOD. I AM DONE WITH THIS MONSTER. I AM DONE.

*screaming and hyperventilating*

I am so excited right now. I need to have like a super party.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I know this has taken so long and my writing has been so sporadic, but a lot of you have stayed with me through the whole thing, or came along at different points and stuck with me and I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! I would not have been able to finish this without you!

*kisses and hugs* And what is next in the writing life of moi? Well, there's definitely a sequel in the works. It'll probably be a bit of time before that starts up, because breaks are good for sanity. But there will definitely be another story coming soon. So prepare yourselves! :D