Fateful Reunion

POV: Leo 

In the evening, Leo was picked up in a limousine by the strange man who had been in the apartment earlier. They really wanted to make sure I went to the gala - Leo was sure that was just an excuse for him to blend in, so he asked: "What's the real reason you want me to go to the gala?" The stranger had expected this question: "You've seen through us. There are not only the highly respected Wollseifs at this gala, there are also some other bigwigs attending this event and they would like to meet you in person rather than just watch your file for years. They want to see our country's legendary sharpshooter for themselves." "I see, I'm flattered," Leo replied sarcastically. He would prefer not to have anything to do with these people at all; they should stay behind their desks and continue to stare at his file rather than get personally involved in Leo's affairs.

The two men remained silent for the rest of the journey. Leo grew more tense by the minute. What should he say to Christopher when he saw him? Should he even talk to him? Was he angry with him because he had disappeared without saying a word? Leo sighed as he got out of the car. It didn't help, he had to get through this now.

This time he was alone at the gala. He checked his cell phone almost constantly to see if everything was all right and Oliver was okay, he had access to the security cameras in the apartment and he used them. The thought of leaving Oliver with a babysitter for the first time was on his mind the whole time.

That's why he only stood on the sidelines when he arrived in the hall. Sometimes he greeted people with a simple wave, but otherwise he didn't interact with anyone.

It didn't take long for the stage show to start. With a few exceptions, people gathered in front of the stage. First, a few men in uniforms entered the stage, one of whom was undoubtedly Christopher's father, General Wollseif, the kinship was undeniable. The older man also had black hair and violet eyes, his face was serious, almost frozen or petrified.

He began to make a speech about how incredibly talented the young Lieutenant General Wollseif was and how proud he was of his son as a father and how glad he was to be able to witness this event. Leonard didn't find his speech very convincing, after all he knew inside information about the true relationship between Christopher Wollseif and his father.

Most of the time, however, Leo was busy on his cell phone, watching Oliver play puzzles with Berta, the babysitter and housekeeper, at the living room table. Mistrust was innate in him, so to speak. But when Christopher was called to the stage, it caught his attention and he looked up from his cell phone. Christopher had hardly changed, his black hair was slicked back under his cap, his violet eyes were piercing, his face and body even more attractive than before, more angular, more defined. It was probably the maturity of age.

-I wonder if Oliver will look the same when he's older. Then he would never have to worry about finding a partner and I would never have to worry about my grandchildren. - Leo thought to himself and smiled as he continued to stare at Christopher. Actually, he shouldn't do that, after all, he wanted to avoid contact with Christopher, but somehow he couldn't take his eyes off him. However, the likelihood of Christopher recognizing him in this mass of people was slim, so Leo allowed himself to watch him a little longer.

After the speech, the crowd in front of the stage dispersed and Leo was once again glued to his cell phone, waiting for the people he was supposed to meet here today to approach him. Not much later, someone actually came up to him: "Hey, handsome," the stranger said to him. "Are you here alone?" Had he just been hit on? Leo raised his head and scrutinized the stranger closely. This was clearly not someone from the research department. According to his uniform, he was an alpha from the special unit of parachute hunters and higher up than Leo.

"Hm, your face looks kind of familiar," the stranger added. "I don't know what you're getting at," Leo replied calmly. "You don't have to be so polite, handsome," the guy continued to flirt with him. "Sorry, but I'm not an Omega and I have a kid," Leo rebuffed him. "Omega, beta, alpha or a child? I don't care, the main thing is that you're pretty and you're actually exactly my type of man." The guy wasn't ugly, brown hair, brown eyes, three-day beard, but nowhere near as handsome as Christopher. Besides, his smarmy demeanor made him much uglier.

Leo sighed and clarified his statement, "I meant: not interested." The stranger grabbed Leo's chin and pushed his face up, forcing Leo to look him straight in the eye. But Leo reacted immediately and slapped the stranger's hand away. "Don't touch me." "Oh, the little kitten is biting, I like that." The stranger tried to nuzzle him again. "Oh, you like that?" Leo hissed and grabbed the stranger's wrist and bit him on the palm. He pulled his hand away in pain. "Tell me, are you crazy?" he shouted at Leo. "You said you like it biting," Leo grinned. "Have a little respect for people of higher rank like me!" He looked at Leo's uniform and reached for Leo's collar, but Leo swatted him away again. "I said: don't touch!" he said even more clearly now. "Wait for it, little kittens like you need to be reprimanded." The stranger swung a punch, but Leo parried it, which made the man even angrier. "You little bitch." He tried to strike again, but Leo caught his fist, grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back. "Have you got it now?" Leo whispered provocatively and fixed the stranger on the floor. Only now did he notice the eyes on him. "What's going on here?" The murmur of the crowd suddenly fell silent, Leo let go of the other man and then turned around to see where the voice was coming from.

He looked into a very familiar face. A face that he had seen almost every day, only from a version a few years younger. A face that used to be very close to him in size. Before Leo could say anything, the stranger intervened, standing up from the floor and bowing. "Lieutenant General Wollseif, General Wollseif, I apologize for the commotion at your event, but this strange, low-ranking soldier attacked me out of nowhere and said I had snatched his loved one away from him!" There was one and the same reaction from two different people, a skeptical look, a raised eyebrow. The eyes of the two people met and Christopher could no longer hold back and began to laugh heartily. "Ah yes, all right," by now he was holding his stomach with laughter and collecting irritated looks, including from his father, who was standing behind him. The stranger with whom Leo had just had a fight was the most confused, however.

Leo looked to the side and scratched the back of his head, his cheeks slightly flushed because he felt slightly embarrassed by Christopher's reaction. He knew exactly why Christopher was laughing, as Leo had never really been interested in love, interpersonal relationships or even this kind of argument, so why would he pick a fight? In fact, in Christopher's eyes, Leo was probably the most innocent and socially alien person he had ever met. When Christopher had regained his composure, his expression became serious. "Sorry, that excuse was just too far-fetched." He looked first at the stranger in uniform, then at Leo. "Leo, tell me what really happened." The looks on people's faces became even more confused when they realized that Leo and Christopher knew each other. "The guy grabbed me, he hit one me and touched me without permission, so I put him in his place." Christopher's expression darkened a little more and he smiled a smile that gave Leo uncomfortable goose bumps. "I see," Christopher looked at the patch with the stranger's name on it. "So Lieutenant Bernhard, what do you have to say for yourself?" "Excuse me, but you believe Lieutenant Neumann's statement?"

"He would have no reason to lie. Besides, I know Lieutenant Neumann better than anyone else here." - Interesting statement, but he was probably right - Leo thought to himself. "He's never shown any interest in people and I don't think that's changed." "Oh yeah? He said he had a child, so that can't be entirely true." Leo felt sick, a nasty shiver ran down his spine. Christopher looked like he was about to kill someone. His smile turned passive aggressive: "If he had a partner, he wouldn't be here alone, Mr. Bernhard." Christopher took a few steps towards the two of them. He signaled to Leo that they would talk later. Christopher looked down at Bernhard.

"Wouldn't you prefer to make do with me then, I'm a handsome man too." Christopher had his hands clenched into fists. "Lieutenant Neumann is my guest of honor, I won't let someone like you lay a hand on him." Bernhard swallowed hard. "I have understood." "Good, then that's settled." Christopher's smile still looked very aggressive, but Bernhard seemed to have finally understood the seriousness of the situation and began a tactical retreat.

Christopher turned to Leo: "Do you have time?" Once again, Leo was unable to answer and the general intervened. "You know this... young soldier?" Christopher's gaze shot to his father. "Yes, do you remember my interview on television? This is the young man who was the reason for my rapid ascent, the man who saved my life because I was too careless." Leo raised an eyebrow - that's one way of interpreting it - he thought to himself.

General Wollfseif approached Leo and held out his hand. Leo hesitated briefly, but then gave him his hand and squeezed it firmly, the old man also had a firm handshake. "Thank you for saving my son. He told me a lot about her." "He did?" slipped out Leo and both his eyebrows went up as he looked at Christopher, but he didn't return his gaze.

"What did he tell you, if you don't mind me asking?" "That you must be an exceptionally good marksman and that your mission completion rate was 100 percent before you disappeared without a trace, after the incident in which my son was seriously injured, they told him you have had stomach cancer." - He must be doubting my innocence in the whole story, and rightly so - Leo sighed inwardly. "Yes, that's right, I also ended up having to raise my child on my own, so the military wasn't the right employer for me anymore." "I see, so you actually have a child." "Yes." Christopher's look could kill people again. "And why are you here, this is an event organized by the military and members of the government?" Ah, now it was getting critical - "I'm back in the game now, I -" Christopher interjected: "Father, didn't you listen to me, he's my guest of honor and don't ask him those questions, now," he growled. Leo sighed. Nobody was listening to him anyway. "Can I go now?" asked Leo, now annoyed and staring at his cell phone, on which a message had popped up: "No," growled Christopher. "I have to go now, I have an appointment." Christopher gritted his teeth. "Fine, but I'll see you later."

Relieved, Leo made his way to the entrance of the hall - what kind of awkward situation was this? Christopher's mood was getting worse by the second, good thing I got away now, for once a thank you to the research group, otherwise it would have been annoying - with his hands in his pockets, he now stood in front of one of the glass doors at the entrance and stared at his cell phone again. "Are you Lieutenant Neumann?" Leo pointed to his name badge on his uniform. "Yes, obviously. You're from the research department?" "Correct. Nice to meet you in person." The lady in the evening dress held out her hand to him.

"Likewise, good to know who's behind the assholes who are blackmailing me," Leo hissed. "You're certainly very impudent" "Of course I am. Why did you really want to see me?" Leo asked with an aggressive tone. "I really wanted to meet you in person. You know, I knew your father, I worked with him and I wanted to get a picture of you." "My father?" Leo's expression slipped. "I can hardly remember him," he said dismissively, distancing himself. "He left us at a young age." She smiled, but Leo realized it was only a fake smile.

"Correct. I was three years old when he was murdered, so I don't know him. So please refrain from making any comments about him and get out of my sight." She continued to smile falsely and just nodded, turning and disappearing to join a group of people who seemed to be watching and talking to Leo the whole time. Probably colleagues of the lady from a moment ago.

Fortunately, he had now got the meeting over with and could now go home to Oliver and free him from the clutches of Berta, the new domestic help. Just as Leo was leaving the hall, a familiar voice spoke to him. "You haven't forgotten what I said to you earlier, have you?" Leo looked to his right, straight into a pair of violet eyes. "What are you doing here? Isn't this your party?" "I was just doing it to get your attention. Apparently it worked, so I don't need all the fuss anymore...Were you going to run away again?" "What do you mean 'again'?" growled Leo. "I just want to go home to my child." Christopher ground his lower jaw.

"So while I was lying on the operating table in the barracks, you had time to fuck around in world history?" "My sex life is none of your business," Leo hissed back, making his way to the street and waving down one of the cabs parked in the area around the hall. "Besides, I've had enough to fight for myself. I didn't do all this just for fun." Leo opened the car door, but Christopher slammed it shut again. "We're talking." "I don't see what we have to talk about. I wasn't here for you." Leo yanked the door open again and quickly got into the car before Christopher could react. "Get going," he said to the cab driver, but before he could drive off, Christopher yanked open the other door and joined Leo in the back of the cab. "I haven't finished the conversation," Christopher growled, grabbing Leo's wrist as a precaution. "I have. You're really annoying, you know that?" Leo growled back. "Yes, I know," Christopher replied honestly.

Leo sighed. Every time he looked at Christopher's face, he thought of Oliver, they really were the spitting image of each other, so he couldn't be angry with him when he looked at him like that. - What a lousy trick. - Leo sighed again and rolled his eyes, his gaze turning out of the window. "What are you up to now?" Leo muttered. "I'm going home with you." "What do you want?!" Surprised, Leo turned to Christopher. Christopher replied curtly: "Yup. We wanted to talk. You want to go home. So we'll talk at your place."

Leo stroked his forehead. "I can't stop you anyway. Either you stop me or you come with me. I want to get to Oliver as soon as possible. So what other choice do I have?" Leo shrugged his shoulders, looked annoyed out of the window and instructed the cab driver to take him home. - He had nothing to worry about, Oliver always took his eye drops and should still be asleep at the time - he thought to himself - luckily he had quickly memorized the new address before the whole fuss started.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence until Leo broke it: "How are you going to talk about something if you're silent all the time?" A short silence. Leo was used to that by now. He had noticed that these short pauses were Christopher's so-called thought pauses, in which he thought about what he wanted to say and sorted out the words, as he tended to express himself incorrectly. "I don't know, you know that feeling that you have a lot to say but somehow nothing? That you can't find the words, even though they're bubbling over inside you?" Leo gave Christopher a skeptical look and then started to laugh out loud. "What's so funny about that?" Christopher asked, slightly pissed off. "I never thought you were a metaphorical person," Leo said, laughing and wiping a few tears from his eyes. "But yes, I understand what you mean. What do you think about a beer or something when we're at my place? Maybe that will sort your thoughts. After all, despite the intervening years, we still have to toast our completed mission, don't we?" Leo smiled at Christopher, but he avoided his gaze and stared out of the window himself. Could Leo just see a slight blush on Christopher's cheek? Leo shook his head. He was probably just imagining it.

When they arrived at Leo's home, he entered his pin for the front door and used it to open it. Berta was standing right behind it, packed with all her things, and immediately reported: "The young Master was fine. There were no problems and he is already sleeping. I gave him his eye drops as prescribed by the doctor, the young Master was very brave. I have to pay you a big compliment: Your child is very well behaved, very well educated for his age and extremely inquisitive. I look forward to working with you in the future." She bowed to Leo and, out of respect, Leo also bowed to Berta. "Thank you very much for your words," Leo said before Berta left the apartment and closed the door behind her.

Leo was very pleased to hear Berta's words, because where they had lived before, Leo and Oliver had often had problems with other parents, who had called Oliver naughty and Leo incompetent. It was just a shame that Berta had directly exposed herself as a babysitter, perhaps Leo could have used her as a precautionary measure to introduce her as a family member from the other side of Oliver's family.

"It's a shame the little one is already asleep, I would have loved to have met your son, especially now after all the raves about him in front of me," Christopher grumbled, his expression darkening again. "He seems to be taking after his father," he added. "Haha, yes, definitely," Leo replied, laughing slightly. - How ridiculously fitting that statement was. Yes, Oliver took after his father, he was an absolute carbon copy of him, only I'm actually his "mother", not his father, but you, you moron - Leo thought to himself as he went straight to the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out two cans of beer. They were probably standard equipment here. The kitchen was open, had its own dining area and was directly adjacent to the living room, which was bordered by a couch. "Have a seat."

Leo pointed to the couch and placed the beer on the coffee table. "Please ignore the mess. We've only just moved in - literally just today." Christopher sat down on the sofa and Leo sat right next to him. Leo opened the beer cans. "...why did you come back?" Christopher asked meekly, as if he didn't want to hear the answer. "Orders from the high ups," Leo replied curtly and took a sip of beer. "So you were working for the government the whole time you were away? Is that why I didn't find you?" Christopher just stared at his beer.

"No, I didn't. They found me and brought me back." Leo leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "Those sons of bitches. I guess I'll never have my peace from them," Leo looked at Christopher. "Remember when you told me that you wanted to run away from your father and your responsibilities, but you couldn't? I'm probably stuck in exactly the same situation." Leo laughed. "That's bullshit." "Why are they breathing down your neck like that?" "Long and old story. Nothing for now. I'll tell you another time, maybe you can tell me how it went during and after your operation first?"

"Hmpfh," Christopher snorted. "If you'd been there afterwards, you'd have known." He now opened his beer too. "Are you still mad at me for that? That was four years ago and I had my problems too." Christopher clicked his tongue. "That's all right. The operation went well, but I was irritated when I opened my eyes and you were nowhere to be found. I thought you'd been killed until the Omega Squad said I only survived because of you, because you'd supported me and driven me there. From that I could at least deduce that you were alive. But I wasn't told that directly until days later, when our supervisor at the time came to visit me in the infirmary and told me about both your leave of absence and your subsequent resignation." Christopher now leaned back and returned Leo's gaze. "And because I'm stubborn as an ox, I went looking for you. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, your personnel file is fucking heavily encrypted and I heard it had even disappeared in the meantime."

Leo scratched the back of his head. "Oh yeah, there was something like that."

"And that's why, as you may have heard on TV, I decided to move up high enough to access your file. But that's all over now, you're sitting next to me." Christopher took another big swig of beer.

"Chris? One thing has been irritating me the whole time.". "Hmh?" "Why all the effort? If you'd just wanted to thank me, you could have just done it on TV. I would have noticed at some point." - Oliver or his Omega-Being didn't seem to be the reason, Christopher didn't look like he knew - another short silence. Leo could see that Christopher was trying to compose himself and not speak without thinking. This brief silence made Leo tense - did he know something after all? - Leo's heart began to race.

"On the one hand, I wanted to thank you personally for saving me, I mean it. It was nothing other than my life that you saved, you have to do that." "And on the other hand?" Leo's heart was pounding.

"On the other hand..."

Christopher stared into Leo's eyes, suddenly grabbing Leo's wrists and pushing him down onto the couch. Irritated, Leo stared into Christopher's eyes. "What are you doing?" Leo tried to free himself from his grip, but Christopher leaned over him and pushed his legs down with his knee, pinning Leo's arms above his head. "...I've had an insatiable desire to fuck you since the first day we met and I felt like I'd regret it if I didn't even try." Leo faltered and looked Christopher in the eye, irritated and helpless. "For that, I'm pretty sure you're no different." Christopher pressed his knee into Leo's crotch.

"Tsk," Leo clicked his tongue and now tried to avoid Christopher's gaze. "How do you come up with bullshit like that," Leo hissed, while his body claimed the opposite. His nipples were slowly getting hard, as was his penis, and he was also getting wet, luckily only he could feel the latter. "Don't think I've missed your looks. Neither before nor today, they undressed me." "Imagination is also an education, isn't it?" Leo countered. "So I'm just imagining your stiff penis on my knee? I haven't even touched you properly and yet you're still reacting. So which one of us is talking bullshit here?" Christopher's free hand wandered down to Leo's trousers and deftly undid the belt, buttons and zipper.

Leo couldn't deny his words, he was right after all, his body reacted before he could. There was no one in the world Leo found more attractive than Christopher. He freed one of his hands and buried it in Christopher's black hair, pulled his head down and gave him a kiss on his lips with a grin. "Well, where you're right, you're right. I told you then that I find you and your body very attractive." Christopher looked at him a little puzzled for a moment, but then took his hand and pushed Leo's face up a little so that he could give him another kiss.

Christopher licked Leo's lips to initiate a French kiss and then nibbled on his lower lip. When he finished the kiss, he breathed into Leo's ear, "Me too, I've thought you were incredibly hot from the start too." Christopher's hand wandered into Leo's pants and began to massage his penis. "Ngh." Leo groaned slightly and scratched his fingernails across Christopher's torso and over his uniform, his hands now sliding under Christopher's uniform and shirt, leaving scratch marks directly on his skin. Meanwhile, Christopher removed Leo's and his own pants, his fingers moved to Leo's anus and penetrated it. "I guess this isn't the first time you've had anal sex, huh?" Christopher breathed provocatively into Leo's ear. - Yes, including with you, you idiot, Leo thought to himself, but didn't say it. "So what," grumbled Leo. Despite his past, he had never actually thought about being the top during sex.

"You're already at this point, I can go straight in," Christopher grinned and started to thrust his penis into Leo, but Leo suddenly jerked him back. "Where's the condom? You don't want to fuck me without it, do you?" He was panicking inside, but tried to keep calm on the outside. He remembered Jasper's words"If you don't want to get pregnant again, never sleep with the father of the child without contraception.

"Why should I sleep with you with a condom? You're an alpha, you won't get pregnant and I want to feel you." "Just do it." "Give me an adequate reason and then I'll think about it." Leo kept Christopher at arm's length - he couldn't think of a good reason, so he resorted to another, worse idea.

"I'll tell your father that you'd rather sleep with an alpha than produce offspring."

Christopher looked irritated at first, but then grinned: "That's no reason, I'd gladly give up my inheritance to fuck you. Give me a better reason, you still have one more chance." Leo raised an eyebrow - Christopher had probably developed a very strange obsession with him - he urgently needed to think of something, he didn't want to get pregnant again, at least not now. He thought about it briefly, with the information he had gathered, even if it was an asshole move, he now answered seriously:

"Well, if you fuck me without a condom, I'm gone, with the help of people far above you and you'll never, ever find me again, you can believe me."

That seemed to have hit home, Christopher stopped moving, his expression darkening.

He stood up and took his wallet out of his uniform jacket, completely exposing his upper and lower body, pulled a condom out of the wallet and slipped it over his penis. "Threat accepted. But believe me, you won't get away with that alone," he hissed and immediately ruthlessly penetrated Leo, who clawed Christopher's bare shoulder with his fingernails. "You asshole." Leo bit his lower lip to stifle a loud groan.

"Your son is asleep. You better be a little quieter, unless you want to wake him up," Christopher grinned provocatively and thrust into Leo once more. "Fuck," Leo hissed and put his arms around Christopher's neck. "I hate you." "You don't," Christopher responded with amusement, thrusting into him once more and giving him a kiss on the tip of his nose. Christopher continued to massage Leo's penis as he thrust into him. The last time Leo had had sex was almost 5 years ago, and the last time he had sex was with Christopher, so he was sensitive and had a lot accumulated. "If you keep that up, I'm going to cum soon," Leo growled between moans.

"Does it feel that good?" Christopher grinned broadly as he breathed into Leo's ear. "Maybe," he evaded the question and bit Christopher's earlobe and then his shoulder. "Biting vixen," Christopher moaned. "But I'm no different." Christopher leaned down and put his arm under Leo's neck. The two of them were one - Leo wanted to smack himself as he caught himself thinking the words "finally again". His head was bare. With a loud groan, Leo came first. His cum splashed onto his stomach and Christopher's too. Shortly afterwards, Christopher came too, while he clawed at Leo's shirt and bit his shoulder, leaving a deep bite mark - luckily not his neck.

Heart pounding and breathing heavily, Christopher lay on top of Leo. "I'm staying here," he grumbled. "But you're heavy," Leo tried to push him away, but he didn't move an inch. Leo sighed, his ability to think slowly returning, his heart racing. He had slept with Christopher again and this time they were both in their right minds. What have I done? - he thought to himself. On the very first day of their reunion, they had crossed that line. Yes, the first thing he would do when Christopher was gone was to smack himself for it. But he let Christopher lie on top of him for a few more minutes before he finally pushed him off and Christopher pulled off the condom and threw it in the garbage can next to the sofa.

"Strange way to have a conversation."

Leo sat up straight again and put his pants and underpants back on completely. "Still, I achieved my goal," Christopher grinned provocatively, but apparently happily. "You're a very strange one. Is that generally your style? Fuck everyone the first time you see them again?" "Nah, you're the only one." Christopher sat down next to him. "I've already told you that I don't like that kind of pushy, 'cute' people and I don't like women and dominant alphas either." Leo laughed: "You have difficult taste." "Not really. I have a thing for you. Isn't that enough?" Leo's heart stopped, he felt warm and his cheeks turned red. He avoided Christopher's gaze. "You're crazy. What do you get out of having a crush on me? What do you like about me anyway? After all, I'm not the most sociable of people."

"Exactly that. You have no interest in other people and you don't give a shit about my status. You've never courted me and yet you've gained my complete trust. You know more about me and my feelings than anyone else. Besides, you saved my life." "Ah, so that's why." Leo's heart ached a little. So if someone else had saved his life, would he be into that person? "Didn't you listen to me properly?" hissed Christopher. "That was just one on top, I thought you were attractive before that incident."

"That's not how you behaved," grumbled Leo in a huff.

"I'm just not good at that sort of thing. Especially as I've never experienced it before, I have no experience," Christopher whispered quietly, Leo didn't hear him. Christopher got up again and went into the kitchen, took a quick look around and prepared himself a glass of water. "Why is this apartment so fucking big? There are only two of you, aren't there?" Leo replied curtly, still offended: "I don't have a plan. I didn't even choose it myself." He shrugged his shoulders.

"Bring me a glass of water too, my throat is dry as shit because of you." Christopher was already there and put a glass on the coffee table for Leo, but stopped. "So what's your plan here now?" Christopher asked, draining his glass. "I'm supposed to work for the secret service, basically office work, which is great because of my son, but I'll probably be away on missions for a few days every now and then, so I'll have Berta, the lady you saw earlier...," Leo took his glass, drained the water and put the glass back down.

"What about you, now that you've lost your reason to keep climbing up the tree of your career" "To be honest? No plan. Maybe I'll try my hand at the secret service." "Are you stalking me?" Leo raised his eyebrows. "Maybe," Christopher replied dryly. Leo sighed: "Why don't you do something you enjoy?" "The problem is more likely to be my father. I'll probably stay in the military until I've overtaken him in rank, so at least he won't have anything more to say to me there and then I'll see what happens." "Sounds like a plan." Leo looked at his watch. "You should go now, though. I need to get to bed if I want to be on time for my first day at work tomorrow."

"Hah, that's changed with having a child, hasn't it? You didn't mind pulling a few all-nighters in the past," Christopher joked. "Hm, maybe." A brief silence. "Can't I sleep here?" What did he want? No, Leo couldn't let him meet Oliver, at least not yet. He couldn't gauge Christopher's reaction properly. "No. Tomorrow is both my first day at work and Oliver's first day at nursery. So it's going to be stressful, I don't need one more person around me." Christopher grimaced. "Fine, but only on one condition. You give me your phone number." Leo probably had no choice but to protect Oliver. "Fine. Here." Leo tossed Christopher his cell phone. "Get my number, but then you go home." Christopher bit his lower lip, but followed Leo's words. Leo walked him to the door and Christopher gave him another kiss before closing the door behind him.

Leo sank to his knees. "Are you kidding me? What the hell was that all about today?" His face was bright red, his pulse was racing and his legs were shaking. "Fuck." He lingered like that for a few more minutes before he started to tidy up a bit, get ready for bed and then lay down in his bed with a full head. Before doing so, he looked into the children's room; Oliver was sound asleep. Apparently he hadn't noticed anything about the escapade and that was a good thing. He lay in bed in a mess and tried to sort out his thoughts, but he was far too tired for that and fell asleep with a bad feeling.

The night was very restless, so he got up in the morning completely exhausted, made his coffee and forgot to check his cell phone. He still had no emotional understanding of what had happened yesterday. His thoughts only calmed down when he went to Oliver's room and stared at him for a few more seconds before finally waking him up. "Honey, you have to get up." The little boy just grumbled and turned around. "You've had enough sleep, kindergarten starts again today." "But I still want to sleep..." the little boy mumbled to himself. "Nothing there, get up..." Oliver opened his eyes. A pair of violet eyes stared at him.

Leo sighed inwardly. You really do look just like Christopher. - he thought to himself and reached for the eye drops on the bedside table. "I'm sorry you have to keep going through this." He dripped a few drops into Oliver's eyes and the purple color turned a piercing blue. "It's okay, Dad." The little boy pushed aside his blanket, gave Leo a kiss on the cheek and got out of bed, drowsy. "We'll have breakfast first and then we'll get dressed, okay?" "Yes, Dad," the little boy said tiredly, grabbed his father's trouser leg and toddled after him into the living room. Just as they were leaving the room, they heard the front door click shut.

"Ah, Berta, you're early...?" Leo's eyes widened. It wasn't Berta.

"Christopher... how... how did you get in here?" "I was looking over your shoulder yesterday when you entered the door code." "You can't just... what are you doing here?" "You didn't reply to any of my messages, so I thought you'd made good on your threat last night and left." Leo slapped his hand to his forehead. "You have a fear of loss as fuck. No, I just haven't looked at it yet. That's called trespassing, by the way." Christopher had closed the door behind him, just stared at Leo and shrugged his shoulders. "It's your own fault for being so careless."

Before Leo could reply, there was a tug on his trouser leg. Oliver, who had been hiding behind him earlier, stepped forward. He just stared at Christopher, Christopher stared back, until Oliver caught his words and said, "You're the man from the TV." Oliver stepped in front of Leo. "The cool guy from the military who was looking for my dad." Oliver had understood that? - Leo asked himself in amazement. Short pause: "And the guy with the purple eyes." Oliver indicated to Leo that he wanted to get on his arm. Leo picked him up and Oliver whispered in his ear:

"And my other dad, right?"

Leo looked at Oliver in shock. Berta was right, Oliver was clever and incredibly observant. Based on Leo's reaction at the time, he was able to answer his own question. Shit - Leo thought to himself and signaled to Oliver that he should keep quiet about it - shit, shit, shit. Hopefully Oliver wouldn't blab. Leo added in a low whisper: "But he doesn't know anything about it, so please keep it that way for now." - Lying was no longer of any use to him here, he could only hope that it stayed between the two of them. Oliver nodded, he at least understood the situation a little.

"Haha, that's right, the man from the TV," Leo tried to talk his way out of it, while the other two stared at each other again. Fuck - even without the violet eyes, Oliver looked just like Christopher. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully Christopher didn't recognize that himself.

Not now, not here.

From now on, it was like running on broken glass.