So like I said, I did some writing today. My head has been a scattered, neurotic mess all day, and I feel like this is too. I feel like I was grasping for a cohesive point through this whole thing and I never really got it, so it's just kind of a mess of Sherry observing Leon and Claire and her thoughts.
Set post-RE2 when I headcanon the three of them being in hiding together for a while before Claire leaves and the government swoops in.
I dunno. I don't like this. It probably should have just lived on my hard drive as one of the hundreds of things I have written that never saw the light of day, but I guess I feel somehow desperate to feel productive in light of my nerves, anxiety, and guilt today.
So I'm just sitting here waiting on the weather to roll in, under a tornado watch, it's cool it's fine. Here you guys go.
12 year old Sherry's observations and musings.
Sherry thought Leon and Claire liked each other. Probably. They were a little hard to read, sometimes.
They did fight. Sherry was kind of used to this; after all, her mom and dad had fought. She was no stranger to listening to the elevated voices of adults at night, when she should have been sleeping. Mom and dad would snipe at each other during the daylight hours; Leon and Claire seemed to try to avoid this. They saved their arguing for when Sherry was in bed—she’d hover at the top of the stairs in the darkness, listening to them go back and forth, and she’d skitter silently back to the room she shared with Claire when one of them inevitably went storming out of the kitchen post-argument.
It wasn’t all fighting, just like it hadn’t been all fighting with her mom and dad. Sometimes Leon and Claire joked around a little, Claire had tended to Leon’s wound every night, she rubbed his shoulder and picked splinters out of his hands, sometimes Sherry noticed Leon staring at Claire like she was the only thing in the room, his face kind of moony.
She couldn’t make out half of the arguments in the kitchen. Sherry’s mom had been a screamer—whenever she argued with her dad, it was plainly evident what she was upset about. Her dad had been quieter. Listening to Leon and Claire argue was like only being privy to half the conversation—their voices would spike up into annoyance, and then they’d shush themselves and go back to the low, fervent tones Sherry couldn’t make out, but could hear the sounds of. Claire would tell Leon he wasn’t her father, he wasn’t the big man of the household; Leon would tell Claire she was going off half-cocked and she was going to get herself into trouble, and maybe she should listen to him.
Sherry didn’t know what Claire was going to get herself into trouble about; day in and day out she was around the house with Sherry while Leon worked once his shoulder permitted him to do so, cooped up just the same as Sherry was. Leon didn’t want them leaving the house and for the most part they complied, but every once in a while they rebelled and walked to town.
The first time it had happened, Sherry had watched Claire pulling on boots with trepidation. “Leon said we’re supposed to stay here,” Sherry had said.
“Leon is not the boss of things around here,” Claire had informed Sherry, plainly. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
Venturing out into the world inevitably resulted in arguments in the kitchen at night, Sherry listening in from the top of the stairs. It didn’t stop Claire from doing it, and quite frankly if Claire hadn’t been determined to do it, there would have been absolutely nothing to do. Thanks to Claire and the second-hand store, they had a radio, they had books, they had spare changes of clothes and extra blankets and stuff that made it feel kind of more like a house as opposed to some weird place they were hiding.
Sherry kind of missed TV. She’d watched a lot of TV, back home. Mom and dad were gone a lot. As she got older, Sherry was used to coming home from school to an empty house and making do until her parents got home. She and Claire listened to a lot of music via the radio; Sherry didn’t know much about music. At her house growing up it’d been classical music in the car or news radio, but depending on the radio station Claire seemed to know every single song and would sing along. On Monday nights Leon monopolized the radio; the local college had a radio station that often played music Sherry found weird. On Monday nights there was a radio program that was metal music, and it all sounded like noise and screaming to Sherry, but Leon would sit there and listen to it happily while Claire angled the light at his hands and scraped at splinters with a razor blade and a pair of tweezers.
“Quit trying to use your teeth to get these things out,” Claire informed Leon, hovering over his hands with the razor blade in her own. “You just push them further in and then it’s impossible to get them out.” Leon looked chagrined; the sight of him chewing at his fingers was a relatively common one.
Claire was responsible for all the food in the house; Leon maintained he could not cook and Sherry thought Claire was kind of maybe figuring it out too, but she did manage to produce food for them to eat. If Leon was home, Claire told him to chop onions. Claire would sniffle and groan and turn around with tears streaming down her face when she tried to do it; Sherry herself could smell the pungent aroma of the onion from across the room. Leon seemed somehow semi-immune to the smell of the onion and Claire told him he was a freak of nature, but that he could make himself useful.
They’d sit around on the floor of the kitchen and eat whatever Claire produced; back home there’d been a kitchen table, occasionally there’d been her parents drinking wine at said kitchen table and asking Sherry how her day at school had been. Depending on how the night previous had ended, Leon and Claire would sit there and eat and joke around and there’d be conversation; if they’d fought, Claire sat there steel-faced and ate her food and Leon looked over at her from time to time in a way Sherry thought was almost kind of nervous. Claire’s attitude towards Sherry never changed, she was always kind and friendly, but occasionally Claire would practically ignore Leon like he didn’t exist after one of their late night fights and Leon would kind of hover around, looking sorry, looking like he wanted to open his mouth and say something to Claire. When Sherry was present, he usually kept his mouth shut, but to Sherry it seemed like he was dying to say something.
Sherry had figured out Claire was okay with being mad, just like her mom had been. And just like her dad, Leon seemed uncomfortable being mad, or having someone mad at him. Sherry never quite knew what to do when it was like this for a day or two; she felt kind of bad for Leon, because he seemed kind of like an outsider. She and Claire were like a unit, a team; they were alone together all day, they shared a bed, they were generally a package deal. When Claire was mad, Leon seemed kind of like he was on the periphery, and he’d quietly joke around with Sherry or talk to her, but it was like he was afraid to push too hard and he’d go off to bed by himself, slinking around the house quietly.
They got over it. They always did. Claire would act like Leon didn’t exist and Leon would look sheepish, and then suddenly the next day they’d be back to talking to each other, Claire rubbing Leon’s shoulder where it ached. The three of them would be back to periodically all sleeping in the bed together. Sometimes Sherry and Claire went into Leon’s room during the waking hours and going to bed together was a deliberate act; sometimes Sherry would wake up and Claire was absent and she’d make her way over to Leon’s room, to find them asleep together in bed or both lying there awake, talking in undertones. Sherry would climb into the bed and sidle up next to Claire, who was always in the middle. Sometimes Sherry woke up and Claire was spooning her, her arm around Sherry; sometimes Sherry woke up and she was clinging to Claire’s back while Leon and Claire were a knot together.
They always seemed somewhat embarrassed on the knot mornings. Part of Sherry felt kind of left out when she’d wake up with Claire’s back turned to her. Part of her kind of understood, though, because she did think Leon and Claire liked each other and she felt so bad for Leon when he’d slink around looking sheepish after one of their arguments. Sherry kind of felt happy when Claire would curl up with Leon at night and they’d hug each other in sleep; it made her feel a little less bad for Leon.
Sherry felt like she understood Claire pretty well. They were, after all, alone together all day. They talked a lot. Sherry knew all about Claire’s childhood, her home, her brother, her Daddy, going to college in Boston, all of it. Leon was a little more of an enigma. He was quieter, and he didn’t talk about his past as much. He had a family, Sherry knew, and brothers. He was from Michigan. He’d once had a sister, but she’d died. Leon was more prone to silence than Claire was, or if he was talking, he wasn’t necessarily doing it to Sherry. He left in the morning to work, and returned home tired and achy, and every week Sherry watched him dutifully hand the money he made while working over to Claire.
Sherry watched Leon and Claire interact, and listened to them argue, and curled up in bed with them at night, and still she was hopeful. These were her new parents, probably. Sherry didn’t really know where else she would go, if not with Leon and Claire. She wanted them to be her parents—which meant she didn’t want them to separate for any reason, she wanted things to stay like this forever. She viewed Leon and Claire as a unit, and sometimes at night in bed she’d imagine things like them getting married, like them not fighting in the kitchen anymore. She imagined them living in a real house with all the stuff a house had, like a TV and a kitchen table and a washing machine and Leon going off to work during the day and Sherry going to school, and Claire could go back to college. Leon could go back to being a cop. Sherry imagined them going on vacations together, and her sitting in the backseat of a car, and getting to go to places like Alabama and Michigan to see where Leon and Claire were from.
“How long can it go on like this?” Claire had asked Leon one night, her voice loud. Sherry hovered at the top of the stairs, listening.
“I don’t know,” Leon fired back. “You got any other brilliant ideas? I’m just trying to hold it all together.”
Sherry didn’t know much about what Leon and Claire fought about, but she wished they wouldn’t. She wished they were boyfriend and girlfriend. She wished they were a real family.
Sherry watched Claire sewing up holes in sweaters by hand, and at night she walked on Leon’s back when it hurt, and she loved them. She wanted them to love each other. She wished sometimes Claire wouldn’t be so cold to Leon and he wouldn’t seem like he didn’t know what room to be in. She pictured them doing things like holding hands and meeting her teachers at school, whenever she did get to go back to school.
One night when they were sitting around on the kitchen floor, eating the pasta thing Claire had made, Sherry looked up at them, swallowing her food. “Will I get to go see where you guys are from, sometime?” she asked. The question seemed to catch both of them off guard; Leon looked over at Claire, somehow knowingly, and Claire blinked, looking at Sherry evenly.
“Sure,” Claire said. “Where I’m from isn’t very exciting. There’s not a lot there.”
“Someday, I guess,” Leon said. He gazed into space for a moment. “I mean, I guess I’d like to go back there, at some point, myself.”
“Yeah,” Claire said distantly, looking over at Leon, “someday, I guess.” He looked over at her and they exchanged one of their looks Sherry found relatively unreadable, and they turned back to their food.
Sherry dreamed of family. She dreamed of Christmas mornings with Leon and Claire; she dreamed of roadtrips and getting to go on a plane for the first time; she dreamed of one day officially being <em>theirs</em>. When she looked at Leon and Claire, she felt love. She felt safety. She felt like she had nowhere else to go, and she wanted to stay with them forever. She didn’t want to be alone. She wanted them to look at each other and feel love too.
Every once in a while, when she was feeling really lost in her thoughts and daydreaming, Sherry dreamed of Leon and Claire having a baby. She was an only child; she dreamed of having a sibling to take care of and be around.
First things first. Sherry realized Leon and Claire had to stop arguing in the kitchen at night, maybe, before they could get around to giving her a sibling. Claire had to stop getting mad at Leon about whatever she got mad about, and Leon had to stop following her around looking like he was dying to say something. Sherry took heart in watching them when they weren’t in a fight; she watched Leon hanging over Claire’s shoulder in the kitchen as she prepared food, she watched Claire rubbing Leon’s sore shoulder and moving his arm around, trying to get the ache to go away.
They liked each other, Sherry was so sure of it. She thought of how happy they’d been to see each other, at the end in Raccoon City. Sherry had watched Claire looking at the then-unknown to her Leon with a huge smile on her face, her voice hopeful and high. She watched Leon stand across the train car from them with the same huge smile on his face, in spite of the bloody bandage at his shoulder, the blood seeping down the shirt of his uniform under a vest.
Sherry sure felt like <em>she</em> hadn’t ever looked at anyone like that, like she was so glad to see them she could have burst. Maybe she had. Maybe she’d looked at Claire like that, she didn’t know. But definitely not a boy. She’d never looked at a boy like that.
And for all the treating him coolly she did, Claire did also take care of Leon, like she took care of Sherry. Leon took care of them too, making sure they had food and somewhere to stay, and he occasionally brought home treats for Sherry. In the beginning, Sherry had felt conflicted—she’d missed her parents, she’d felt bad about somehow giving them up so quickly to cling to Claire. She thought of her mom, so difficult to understand, and her dad, generally tender but always absent. She thought of what her dad had become, and she thought of Claire fighting to defend her, to make her better.
Sometimes Sherry didn’t know how she felt. Sometimes she wished none of it had ever happened at all, and she was back in Raccoon City with her parents, listening to them talk about work at the dinner table. Sometimes she watched Leon juggling, Claire teasing him about his useless talent, and she felt so happy she felt <em>bad</em> for feeling happy. Her parents were dead, wasn’t she supposed to care about that? It seemed like it was so long ago she’d lived with them, and now Leon and Claire were the new norm. Her parents had been so distant and formal; Claire pulled Leon’s hair and Leon made jokes about bodily functions. Sometimes Leon brought home alcohol and he and Claire drank it until they were silly, laughing easily and goofing around with Sherry. Sherry felt like when her parents drank their wine, they just got even more serious than they already were. Periodically Sherry was tickled, on alcohol nights. Leon brought her candy bars and told her to eat them before he did. Claire was constantly explaining things to her, telling her facts. Claire was so, so smart, and Leon, when he wasn’t sad, was kind of goofy.
Sherry wanted them forever. She wanted them to want it forever, too. Maybe one day, they’d realize they liked each other, like Sherry saw they did. Like Sherry hoped they did.
Sherry was upstairs, changing into her sleep shirt. She tossed her too-big jeans and sweater off to the side, and exited the room, hurrying down the stairs. In the living room Claire was working Leon’s shoulder, his arm in her hand, and she was moving it in slight circles.
“You’re killing me,” he said to her as Sherry approached them from behind.
“I know,” Claire replied. “This has to be good for you, though. You probably need, like, physical therapy.”
“Probably,” Leon said. “<em>Ow</em.”
“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I’m not sure what else to do for you.” She let his arm drop and began instead to rub the shoulder, and Leon made a noise and slumped some.
Sherry watched them for a moment, and then opened her mouth. “Can we sleep in the same bed tonight?” she asked, and Claire turned around to look at her as if she’d just noticed her presence for the first time. Leon was still slumped, unmoving.
“Sure,” he replied. “Claire?”
“Yeah, sure,” Claire said absently, then went back to Leon’s shoulder. “Sherry, you need to go brush your teeth and stuff.”
“Why do I have to go to bed so early?” Sherry asked. “Like, why do we all go to bed so early? It’s not like I have school in the morning.”
“Leon works in the morning,” Claire replied, “and I don’t know what we’d stay up to do aside from stare at the walls.” She looked over her shoulder at Sherry. “Go on. Brush your teeth and go get in bed and we’ll be there in a minute.”
“I like sleep,” Leon added, sounding dazed as Claire rubbed his shoulder. “Oof—ow.”
Claire let out a sigh. “I’m not sure how to touch this thing to where it <em>doesn’t</em> hurt, Leon.”
“It hurts all the time,” Leon said, as Sherry turned away and headed for the stairs. “Whether or not you mess with it. At least half the time this feels good, which is better than it just hurting all the time.”
Sherry was climbing the stairs, and Claire was saying something back to Leon that Sherry couldn’t quite make out as she went down the hallway to the bathroom. Dutifully she brushed her teeth and instead of heading to she and Claire’s shared room, she went into the one Leon slept in and climbed into the bed. The bed smelled like him; not that Leon stank or anything, but he did have a particular kind of smell to him that was different than Claire’s. Sherry laid down on the bed and tugged at the bottom of her sleep shirt, making sure her behind was covered up.
Eventually she heard footfalls on the stairs; the heavier ones were Leon. Claire walked around the house so lightly you could barely hear her; Leon seemed to put his feet down with purpose. Claire told him he stomped. Leon said he was just walking. The heavier footfalls drew closer.
Leon entered the room, looking over at Sherry and smiling. He gathered up a pile of sleep clothes from in the corner and sighed heavily, as if to himself, and then exited the room again. Sherry laid there and pointed her toes at the ceiling, waiting on the adults. She’d once referred to Claire and Leon as the adults, and Claire had admitted to Sherry that half the time she didn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground, whatever that meant.
She could hear clunking around in the other room, in the hallway, sounds from the bathroom. Sherry rolled over in bed and picked at the ends of her blonde hair; she needed a trim. A few minutes later Claire padded into the room nearly silently, clad in a pair of plaid sleep pants and a sweater from the second-hand store that hung off her and looked like it would better fit Leon than Claire. Claire climbed up onto the bed from the foot, settling in next to Sherry, leaving space on the other side for Leon.
Claire was in the middle, always.
“Claire, my ends are all split,” Sherry said, fiddling with her hair. “I need a haircut.”
“Well, don’t peel them,” Claire said, dissuading Sherry’s hand. “I need one too. You’re easy. Cutting my own hair is…not.”
“I can cut your hair,” Sherry suggested, helpfully. “Just tell me what to do.”
“Maybe not, Sher,” Claire said in amusement. “I think maybe it’ll just go uncut.” Leon came into the room, his feet heavy and hollow-sounding on the floorboards. He looked at them in bed and came around the other side, getting in on the other side of Claire.
“What?” he asked, looking over at Claire.
“Haircuts,” she replied. “We probably all need one.”
“Yeah, maybe. I ought to just shave my head and be done with it,” Leon said. “Probably be easier. Just number two guard the whole thing down.”
“If that’s what you want,” Claire said. “Get me some trimmers. I’ll do it.”
“I’d rather my hair was down to my butt,” Leon said, “but that’s not practical, maybe ever, definitely not in this situation. Shaving my head probably would be.”
“To your butt?” Sherry asked, astounded. “You’d really grow your hair out long like a girl?”
“Yeah,” Leon said. “I tried as a teenager and my parents made me get haircuts.”
Claire looked amused. “I could braid your hair, like Sherry’s.”
“True,” Leon said. “But probably not what I should do.” He looked contemplative. “I don’t know if I want a shaved head, either.”
“Dilemma,” Claire said, settling back into the bed. Sherry curled up next to her, tugging her sleep shirt down again. Sherry thought better of her position and wriggled around to get under the blankets, then pressed up against Claire again. Claire let out a breath and adjusted herself, angling herself towards Sherry. Sherry felt Claire’s arm around her and rubbed her feet together under the blanket, trying to get cozy.
On the other side of Claire, Leon tugged at the blankets some, trying to get them far enough down to get under them. “Lift up for a sec,” he said to Claire, and she kind of pushed her feet into the bed, raising her hips, and Leon succeeded in getting the blankets down and then up over not only himself but Claire.
“You guys ready for the light to go out?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Sherry said.
“As ready as ever,” Claire said. Leon reached over and turned off the light, and they all wriggled around, getting themselves into position. Sherry curled into the front of Claire, and a moment later she felt the weight of Leon’s hand on her—his arm was long enough to encompass Claire, and part of Sherry as they laid there. It was a fight free night; they were all in the bed together, and Claire was sandwiched in as usual, Sherry clinging to her front, Leon against her other side.
“Leon?” Sherry asked in the darkness.
“Hmm?” he hummed back.
“Will you bring me a Snickers bar tomorrow?” she asked.
“If I can, yeah,” he said. “If the foreman makes a stop.”
Claire hummed herself. “I want one too,” she murmured, turning her head to her shoulder.
“I mean I want one too, so there is that,” Leon said. “We’ll see. We don’t always make a stop for anything. Sometimes it’s just straight to work and straight home.”
In front of Sherry, Claire shifted minutely; she moved back from Sherry a hair and further back into Leon, at her back. Sherry laid there in the darkness, blinking; she wondered if this was going to be one of the nights where she woke up in the morning and she was curled into Claire’s back, auburn hair in her face, as Claire laid entangled with Leon.
Sherry smiled a little to herself, in the darkness. It was kind of okay if she did.
Leon and Claire liked each other, she was sure of it. Probably. Sometimes it sure seemed like they did.
Sometimes the day starts so shitty that all you've got left to do is think about Jill and Leon fighting over Claire's attention in the most insufferable, obvious and pathetic lesbian way. Trying to one-up each other at the shooting range, arm restling, tripping over their feet to offer her a jacket first as soon as the temperature drops 0.2 degrees (she literally has her own on). Showing up with ridiculous flowers at any occasion (or without one). Getting a little too into their friendly sparring if they notice Claire is watching them. Hearing her mention a researcher whose works she's interested in and hunting down any available publications for her. Making sure her bike is in top notch condition before any problems even start t arise.
Neither of them is able to avoid saying stupid bullshit when they attempt to ask her out properly. They both are Chris approved. Claire is endlessly entertained.
It's a throuple, obviously. These two idiots are into each other just as much. After Claire takes pity on them, they develop clinginess-2000 and call her while she's away with TerraSave from their bed, pouting and asking when she'll be back.
At this point I am just viewing these things as a series of writing exercises I am posting instead of letting die on my hard drive. I'm having a hard time getting work done on Stuck On You because my brain is awash with all these short story ideas, and I told myself I'd give myself this week to fuck off and post fuckass one-shots and then next week we work on the next chapter update in earnest.
I've been thinking of young Leon and Claire a lot. Their time together, their time after Raccoon and Europe and Antarctica. Leon just settling in to the fact that he's owned by the government now, uneasily; Claire struggling to feel normal among a sea of cheerful, partying college students.
So I decided to write about young Claire having a Freak Out. I'm not quite sure how old she is here. 21, maybe? In my headcanon Claire did a lot more than just chase Chris all over Europe and get caught in France--she was after her brother, and she wasn't afraid to kill to get the info she needed. She was young, and wild, and she'd lost her calmer, more moral rudder in Leon and left to her own devices she was feral in Europe.
She didn't mind it at the time, but later, when she had time to reflect, she Did Mind It. She goes to therapy, she parties like any other college student, she drinks, she goes home with endless strings of guys that kind of make her stomach turn. Anything to help her forget her past. All of it, and maybe traumas she had prior to Umbrella, as well.
Anyway, Claire's drunk and freaks out. She knows two phone numbers by heart. She calls the one that's least likely to get her a yelling big brother lecture. Here we see the beginning inklings of Leon maintaining he needs to keep Claire safe and out of trouble; he just gets more rigid and guarded about it as he gets older, and Claire kind of stops viewing it as something she wants and more of a hindrance she wants gone.
Headcanon heavy, set in that same canon universe where I have Leon and Claire in a late 20s situationship. Again, I view this as a writing exercise. This is what I wrote today, and it could just live on my hard drive forever, but eh. I am forcing myself to post it.
It’d been fun, until it wasn’t. And when it turned from being fun, it really went downhill.
She was drunk as fuck. This was nothing new; her weekends were dedicated to debauchery, even if her brother begged her to shape up and be an adult, even if her therapist begged her to find a coping mechanism that was less maladaptive. During the week, for the most part, she held it together and pored over books and went to lecture, but the weekends were for being out of control. The weekends were for drinking until she went home with random guys, waking up the next morning on a mattress on a floor in a cluttered apartment that screamed someone still needed their mommy; for being loud and annoying and shrieking while inebriated on a subway car; for talking men twice her age in suits that cost as much a car into paying her bar tab because she knew damn well she didn’t have enough money to cover it.
She didn’t know why it’d stopped being fun, tonight. Half the time she didn’t. She didn’t control how she felt, these days. She’d been having a good time. She’d been laughing and dancing and knocking back shots like she was born to. She didn’t know why she had the thoughts she had. She didn’t know how to make them stop, no matter how many intervention skills her therapist tried to teach her, no matter how many well-meaning hugs she got from her roommate. Suddenly, somewhere in between shots and grinding herself on guys on a dance floor her mind had turned to other things.
Her mind had turned to what it felt like to lay in a bed in a hostel in France, cold and hungry and filled with paranoia. She remembered what it was like to always be one step behind Chris, no matter how fast she followed leads. She remembered what it was like to think of Sherry, and whether or not she was safe and provided for. She remembered what it was like to sleeplessly look someone in the face before sticking a knife into them, and then disappear into the night like a teenaged harbinger.
She felt the creeping hysteria, the urge to go catatonic. She tried to drink her way through it; maybe the answer was more shots. Maybe then she’d forget what it felt like to kill someone, and she’d be a normal college student, just like everyone else.
The answer was not more shots.
She lost it, snapping hysterically at her friend from the dorm Amanda. At first Amanda was drunkenly consoling and trying to calm Claire down, and then Claire’s hysteria had turned into vitriol and Amanda had let her go with a huff, telling her she didn’t know what her fucking problem was but that she was being insane.
At some point the tears had started, in a too crowded bar with the music thundering overhead, and the panic attack was close to follow.
Well-meaning passersby and bar patrons tried to help her, and she screamed and snapped, stumbling on with her heart yammering in her chest, her breath short. She felt like she was having a heart attack. Her vision felt narrowed to a pinprick. She was so drunk and neurotic that things weren’t making sense to her. She wandered down a street, and then several, and before she knew it she was at the intersection of two nameless streets somewhere in Brooklyn, unsure of where she was or how to get to where she needed to be.
She didn’t know what time it was, her breath hiccupping loudly on the quiet of the street. All she could think of was what it was like to feel blood on her hands, and how quickly it cooled and felt unsettling. She had no real idea where she was in relation to the dorms, but at the moment it didn’t necessarily matter, because she felt like wandering forever and disappearing into the night, never to be seen again. She thought of professors smiling at her, gushing over her papers; she thought of Sherry hugging her, babbling on excitedly when she went to visit.
She thought of dragging the dead body of a guard out of sight to buy herself time, to avoid being caught, wiping the knife blade off on his jacket.
She didn’t deserve any of this. There was something wrong with her. She was a monster. She’d killed people and come back to the States and then packed herself off to NYC to look at books in the library, to fervently scribble notes in notebooks, to set out to lose her virginity determinedly, like she was <em>normal</em>. She did all those things, but in the back of her mind, she knew what it felt like to kill someone. She knew what it felt like to look down the barrel and pull the trigger.
Sometimes she just felt like disappearing. Claire didn’t know how she was supposed to be normal ever again. She’d thought the dreams about undead hands reaching for her was the worst it could get; then she’d set off for Europe and lacking the guidance and supervision people had told her she sorely needed her whole life she’d become a bigger monster than she ever dreamed of. Her anger had just been so huge, pure, and absolute; she was angry it had all happened to her. She was angry it’d happened to the city. She was angry she’d had to put bullets into things that were once live people. She was angry it’d happened to Leon, and to Sherry, and she was angry her brother was lost to her, chasing it all. When confronted with the architects of her misery, Umbrella higher-ups and gatekeepers, no matter how remote they were from what happened in Raccoon City, her rage was all-consuming and swallowed her. At the time, she’d felt nothing, taking their lives. It’d felt kind of good. It hadn’t given her pause. She’d done what she felt like she needed to do and then she was on her way.
Now it felt different. Claire felt ruined. She felt like something had eaten her from the inside out. She tried to stuff it deep down inside and be a normal, happy college student—she joked around with her classmates, she flirted with guys over beer pong tables.
But she couldn’t stuff it down forever. Sometimes it came back up like bile.
She was standing in the darkness on the street, hands shaking at her sides, soft sobs hiccupping out of her. Her stomach roiled, her head spun.
Claire remembered what it was like to have her Daddy hold her when she cried, as a child; she remembered the starched stiffness of his coveralls from the plant and the ever-present reek of cigarette smoke on him.
She felt hollow, and the tears came faster. She had no home. She had nowhere to go back to. She belonged nowhere. She was all alone.
Unsteadily she made her way down the street, oblivious to the confused or alarmed eyes of the few passersby on the dark street as she stumbled along, crying.
Up ahead, her eyes alit on a lighted landmark, and she stumbled towards it. Upon reaching the payphone she kind of collapsed against it, and wiped inelegantly at her nose. She jammed her hand into the pocket of her jeans and rummaged; she brought out a fistful of change, some of which she promptly dropped on the sidewalk.
“Fuck,” she heaved, warbly, and bent over to try to pick up the quarters and dimes. Righting herself on unsteady legs, she pulled the receiver off the hook and began to feed quarters into the machine. She didn’t know how many she needed, or if it mattered for a long distance call. She didn’t know what she was doing. She was drunk and she wanted to disappear.
Wavering, she tried to focus her teary eyes on the payphone’s keypad, slowly and carefully punching in numbers. Eventually she got the whole number in, and there was silence for a moment, and then the other line began to ring. She weaved on her feet; she wished the metal phone cord was long enough to enable her to sit down.
As the phone rang, she looked around her blankly. She didn’t know where she was and she didn’t know how to get back to where she’d been.
Fresh tears began to leak out of her eyes the longer the other line rang—she’d never felt more alone in her whole life. She’d never felt so other. She’d never felt more like maybe she shouldn’t have made it through half the shit she’d made it through. Maybe she hadn’t deserved to.
The other line clattered to life through the plastic earpiece of the payphone. “Hello?” his voice came, groggy.
“It’s all fucked up,” she began without preamble, her voice hysterical. “I’m all fucked up. I don’t deserve to—“
“Claire?” he cut in, sounding confused. “Whoa, alright—slow down—what’s—“
“I’m fucked up, Leon,” she sobbed. “Like, forever. Always. How am I supposed to be normal? There’s something wrong with me.” She was drunk and it was all coming out of her, stream of consciousness.
“Claire—“ He produced a noise. “Where <em>are</em> you?” he asked, sounding adamant.
“I don’t know,” she sobbed in response. “I was with my friends, and I’m drunk, and I’m just—I <em>can’t</em>, something’s wrong with me, I’m not—“
“What do you mean you don’t know where you are?” he cut in, sounding somehow both disgruntled and concerned at the same time. “Are you—are you at the dorm? Are you at a bar? Where <em>are</em> you?”
“I left, I don’t know,” she said. “I walked away. I don’t know. I can’t be around people—I was fine and then I started thinking about—like—“ She made a noise. “Killing people,” she finished. “I don’t deserve to be here. I don’t deserve any of this. Why didn’t I go to jail, Leon?”
“Claire, stop,” he cut in, albeit tiredly and gently. “You have what you deserve. You’re not going to go to jail. Not now, not ever. I made a deal.” He sighed. “Claire, look around you. For a street sign, for an address on a building, the name of a business, something. Can you go back to where you were?”
“No,” she sobbed.
“No because you don’t want to or no because you don’t know where you are?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied, teary. “I killed people, Leon.”
“I know. It’s okay. You did what you had to do.” He sighed yet again. “Claire, do you know which borough you’re—“
“I <em>didn’t</em> have to do it!” she shrieked. “I didn’t have to. I could have—I just—I didn’t know what else to do—“
“You were looking for your brother,” Leon said, a million miles away in Washington DC. “You didn’t know any better. Claire—“ He stopped, abruptly. “—we have to figure out where you are. You’re drunk, you’re hysterical, it’s 1:30 AM.”
“I <em>did</em> know better!” she said. “Everyone knows it’s wrong to kill. I did it, and now every day I try to pretend like I am normal and I just—“
“Claire, you are normal,” Leon said, quickly. “We’re all normal. Abnormal stuff happened to us. You didn’t ask for any of this. You’re fine.” He paused for a moment while Claire’s brain spooled, drunk and wild, and then he continued. “Claire, listen to me. We have to figure out where you are. We have to get you somewhere safe. You’re drunk and wandering in New York City. It’s not safe.”
A hysterical noise like a laugh escaped her. “Nobody is gonna fuck with me,” she said. “I’ll—I’ve killed people. I’m—“
“You’re drunk and unarmed on the street at 1:30 AM,” Leon said, tiredly. “Claire, just—“
“Listen, I’m a bad bitch,” she said through her tears. “I’m gonna—I’ll—“
“No, <em>you</em> listen,” Leon returned firmly. “It’s late, you called me sobbing, and you’re alone on the street. This is basically like my worst nightmare. Bad bitch or no, Claire, you need to be, like, safe and in bed somewhere. Help me help you. Look around. What’s your closest cross-streets?”
Leon’s frank tone shifted the nature of Claire’s drunken hysterics. “I’m sorry,” she warbled. “I’m a fuck up. I shouldn’t have called. I don’t have anyone to call. I yelled at my friend. I’m—something is wrong with me—“
“Nothing is wrong with you,” Leon said. “You’re not a fuck up and nothing is wrong with you and you can always call me. Claire. Please. Look around you. Or—do you have the money to call a cab? Can you find the subway? Do you know the subway well enough to—“ He cut himself off with a noise of frustration. “Just…let’s figure out where you are.”
Claire stood there, wavering, and began to cry softly. “I don’t know,” she managed. “I can ask—“
“No. Claire, you’re young, drunk, and pretty. Do not start wandering up to random people telling them you’re lost.” He let out a sigh. “I really need to know your cross streets.”
Claire looked around, her head wobbling. “I know what to do,” she said, petulantly. “I can take care of myself. I went all the way to Euro—“
“Claire, you called me in hysterics,” he cut in. “You’re not killing it right now. Cross streets. Please look. Where in the city are you?”
She was crying again. She felt useless, and suddenly very small and stupid. She wished she was in bed. She wished she’d never gone out. She kind of vaguely wished she’d never been born; it seemed like post-birth life had just been one long string of unfortunate events. “Leon, do you still think I’m a good person?” she asked, in an undertone. “I feel so fucked up—“
“Yes. You’re good. You’re a good person. Bad things happened to you. It’s not your fault,” he said immediately.
“It is my fault,” she said. “I didn’t have to do what I did. I didn’t have to go after Chris. I—I could have just stayed forever—“
“You didn’t. You went. What’s done is done. It happened.” He sighed. “Claire. Please. Where are you?”
“I think I’m in Brooklyn,” she said after a moment, sniffling.
“Alright. Where are the dorms?” he pressed.
“In Brooklyn,” she said, her voice small.
“Did you walk from the dorms to wherever you were?” he asked. “Claire, I can get you back to where you need to be. I can call the cops or a cab if you can tell me where you are and you can get home. But I’ll have to hang up to—“
“Don’t hang up!” she burst out hysterically. She felt like the phone in her hand was the only thing tethering her into existence at the moment, the last thing between her and disappearing forever. She remembered the way Leon had looked at her when they reunited in Raccoon; she remembered the way he’d looked at her the night she left under cover of darkness to go after Chris. “I’m sorry,” she said through her tears. “Leon, I never should’ve left. You were right! You were fucking right,” she said, brokenly. “You were fucking right and I was wrong. There. I said it! Are you happy?” she asked, and dimly she was aware the vitriol was coming back, and for some reason she was angling it at him.
“Claire—“ Leon said, and he sounded tired and confused. “I never wanted to be right. This isn’t about being right. It’s about making sure you’re safe. You—“
“You sure always wanted to be right,” she snapped at him. “Every other night, arguing with me in the kitchen—“
“Jesus Christ, Claire,” he cut in, and he did sound like he was at the end of his rope, like he had so many times there in the kitchen while Sherry was in bed. “Now is not the time. Stop. Just stop. I don’t want to fight with you. You’re drunk and hysterical. You need to be safe at home. Like now. I am trying to help you. I am only ever trying to help you.” He took a deep breath, and when he continued, he sounded less forceful. “Look around you. Look for street signs. Please.”
Suddenly she felt very tired. Her head swam. She looked around her, blearily. “President Street,” she said, again small.
“Okay. What else? What’s the other street?” he asked.
“Court Street,” she said. “Um. There’s a park.”
“Alright.” He let out a gust. “That’s something. Don’t leave that corner. Stay there. Stay put. Is it—is it <em>safe</em>? Is it, like, well lit and—“
“It’s fine,” Claire said, leaning bonelessly against the payphone. “I miss before I left. I miss you, me, and Sherry. Before I went. I shouldn’t have gone.”
“I miss that too,” he assured her, distractedly. “Okay. What’s the name of your dorm? Does the building, like, have a name or—“
“Do you think we’ll ever be happy again?” she asked, dazedly. “Normal? Like, do you think you’ll be with the government forever, and do you think Sherry—“
“Claire, I don’t know,” he sighed. “I don’t. Focus. What’s the name of your dorm building?”
“St. George,” she mumbled. “I don’t even know if I have my key. I yelled at Amanda. My roommate’s probably asleep—“
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. You’re drunk. You may need to apologize. Okay, Claire,” he said, “I have to get you home, which means I have to make a phone call. You’re going to—“
“Don’t go,” she mumbled further. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know when I’m going to stop being this way. I’m—“
“Claire, it’s all going to be okay,” he said. “It won’t be like this forever. One day you’re—you’re going to be fine, and happy, and all of this is just going to be a bad memory. But right now you need to be safe. You need to be at home. I have to call someone to get you home.”
“What if it never changes?” she asked. “What if—what if I’m just bad forever? What if I’m ruined? What if everyone knows? That I’m fucked up?”
“You’re not. You’re fine. You’re not fucked up. You did what you had to do. That’s all. Claire, <em>please</em>--“
“You make excuses for me,” she accused, but it lacked fire. “You told them to let me go and they did. I should be in prison. I should—“
“I don’t make excuses for you,” Leon said. “I got you what you deserved. Your life back. Claire. I need you to stay put. Don’t leave that corner unless—unless, like, you’re in danger or you have to or I don’t fucking know, I don’t really want to think about it. Just stay there. I’m going to have someone come get you, a cab or the cops, whichever’s easiest.”
“It feels like all you do anymore is clean up my messes,” she sniffled. “I always feel like I call you when shit’s fucked up. When I’m fucked up. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking drunk and I—“
“You can always call me,” he said. “I will always help. But Jesus, Claire, let’s…let’s try to keep the sobbing drunk and lost 1:30 AM calls to a minimum. You need to be careful. You need to be safe. You can’t just be wandering around the city by yourself blind drunk and hysterical.”
“I know that,” she said, fresh tears leaking from her eyes. “I was with friends. I fucking freaked out. I dunno. Sometimes I just freak out. Like…I can’t. I can’t be around people. I have problems. I’m fucked up.”
“I don’t think being hammered probably helps,” Leon sighed, “but I really live in a glass house, there, so what do I know. I need to get you home so you can go to bed. Calm down.”
“Don’t call the cops,” she moaned. “I feel so stupid. Don’t—don’t call the cops—“
“Claire I am going to call whoever is capable of getting you home the fastest and most securely and if that’s the cops, that’s the cops,” Leon said. “Not to mention I’m not even sure if I could pay for a cab over the phone. I’m sorry.”
“They’re probably gonna fucking commit me,” she said, miserably. “I look insane. I feel insane.”
“You’re going to have a minute to collect yourself,” Leon said. “Take some deep breaths. Sit down, or something.”
“There’s trash all over the curb,” she sniffled.
“Well, then…don’t sit down,” he said, tiredly. “Look. Calling me like this makes me want to get in my vehicle and fucking drive up there. Claire, I have to know that you’re okay. That you’re not putting yourself in dangerous situations.”
“I’m such a fuck up,” she moaned.
“You’re not. You’re having a bad night. It’s about to be over and you’re going to be home safe. Just…stay put until I can make that happen.” He made a noise. “And call me back <em>immediately</em> if something happens.”
“I think I used all my change,” she warbled. “I—I don’t know how much I put in. Don’t long distance calls—don’t they cost more?”
“Jesus Christ, Claire,” he moaned back at her. “You are killing me. Don’t…don’t do this again.”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I knew I shouldn’t have called—“
“No, not that,” he said, in exasperation. “I meant…I feel like every time I see you, you look like you just got off a three-day bender. People party in college but maybe you’re taking it to the extreme if you’re calling me from two unknown streets at nearly 2 in the morning and you don’t know where you are in relation to where you live. You’re out there being…dumb, and I know you’re not dumb. You’re smarter than this. You really know how to scare the shit out of someone.”
Claire squeezed her eyes shut and felt fresh tears tracking down her cheeks. He was right. He usually was. She was fucking stupid, and she was making it everyone else’s problem. She felt like that was a lifelong problem; she’d always been someone’s stupid problem, from the moment she was born. It was no wonder she’d always been kind of alone—who wanted to put up with her moody, emotional shit? One day, Leon would probably get tired of it too. He was probably tired of it <em>now</em>, and he was just too decent to say so. More upright, more moral than her. He didn’t cut corners. He didn’t skate rules. He did what was expected of him. He went to church. He patiently stayed behind while she blew off to get herself in way over her head, as per usual.
“Leon, do you hate me?” she asked.
“What? No,” he said. “That’s not what this is. Nobody hates you, Claire. I wish you’d make better decisions, but that’s been going on forever. Just…calm down. Relax, and stay there, and let me figure out how to get you home.”
“Okay,” she managed. “Leon—I’m—I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. You’re okay. Just…” He paused for a long moment. “Let me go. Let me get you home. <em>Call me</em> when you get there.”
“Alright,” Claire said, weaving on her feet some. “I—I will.”
“Okay. Claire—I mean it, stay there. Don’t leave that corner until someone who knows your full government name comes up to you. Call me when you get back to the dorm.”
“Everyone’s going to be so mad at me,” Claire whimpered, the tears not stopping.
“This is a mess, I’ll give you that,” Leon said. “You may have apologies to make tomorrow. But—listen. I have to hang up now, okay? I’m going to get you help.”
“Okay,” Claire said, her voice high. Getting her help, just like he had any time she’d ever asked. Sometimes she hadn’t even asked. He’d just done what he thought he needed to do to make things better for her.
She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve any of it.
“I’ll talk to you soon, Claire. Sit tight. I’m getting you someone.”
“Okay,” she said again, her voice still high and distressed, and then the line went dead in her ear. A fresh sob threatened to erupt out of her as she hung the phone up, and looked around her helplessly.
It would be so easy to walk away, and just keep walking. Disappear. Go off to live a life where she couldn’t be someone’s problem anymore. Chris’s, Leon’s. Maybe nobody needed to deal with her shit.
She didn’t, though. She stood there, crying, arms at her side, waiting next to the payphone, her head already aching from all the crying and the alcohol. Her mouth was dry—she felt like she could drink a gallon of water. Amanda was going to tell her she was a psycho bitch, and Claire could only use the Raccoon survivor excuse to pardon her bad behavior so many times. Her roommate was once again going to roll over heavily in her bed, sighing, at Claire stumbling in drunk.
Leon probably had better things to do than deal with her neurotic, immature, broken ass at an obscene hour.
Claire scrubbed at her face angrily, wishing the tears would stop.
One day, this would all be a memory. She’d be capable again. Nothing would make her cry. Nothing would hurt. She’d be like she was when she was 16 and didn’t know any better; she hadn’t known what horrors the world had in store for her. She thought losing Daddy was the worst it could get; she thought her Mama taking a six-month long look at her and hitting the old and dusty was the lowest it could be. She’d been 16 and smart-mouthed, too smart for her own good, full of sass and head-strong confidence that one day she’d escape where she was and get out into the world and laugh to herself about what her life had been.
She wasn’t laughing. She wondered if she ever would.
She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling small and fragile, and let her eyes unfocus out into space. One day. Maybe one day it’d all be a memory, a memory she didn’t have to pointedly chase away with too much alcohol or an attitude that was too sharp and forcedly-joking or one-night stands that made her feel vaguely slimy.
She stood there, on that corner in Brooklyn, and she waited. She did not know what else to do.
i feel like we dont take into account how pretentious nathan prescott is.
he drives a 4x4 “suv”(in max’s words) what off roading is he doing????? plus HE DOES NOT NEED ALL THAT SPACE???
he wears a FAKE varsity jacket, we know what the real varsity jackets look like because of logan and drew?? he’s straight up larping sports
he pretends like he cant spell???? why does he do this? is he a middle schooler trying to act funny to their crush… we all know you can spell.. larping illiteracy
in case the varsity jacket doesnt work to make him look cool dont worry BECAUSE HE IS WEARING A CARDIGAN UNDERNEATH IT????? WHO DOES THAT? like is he trying to pull off mysterious soft boy??? does he need this many clothes at once??? why is he so cold????
also the hair… does he need to have one strand always falling?? why is that strand so much shorter than the rest of his hair?? did he cut it just so it would fall every time he combs back his hair to slick it down… why is he even rocking that hair style anyways… does he think he’s 30?
andulkaphoto
origamiaround
izzy806
ellievsbear
