Despite how many times they had sought each other's company late into the night, this unspoken arrangement of sorts, there was always a crushing feeling of guilt whenever Claire showed up unannounced. Leon had enough on his plate already. Sherry had been taken from him too, but he was the only one forced to work for the government.
She should consider herself lucky, that she was allowed to roam free, without someone breathing down her neck. Would it be cruel to say she preferred the alternative? If she was busy risking her life, she wouldn't be thinking about Sherry - about him, and whatever was left in the wake of the Raccoon City massacre.
She'd do anything to get her mind off how suffocating it felt to still be alive. Even if it meant dragging Leon down with her. He'd tell her if he didn't want this, right? He never pushed her away, and it seemed he needed this just as much as she did... It was easier to believe in that anyway.
A small, tired smile tugged at her lips. Even in her most exhausted state, Leon always knew just the thing to say to make her feel more at ease. Claire was glad that he didn't keep trying to cheer her up, offering another form of comfort instead.
The tension in her frame started slipping away the moment his arms wrapped around her. She hid her face in the crook of his neck, mumbling a quiet "yeah" to his question about where she'd been. No surprise that Leon guessed right away. Only those visits broke her this much.
The next question, however, didn't earn such an immediate response from her. Silence stretched for what felt like minutes, and every time Claire tried to say that yes, she wanted-- needed to talk about it, no words came out. She couldn't do it, same as always. Chickening out at the last possible second and taking the easy way out.
"No." The single word was sealed with a bruising kiss. There was a sense of urgency in the way she pressed against him, desperate for the relief she'd been missing since the last time they met. It was so easy, dangerously so, to forget about everything else when his lips were on hers.
When she finally broke the kiss, Claire couldn't bring herselt to pull away more than a few inches. Her voice was low, breathless, as she spoke against his lips. "Do you?"