Full Summary: Two years after Leon's mission in Europe, Claire finds herself sitting by the tangle of sheets at the side of his bed. It's a quarter past three in the morning. She needs his help. A body has been found in Paraíso, Mexico with strange symptoms: The cells are dead; The body's alive. Now the city has become a virtual Bermuda Triangle. Electricity is down. Pilots aren't returning. Six old forces re-converge for a final clash of the titans in the story about an apocalyptic city, a passion rekindled, the dynamics of friendship and betrayal, and of sin and salvation.
The Characters: Claire Redfield, Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong, Albert Wesker, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine. Pairings include ChrisxJill and references to StevexClaire and AdaxWesker. I've mostly decided whether Leon will wind up with Claire or Ada, but I'll wait until I'm sure to divulge it.
Author's note: While Americans enjoyed Memorial Day, 10 more soldiers were killed in Iraq. A Saudi detainee at the Guatanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba committed suicide in his cell yesterday afternoon. A Seattle man involved in a fatal shooting entered a plea of insanity. I do have good news though, señoras y señores:
I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico.
Just kidding.
Alright, so it's summer vacation, everyone. I've got all sorts of spare time on my hands. Bon appétit.
Disclaimer: I apologize to any actual city named Paraíso. I own neither Resident Evil nor Geico. But if either CapCom or Bershire Hathaway Inc. happen to be interested, I've got a baby brother I could trade. No? How about a beagle?
Crusade.
Chapter One: Fools and Angels
The bottle of corn liquor beside the unmade bed was a secret.
Not a very well kept secret, despite the old army blanket covering it that smelt of gin and gunpowder. The sticky rings of day-old alcohol on the kitchen table and the perfume of rotten wheat gave it away.
Claire liked the apartment, despite the bottle of corn liquor. She liked the contemporary squash-colored walls, the sleek bar-style countertop, the rows of glasses hanging by their stems from the ceiling. She loved the wine labels glued like a border around the very top of the walls, the chinoiserie, even the cast-iron lamppost in the corner of the living room with a streetsign nailed to it that read Rue Bourbon.
At one point, the entire East-facing wall had been replaced with a windowpane so that the silver light from the needlepoints of a thousand stars haloed the Scarlet O' Hara on the coffee table and made the white sofas gleam, like the bright side of the moon. Straight out the East pane, she could see the scope of the New York City skyline, the way the city lights reflected off the glossy, corporate windows of skyscrapers, the faint glow of yellow streetlamps far below, and of red taillights, too. Matryoshka dolls from Afghanistan were lined up on a shelf; a rusting bulletless Beretta was mounted on the wall above what looked like the silhouette of a Tibetan Brahma statuary.
Claire stood in the jamb for a moment longer, the broken piece of hanger she'd used to pick the lock open still hot in her hand. The silt from the summer highway had worked its way under her fingernails and between the fillings in her teeth. Every time she pushed back the hair stuck to her lip gloss or to the sweat on her forehead, she smeared monkey grease over her skin. Claire let the door swing shut, switched the coffeepot on in the kitchen. She listened as the machine issued a series of gentle misfires and hisses that sounded like radio static, aware of the scent of diesel, the salty roadway grit inside her mouth and the white fluttering of pigeon wings outside.
There was a damp dishcloth on the countertop that left a wet impression on the Formica when she lifted it. Claire turned the cold water knob at the kitchen faucet slowly, her fingers interrupting the spat of water against the metal sink as she rinsed her hands. Dirt and pieces of crushed gravel dyed the water, swirling around the drain and carrying with it the bits of food that congested the pipes. Claire pressed the terry cloth against her face—icy water, hot night.
She reveled in the dichotomy.
When her skin was raw and clean, she walked down the three steps that led to the living room and through the hallway with the carpet nailed down from wall to wall. Leon's bedroom door was open, his window cracked so that a hot breeze stirred the organdy curtains. Claire sat beside him on the bed, springs creaking almost soundlessly as the mattress depressed beneath her weight. The white bedspread was still creased from the iron, and smelled of bay rum spice aftershave and, much more faintly, of sweat.
She knew to be careful when she woke him. Enough times, she had bolted upright in her own bed, panting and shaking despite the perspiration that made her bangs cling to her sticky skin. Enough times, at least, to know that Leon probably still slept with his custom Red9 tucked beneath his cotton pillowcase. Call it a security blanket. She pulled the elastic out of her hair, tangling her fingers through the satiny tresses, and leaned over him, whispering:
"Leon."
He slept light. It didn't take much to wake him, and then came the part that she loved. His darkish eyelashes batted open and the feline blue eyes were staring at her. Right at her.
"Morning," she said with a smile.
He inhaled deep through his nose, just like always, and murmured into the sheets. "Claire."
Claire slapped his shoulder. "Up, Leon." She watched him as he lifted his stubbled cheek a little ways and put it back down on the pillow— just like always. He stayed there for a second, chest rising and falling beneath the slope of the blanket. And then his legs kicked, snarling themselves in the bedsheets, and he sat up. He rubbed his right eye with the heel of his palm, eyebrows raised, forehead wrinkled, chin tucked into his chest.
"What are you doing here?" He asked her, and then mumbled to himself "What time is it?", reaching for the alarm clock on his nightstand.
"It's just after three," she said, squeezing his knee as she stood.
"Three in the morning?"
"Three in the morning," Claire confirmed. "I figured you're probably still hung over, so there's coffee brewing."
Leon exhaled a short, wry laugh, licking his dry lips. "Shrewd."
Claire laughed. "Get dressed," she said, and retreated to the kitchen where the aroma of Arabica overpowered the stink of motor oil and filth.
Bedsheets rustled. She heard the light sound of his bare feet hitting the hardwood floors and the jingling-sliding of a dresser drawer opening. When he stepped into hallway a few minutes later, he was wearing tactical pants and the white racerback tank that usually fit under his lycra uniform. His skin was still slightly brown from his mission in Santorini, the muscles of his arms aerodynamic and delineated with full, knotty veins. She heard the doorknob to the bathroom rattle, the squeak of the faucet knobs, tailed by the sudden rush of water and the gulping sound of the sink drain.
"Coffee?" She called.
"Double double," came the disembodied reply.
If Leon had mugs, Claire couldn't find them, so she poured the java into champagne flutes and stirred the milk and sugar in, teaspoon clinking against the sides of the glass.
When he came out, wiping bits of shaving cream off his jaw with a hand towel, and saw the wineglasses, he raised an eyebrow.
"Couldn't find your coffee cups," she said.
Leon reached for the body of the flute, snapping his hand back when the heat conducted by the glass scalded his fingers. He put the burnt index and forefingers in his mouth boyishly, shooting her a reproachful glare.
"Careful. It's hot," she warned.
He gave Claire a look. "What's up?" He asked, picking up the flute again, by the stem this time.
Claire picked the dirty dishrag out of the kitchen sink where she'd left it, ran it over the slick bartop. The counter was already bright and clean, but she had been a bartender back in '99, and old habits died hard. "What do you mean?"
"What's up," Leon repeated, "What's going on? What are you doing here?"
"Can't a girl visit her friend anymore?"
"At quarter past three in the morning?" He drank his coffee as though it was tequila, she noticed, knocking it back fast as she poured it. The fact that he kept whiskey by his bed still bothered her a little, but at the end of the day she knew she had a vice or two to keep the nights dreamless.
"I just got off the interstate."
"From where? Where've you been, Claire?"
She cocked a rebellious eyebrow. "Vegas, baby."
"Oh, Christ. Last thing you need's Sin City."
She pinched his cheek. "Ever the boy scout, Leon."
Leon pressed his palms together, praying-style, tilting his forehead against his fingertips. "Advil. Second pantry from the left," he said.
Claire opened the cupboard, eying cumin and rosemary, yellow boxes of baking soda, stoppered extracts, and sleeping pills. She set the nearly-empty bottle of painkillers near his elbow. "I hear Advil's bad for you, you know," she informed him. "Thins the blood." When he rolled his eyes, she said again, "What I hear."
"So. You just up and leave Sin City, or d'you have a reason?"
"That's proprietary information. You'd probably arrest me if you knew."
Leon dry swallowed two pills and snapped the lid back on the pain relievers. He blinked, took in a deep, shuddering breath. "Something come up?"
Claire slung the dishcloth over her shoulder and leaned forward over the counter. "I guess I got spooked."
Leon looked up at her. "You, spooked?"
Claire shrugged with her eyebrows.
"Claire." When she didn't respond, he ran a hand over his clean-shaven chin, and she noticed that he'd nicked himself with the razor, a tiny fleck of dried blood on his jaw. "It hasn't got anything to do with that Steve kid, has it?"
"No, nothing to do with Steve," she said, twisting her hand through her hair in a nervous idiosyncrasy. It had gotten longer, Leon noted, a ways past her shoulders now. "Not Steve," she repeated. "It's Chris."
"Chris. Redfield? Chris Redfield, your brother?"
"He called me. He's in Mexico."
Leon waited for the other shoe to drop, but Claire was quiet. The buzz of fly wings vibrating near the glass wall interrupted the silence. "Great story," Leon said, propping his foot up on the I-beam of the stool and readjusting his position. "Tell it again?"
Claire threatened to rat-tail him with the rag, and Leon held a hand up in front of his face. "No backtalk, wise guy," she admonished. "Turns out everything's down in Paraíso, the city he called from."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean, 'Everything's down'?"
"I mean, everything is down," she said, shaking the dishcloth straight and then re-folding it into a square. She started working it in circles on the bar again, so that she'd have something to do with her hands. Claire had the feeling if she didn't keep them preoccupied, they'd start trembling. "They haven't got electricity, phone lines are down, pilots haven't been returning. Everything is out." She scrubbed at what looked like a dried drop of Karo syrup on the enamel. "It's like the damn Bermuda Triangle there, Leon."
"What was Chris doing there?" He asked. The city light bounced off the silky sheen of sweat on his back and shoulderblades as he shifted.
"He didn't say," Claire said. "He wouldn't tell me, but I thought about it. I might know."
"And?"
"I went online. They have these Web sites that scan the newspapers, put them in digital archives, things like that."
"And?" He repeated.
"And I went through the papers. I think it was called the Paraíso Periódico or something. At first, I was only looking at things that happened the week before I got the call, but when I didn't find anything, I had to check some of the more recent ones. I found an article."
"Do you have it on you?"
"No, it costs ten cents to print stuff out at the library. I got the gist of it, though Someone found a body."
"Like a dead body? What about it?"
"Well, they said it was a dead body. At first. Then they realized there was still electricity in the brain. Metabolic processes still functioning. Synapses firing."
"So he was still alive?"
"Yeah, only he wasn't. His cells were decaying and he didn't have a pulse. It whipped the town up into a religious frenzy. People were citing dead saints whose bodies supposedly never rotted."
"They thought he was a saint?"
"Some of them. Only the exact opposite. I mean, the saints were dead and didn't rot. This guy was living and decaying."
"Was that the only article you found?"
"Yeah. Three days before Chris' call. It's been another week since then."
"Why haven't there been more?"
"I'll tell you why. Because the newspapers are down, too. They haven't published anything since they held the presses for that article."
"Christ." He looked up at Claire, just able to make out the cream-colored planes of her face, the short, Grecian nose, the dark hair tumbling down her back. "It could be nothing," he said. "After awhile, everything starts sounding like a bump in the night."
"Could be." She held his stare steady.
"It isn't nothing, is it?"
"No."
There were a few quiet beats. They could hear the wail of sirens on the streets below.
Leon's teeth flashed white in a small, sad smile. "I've got that saying stuck in my head all of a sudden," he said softly. "How does it go? 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread'. Who said it, again?"
"Pope," said Claire. "Alex Pope."
He made a low, inarticulate sound.
Claire picked up her wineglass and raised it above her head in a mock-toast. "Well, I guess here's to fools," she said, trying to lessen the pall that had suddenly dropped over their conversation.
But Leon was looking off to the side, to the bulletless Beretta that he'd taken from Raccoon City (1) as a token---how had he put it again? "As a token---to remind myself that lightning never strikes the same place twice, maybe," he'd told her, sunlight glinting off his grin as he nailed it in place. She could only imagine what he was thinking now, that it was less a token and more of an ever-present reminder that history has a way of repeating itself. She reached out a hand, felt his fingers encircle hers in the darkness, felt him lean his head against her forearm, stricken with the memories of another city, not too different from this one, and another time not long enough ago.
And right then, she didn't have to try to imagine:
She knew exactly how he felt.
Nighttime again.
A bartender stands barefoot on crowned streets that are still warm from the sun, washing day-old beer as stale as the air off the sidewalk with a pistol-grip hose. Bunch grass grows up between the cracks in the pavement. The water makes a splattering sound against the pitch and the tang of old alcohol succumbs to the scent of tar oils. The heat is as sultry as the Papaver skirts the muchachas wear, pregnant with the mandolins of street musicians and the graznidos of yellow taxis. The colorful nainsook laundry drying on clotheslines is motionless. The air hums with streetlights and the crystalline wings of los cigarras.
Inside the room with orange walls, three fireflies bump against the sides of the rinsed honey jar in the corner. Every once in awhile, their strobes of bioluminescence illuminate the bedchamber. According to the folded newspaper beside the dirty cot, there's a half moon tonight, but the room's only window has been painted black with acrylic.
It smells of cactus blossoms and tobacco. There is a pile of Kevlar and raw silk on the foot of the bed. There is lace on the muslin sheets.
There are guns on top of the lace.
A querido is sitting on a folding chair with her hands between her knees. Her legs are bare, and she is wearing a red dress. When she was a little niño in China, she'd knelt at the feet of a Xiāaanshēeeng and he'd told her about red. The red of passion and brides and anger and power and bloodshed. But the querido, the darling, she wears red for two very simple reasons:
One, because it is the color that everyone sees first in the light;
And dos, because no one sees it at all in the dark. (2)
The strobing light from the fireflies in the corner has a stop-animation effect on her movements, telling her story in little split-second snapshots. By the tiny gold flashes of light, she resembles a Dresden doll. Her skin is as delicate as bone china and nearly as white. There are butterflies on her dress sewn in embroidery and glass beads. They signify chrysalis. Metamorphoses. Change.
Darkness.
With the next flash of light, her eyes are open. They are avellana, hazel, strikingly beautiful for a muchacha of her descent.
Darkness again. The firefly light shows her slender hands sliding a widow's blade between her thigh and the nylon of the black garter strap.
Darkness. Then she is spinning the barrel of her six-shooter magnum shut. Tucking the piece of paper with the black-inked coordinates into the cup of her bra. Standing.
When the fireflies wink on again, the room is vacío. The painted window is open.
And she is gone.
(1): The Beretta nailed to the wall of Leon's Apartment is the same one Ada dropped in Raccoon City just before the velocity of Anna Birkin's shot forced her off the bridge to her alleged death. The fact that the gun wasn't loaded was important to Leon in the game--in his mind, it was proof of her potential for good.
(2): Last summer, I played manhunt a little after sunset. One of my friends was wearing a red sweatshirt, and I remember I'd laughed at her because I thought she'd make a quick target. Turns out, it's a trick she learned from her father, who'd served in Vietnam. Red is the hardest color for the human eye to discern in blackness. Try it sometime.
PS: I will now use subliminal messages to make you want to review. Well, (review) that wraps up my first published fanfiction. It's summer, (pleasereview) but I have remarkably little free time. I can probably bang out (reviewreviewreview) another chapter reasonably soon. You guys can actually help me out big time (please?) if you'd just let me know which you prefer--LeonxAda or LeonxClaire. Thanks!
