Jealous Boyfriend

A/N: This is something that's been kicking around on my HD for a while, and I finally decided to upload it last week to the comm. Here's the edited version, not entirely final, but this has been quiet for too long. Reviews are, as always, appreciated. Flames are laughed at in due course.

There were any number of wonderful things that Claire made Leon feel. On any individual day since he and Claire had gotten together, he felt strong, virile, sexy, competent… loved. She was like the missing piece of him, and with her nearby, nothing was insurmountably wrong.

Well.

Except when she was nearby and he couldn't help. Talk about the worst feeling in the world. It was fear. Fear that he never felt when fighting the infected or Umbrella's monsters. One of the only things that could ever make Leon feel small and useless were Claire's tears.

Not only did he have to deal with the fact that she cried them. Sometimes she cried into his chest while she slept, waking to red eyes and clogged sinuses. She didn't remember those tears. Usually she muttered something about the mold count and took an antihistamine. That experience wasn't his favorite, but after the reaction he'd gotten the one time he'd tried to wake her up – a fierce struggle that had given him an inadvertent split lip – Leon knew better than to try and interrupt. Sometimes Claire needed to cry it out.

But there were the times like tonight, too. Claire would wake from sleep, thinking she hadn't woken him, and slip oh so carefully from bed. She was always back by morning. Back and curled at his side or against his back with her arm over his side, like she just got up to go to the bathroom.

Leon knew where she went.

To the couch. She banished herself to the couch when she felt like crying. Even though it was her bed. Almost like she didn't want to wake him, like his sleep was more important than hers. Like he could sleep without her beside him in a bed that smelled like her.

Once he'd crept out after her, to see if she just needed to sleep alone for a little while. He could accept that, he could swallow it. Not that he ever tired of his girlfriend, but there were times when he had to pull his arms from her and roll over to his side of the bed alone to sleep. She let him, wordlessly, though she pulled the covers all the way up to her neck when he did it.

An anguished part of him wondered if that was how Claire slept when he wasn't home.

But even that anguish wasn't the same pain he felt when he heard Claire's panicked whispers into her cell phone.

She curled up on the couch, alright.

To call her brother.

It was like a knife in the back.

He knew it was irrational. He knew whom Claire clung to in the middle of the night, whom she moaned for, whom she smiled at. It was all him. She laughed with him, joked with him, and kissed him with single-minded intensity. Claire's energy went to him.

But she never cried.

She hadn't cried in front of him… ever. Not after Raccoon. Not when he'd seen her again after Paris. Not when he'd told her about Sherry not returning his calls, or about the report he'd gotten about her abduction. She hadn't cried a tear, though she'd gotten very quiet. Something had stolen Claire's tears, he remembered thinking at the lack of waterworks regarding Sherry.

He just never thought it was her brother.

No, that wasn't fair. Chris didn't want his sister to cry. Over various conversations, Leon had come to the conclusion that Chris really was the big brother everyone wanted. He didn't let you bullshit, but if you needed him there was no one better to have in your corner. The conversation with Chris about Leon and Claire's romantic relationship had left Leon surprised, and impressed.

I'm only going to ask one question. I don't need to threaten you. He didn't. Both men were old enough and strong enough to know just what sort of damage they could do to each other at that point.

So ask.

Do you love her?

It was an odd sort of question, coming from Chris, but one Leon knew the answer to. Leon did wonder why the question wasn't more like 'are you going to take care of her' or 'are you playing with her' or 'is this all just a sick fucking joke'… any of which he'd been told Chris had dead-panned at losers sniffing after Claire in other bars in other years.

Leon's answer was obvious, a simple syllable.

It was like that made everything else ok to Chris. Like Leon loving Claire was enough to smooth over any other ruffled feathers Chris might have about his background or behavior. It didn't stop Leon from having the occasional (and possibly solitary) awkward moment of awareness that he was screwing Chris's baby sister. Chris never seemed to second-guess Leon's motives after that one word answer.

Or his intentions.

Leon reasoned that it was a testament to the way Chris approached loving someone. The way Chris loved Jill. Everything else was ok, and you didn't do the wrong thing.

You just didn't.

Chris was steady like that. He oozed that sort of quiet, soothing confidence. Like his DNA spelled out 'It's gonna be ok' in a twisting, comforting double helix.

Not having even wanted to follow her tonight, Leon still found himself leaning on the hallway side of the doorway to the living room. It was dark where he was, which naggingly reminded him that he was spying on her unfairly. Claire, curled up on the couch, wouldn't be able to see him. The living room was bathed in amber light that came in around the closed blinds. In the darkness, all the other color was washed out by the brightness of it.

Leon wished Chris didn't have that kind of faith in him, because all he wanted to do when Claire called her brother like this was something mean. Leon wanted to ask her why she still went crying to her brother, why she couldn't cry to her boyfriend. Leon wanted to ask what he couldn't offer her that her brother could.

It made Leon feel a little sick, knowing that's what his response to her crying was.

But why didn't she come to him?

Her voice broke into his thoughts, between sniffles. "… I… had that dream again…" His heart clenched at the tortured sound of her voice. "… how can I? … it's my fault, Chris… it's … it's always my fault. I can't… I can't tell him."

Feeling a little betrayed… wondering why she got to keep secrets when she was so relentless about hearing him out about everything… Leon heaved a silent sigh, forcing patience down his own throat, closed his eyes and turned for the bedroom.

"… I know, I know, Chris…" Claire whimpered out behind him, somehow managing to sound neither pathetic nor annoying with that tone. "… look, could you tell? Could you?"

He ran into the hallway table, sending the thing lurching a few inches, jabbing himself in the leg and making a lot of noise. "Dammit," he muttered.

Ok, so closing his eyes wasn't the best idea.

The living room went quiet in an instant. Claire's senses were sharp. Not his type of sharp, but keener than a civilian's would be. Claire had a survivor's senses. He winced as he glanced over his shoulder and saw her sitting up straight on the couch, peering into the dark hallway for whatever had made the noise.

"Leon?" she snuffled.

"Yeah… red…" he said awkwardly.

The phone in her hand snapped shut. That was… probably a bad sign. Knowing better than to retreat, not able to draw away when she was so obviously seeking him, Leon crossed to the doorway, letting the amber light coming in from the curtains catch him.

She furiously scrubbed at her face, trying not to cry. Or maybe she was trying to hide that she had been crying. "I … didn't know you were up…"

"You're crying," he said. His words came out cold, and he hated himself for it. She winced. He stepped out of the doorway, crossing closer to the couch.

"… I'm fine. It's noth-"

"You're not fine, you're crying," Leon said, sinking to his knees against the back of the couch. He didn't think she wanted to be held, or he'd have rounded the couch and swept her up into his arms.

"No I'm not," Claire said, turning to stare at the black screen of the television across from the couch. Her voice wavered, and he frowned at her poor denial. "I'm fine, I-"

Reaching over the back of the couch, Leon hooked his arms around her. "You're a shitty liar," he said. Whether she wanted it or not, he needed to hold her. "Can't you talk to me?"

Her shoulders shook at that, and she was silent a long moment. His heart cracked like it was made of glass, and he let her go. Nothing about Claire, before, had ever made him feel like this. It was strange. He pushed away, trying to figure out why he felt so betrayed by the one person that…

He didn't want to think about this.

As he got up to his feet, her voice, a chilling whisper, said, "I'm scared."

Leon froze. Two words. Well, three if you counted the contraction, but it was close enough. Short words like that, and his heart was frozen still and hammering at the same time. Instead of retreating, he rounded the couch and sat beside her. Claire's leg, against his, was cold. Like her thigh, her arm, when he touched it, was chilled.

He wondered if this had to do with Antarctica. She never spoke about it. All Leon knew of the ordeal was what she'd said at the trial. That would have been the time to talk about it, but at the time they weren't close enough for that sort of discussion. There were a lot of topics that he didn't broach with her because they felt like they were just… in the wrong time.

She, in return, never asked him about what happened before they got together. He didn't know what he'd say if she pinned him to the couch with her eyes and said, Tell me about Spain.

Not because it was classified, but because… he knew that she cared. Claire made it very obvious that she cared. He just didn't want to be another counseling case from work. He wanted to be her lover, not her homework. A part of him wondered if this entire act was some sort of joke that she was playing to test him.

That thought wasn't fair, and he knew it. Seated beside him, shoulders hunched forward protectively, Claire didn't look at him. She clutched her cell phone in one hand, rubbed her arms, and rocked herself slightly. He'd seen this before. Ashley had done it once they'd gotten onto the plane back to the States. Sherry had done it too, every night between the one Claire left and when the agents had snatched her from him. She probably did it still.

The loss there was fresh, and Leon felt a stab of it when he thought of Sherry worried and hurting like this…. just like Claire. And that made it worse that she didn't come to him. Couldn't he help? He was here.

"You can talk to me, Red," he said softly, almost afraid to break the silence for her.

Unlike Ashley had, Claire didn't flinch. She pulled her knees up to her chest, biting her lip stubbornly. He was waiting for her to snap how he never talked to her about what scared him, but it didn't come. He expected that to come later, on a different night, but now… as he watched her, he knew she couldn't see that far.

"It was a bad dream."

"You have those sometimes," Leon acknowledged, wanting to touch her. Problem was, she wasn't giving him an opening to, unless he put his arm around her, and her shoulders weren't even positioned properly for that to be anything but awkward.

"How do you-" Shocked blue eyes snapped to his, and they were wide enough that he knew the moment they fixed on him that this wasn't a joke, and that not telling him had absolutely nothing to do with him.

"You cry in your sleep sometimes," he admitted, feeling bashful. Suddenly it felt like he was keeping secrets too. Like he was betraying her.

"You… never say anything…" she said, wrapping her arms more tightly around her knees and hugging them closer to her chest.

"I always figured that you might not remember. And I'm not… if you don't remember, why should I bring it up and make you?"

A flash of her blue eyes peeked at him from under her hair as she looked over at him. Maybe he was imagining it, but they looked accusing.

"Claire, what would ever make you think I like seeing you in pain?" he said, trying to keep control of his voice.

It was wrong. Being angry was making this about him again. It wasn't. This was about Claire. He frowned at himself.

"… but it's my fault." The same words she'd said on the phone to Chris. Ok, maybe her brother wasn't some mystic chosen one about her worry.

"What is?"

She buried her face against her knees, mumbling into them. Tears again, probably. Enough of this huddling alone. Leon put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. It was awkward, just like he thought it'd be, but not bad. Her knees bumped against his leg and she all but fell into his lap.

She didn't resist.

"You… die."

The words were so sick sounding that the tone registered for long moments before what she'd said came to him. He was rubbing her arm, trying to get her to warm up, wanting her to let go of her knees before what she said registered.

And that annoyed feeling from earlier turned to self-loathing. And thinking about Sherry being scared and alone made it worse. Helpless self-loathing. Claire cared, she loved him. Of course that would send her running. How hard had Claire struggled to get back to Chris? When she cared, she cared all the way, even if it was through fire and brimstone to get to it. What had she gone through in the halls of that infested city and on that godforsaken island because of how she loved her brother and was worried about his safety?

Of course she wouldn't find it easy to come to Leon about something similar, especially if… It was one of his own nightmares, one of the things that made him pull away in the middle of the night. Because what got Claire in his darker dreams always seemed to smirk and come after him, and he knew himself well enough to know that his reaction to that attacker would be swift and lethal. He couldn't risk waking up to Claire taking the brunt of what was meant for his imagined attacker of her.

Her tone suggested that she could barely get the words out, and he wasn't prepared to ask her the rest of the 5WH questions that morbid curiosity might try to drag out of her, were he a more perverse person.

Instead of asking anything, Leon tightened his grip on her, pulling her comfortably against his lap. "No I don't," he said, leaning down to say the words against her ear.

Swiveling to put her shoulders against his leg, Claire looked up at him. There were tears in her eyes, ones she didn't try to hide, and she stared up at him with a mix of hope and fear burned into her expression.

Leon smoothed her hair back from her head, wishing she'd sit up and let him hold her, knowing it would help, just like when she cried in her sleep, but not willing to push yet. "I don't."

The fear seemed to siphon off, and she reached a hand up, gripping him by the shoulder. He slid an arm under her, and she pulled herself up against his chest, wrapping both arms tightly around him and shifting her legs around to settle comfortably against him.

"It was… so real," she sniffled.

"It's not," he affirmed. "C'mon. Let's go back to bed."

She nodded, but made no move to let go or get up. Claire didn't often let him carry her. He didn't often try unless he was rather urgent to get her somewhere comfortable or… appropriate, but part of that was because there normally wasn't an opening for it. Now she just leaned trustingly in his arms, burying her face in his neck as he gathered her into his lap a bit more comfortably.

It felt like something big had happened in the last few minutes. Leon's arms tightened protectively around Claire, and he rocked her a little. Claire relaxed against him, yawning softly.

Back to bed, Leon thought to himself. He shifted to scoop an arm under her knees and stood up, heading back for the bedroom.