Author's note:
So, what happens when you take an old story, throw in a jumping off point for a fun adventure, possibly switch between first and third person and ramble on about puzzles and zombies? You get this. Which might suck or could be awesome. Reader's choice on that deal. Either way? It's fun. I enjoy writing. I don't own Resident Evil. I don't always follow the canon. I operate in AU or AU with canon based thinking and I like keeping it funny. My action is staccato and my love of lemon and smut well known. I get lost sometimes in things and ramble. You know the deal: read it, love it or hate or leave it. I dig it all. I also dig input. How can I make it better? What's your thinking on the pairing? How's the action? Leave it on the comment page or PM me. I'm all ears.
This story is light hearted. It is meant to amuse and tell a story we ALL know. With some love and jokes that we don't know.
I'm working about 4 fics right now. So I update when I can. If you've read The Girl on the Train, you know this Claire and Leon. If not, you don't need to. I draw heavily from there though for the interlude and laying the foundation for what comes next. The biggest part I ask for leniency on is understanding that this is NOT a word for word adaptation of Resident Evil 2 or subsequent parts. It's there, yes, but it operates entirely on its own. I haven't played 2 in years so I'm using what I remember to craft it all together. And it's meant to focus around their growing relationship together. I'll jump through time when it suits and focus when it drives the story.
Thanks for reading it, naturally! I appreciate people reading my crap. Seriously.
Slainte.
….
The Man with the Hair and The Girl on the Motorcycle Hanging out in Raccoon City:
The Adventures of Leon and Claire
:::::::::::::::::::::::::ONE::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"Love is as much of an object as an obsession, everybody wants it everybody seeks it, but few ever achieve it, those who do, will cherish it, be lost in it, and among all, will never...never forget it."
-Curtis Judalet
Raccoon City, 1998
When you were the guy who'd just gotten dumped, it was a hard road.
Standing outside of his apartment, trying to figure out how to find his lost keys, Leon Kennedy was a man on a mission. He was drunker than piss, angrier than hell, and trying to figure out how to get into his place when he'd clearly lost his only access point potentially at the bottom of the last highball of scotch he'd dump down his gullet an hour before.
Dumped. DUMPED. What the hell? Why?
She'd stood there and said, gently, "You can't marry me, Leon, your father would never allow it."
The old man was always messing up his life. When was it going to be his chance to shine? He was tired of living in someone else's shadow all the time. Surely his moment in the sun was coming!
To the dog sitting on the corner, licking his paws, Leon slurred, "Fuck her, right buddy? Who needs women anyway?!"
The mutt barked, showing his consent to this statement. Leon nodded and flopped down on the ground beside him.
"What's the likelihood of kicking in my own door?"
He patted the mutt on the head and offered him the rest of a Slim Jim he found in his jacket.
And Leon Kennedy then proceeded to pass out in the street like a druken hobo.
When he came to, hung over and dying from it, he was still lying in the street. The mutt was still there and eyeing him thoughtfully. The sun was high and the bleary eyed that peered at his watch was telling him it was half passed four. He had to be at work for the night shift in three hours.
Somewhere between the time he'd left the house and the time he left for the first day on the job, he stopped at a place called Rosemary's. Rosemary's was a small one room salon on the corner of west shit street and nowheresville. It was run by a woman who smelled of cigarettes and summer sunshine and scotch. It was a heady combination to a kid just fresh out of the police academy and looking to piss off his father.
The old man had his days where he was, at best, tolerable. Today had not been that day.
He'd pointed his finger at his second born son and declared, "You understand me Leon Scott Kennedy, you will rue the day you decided to try your hand at rebellion. This will bite you in the ass before it is done, you can make bank on that."
The old man had always been yelling about him "making bank on that". What was THAT? What was this bank? He had yet to find out. And didn't particularly care. The old man was a douche, a right wing conservative majority whip that needed a boot to the nuts.
The oldest son, Leon's brother Tate, had followed the path of least resistance and headed off to law school to be another cog in the wheel. Leon, always the outcast and sometimes the nerd, had gotten tired of being the second rung on the ladder of legacy to his father, so he'd said "fuck it" to a life of convention and joined the police academy. At first, the old man had been irate.
But, after further reflection, he decided a son who was on the other side of the wheels of justice meant political success for the Kennedy name and so he'd gotten behind the idea. He'd made a few calls, greased a few palms, and lined up the perfect job for his second banana son to stream line his way to police chief and seal his fate forever as the legal finger in a bigger pie of justice that his father was trying to cultivate.
Leon was already on a very narrow tightrope with the old man to start with. He was a "god-damn hippie, tree hugging, free love endorsing, second amendment hating liberal" in a family of conservative republicans. He wasn't, he was all about the second amendment, but the rest was probably true. Leon was all about the free love.
He figured, why the fuck not? In a world where people were killing each other for sport, why not back the idea of free love for everyone? Somebody out there deserved to get laid man. If it wasn't him, it should be somebody.
He'd come down the stairs one morning, in his baggy academy sweatshirt and jeans, just prior to leaving for training, with his ponytail happily trailing down his neck and his father had nearly had a stroke. His son, HIS SON had girl hair. "Do you see this Muriel!?" He yelled at his wife, who at 8 a.m. was already on her second coffee cup liberally laced with Irish. "Your son is a god-damn hippie!"
Tate, his perfect brother, had been home from law school and sitting at the table in the palatial Virginia estate that always made Leon feel like he was walking through the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. Tate had all the looks in the Kennedy family. He was six foot two and muscular. He was dark haired and blue eyed and charming. Girls fell over themselves trying to get close to him. Tate was twenty four and already engaged to a girl with two last names like a proper Kennedy. She was ugly, skinny, and came from money as old as the hills.
Again, he was the golden boy.
Tate looked at him and laughed, "Relax Dad, seriously. He's rebelling. That's what the nerdy kids do after highschool."
Leon, all skinny legs and awkward angles, had hunkered down in his sweatshirt and scowled. He'd run out the front door as fast he could to meet up with his girlfriend. Maggie…MAGGIE. She was everything that mattered. And she loved his hair. Loved it.
They'd spent the afternoon before he left making love the way only the young can. Such good kids, they mooned over each other and promised the world. She said, "You know your Daddy will never let you marry me."
She was right of course. She was poor and didn't have anything but his heart. It turned out that wasn't ever going to be enough for the Kennedy name. So, she'd broken his heart instead and ran away to leave him aching in the street.
He'd honestly thought he'd die from the pain of it. He'd gone into the academy the next day mourning her like she'd died. It pushed him harder and faster to do the job and thrive at it. The skinny little hippie went into the police academy and burst out of his cocoon. He'd gone in a child and come out a man.
The old man had nearly shit a brick when he told him he wasn't going to take the job he'd lined up. The call had come out across the radio while he'd been at the academy, Raccoon City – Umbrella's burgeoning baby, was seeking qualified police presence to help patrol and protect the city. The recent crime wave meant a stronger police force.
Here, he thought wildly, my chance to be the hero. My chance to prove I'm a man.
He'd taken the job.
His father went apoplectic. He went apeshit. He swore he would disown his younger son if he didn't decline the job. Looking back on it, Leon figured the old man probably knew something was rotten in Raccoon City. He had his fingers in more pies then a baker. He knew something was wrong.
And he'd let his son go anyway. The old man always knew how best to punish his children. He probably figured anyone who went against him, offspring included, deserved what they got.
So, he went into Rosemary's to cut off the hippie hair and look more like a respectable police officer. He was in his R.P.D. uniform, nervous like a prom date, and utterly adorable. Rosemary took one look at him and said, "Nope. I'm not cutting all that beautiful hair off."
She gave him the haircut. THE HAIRCUT. He stared at it, curious if he could rock it, and she said, "Honey…that face…you own this haircut. Don't have to go army short to prove you're a serious cop, darlin. Prove that through your actions, not your looks."
Rosemary was the wisest woman he'd ever met. She was also talkative and apparently a helluva hairstylist. But she also made him late on his first day on the job.
He ate up the distance between her shop and the highway that led to the 109 into Raccoon City at a furious pace. His apartment was still filled with unopened boxes, he lost his keys twice that day trying to get moved in, and he'd spent twenty minutes trying to find his badge. It was a series of minor things that had resulted in being in a great deal of a hurry.
He whipped the Jeep onto the highway with a vengeance that was palpable. He shifted gears with a personal fury, completely unaware that he was the only car on the road. If he'd been less inclined to hurry, he'd have noticed it. If he'd have been listening to the radio and not a cassette tape, he'd have heard about it. If he'd have lost his keys and not been able to find them, he'd have been trapped in his apartment fifteen miles outside of Raccoon and he'd have never known what waited there.
He rocketed past the sign welcoming him to the city and straight into the worst night of his life. The woman in the road brought his Jeep to a rolling stop. He hesitated, curious, and glanced around while his radio blared Aerosmith at full volume. He adjusted the volume and idled in the street.
Seeing no hope for it, he climbed from the Jeep and moved to check on the woman lying there. She was on her face and twitching. Drunk? What? He knelt beside her and touched her shoulder. She turned, groaning, and she was as dead as anything he'd ever seen in his life. She was dead.
Dead? How was that even possible?
She took a lunge for his face and he panicked, falling back on his ass on the road. The dead woman crawled on top of him, moaning, bleeding and gurgling. So that was the first time Leon Kennedy had a woman on top of him moaning. It left something to be desired for what came next.
He shouted, grabbing her shoulders to push her away from him. She lunged, snapping her jaws at his throat. She had fish eyes, filmed and colorless. He heard the sounds of shuffling feet, heard the moaning, and started to see the faces in the darkness around him.
He felt the fear lance into his belly and steal his reason. He wanted to panic. He wanted to leap in his Jeep and drive way screaming like a girl. He pushed the snarling, chomping dead woman off of him and rolled to his feet. At least he'd been wise enough to grab his police issue Beretta from the Jeep before he'd climbed out.
He turned the gun on the advancing horde of people…no…not people. Not people. Dead people? No..zombies. ZOMBIES.
"Zombies?" It sounded very loud in the quiet darkness and sort of…squeaky. Faced with the undead for the first time, the great hero Leon Kennedy hadn't started kick boxing and whipping asses…oh no. He'd panicked, shouted, and squeaked in fear.
He backed down an alleyway, separated from his Jeep now by at least ten zombies. Panicked, he kept backing up, and didn't realized he'd backed right into another one. It grabbed him, moaning, and sunk its teeth into the leather strap of his shoulder holster. It saved him from a bite to the shoulder that would have killed him.
Proof, of course, that guns did indeed save lives. Somewhere, his father was thrilled. Leon was somewhat less amused. He stumbled and the zombie stayed on him trying to chew through his holster. He elbowed it in the stomach and it didn't give a shit, it kept on trying to eat him.
"Hey! Over here!" A voice shouted, drawing attention to it.
The zombie stopped chewing and looked up, Leon threw his body weight against it and shoved it off him. The voice yelled again, "Get down!"
He did, just like that. He ducked. A knife whistled by his ear as he dropped to one knee on the ground. He blinked, watching it spin, and it struck hilt deep into the forehead of the zombie. The thing was tossed back and hit the dumpster with a clang of metal.
A girl came running at him through the darkness. She grabbed his arm to help him stand. He blinked at her, still in shock. She grabbed the hilt of her knife, put a booted foot against the chest of the dead zombie, and jerked it clean. The moaning in the street was louder and closer.
She grabbed him by his breastplate and jerked at him. "Stop staring at me and RUN!"
He obeyed and they started running. She grabbed his hand and held it, leading him at a full run through the alleyway until they came out the other side. They raced across the street and were blocked by nearly a hundred shambling corpses.
"Holy fuck," She whispered it, glancing around.
Leon, finally figuring out how to use his brain again, gestured to a police cruiser not far away with its lights flashing. It was casting red and blue shadows all over the ground and the walls around it. They didn't hesitate, they hurried toward it. The person inside was missing but the keys were still in the ignition.
He leapt behind the wheel and cranked over the engine while the girl joined him in the passenger seat. He gunned it and they leapt forward, knocking down bodies like bowling pins. The cruiser jerked, bumped, and smooshed corpses with a nearly reckless glee.
Disgusted, Leon angled them toward the police station.
The silence in the cruiser was loud.
Finally, the girl spoke, "I'm Claire. Claire Redfield. I saw the uniform, I thought…well…I'm looking for my brother Chris. He works at the station. He's S.T.A.R.S."
Leon glanced at her in the semi-darkness. A pretty thing, she was young, he was betting barely out of highschool like him. Her hair was red and sleek, drawn back into a bouncy ponytail. She wore a red leather motorcycle jacket with cut off sleeves over a black skin tight t-shirt. The black biker shorts she wore were graced up top by tiny denim cutoff shorts. The cowboy boots she wore, in good buckskin brown, were old and looked soft and pettable.
He had to admit, she was a pretty bad ass chic for somebody who looked like a dirty boy's idea of a hells angel. She glanced at him, lifted a brow, and said, "Hey handsome, how about you focus on the road for me?"
Well that was embarrassing, he mused, focusing on the road as she'd asked. "I'm Leon Kennedy. I don't know your brother, I'm sorry. This is my first day on the job."
She blinked at him, blinked again, and laughed. "Are you kidding?"
"Nope."
"Helluva way to start a new job man. My condolences."
"Thanks. Any idea what's happening here?"
"No more than you. I talk to Chris three times a week. He's my touch stone. A week went by, nothing. Two weeks, nothing. So, I came looking. Because he always calls. ALWAYS."
"Where were you?"
"College. I go to Ruegar State."
"Ah."
"I hopped on my Harley and headed out here. I figured I'd find him dick deep in some girl, ya know? But not even close! This is nuts! But I can't leave without finding him."
Leon was quiet for a long moment. Claire glanced at him again. "I know what you're thinking…"
"I doubt that."
"I'm crazy right? He's dead. That's what you're thinking."
"No, I wasn't."
"It's ok. It seems crazy based on what we've seen. But he's alive. I know it. Chris is…he's….fuck it. He's just alive. I know ok? I know."
"I believe you." And he did. She was convincing. Her faith was unshakeable.
"Where'd you learn to use a knife like that?"
She smiled and there was something touching on her face. Leon felt a little sad that he'd never felt that close to his brother…or anyone in his family for that matter. "Chris. He taught me everything he knows. Our parents died…" She was silent for long time, gathering her thoughts, "They died in car crash. I was barely seventeen. Chris got custody of me, he fought for it. He was barely twenty one. But they gave him custody of me. So…he taught me everything he knew. He put me through college. I'm not leaving him here. If he's here, I'm going to find him."
Leon nodded, believing her. He turned down Granger St and they both sat in silence for a long moment.
He gestured with his head, "Check the glovebox. Odds are that someone left a spare piece in there."
Claire opened it and smiled, "Bingo. Thanks."
"Sure. What happens when we get there?"
"You want to stay with me? I could use the help."
"Oh yeah. I can't let you go alone, I might be the last cop in this place."
"Cool. Thanks." She glanced at him as he drove. He was super hot, she thought objectively, that haircut was killing it. She studied his profile. Big blue eyes, nice lips, good skin. This kid had the smell of money on him. What had he said his name was?
"Is your Dad the Senator?"
Leon said nothing and finally sighed, "Sadly."
"Dude, that blows donkey dick. What kind of life was that like?"
"Shitty. And uptight."
"For real." Claire turned in her seat a little. "You're kinda hot though. So that must have made up for it. Being rich and stuff, I bet that meant lots of girls."
Leon smirked a little, "Should I take offense to the kinda hot remark?"
"Not at all. There are three levels right? Doable, mostly ok, and kinda hot. You're the highest level."
"Is anyone ever just HOT?"
"No. Because hot guys can be dicks, big time. So they all get labeled KINDA hot."
"I see."
"Seriously I can think of worst things than running around a burning city with a kinda hot cop. So awesome for me."
She was…probably the most forthright girl he'd ever met. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about her. At all. Even a little bit. He thought he liked her, actually, and enjoyed her no nonsense manner of speaking.
He opened his mind to the idea that they might be…the last damn people on this city. It was insane to feel it and think it and wonder about it. He glanced at her pretty face.
"I think you're kinda hot too."
She blinked and her face bloomed into a big smile.
And neither of them noticed the huge tanker behind him. Well, he thought, as one of the horrible dead fuckers sat up in the back seat and took a nose dive at his face, it was a good moment before it all went to hell. He shouted, high pitched and frightened, Claire stabbed that sumbitch right in the face with her knife and saved him…again, and the car pitched.
"Leon!"
Too late, he thought miserably, they were done. It hit the wall, jackknifed across the road in a roll and spill of squealing metal and certain death. And the tractor trailer truck behind them? Boom. Wreck and wreckage and incineration.
The whomp and pop of pressure that hits before a massive explosion is hard to describe. It's like imagining how it would feel to stand inside the eye of a tornado as it strikes. There is a moment of complete and utter silence and peace – followed by the instant the world ignites in the most painful and frightening way possible.
They leapt free of the car and ran, the boy and the girl. They ran and nearly got crushed for it. The tanker hit the car, the car exploded and the tanker? It imploded. It burped and belched and blew fire and smoke and death up into the inky night sky with a skin searing, face burning regurgitation, saturating the planet in noxious chemicals and gasoline.
Where the gas spilled, the fire followed, chasing them down the street like a couple of desperate things. He grabbed the girl and threw her in front him, feeling the burst of fire all around them. Holy hell, he thought desperately, this was the worst fucking job EVER.
They hit the far side of the street and kept going. A zombie hoard was waiting for them and Leon made a sound that might have been a squeak. They turned down the far alley and ran for it. The station was close but the scene…was not good.
A burning cop car was outside, over run with the dead. The flickering and flowing red and blue lights were frightening. They burst passed it, never stopping and ran up the long steps toward the main door. They hit it, missing out being eaten by the skin of their teeth, and burst inside the large and beautiful lobby.
Leon slammed the door behind and snapped the locks.
It was dead silent in the lobby of the RPD.
And empty.
REALLY empty.
Claire leaned over and put her hands on her knees, breathing raggedly. He may, may not, have looked at her cute little butt in those shorts as he did. He excused himself, naturally, because there was adrenaline POUNDING through his body and she was pretty and he was a dude. So he looked.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was barely winded.
"You a runner?"
"Oh yeah."
"Lucky duck. I wish I could run without falling over."
"Practice and drive. And dedication."
"Thanks for the speech, Malcolm X. Let's go find Chris." She hurried through the lobby to the far door on the left. The lobby was always impressive. For those who'd never stood in it, it was a sight to see. All fountain and water and beautiful old stone. It was balconies and architecture that signified it used to be an artists wet dream. It had been converted to the police station but it was a masterpiece of the modern and classical works.
Leon followed Claire through the waiting room to the left. She wasn't hanging out and holding out for him either. She was just moving quickly. The movement of something off the tiny window there drew his attention but he couldn't quite see it.
He followed her around the corner and into the hallway beyond. She was moving, fast, and talking now. "This way. He's got to be here. And if not? He'll have left me some clue as to where he went."
"You sure?"
"Oh yeah. Yeah."
She turned back to look at him. "Hey thanks for coming with me. I know things are total shit right now. This is a nightmare. What the hell is going on here?"
"No problem. I have no clue honestly. How are we the last people left alive?"
"We weren't here when it all went down maybe?"
"Maybe."
The hallway had partially bound windows covered in boards. The mess of what had occurred here had left bodies behind but not answers. There was no way to know what had happened. They'd have to dig to find the truth.
Claire said, "The STARS office will have something. I can feel it! It's this wa—"
And something plopped on her face. She lifted her hand and swiped at it. Blood? What?
They both looked up, too slow and too stupid for their own good, and there it was. Or wasn't. Or wouldn't ever be. It was something so ugly and awful there were no words that could describe it. It was a man, or wasn't, and was inside out with naked muscle and bone and sinew lining its red, red, red form. It had claws linger and sharper and thicker than anything he'd ever seen. It had a pulsing exposed pile of brain matter on its bulbous head.
As if that wasn't bad enough? It shot down the worlds longest tongue and looped it, tight and fast, around Claire's throat. She gasped, going pink, and it jerked her up in the air to dangle while it…screeched. It screamed. It warbled a battle cry that shook the walls and scared the piss out of both of them.
And this? This was the moment that a scared rookie cop became the man who would eventually become a hero. He aimed down his arm and blasted that thing right off the ceiling.
The licker, which was a good name for it, dropped Claire as it screeched and leapt to the wall beside the ceiling where it had hung. It threw her down and she rolled, running toward Leon. And for the first time, but not the last, Leon Kennedy put her behind him.
"You ugly shit faced turd! I'm going shove that tongue up your ass!"
He'd had enough of being afraid. He was now, officially, pissed off. It leapt and came right for him. He didn't run, not this time, he filled it full of lead.
It slowed it down but it didn't stop. It leapt at him, screaming. And whipped him upside the head with that killer tongue. The blow tossed him out and into the wall. He hit, pushed off and ran for it. The gun clicked empty and Claire was there with him.
The licker swiped those huge claws at his belly and missed by an inch. He kicked it in the face. His boot slipped and hit the mooshy brain instead. The licker screamed, scrambling on the ground to try to get away.
OH. OH YEAH. "HIT IT IN THAT NASTY BRAIN!"
Claire stopped, studied it, and threw the knife toward its retreating back. It flew, dart fast, and struck it clean in that pulsing brain matter. The licker squealed so loud and high that it hurt their ears. Claire covered hers, watching it twitch, twitch, scramble those huge claws and flip over on its back to die there like a cockroach.
It lay motionless as a widening pool of blood surrounded it.
Finally Leon walked toward it, his face smarting. He grabbed the handle of her blade and jerked it clean. He palmed it, rolled it, and flipped it to hand it back to her.
Claire glanced at his face. "You…protected me."
"…did I?"
"You did."
"I'm a cop, yeah? So that's what I'm supposed to do."
Claire grabbed his vest and pulled him to her. She kissed him, hard, right on the mouth. It was a nice kiss, he thought objectively, and he felt a bit like a hero for it. He grinned. She grinned.
And then she said, "That was the GROSSEST thing I have EVER seen. And this includes my cousin Marvin's satanic shrine to his cat."
Leon nodded, "I walked in on my cousin and my other cousin bumpin uglies once. That was pretty gross. This was worse."
Claire laughed a little and grabbed the door knob to the STARS office. She pushed it open. The disappointment was intense. No Chris. Nobody. It was depressing. Had she thought he'd be there waiting for her? Maybe he'd kick up his boots and throw that whoopie cushion he was always using under Jill Valentine's ass again? Shit.
Leon touched her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
She looked over at his face. God DAMN it was a nice face. Kinda hot was REALLY hot when you coupled it with a nervous little guy who'd gone all alpha male out there and killed the…flipped out man. The muscley mutant dude? No. "What do we call that thing?"
"I was calling it a licker."
"That works." Claire moved to Chris' desk to dig around. "I like a little tongue from a man but that? That was….ugh."
"Yeah it was. What the fuck is happening here?"
"Science Fiction shit, clearly." Claire found the picture of them together on the 4th of July. Chris? Where ARE you? She tried to picture him as a zombie and couldn't. NO. Not now. Not EVER.
She moved to the board on the wall, studying the pins and strings in it. It was cannibal murders stuff. It was lots of things. And the fax machine had a fax on it. She moved to and picked it up.
She read it.
Leon was digging in desks. He found a goldmine. There was a .44 long barrel Magnum locked in the bottom drawer. A letter opener and a whack had given him access to it. He picked it up and felt like Dirty Harry. The spare rounds were easy to poke in his pack.
"Look at this shit, Claire. Me and Clint Eastwood huh?"
Claire lifted her eyes and grinned. "He's gone. He's not here. But he's FINE."
"How do you know?"
"He sent THIS. It's a transmission. It's coded but Chris isn't CIA, it's not hard to crack. It was aimed at Jill. She must still be in the city."
"You want to find her?"
Claire watched him load the Magnum. He was something. Handsome and funny and going with it. It was hard to not like him. She moved toward him.
"You mind? She's my brother's best friend. If she's here? I can't leave her."
"Why not? We're already here. If there are survivors? I have to help them. It's why I took this job right?"
"I think the job is done, Leon. Seriously."
"Only idiots think the job is done when there's no paycheck. You sign up to help people? You help people. That's the reason you become a cop."
Leon holstered the Magnum in his empty thigh holster. He put the empty pistol in his shoulder holster. They needed more ammo. Surely in a police station there was more ammo. Surely.
"You're very noble, Leon Kennedy."
"I'm really not. Right now? I'm scared as piss, hung over, and kinda afraid we might turn into zombies. But I'm also no coward, Claire. I'll see it through."
She grinned at him and took his hand, squeezing it. "Thank you. Thank you. Who just says yes like that?"
"An idiot?"
"No. A good guy. A good guy does that. You ready?"
"Yeah. Let's find some fucking ammo. Or we won't make it very far."
Claire smiled again and they started searching all the desks for anything useful. Jill had a set of lockpicks. Claire took them but she wasn't sure they'd do anyone any good. Chris had a rubber chicken in his desk, a shoe horn, and three pennies. He also had a booby magazine taped under his desk. Claire laughed, loudly, and then made a sound like a sob.
Leon glanced at her, surprised.
She lifted her hand, shaking her head, "I'm sorry. I miss him. I'm worried. He's such a goof."
"You said he's safe. Remember that. And let's get you out of here to join him."
Leon found a goldmine in the bottom drawer of the desk on the far side. Claire was messing with the communication system, trying to send a distress call out with no luck. Leon said, "Bingo. Come get some of these bullets."
He set a case of 9mm rounds on the desk. They filled up spare mags and took as many spare rounds as they could. Claire strapped on the fanny pack sitting on Jill's desk and managed to stuff it full of rounds.
"Awesome. And better." Claire pointed, "Can you get that thing to run?"
Leon shrugged and smacked it. It hissed and buzzed.
"….really? I could have done that, handsome. Seriously?"
"Seemed the right thing at the time." And the console popped on. It spit voices at them. Garbled and discombobulated but they were voices. Leon hit buttons and tried to raise the other person on the back side of the communication. Nothing.
Claire remarked, "At least we know people are alive right?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
They stepped out into the hallway…and came face to face with a little girl.
Claire blinked. Leon blinked. The little blonde girl squealed loud, sharp, and ran down the hallway away from them. Claire gave chase, "WAIT! WAIT!"
The little girl scrambled into a floor vent and disappeared. Claire yelled down to her, "HEY HEY! Come back! We can HELP you!"
"Can you fit in there?"
Claire glanced at him, eyebrow raised, "You kidding? See these?" She gestured to her boobs, "These guarantee the answer is no."
A few moments passed. Claire said, drolly, "Stop staring at my boobs, Leon."
"Sorry. Sorry." Leon coughed, pink faced, "I'm a guy. You pointed. Apologies."
He was adorable. She was pretty sure she liked him a lot. Claire rose studying the crooked hallway. "We need to find her. Now. She can't be safe here."
"I dunno. She's still alive. That makes her smarter than everyone else right?"
It was a good point. "Should we split up to look for her?"
"I'd rather not, seriously. I don't want you to get hurt."
Oh. How sweet…and kinda sexist. But kinda sweet. Claire grabbed his vest again and kissed him. Again, it was a good smack of lips. He blinked at her and grinned.
"Thanks."
"Sure. Keep talking sweet. I'll get a crush on you."
"Yeah?"
"Why not? We're the only two people alive in this place. Besides Solid Snake wherever she is in the ducts."
Leon chuckled. And he looked at her face. She looked back. He lifted a hand to curl it around her face. Oh, Claire thought, ok. Yeah, let's do this. She curled hers around the shoulder of his vest. She closed her eyes and waited.
Leon said, "Holy fucking hell."
And Claire grinned. "Right. Do it."
"….Claire?"
Her eyes opened. Leon was staring over her head. And his eyes were HUGE. She turned, horror movie slow. And there was the ugliest thing in a trench coat she'd EVER seen watching them. It was pale faced and looked like a wax man or something. It was like ten feet tall and wearing black. It was filthy and was moving down the hallway toward them.
Claire whispered, softly, "What now?"
"Seriously? RUN!"
And so they did. They ran for it. But it was ok. It was good to run. They were just two kids trapped in a police station with zombies and mutants and lickers. They ran for it.
What were they going to do? Stand and fight? Who did that kind of thing?!
And the big nasty creature man gave chase, shaking the building all around them.