"I don't think it's really that appropriate to teach a twelve-year-old how to use a gun, Chris!" Claire harshly advised, somewhat disturbed at the mental image of Sherry holding a gun.
Chris sighed and gave her an indignant look, his expression dark and stoic enough to strike fear in just about anyone who wasn't his sister.
"You do realize that I taught you how to shoot when you were eight, right?" He punctuated the sentence with a raise of an eyebrow, a cocky smile on his face as he waited for her response.
Claire clenched her fists at her side in frustration. Yes, she was well aware of how young she had been when she shot for the first time, but, somehow, it was different with Sherry. Had it been anyone but her, she probably would have agreed, but, with Sherry, she felt an inexplicable urge to protect her from all the fucked up things life had to offer.
"She's different, Chris." She finally answered, sighing hard. "Sherry's not like we were."
"To be fair, the world isn't like it was back then, either." Jill spoke softly from the couch as she observed the two argue.
Claire opened her mouth, her body moving faster than her mind, but she failed to concoct a decent argument. Jill was infuriatingly right, as she always was. The only monsters they had hunted as children were the shadows that lingered in their closets.
"Fine," She surrendered, "I still don't like it though."
If anyone was to teach Sherry how to wield a gun, it ought to have been Chris - even Claire could admit that. He had received several accolades throughout his military and police careers for his marksmanship and, as a result, had been awarded with the position of pointman for S.T.A.R.S. alpha team. She could respect it, probably even more so now that she had been forced to fire a gun herself.
Incidentally, she supposed she was probably the least skilled in handling firearms amongst the lot of them. Though she did not know much about Jill, the fact that she was a member of S.T.A.R.S. implied an impressive level of skill, and she could only assume that accuracy was a requirement for the position. Leon, too, had been through formal police training, and there was no doubt that a specific level of proficiency was required.
She felt a little self-conscious. "Over 100 confirmed zombie kills" wasn't necessarily something that could be listed on a resume and she wasn't sure that it gained her any type of honorary medal of honor.
"I'll set up targets out back," She offered, "But if either of you get shot, I'm going to kill you."
Chris laughed, mostly because the possibility of him mishandling a firearm was a complete joke.
Yeah, maybe the world had changed, but at least some things remained the same...Claire's temper being one of them.
"The first rule of using a gun is that the gun is always loaded, even if you know it isn't."
Sherry was perched on her usual tree stump out back with Chris beside her, blue eyes wide with interest as she watched his movements. The way he flipped open the cylinder of Claire's revolver seemed effortless, and he gestured towards the empty slots within it.
It was an exciting moment for her, not because she was learning to potentially kill someone, but because it was something that Claire and Leon totally didn't want her to do. She respected them both, but Chris and Jill were adults too and they said it would be okay. Being told no really only made Sherry want to do something more and the fact that Chris was the one showing her was neat.
Maybe Chris was even cooler than Claire?
That would be a tough thing to accomplish.
"Some types of guns may have a bullet trapped in the chamber and can fire even if you think it's unloaded."
She nodded as she listened, echoing his lesson, "All guns are loaded guns. Got it."
Chris nodded curtly, a particular seriousness overcoming him as he taught the girl. He gestured towards the end of the barrel, the revolver pointed towards the ground.
"The second rule is that you never point a gun at someone unless you mean it. If you point a gun at someone, that means you're prepared to shoot them."
Sherry swallowed hard. She had seen Claire shoot plenty of creatures, but the idea of having to shoot anything herself was daunting, to say the least.
"Don't point it unless you mean it." She repeated, voice a little shaken by the memory of Irons pointing a gun at Claire's head back in the parking garage.
"Hey," Chris patted her on the back lightly, the length of his hand nearly engulfing the entire width between her shoulder blades, "This is for worst case scenario self-defense. You won't have to shoot anybody with three cops and Claire-the-Barbarian around."
Sherry grinned, feeling a sense of relief come over her. He did have a point. Claire saved her plenty of times and Chris seemed like he knew what he was doing. He probably shot, like...a million people. Wasn't he a soldier or something? Cops shoot people too, right?
"Have you ever shot anyone?" She asked, eyes fixed on his hands as he loaded the revolver slowly, demonstrating for her.
He paused for a moment and reflected on the question.
"I've shot a lot of monsters."
Sherry shook her head, a little annoyed.
"I know you shot monsters but...have you ever shot a person?"
Chris fumbled with the final bullet. It was a question that he had not expected her to ask and, more importantly, one he wasn't sure that he wanted to answer. Technically, some people could be considered monsters. Maybe he could put some whimsical twist on it.
"Well…"
"You have!" She exclaimed, not out of shock, but as an accusation. She was twelve, for crying out loud, and she could handle the truth.
Chris sighed and ran a palm over his face in exasperation. Fuck.
"Sometimes, bad people do bad things and they ne-"
"Yeah," Sherry interrupted, "I know. My dad was a bad person and...he got shot. A lot."
Chris was quickly learning that interacting with children was not one of his talents. He had never given the prospect of having his own children any thought, but, if this exchange with Sherry was any inclination of what was to come, he figured he could absolutely erase fatherhood from his bucket list.
He opted to shift the conversation entirely.
"Well, uh...when you shoot, you need to hold the gun with both hands and make sure you have stable footing." He positioned himself for her to observe, arms extended before him with the revolver held securely in his grasp.
"You don't always have to be right on the money, but if you're going to shoot someone...make it count. Try to hit somewhere that ensures they can't shoot you back."
He cringed at the morbidity of his advice. It didn't make him a shitty person to teach a kid how to win in a firefight - it could potentially save her life someday.
Right?
"Like...in the face?" Sherry suggested, bouncing to her feet with excitement.
"Uh…" He doubted her accuracy, but he couldn't argue that it was definitely a way to keep an assailant from shooting back. "Yeah, but...save that for the zombies, alright?"
Later, he'd have to ask Claire more details about exactly what had transpired in Raccoon City. His delay in learning the truth was not a result of procrastination, but because Jill had persuaded him to hold off - "She'll tell you when she's ready, Chris. Give her some time."
Had Jill not kept a watchful eye on him, Chris couldn't say he wouldn't have beaten the truth out of Kennedy the first moment he had the chance.
"You see that bottle over there?" He asked, gesturing out towards the bottle set furthest out. Sherry had to squint a little to make out the label on the front and she wondered if it was really even possible to hit it from such a distance.
"Yeah...it's really far."
Chris shrugged with a distinctive confidence and Sherry figured yeah, Chris was definitely cooler than Leon, if no one else.
"Watch closely." He advised, "Pulling the trigger isn't as easy as you think. It's a safety mechanism. When you pull it, you really have to pull it. Don't be gentle about it."
Sherry heard the bullet strike, but she never saw the glass shatter. The moment the shot rang out, the bottle seemed to have vanished into thin air. She thought it was pretty neat.
"Wow." Her voice was soft with wonder and Chris shook his head, feeling as though her amazement was displaced.
"Come on," He waved her over and pointed to the closest bottle, only about 10 feet out, "Your turn."
Sherry could hear her heart pounding in her ears as Chris helped her position herself, the heavy weight of the gun putting unexpected strain on her wrists. Chris wrapped his hands around hers to assist her in lifting the barrel of the gun, and she held it steady when he pulled away.
"You've got this." He assured her, an encouraging smile on his face.
When the bottle shattered into pieces right before her eyes, Sherry let out a loud cheer. Had she really done that herself? She couldn't believe it.
When she looked over at Chris, he had a smirk on his face, his pride in her performance apparent.
"Great job, kid." He came close to ruffle her hair appreciatively.
Sherry felt butterflies take flight in the cavern of her belly.
"You know, I don't think I even knew how to shoot a gun when I was your age."
Sherry hadn't noticed Jill approach and was surprised to find that she was standing beside her, hand shielding her eyes from the sun as she assessed Sherry's marksmanship.
"No way." Sherry found her claim to be difficult to swallow.
Jill smiled warmly and laughed, "Seriously! I'm very impressed."
Impressed. Sherry repeated the word in her mind over and over, almost as if she was learning a new language.
Chris and Jill were impressed by her.
That was something she had never heard before and, the more she thought about it, the more she felt her heart swell with excitement.
At dinner, Sherry could hardly keep from knocking over her chair as she bounced with excitement.
"You'll never guess what!" She didn't have the patience to allow her audience to speculate, "I hit the target on my first try today!"
Claire's stare flitted over at Chris, who nodded to confirm. She grinned and leaned over to pull Sherry into a warm hug and Leon offered her a thumbs up.
"I'm so proud of you, Sherry!"
"We're proud of you." Leon corrected, grinning at the younger girl.
There it was again - that funny, warm, fuzzy feeling.
Sherry couldn't wipe the smile away even as Claire released her from the embrace.
"I learned a lot today." She reported, a pensive look on her face. "Chris knows a lot about guns."
She paused for a moment, mulling over the lessons she had learned. Though he had attempted to put her at ease, Sherry couldn't keep from thinking about the way Irons had pointed a pistol directly in Claire's face. Was it a bluff to get his way or would he have truly shot Claire? Chris said the rule was to only point it if you mean it.
Why would he shoot someone he didn't even know?
"Hey...Claire?"
"What's up?" Claire seemed concerned by the sudden meekness to the girl's voice.
"Chris said you should never point a gun at someone unless you're sure you're going to shoot them. Does that mean...Mr. Irons was really going to shoot you in the parking garage?"
Chris's fork clattered against his plate and he leaned forward, eyes narrowed as if the focus would somehow improve his understanding of what Sherry had said.
"What did you say?" The gruffness of his voice reminded her that, not only was Chris Claire's brother, but he was a cop too.
Jill's lips were parted slightly in horror and Leon's jaw was set hard. Someone had nearly shot Claire and neither of the girls had told him?
Sherry felt the sting of fear as she realized that everyone's attention was focused on her. Had she done something wrong? All she did was ask a question…
"Um…this guy my dad used to know...Mr. Irons...he, um…did some bad things."
Claire buried her face in her hands and attempted to psych herself up to endure Chris's reaction.
"Sherry, do you mean the Chief of Police Brian Irons?" Jill didn't seem nearly as scary as Chris and Sherry much preferred telling her the story.
"Yeah, he's friends with my dad. Um, actually...was."
Chris's fist slammed against the table's surface with such force that the dishes rattled and Sherry jumped with surprise. He frowned hard and paused to take a deep breath before muttering, "I knew I should have wrung that fucker's neck when I had the chance."
Leon felt a strange sense of disappointment wash over him. He had heard so many horrible things about Raccoon Police during this ordeal, but to know that the man who had hired him was not only friends with Birkin, but also apparently threatened Claire was akin to a child discovering that Santa was no more than a festive fairytale. He felt as though the bottom had fallen out of his stomach and he swallowed, his face stinging with embarrassment.
Were all police departments like this?
"What happened?" Jill asked as she placed a hand over Chris's tightened fist, urging him to relax.
"We found the underground tunnel beneath the police department and ended up in the parking garage. I met Irons there and he held me at gunpoint and forced Sherry to tie me up. He didn't shoot me. He took her to the orphanage, but…" Claire stared hard at Chris and deadpanned, "He's dead now."
Leon somehow felt hurt. She hadn't divulged much of anything about what had happened to the two of them. Yeah, sure, he knew they ran into zombies and he saw Claire kill off Birkin, but she hadn't mentioned anyone or anything else. He knew in some sense that pressuring her to reveal information would have been wrong, but he still felt an ache deep in his chest.
You didn't mention Ada at first, either. Pot calling the kettle black much, Kennedy?
Chris didn't seem impressed by the news of Irons' death.
"I had so many opportunities to kill that rat bastard and I fucking knew he was involved in this shit somehow."
Jill nudged him in the ribs and hissed, "Language."
"I didn't mean to make anyone mad." Sherry lowered her head in the likeness of a dog being scolded over an accident.
"Nobody is mad." Jill reassured her with a sympathetic smile, "We are just surprised because we thought he was working with Umbrella but couldn't prove it."
"I feel really bad about what my dad did. He hurt everybody here." Sherry couldn't bring herself to look anyone in the eye as she spoke. "I hope no one hates me because of him."
Claire balked at the suggestion. Why Sherry would ever feel somehow responsible for her father's actions was beyond her, and the fact that she believed that any of them would harbor enmity for her broke her heart.
Leon, too, struggled to understand why Sherry would consider such to be true. Though he did not express it to the same lengths as Claire did, he cared deeply for the girl. Had he somehow inspired her ill feelings by not explicitly verbalizing his care for her?
He opened his mouth to speak despite being unsure of what to say, but Jill thankfully beat him to the punch.
"What your parents do has no reflection on you as a person, Sherry. I wasn't with you in Raccoon City, but I know you're strong and brave because you can admit that your dad did wrong and stood up for what you believed was right."
Jill leaned back into her chair and let out a long sigh before continuing.
"I know how you feel, Sherry, because my dad is a bad person too. So bad that he's in prison for the rest of his life because he has hurt so many people."
Both Chris and Sherry found Jill's admission surprising. Jill had never spoken of her father to Chris before and Sherry never would have suspected that someone as respectable as Jill had a morally corrupt father too.
"We might be bound by blood, but that's all we are have in common. I don't stand by the things he did and it's not my fault that he did them. You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends, and the fact that you picked Claire and Leon instead of your dad means you're a good person, Sherry."
Both Leon and Claire were incredibly grateful for Jill in that moment. Her speech was far superior to any hastily conceived advice that either of the two could have mustered and, more importantly, it was backed by her own experience. Empathy was always better than sympathy, which was the only thing that either of them could have offered.
Sherry felt her nausea dissipate with Jill's affirmation. Often, she had felt lonesome despite being surrounded by company due to her loose ties to Umbrella. Knowing that Jill, too, had a similarly muddy history gave her a cathartic sense of camaraderie with the woman.
"You're...really cool, Jill. I wanna be strong like you when I grow up."
Jill laughed good-naturedly.
"You're already strong, Sherry, and you should be proud of that. Don't ever wish you were someone else. I'm really proud of who you are and you should be too."
Whenever Claire appeared to be missing, Leon learned that he could always find her here, stretched out on the lawn with a stare so hard that he wondered if she were attempting to bore a hole into the heavens. This had almost become their weekly routine - him rescuing Claire from her thoughts at night and stealing kisses in the dark like a teenager afraid of his parents.
"Claire, we really gotta stop meeting like this."
He spoke to her playfully as he laid down on the ground beside her, but, much to his dismay, she did not break her concentration to acknowledge him. Instead, she remained as still as ever, hands resting against her ribcage as she studied the sky.
Leon allowed her the silence and mimicked her position as he, too, took in the view. It was a particularly clear night, the inky blanket of the sky seemingly pierced in a thousand places to allow starlight to filter through. A sight like this was a rare occurrence for him - back in the city, the fluorescent lights drowned the stars in their artificial glow.
"I'd make a terrible mother."
Her statement caught him off guard, not only because it was a sudden interruption of the quietness they shared, but also because of the subject matter. Was motherhood important to her? He didn't know. Why did this matter?
"I can't believe I let Sherry think she was responsible for what happened."
So that was what it was all about. Leon frowned and wished desperately that he had even half of Jill's talent when it came to speaking.
"That wasn't your fault, Claire." It wasn't particularly poignant, but it was the truth. "You aren't responsible for how someone else chooses to feel. She went through a lot...and she's almost thirteen. It's the perfect recipe for angst soup."
Claire allowed a wet chuckle to escape her and it was punctuated by a quiet sniffle. Leon hadn't realized she was crying.
"I feel guilty about everything that happened and he's not even my dad." She laughed a little as she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I shouldn't have let her see all that shit. I should have left her someplace safe and gone back for her."
"Claire, y-"
"No, Leon," She roughly interrupted, "You don't understand. I let her watch both of her parents die."
He hadn't known that. Claire never mentioned Annette's death...or even crossing paths with her, for that matter. At face value, it sounded horrible, but Leon knew the circumstances were fucked to begin with. Watching her parents die was likely Sherry's inevitable fate, with or without Claire beside her.
"Claire, I'm not a clairvoyant, but I suspect that Sherry's parents were going to die regardless. Ada was after Annette anyway, so...in some weird, morbid way, Sherry was lucky to have you there to support her when it happened. Who knows what would have happened to her without you?"
Claire's mind ran wild with the possibilities.
"More likely than not, Sherry is alive because of you, Claire. You saved her life. You shouldn't feel guilty about that…" He turned onto his side to face her and he took one of her hands in his, "You should be proud, Claire."
His fingers slipped between hers and he grasped her hand tightly.
"I don't know many nineteen-year-olds who have accomplished much with their lives. I certainly don't know any who have saved others' lives."
Leon let his thumb trace against the smooth skin of the back of her palm and he wondered if the rest of her felt as good beneath his fingertips.
"You're a badass, Claire Redfield, and I'm honored to be able to kiss you like I'm about to right now."
He didn't give her time to think before he lowered his face to hers, the soft skin of his lips ghosting against hers in an almost maddening way. He held her gaze as she stared up at him, the tears in her eyes glimmering in the moonlight, and Leon wanted nothing more than to give her peace from the horrors and unwarranted regret that haunted her.
With the pad of his thumb, he brushed away a stray tear that had been trapped in her lashes, and he smiled down at her. His pale hair fell into his eyes and he shifted to align his body with hers, his legs straddling either side of her thighs as he hovered over her. Both of his hands found the sides of her face to cup her cheeks in his heated palms and he whispered, "Don't you dare regret this too."
Leon kissed her firmly and slowly with parted lips and a tease of tongue that forced the memories from her mind like a riptide had washed through. Claire made a quiet sound in her throat in response, lips parting slightly, and he took advantage of it by allowing himself to explore her mouth more fully. His tongue brushed against hers in an intimate gesture and her hands found fistfuls of his shirt to help keep her grounded to reality.
Claire was passionate in all that she did, and kissing Leon was no exemption to that rule. Her teeth grazed against his lower lip and he groaned into her mouth, his hips instinctively shifting to press against hers. She gasped into his mouth at the feel of the heat of him against her pelvis and he allowed an arm to snake beneath her upper body to lift her against him, allowing no inch of her to go untouched.
His fingers crept beneath the hem of her shirt to explore the expanse of her back and rubbed small circles along her skin as they trailed the length of her spine. Claire sighed into his mouth and lifted her hips to bring them just a little closer to his, causing him to inhale sharply.
Leon pulled away to curse quietly under his breath, his voice husky with desire. He watched her writhe beneath him, lips flushed and hair wild and free from the confines of her usual ponytail. She was something...something he couldn't really define, even now as she craned her neck to nip at the length of his throat.
It felt wrong, but it felt so right, too. Chivalry was important to him but the press of her teeth and the lave of her tongue were doing an incredible job of convincing him otherwise.
He cleared his throat loudly as if it would somehow lift the fog in his mind and he carefully pulled her away from his neck to look her in the eyes.
"Am I still allowed to carry you to bed?" He asked with a newfound sense of confidence and Claire laughed as if he had asked her the dumbest question imaginable.
"Are you going to stay with me?" She asked, and he, too, laughed as if she had told the best joke he had heard in all his twenty-one years.
A few things:
- I thought about scrapping this chapter a lot...but Xaori convinced me to keep it. If you hate it, please forward all complaints to her. :P Oh, and I promise I won't put Leon and Claire outside stargazing again in the next chapter hahahahahdfhkjsafhkasf sorry I suck
- I am considering following Claire and Leon throughout the Resident Evil timeline from here...which means I would have a Cleon series where this is the first story of many. I would totally abandon canon following the completion of this story. How do you all feel about this? I personally asked a couple of my readers on about it and received positive feedback, but I want to gauge how everyone else feels, too.
- A few readers have suggested putting this story in the same universe as One Red Thread, my non-canonical retelling of the Resident Evil series through the eyes of Chris and Jill. It's at the point in the Resident Evil timeline where RE2/3/Outbreak occurs and I'm contemplating letting it happen, but it would mean some aspects of Firsts would be repeated through Chris and Jill's point of view. Please let me know if you have any thoughts about this!
- As always, thanks so much for all the love and support (and thanks to my guest reviewers who I couldn't PM a response to!). This story started out as a half-assed drabble to satisfy the warm fuzzies I felt after getting the "true" ending in RE2 remake and didn't expect it to kick off like this. At this point, it's entirely a gift for the Cleon community, and I am happy to take any of your suggestions on where you'd like for this to go in the future.