"Did you ever know that you're my hero
And everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle
For you are the wind beneath my wings"
So, kind of had something like this stuck in my head for a while now, and it was literally only this morning when I lay in bed, wide awake at stupid AM that I thought of the entire storyline.
Yes it is a one shot of sorts. No, it's not related to Made in Heaven/Let Me Live. This literally has nothing to do with what I've already wrote and anything I may have planned for the future, so please don't read too much into it because it's not worth it XD Shock horror it's not Incestfield, what is wrong with me XD
Not even drafted this or anything, no Google Docs, just straight out into ao3, let's see if I can complete it before my kid wakes from her nap XD currently 11:38am here.
Chris Redfield lightly breathed in his cigarette in the cold Winter rain, his collar pulled up around his nape. Not even the nicotine could help him anymore, and he tossed the butt into the plant pot by the glass doors of the building.
The sun had disappeared behind the adjacent offices, the people of the city excitedly bustled with their Christmas gifts. He nodded sadly to himself. He had bought all of his gifts for this year, but one person would not be receiving theirs. Should he return the gift to the distributor? Or should he keep it for himself? He clenched his hands. If only he did his fucking job! If he hadn't had screwed up so badly he wouldn't be standing here now in the pissing rain, draining the heat and emotion from him! It masked his tears and he angrily brushed them away. He had no right to cry. This was his fault.
The door opened behind him.
Jill Valentine.
Soon to be Jill Redfield.
One less guest at the wedding on Valentine's Day in a few months.
She brushed a hand up his back, to his shoulder. He turned and embraced her, his tears wetting her earlobe. How could he have messed up this badly? How? He felt a thump against his naval, and Jill chuckled.
"Your girl doesn't want you to be sad, Chris." Jill whispered softly. She placed his hand on her 6 month bump, and their daughter kicked again, and he smiled thinly.
"Go on in, you know she's waiting for you," Jill continued, stroking his cheek, his forming beard. He hadn't shaved. Not since this all happened. "They did an amazing job with her, you don't have to worry about how she will look. She just looks...well...normal...like she's asleep." He held Jill's arms tightly, before moving past her and pressing a hand against the glass door. He paused.
"I know what I want our daughter's middle name to be." He mumbled.
He stood outside door 7, his hand heating the metal of the handle. How long had he stood here, trying to find the courage to enter? His eyes burned. Nostrils flaring as he breathed deep he opened the door and entered.
He could see the white casket in the centre of the room, but he was just a little too far to see inside it. Slowly, carefully, like he didn't want to disturb anyone within a mile of himself he stepped forward, and the person in the casket became clear.
Jill was right. She did look like she was sleeping. Her lips were pursed together, her cheeks rouged by the undertakers, her eyelids peacefully closed.
He rested his hands on the table, and stared.
How did he fuck up this badly? How did he get tricked into operating on false information? He gave TerraSave false information, she had taken it upon herself to look into things and now she was here. Dead. He didn't even call for her to do this! Why did she get involved?
She was perfect. The makeup hid everything. Every little part of her that had mutated, every skin tear as half her face tore apart, gone. He had asked the BSAA coroners to fix her as best as they could and they returned her to her usual, perfect, pretty self. He closed his eyes and the images of her during the mutating process flooded his mind. Of her skin peeling away as the virus took over her small, athletic figure. Of her screams of agony that melded with the shrieks of a B.O.W as she, after so many years combatting it all, had now become what he destroyed for a living. Of how she had gained super strength and picked him up by the throat. Of how she had thrown him across that lab. Of how she had gone for Jill, and how he hesitated.
He knew he had to shoot her. He couldn't. Jill couldn't.
Jill cried.
He cried.
He held his breath as he raised his assault rifle.
And he emptied three cartridges into her.
He ran at her after she was downed, and he held her now shrinking form, shrinking back to her human form. Her blood pooled around them both, his gear stained crimson.
The virus still ripped through her body and she knew it.
"Help me, Chris." she pleaded.
"Pull the trigger." she begged.
And he did.
Not even the bullet wound in her face remained. The bullet of her euthanasia. He had put her down like an old dog gets taken around the back of a farmyard barn.
She was perfect.
And she was dead.
Chris reached into the casket, and gently touched her hands.
"I'm so sorry, Claire. My baby sister."
He squeezed Jill's hand, perhaps a little too tightly, as he watched Claire's casket slowly sink down into the ground next to their parents, finally reunited with their little girl. Still it rained, oh hell did it rain. He should be the one meeting them, not her. How could he have been so stupid? Why didn't he read into it all more?!
He dropped to his knees and let out a sound. He didn't know what sounds, just one he had never heard escape his lips. Jill grabbed him hard by the shoulders.
"Wake up, Chris! It's not real! Whatever this is it's not real! Chris, please, you need to wake up!"
And his eyes shot open to the darkness of his bedroom, Jill starting at him with concern in her eyes, her hands tightly holding his bare shoulders.
Chris glared at Jill's figure in the dark, sweat dripping off his nose, the sheets drenched.
"You were having a nightmare, Chris." Jill breathed. He leant forward and hugged her, eyeing her belly as he did so. Four years of trying and still he hadn't given her a baby. Her fertility was fine, that had been established after Africa when the BSAA ran a shit load of tests on her.
Maybe he really did shoot blanks.
Maybe only Claire could provide a new Redfield.
"Was it about Claire again?" Jill whispered into his hairline. He breathed slowly.
"Yeah." he responded. He pulled away from the hug and began dressing, socks first, then pants.
"Why are you dressing, it's 4am?" Jill asked, puzzled. She flicked her brown hair out of her eyes, the faint scent of hair dye still lingering in her strands. She had got bored of the blonde.
"I need to take a walk." Chris replied, pulling a shirt over his head. Jill didn't question him; he had a tendency of wandering off after nightmares. She nodded.
"Don't be too long, the bed gets cold without your sexy ass in it." she smirked, lying down and pulling the sheets to her neck. He leant over the bed and kissed her deeply, their noses softly nuzzling.
"I'll try not to be."
At least the cemetery was open 24 hours, right? Chris approached his parents' grave and gave a nod in greeting. His eyes shifted next to the blank plot next to them, and he kneeled down, feeling the cold, dewy grass between his fingers. He fell backwards onto his butt and pulled a cigarette out of his jacket, eyes never moving from the plot. He placed it between his lips and pulled out his lighter. The one he gave to Claire before Raccoon City.
Resting his wrists on both knees he stared, for how long he didn't know. He pulled his phone out and browsed his special folder, dedicated to photos of only him and Claire, with the occasional one of their parents. He found one of them as children with their parents on a beach holiday; Claire had more ice cream on her face than in her mouth, and it always made him smile. She never lost her passion for ice cream. He flicked to the next one from the same beach holiday, he was tall and thin, and maybe eight years old, and he posed on a sun lounger as Claire screwed her face at the camera, the sun in her eyes, wearing nothing but a diaper and an ill fitting sun hat. Next photo was of him and Claire asleep in one of the double beds in the hotel room, his sister's face pressed into his arm pit. He had used this photo as an excuse to constantly walk up to her and lift his arm in front of her face, claiming she liked "sniffing my pits". Of course she always got defensive and vowed to remove that photo from existence. He took a long drag of his smoke before flicking to the next photo.
It was one Claire had done up on one of those apps that lets you put two photos side by side. The image on the left was of their parents, long before Chris was born, and on the right was him and Claire in a similar pose, wearing similar clothes. He always found it fascinating how alike they both were to them. He sighed, and slipped his phone back into his pocket. He stood up and glanced at his parents' headstone once more.
He was glad he still had a key to Claire's apartment as he turned the lock. He stepped straight into her lounge from the front door, the streetlight right outside the window casting the room in an ominous glow. Almost everything in here was packed into little cardboard boxes, save for the couch, the tv and its stand. An empty bookshelf stood in the corner, the artificial plant still sat on the second from top shelf. He glanced into the kitchenette; almost everything was in boxes here too, expect for one pan. He had helped pack them all himself, and he had been thankful that he had played far too much Tetris as a kid.
He walked silently through to the bedroom, the door ajar. More boxes were scattered throughout the room, only Claire's dressing table and bed remained. He pulled the stool out from under the table and gazed at the bed.
He watched the slow rising and falling of his sister's chest as she slept, completely unaware of the nightmare that had infected his mind that night. He would sit up sharply every time she held her breath, and would relax when she remembered to breath. It was a horrible tendency of hers, and he hated it.
Her hair lay sprawled to the side on her pillow; even Chris rarely saw her with her hair down, but he would be remembered of just how pretty she was, though she would never admit it. She blew faint breaths through her parted lips, her eyelid twitching with REM.
He thought back to his nightmare, of her peeled skin hanging from her muscles, of the shrieks that echoed across the lab, of her insane strength as she clasped her mutated hand around his windpipe.
Please be safe when you move away, Claire.
He crouched to a kneel in front of her bed and kissed her on the cheek, a swift frown cross her brow. He laughed silently. He'd better get out of here before she questioned why he was watching her sleep.
He lit his third smoke as he walked home, the sun now just beginning to creep up over the horizon.
A lot of people think that he was the one who got them through their parents' deaths, but in actual reality it was Claire. He knew for sure he wouldn't be alive today if she had changed her mind about staying home instead of travelling with them. It had scared him to think how close he was to losing her, how narrow that window was for her to throw a tantrum and declare that she was staying home, literally minutes before she was meant to leave.
She had been his rock through it all, even through her own hardships. She gave him something to carry on for, to live on for. She was there for him when he just wanted a hug, or a talk. She was still there for him when she started college, and to this day she'll still drop everything to make sure he's ok.
He might be the renowned one between them, but she was the real legend. In his eyes, anyway. She always will be. He'll always adore her, and he'll always worship the ground she walks upon.
Later that day he nervously waited for Claire in her favourite restaurant. Jill had to go back to the office to clear some things up, but she would join them as soon as she was free. He swallowed the last of his second coffee, and thought about getting another before Claire walked over with one for him. She planted a kiss on his cheek and sat down in the booth with him.
"So, bro, what's this news you have?" Claire asked, an eyebrow raised. He grinned ear to ear, and pulled a photo up of his phone to show her. Taken this morning after he had got home.
Claire frowned at the screen, trying to work out she was looking at; a white stick with a little display, and two pink lines. She frowned some more, but then..
the penny dropped.
He laughed as he saw the shocked look on her face.
"Wait, no what?! Are you serious?!" she exclaimed cupping her hands to her mouth, wide eyed.
"Serious. You're finally going to be an aunt."
Completed at 13:27 and my God I can tell XD it's a load of shite hahaha.
Just a fun little thing to break my brain from writing Let Me Live. Why can't I be that productive with my main work XD
Also, yay! Song! It's Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midle