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Chris engulfed his baby sister in a hug, after greeting her, Leon and Sherry at his front door. He turned to Leon, "Do we hug?"
"No. I think we're too manly." the cop said, smiling. They just shook hands. Sherry ran up to Chris, and grabbed him in a huge bear hug.
"Chris!" she squealed.
"Ouww.. Sherry... you're getting big." He let her back down, and she just narrowed her eyebrows.
"Hey, I'm 13! I just happen to be short for my age."
He smiled at her. Claire had introduced Chris to Sherry when they both got back from the whole Ashford debacle. They hit off immediately, and Claire noticed they both acted more immaturely than usual when with each other.
"Hey, Chris..." Sherry said.
"Hmm? What?"
"Look what I can do..." the girl touched the tip of her nose with her tongue.
"Hey, pretty impressive, kid! I'm sure that'll come in handy during your sorority years..."
Claire punched Chris in the arm, and screeched like a rabid monkey, "Are you makin' fun of me, Mr. PeePants?"
"Mr. PEE PANTS?! Dont you dare!" he screamed.
Claire just ignored him and bent down to Sherry, "When Chris went to summercamp..."
"CLAIRE, NO!"
"...there were 4 incidents in which he could not control his bladder..."
"CLAAAAIRE!!"
"...one of them including his first kiss with a girl..."
"AAAAHHH!!"
Leon, annoyed more than interested, walked past Chris, Claire and Sherry, towards the living room. Jill was standing in front of the mirror. He smiled...
'She's beautiful. She's always beautiful...' his body shivered. Jill turned around, a bit surprised to see Leon standing there and watching.
"Leon! Hey! You gave me a scare."
"Heh, sorry." he grinned sheepishly.
They hugged each other. Jill met Leon when she and Carlos set out to find Chris in Paris. She thought he was cute, but that was it. Leon, on the otherhand, worshipped the ground Jill walked on. He liked Claire, but she was too... well... sorority-college-girl-ish for him. He wanted somebody mature. Somebody who has a strong sense of right and wrong. Somebody that can and will stand up for what they believe in. Somebody like Jill...
Leon was always oblivious to the fact Chris and Jill spent a lot of time together. Even with some aids from Claire, Leon just thought of the two of them as close friends, nothing more.
"You're looking beautiful today, as usual. Happy birthday." he grinned.
"Thanks Leon. You're not too bad yourself."
He chuckled softly, watching Jill's face brighten up into a smile. A twinkling around Jill's neck caught Leon's eye. He looked at her heart pendant, gawking.
"Whoa, who got you that?"
Jill clutched the pendant in her hand, "Chris did. Isnt he sweet? It's for my birthday..." The hair on the back of Leon's neck bristled like a porcupine, something that always happened when he was struck with a pang of jealousy. He handed a book to her, which was clutched in her hands.
"It's for you."
It was a book of classic love poems, including Leon's personal favourite, which started out as 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...'. Jill squealed.
"Leon!" she threw her arms around him, "Thank you so much! This is wonderful!"
Leon smiled, breathing in Jill's intoxicating scent.
"You're welcome..."
Later that day, approximately at 3:45pm, Sherry was sitting crosslegged in the living room, a see-thru Playstation controller gripped tightly in her two hands. Claire sat down next to her.
"Whatcha playin, Sherry?"
Sherry's eyes were locked to the screen, but she answered Claire anyway.
"It's this really cool game, Biodanger 2!"
Claire didnt like video games, but she feigned interest, "What's it about?"
And in one breath, Sherry blurted out... "There's this town, called Squirell Town that's been plagued with a mutigenic toxin called the P-Disease, which is a variation of the B-Disease, which was in Biodanger 1. The B-Disease was created by this really evil company called Raincoat. You take control of either Larry S. Kerny, or Clora Bluefield. Larry's kinda cute, but I prefer Clora's game. It's more challenging. And there are these other characters, too, some bitch-spy named Sada Fong, and this really annoying little boy that follows Clora around, Harry Firkin. His family works for Raincoat. You kill zombies and other stuff in it, plus this really gross monster that used to be Harry's mom, who created the P-Disease! It's FUCKING WICKED!
Claire's eyes bulged out.
"Sherry, that kinda sounds like-"
The girl continued to rant, "Oh, and dont get me started on how cool Biodanger 3: Premesis was! Although I really hated Biodanger: Survivor - The Australian Outback. It was this really lame first person shooter... something about the cast of Survivor 2 being infected with the B-Disease... the main character, Jeff Probst, has, like, amnesia, or whatever. But Biodanger: Code Harmonica was reeeeaaally good... it was all about Clora Bluefield's search for her brother, Christopherson! Clora is my FAVE character! Did I mention that there's this brother and sister in the game, I think their names are Alexander and Anorexia Bashford, and they like... LOVE each other! It's so FUCKING gross!"
Rolling her eyes, Claire got up and walked into the kitchen, where Leon was sipping some coffee, gazing out into the window with dead eyes.
"Something wrong, Kennedy?"
Leon turned around, facing her.
"No. Just wondering when Jill's coming back." Leon's gaze was transfixed on the window, eyeing every detail of Chris' yard, yearning for the sight of Jill's car pulling up into the driveway.
Claire paused, "Oh. Well, I'm sure going out for groceries wont take that long."
'Jill? You're wondering when JILL'S coming back? What the fuck?' Claire smiled politely, and said through gritted teeth, "What's so important about Jill?"
Leon just shrugged nonchalantly... "I kinda like it when she's around, that's all."
'Oh', She felt her face get hot, '...he likes it when she's around. That's all...' and Claire could tell she was red with anger. She needed to shoot back somehow... quickly... now... aha!
"Uh... have you noticed how close Jill and Chris have gotten, lately?" Claire didnt know what she was doing. She never got this jealous. She never tried to make anyone feel bad because *she* felt bad. But psychological warefare was psychological warefare, and Claire was the most competitive (pardon my french) bitch out there. In her high school basketball teamshe forced the other girls to call their squad 'Team Claire'.*
"Huh?" Leon spun around, to face the angry college girl behind him, "What are you saying?" Leon's nostrils flared. They did that whenever he felt threatened, or mad. Claire had always thought of it as cute, but today, it was hardly charming. In fact, she got mad at the fact she didnt find it charming anymore. She was *that* angry. She felt her movements become slower, and she began to ache. She hated being jealous... and so did her body...
Claire's mind, however, was going a mile a minute. 'Leon likes Jill. Leon doesn't like me. Leon LIKES JILL. But Chris likes Jill. And Jill likes Chris. Leon doesn't stand a chance in hell. But what if he's so crushed, he doesnt wanna be with anyone anymore? What if Leon's just covering up his feelings for me? Yah right, Claire. Leon - likes - Jill. Leon doesnt like me. He likes Jill. HE LIKES JILL. LEON - LIKES - JILL!"
"Leon... do you LIKE Jill, or something?"
There. She dropped the bomb. Now it's only a matter of time before it explodes in Leon's face.
"I..."
He didnt know what to say. If it were one of his other friends, he woulda said, 'Yeah, I like her' but to Claire... well... he felt scared to say anything.
"I..."
Claire felt her eyes watering up. 'I'm not gonna cry in front of Leon... I'm not gonna cry in front of Leon...' And she probably wouldn't have, if Leon wouldn't have stood there like a bumbling idiot, unable to say anything. She didnt wanna cry, she always felt it was a sign of weakness, especially over something as trivial as a harmless crush.
"I do like her, Claire. In fact, I think I love her. Yeah, I'm in love with her." and immediately, Leon had never regretted saying something so much than he had just did...
A seemingly eternal, breathless hush came over the kitchen they were standing in. Claire was standing, quivering with sadness. It was a blow to her woman-hood. She hated rejection... she hated it so much...
Sadness was soon replaced with rage, as Claire drew back her fist, clenched her fingers together, slamming the tightened mass of her hand as hard as possible across Leon's face. Leon was drawn back, and shock soon became pain. Heavy, bleeding pain. He fell to the floor, dazed.
"OWJESUSCHRIST!"
"You fucking moron! YOUFUCKINGMORONIHATEYOUSOMUCH!!" Claire shrieked at the top of her lungs, barely able to hear herself, eyes filled with tears. She tore out of the kitchen, pushing open the front door. Leon stood back up, rubbing his soon-to-be-purple jaw, watching Claire run down the street.
"C...Claire?"
'Shit,' he thought to himself, 'Holy shit...'
And in the living room, Sherry (oblivious to the attack two rooms over) had pumped her fist into the air, having finally defeated Diodanger 2's Clora/Scenario B/final boss.
"YES!!"
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*Just an (un)interesting tidbit, I'd always make any sports team I was on call us "Team Susan". It has a nice ring to it... doesnt it?
Oh, and Capcom, dont sue me, because I *know* a company like yourself would not want a poor girl like me living in the streets, broke, hungry, begging, and being sexually molested by those gross street-thugs dwelling in the shadows. How would you like that hanging over your heads? Huh? HUH?!