New Horizons, VI
By: Hotaru
Warnings: Steve bashing, abuse, strong language
~^~
While Chris tried to get in contact with Jill, Leon sat down on the recliner and watched Claire. "What'cha doing?" He asked. Claire shrugged. It looked like she was drawing lots of angry suns. "Can I see?" Leon asked. Claire shrugged again and handed the note pad over.
Chris made the mistake of giving her a red pen. There were a lot of suns with slitty eyes, big, sharp teeth and daggers.* And pools of blood, as well. "Aren't you a little ray of sunshine?" He said teasingly, handed the pad back to her.
"Leave me alone." Claire retorted. Leon stood up and sighed.
"I'm gonna order a pizza. You want any toppings?" He asked, to neither in particular.
Claire shrugged, yet again, and Chris looked up. "Pepperoni." He said quickly. Leon smirked and went to the phone. "Having any luck?" Leon asked, dialing in the number. "Yes and no. I wrote to her secondary e-mail account, because the first is for business only. Some times I can find her on an instant messenger that's closed to the general public…" Chris said, staring intently at the screen.
"But she's probably not on right now. Damn." He concluded, leaning back in his chair. "You can always check again later." Leon said quickly, before placing the order in at the pizzeria. There was tension between the three as Claire remained in a sullen pile on the couch. "Claire, talk to me, please!" Chris exclaimed, not being able to take the silence any more.
Claire wrote some thing on her note pad and Chris went over to read it. "Please leave me alone." He dictated before dropping his arms to his sides. "You know, maybe this is why no one ever said anything. You'd just be in this…pitiful self-sorrow shit stage, and you'd be impossible to talk to! Suck it up, Claire." He said angrily before storming out of Leon's apartment.
Looking up at the door, Claire's lower lip quivered. "He's right you know…well, partially anyway. If you ever expect yourself to feel better, you need to get your feelings out, so you can start the road to recovery. People are going to want to help you less and less if you keep acting like this." Leon said, harsher then he intended.
Claire reached for the note pad Chris had dropped on the table and wrote something down on it. She held it in her lap hesitantly before holding in the air for Leon to read. He grabbed a pen from the table and went over and grabbed the tablet.
"It's happened before."
Leon fell back onto the recliner in shock. Quickly, he scribbled something down and handed it back to Claire.
"It has? When?"
It seemed like a dumb thing to say, but not much could be said to something like that.
"A lot of times. That's how Katie…y'know.."
Claire turned her head from Leon so he wouldn't see the tears stream down her face. Leon grabbed the note pad and read it quickly. His heart nearly collapsed.
"I am so, so sorry. Did he threaten you before he'd rape you?" He scribbled, unable to write neatly.
"Yes. He said that if I didn't have sex with him, that he'd burn the house down at night with me inside. Or that he'd tell Chris I was dead, so he could lock me away in a closet until he wanted me." Claire's writing was barely legible now as she weakly dropped the paper to the floor.
After reading the message, Leon practically flew over to Claire and hugged her tightly. "It's okay..let it out." He whispered soothingly. And she did. Neither of them noticed Chris enter the apartment with a bashful and apologetic look on his face, so he silently sat down at the table to see if Jill had replied.
Leon held Claire tightly, and stroked her hair, and rocked her back and forth, thinking of a song that fit Claire perfectly.
Wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
About a home I'll never see
It may sound absurd…but don't be naive
Even Heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed…but won't you concede
Even Heroes have the right to dream
It's not easy to be me**
However, Leon's inner singing was disrupted upon hearing Chris sort of jump out of his chair. "What is it?" Leon asked, releasing Claire. She excused herself to the bathroom, as Leon walked over to Chris.
"It's Jill." Chris said with a big smile on his face.
"Yeah?" Leon asked. Chris nodded and tried to connect with Jill to the private instant messager.
Jill: Chris, where have you been!?!?!?!?
Chris: Relax, I'm in the states with Claire, it finally happened.
Chris looked up at Leon so he would get a hint and, to be incredibly blunt, go away. "Oh! Sorry, just let me know if anything comes up." Leon exclaimed innocently, scampering off.
Jill: Ack, what did that bastard do to her now?
Chris: …Beat and raped her.
Jill: Oh my god!
Jill: Is she okay?!
Chris: Physically, yeah but she's an emotional train wreck. See, it's just me and her pal Leon here, and I thought she could use some womanly care…
Jill: --And you took it upon yourself to sniff me out to drag me all the way over there while there's a huge case here to take care of your sister?
Chris: You make me sound so horrible! I just thought she could use some freaking womanly…advice or kind words or something! Is that so wrong?
Jill: Chris…come on! I can't! You know we're too damn busy to take any vacations!
Chris: This isn't a vacation! She was raped, for god sakes, and she'll barely talk to me her own brother! Do you expect her to be all happy being in an apartment with two guys!?
Jill: No, I guess not. But can't you call like a social worker or something? I'm really busy, Chris. I want to help, but…
Chris: A social worker will just make her more distant. I'm thinking she needs therapy for all of this. But I would really appreciate it if you came down.
Jill: Do you have any idea how much work I'm going to miss!?
Chris: I'll pay you!
Jill: …how much?
Chris: I can't believe I have to bribe you! Uh…a hundred bucks?
Jill: Make it two, a new gun and I'm in!
Chris put his head in his hands and sighed. "Hey Leon, come here a sec.." He called. Leon shuffled over to Chris and asked, "Yeah, what's up?
"Jill's going to come, only if I pay her two hundred bucks and buy her a new gun." Chris explained.
"Yeesh, I thought she'd be willing to help out…" Leon remarked, not liking how Jill sounded.
"Oh, don't take it the
wrong way. Jill'd be here in a flash if there wasn't a lot of investigating to
do. We're short handed as it is up there, so she's been working over time to
make up for everyone else's work.
"Ah, I understand. My boss gave me some extra money to help out with Claire, so if you need the money…" Leon offered.
"No,no,no I don't want to put you out or anything. It's just that I'm short on cash, and I had to take a lot with me to pay for the ticket here, and stuff like that. Plus I won't be getting paid for this."
A thought suddenly occurred to Leon. "Hey, before, Claire told me that she saw Steve die…do you think that some how Umbrella did something to him, y'know to bring him back to life or anything?" He asked quietly. Chris thought for a moment. "It could very well be. From what I was told, he was injected with the T-Veronica virus and mutated into a monster. Maybe they did something to the virus to make him pass out after a certain amount of time, so that we'd think he was dead, and so they could perform experiments on him…" he added.
"It's a long shot, but you never know. You can send this to your boss, and get a few bucks, maybe?" Leon replied. Chris shrugged and realized he was still talking to Jill.
Chris: Sorry about that, we were talking about the situation here. And fine, fine. Just get over here and don't let Claire know about this "deal."
Jill: Ah, you're back. I should have made it $300…but anyway, I'll be there as soon as I can.
TBC
*I draw these all the time. I'll put one online one day so you can see the madness.
**Of course, that's Five for Fighting's "Superman"
