This anomalous chapter's title is a clear homage to Arthur Conan Doyle's "The sign of the four".
Hope this continuous dance of flashbacks isn't too messy.
Chapter 19 – The sign of the two
Part 1 – Overnight getaway
Rebecca was unsure whether to laugh or to sigh in love. Had it been anybody else to drive to her house on a tandem she'd have laughed until her lungs ran out of breath and bled, but since it was Leon Kennedy… she found the vision of him getting off the bizarre bicycle suggestive rather than ridiculous. Albeit it was not what she imagined when he had told her "I'll pick you up". The boy walked the bike alongside the fence of her garden and parked it near the gate just as the dynamo headlight turned off.
It was late, past one a.m., and a wintry wind descended from the mountainside to flay Raccoon City on that November's Monday night, a month that had already introduced itself with a rapid – and sibylline – change in the weather. They ought not to ignore that handwriting on the wall and seek shelter from that premonitory wind before it would play havoc with their lives, hearts, minds. There were too many kids sneaking in the dark in that night and sure as hell they were all up to no good: Chris and Claire were right then sexting before meeting up in the basement, whereas Leon and Rebecca… what where they up to again?
Brewing troubles, for sure.
At a wave of Leon's hand, Rebecca hopped down her porch and crossed the lawn, furtively glancing back at her house's windows to check they were all properly dark and shut. The last thing she wanted was her moustached old man to peak out his bedroom and yell an incredulous "Rebbie?!" in his eccentric nightcap.
"Does your Dad suspect anything?" Leon asked, low and panting, as soon as the girl was within earshot.
"Naaah… I left him snoring before Law and Order so…" Rebecca chuckled. "He won't notice I'm missing."
That tv show had always a soporific effect on her father, and that night as well it had punctually (broad)casted its spell just as Rebecca had casually stopped channel hopping.
"Good." Leon nodded. "I'll bring you home before dawn anyway."
Despite the poor illumination of that corner of the street, he didn't miss her ironic grimace at his unusual vehicle and, chuckling his slight embarrassment out, he handed her a bike helmet. "I hope it's your size."
It became impossible for Rebecca not to laugh now in front of that daisy-patterned most-likely-pink helmet. She had to press a hand onto her mouth to muffle a laughter before she'd have woken the whole neighbourhood and her lovely walrus of a Dad as well. "Sorry, Leon." She managed to giggle. "But I wasn't expecting you to pick me up in a… a-a… ahahahaha!"
"Yeah…" the boy sighed, letting a faint smile bloom on his face for the contagious giggle of her. "It's just I still haven't got my driving licence yet."
"Can't pass the exam?" she wondered, lacing the helmet below her chin.
Leon derisively shook his head and got back on the bicycle. "Until I do, I'll ride this baby."
"Only by night, I guess!" Rebecca scoffed as she took a seat behind him, suppressing kinky thoughts about him rather riding her. "Why do you even own one?"
Leon shrugged the question away and started riding along the sidewalk, with Rebecca still tittering and joking about the fact they hadn't to fear to be seen by anyone on that hipsters' ecologic jalopy in such desert streets.
He didn't mind her comments but neither did he laugh along with her.
That tandem was the second last remaining memory of his parents' happiest marriage times – the other was himself. He had only a vague remembrance of his family actually using it on outdoor Sundays, even though he couldn't quite separate true memories from the dreams he had carved out of some old photos of a toddler himself sitting in the front basket with his father driving behind him.
After the divorce, whilst with one hand his mother Martha buried her marriage, with the other she had resurrected that tandem from the dusty garret to use it with her son on sunny days – just to create some new happy memories with the real man of her life. But not even in her craziest fantasies Mrs Kennedy would've imagined that her family friendly bicycle would one day serve as some sort of getaway car in the hands of her son.
Everything had started earlier that same morning, when Leon left without even finishing to have his breakfast.
Worn out as she was from the night shift she had just ended at the Spencer Memorial Hospital where she worked as a nurse, Martha Kennedy hadn't paid much attention to the strangely wound-up gaze of her son while, with the haste of whom can't wait to get out, he had snarfed down big spoonfuls of his porridge without even bothering to sit down. Martha was already with a foot in the bed and the mind projected onto her consecutive night shift when the boy waved at her with a shouted see-you-later-Mom and slammed the door shut.
Leon had a specific aim to achieve and he ran like his ass was on fire. Though there was no countdown building any fire under his ass. It was just a yearning for getting finally rid of a torturous and haunting thought that pushed him to rush that recklessly down the streets so early in the morning.
It's Monday, Kennedy… just chill out!
Leon arrived at the bus stop when there were only a couple of other kids and he was forced to stop, catch a breath and lastly pander to a boring waiting. The sidewalk got quickly crowded, and soon it granted him the presence of Chris and Piers, whose company helped filling the spare time. Leon seemed to care so little about them, as if his mind was somewhere else. In fact, he kept looking around himself in the hope to spot the by then very familiar face of Rebecca.
"Honestly! Guys, what about coming back to Earth?" Piers prickly complained at some point, bothered by the total lack of interest of his friends in his telling of his last date.
"Sorry, what?" Leon stammered out.
"I said I fucked your mother in the ass." Piers hissed.
"Oh, you mean your aunt?" Leon reposted, but his renewed attention trailed off as soon as Rebecca appeared in the distance.
Eye-rolling at the persistent distraction of his cousin's, Piers groaned in exasperation at Chris as his provocation had got him nowhere. But he wasn't any luckier as even the big boy was focused on someone else. "Chris! But really! At least you…"
"Mh?" Chris hummed, surprised in the act of basking in the sight of his sister joyfully dallying with her friends. "Go on. You were talking about this guy?"
"He's name's Jack." Piers pointed out, by then completely huffy.
"Who's Jack?" the warm voice of Carlos uttered from behind them, as he approached walking slowly despite him being very late. "Hope Daniel's, 'cause I'm always up for a jackgasm, man!"
Happy to have a new pair of ears to bother with his laments, Piers resumed telling his last amorous misadventure and whining about how his friends preferred checking girls out instead of listening to his heartaches. Dammit, he always listened when it was them confiding about girls! Why couldn't he get just a little attention?! His heart was confused and hurt and… he'd use some good advice for once.
"We understood he dumped you after just one week, Piers." Leon intervened, to quickly dismiss the discussion so he could focus on his aim – who now appeared to even shyly smile at him whilst she feigned interest in listening to Claire as well. "Just ditch it. There's other fish in the sea."
"Hey, he didn't dump me! I dumped him!" Piers protested and cursed dumbfounded at the lack of empathy his cousin extemporized.
Meanwhile, the bus arrived.
The sliding doors opened and the neighbourhood kids filled its seats, some yawning, others reluctantly, but just one impatiently. Making room towards the bottom seats he usually occupied with the other guys, Leon lamely pretended to stumble and landed on Rebecca from behind. The girl already had a protesting spirited exclamation on the tip of her tongue to deliver right to the face of the unable to walk straight zombie, but she simply failed as, turning, she faced the beaming smile of the most impossible guy on the planet who inserted something in the back pocket of her jeans with one hand while he apologetically stroked her cheek with the other.
Rebecca didn't utter a single word for the rest of the ride.
She simply stood there, dreaming, trying to contain her enthusiasm for the fact that Leon not only had talked to her, but also that he had even – almost – touched her ass. Almost, as he had been so delicate and precise in his most mysterious delivery that his hand had barely skimmed her buttock. Bad, because he could've downright groped her ass and she'd have not complained. At all!
As they had got off the bus, Leon addressed her with a look full of complicity before walking away to the school's entrance. Without indulging any further, Rebecca shoved a hand into her pocket and extracted a note.
See you at breaktime at the broom closet, Leon.
A. Fucking. Date.
Leon had given her a fucking date!
"Let's see whatcha got here!" Claire tittered, snatching the note from Rebecca's hands, whose dazed expression had intrigued her too much not to want to know more. "Woah! The guy's on fire!" Claire suggestively winked, handing the note over to Jill.
The not-so-concealed move of Leon's hadn't gone unnoticed by neither Claire nor Jill who had only pretended to look away, and now they both read with extreme voracity that bunch of words so hurriedly scribbled on a yellow piece of paper ripped off some Umbrella drugs promotional note blocks.
Rebecca feigned a neutral face but she couldn't help bitterness to arouse under her skin. Claire seemed so sincerely happy for her and this showed her total loyalty, yet still Rebecca felt betrayed and sour. All things considered, Claire hadn't done anything wrong except for hiding the bitter truth that Leon was so into her that he even tried to kiss her, and she'd done it only to save her a heartache because she loved her, but the let-down was still too scorching. They were friends, they had promised one another to hold no secrets. Conversely, all the bewildering revelations she'd newly come across showed her a version of Claire pretty accustomed to deceit. Rebecca felt terrible as she wondered about her best friend… how many other lies had Claire succeeded to make her buy?
The English lesson seemed to never end. By then, the girl stared more at the clock than at the blackboard and huffed every two minutes and a half, punctual as a geyser. It was like the clock's hands were going backwards!
She daydreamt of how her so imbued in secrecy encounter with Leon would be. Would he kiss her? Rebecca shook that option away from her head. Leon wasn't a sleaze! He wouldn't act nasty in a storage room – even though Friday's events proved quite the contrary… but, back then he was drunk (and so was she) so… so that doesn't count! Ok?
Besides, she – a sober Rebecca – would never ever settle for such an absolutely not romantic meeting like that! No way! Not twice. She wasn't the kind of girl to hook up with in a filthy cubbyhole! If he wanted her, he better ask her out on a real date.
Rebecca nodded at herself in agreement, trying to stay grounded, while the inner she-tiger that had possessed her at the sleepover's heyday laughed it off, certain that Sober-Becca would fall head over heels for the blond guy – no matter the ambience.
Finally, breaktime!
Claire and Jill maliciously waved at Rebecca to meet up at the next class and walked away, cackling in excitement. The latter girl instead, lost no time in rushing through the corridors towards the rendezvous point.
The storage room was a minuscule space in which the janitorial staff stored everything necessary for the big building's upkeep. It was so small that everyone simply called it the broom closet. It was located in a remote corner, usually not much trodden even during the breaks between lessons. So it was no surprise when Rebecca saw that there wasn't even the slightest trace of people around when she arrived.
Not of Leon either, though.
The brunette extracted the yellow note and read it over. She was doubtlessly in the right place at the right time. She waited a little, but Leon didn't show up. She was on the verge of stomping away, believing that the boy had simply forgotten but a little voice in her head suggested her to peer inside the small room, just for doubt's sake.
"Rebecca!" Leon exclaimed as he saw her head peeking through the door. "I feared you hadn't got my note! Come in!"
The boy drew her inside the cramped space and, after one last glance at the hollow hallway, he gingerly closed the door. That room really deserved to be nicknamed closet! It was so narrow and stuffed they barely had the room to walk. It was poorly brightened by a narrow window and it smelled like cheap floor cleaner and mould but to the girl it had suddenly become the most idyllic place in the world. She expected to hear the sea waves crash onto white shores any time now, while chirping birds and colourful parrots flew around like in a Disney movie and the tropical perfume of exotic flowers stirred in the air to bewitch her mind. And she knew fireworks would blast when he'd have kissed her again like on last Friday night – with thirsty abandon. And sure as hell he'd better kiss her soon! Sleaze or not that he was. Sobriety be damned.
With dreamy eyes, Rebecca watched him approach and take her arms in his soft grab, thumbing her slowly. He was so close that his breath caressed the point of her nose like a warm zephyr.
"I can't stop thinking about Friday night." Leon whispered.
"Me neither…" Rebecca cooed.
"I can't get it out of my head." Leon continued, frowning as if he was in pain.
She choked on a sigh of want that morphed into a gasp halfway in her throat. Her glimpse of idyll was brutally torn by a bitter note in his voice. He sounded quite anxious and totally not charming. Was the guy regretting anything?!
Looking straight in his eyes, she tried to fathom the origin of his tense tone.
"What they said it's so absurd, I know, but…" he stuttered and despondently shook his head, soft blond hair locks swaying over his forehead.
The hopelessly romantic girl scowled as she realised Leon wasn't referring to the delightful kisses they shared in the pantry room but to what they'd overheard in there, instead!
By then, a whole weekend separated them from that heady night, when they had overheard the Redfields unknowingly spitting out the revelation of the century. At that moment both hardly had believed their own ears – even if alcohol has the magic power to give logic even to the worst crap. Rebecca had been on the fence even while excitedly recounting Leon what she'd eavesdropped Claire say to Chris when the girl believed to be alone in the closet. As if giving any credence to that bogus by bringing more elements on the table was even more foolish that the revelation itself! Nevertheless, the more she recounted, the more her incredulity faded and it lastly yielded to the rising comprehension of a puzzle that began recomposing before their eyes. Tiny pieces that singularly wouldn't mean anything reasonable but, once combined together…
The frame still made no sense, or better, it made no acceptable sense but the overall picture, despite all the cracks in the weave, alluded clearly to an unbelievable story of paranormal... whatever it was.
Hadn't she been so indisputably certain about the fact that what she'd heard had been spelled in good faith by oblivious kids then and responsible adults now, Rebecca would've surely thought the Redfields were either in the mood for jokes or had gone crazy.
Leon on his side had carefully listened to her and believed her total sincerity. Why on Earth would the girl lie about having sneaked in and eavesdropped? Moreover, he hadn't missed to notice the curbed gasp she'd done at the very first allusions of the two adults.
Albeit their curiosity and fantasy began going bananas, trumping even their reciprocal attraction, the two kids hadn't had the chance to mull over that information. Both were too drunk back then and Rebecca's rationality needed sobriety, time and silence to elaborate a theory that wouldn't imply that switching souls was possible – as facts pointed straight and mean to the opposite direction. Whereas Leon's wasted brain wasn't sufficiently supplied with blood as turned on as he still was. Not that they would've had the time to sit down and figure things out though as, just a few minutes after the Redfields had gone, a horde of hollering kids broke into the kitchen and hauled them away in a sashaying human train at the rhythm of that famous Gloria Gaynor's song.
The rest of the weekend had kept them parted. So each of them had the chance to chew it on on their own while dealing with the worst headaches of their lives.
Rebecca spent the whole Saturday replaying the previous night's events in her mind, oscillating between being overjoyed for having kissed Leon finally overcoming her shyness and the embitterment for the disappointment towards Claire – her fucking best friend in the world. In the end, the latter feeling prevailed and got to depress her so much that she even came up with an excuse not to hang out with the girls that night.
Meanwhile, Leon had had a hard time not to obsessively think about the two young Redfields, in the throes of an extreme mixture of feelings, questioning his role as a friend in that absurd story. What should I do?
But inside that stinky brooms-stuffed room, on that fifth of November Monday morning, Leon sighed in surrender at the shrill trilling of the school bell that announced the lessons were resuming. "Fuck." He murmured under his breath.
"We ought to go now." Rebecca said, not concealing a hint of disappointment in her voice.
"Yeah… but I want to meet you again. We gotta talk."
"Listen Leon, if it's about what we heard, just drop it, ok?" she resentfully said. "I don't even care…"
Leon widened his eyes in disbelief and lastly mentally cringed at himself for his stupidity. He was so into his new obsession that he had almost forgotten he was talking to the same girl that had stolen his breath with her kisses. No wonder she was expecting a whole different meeting! He had to make up his bloop and let her know he hadn't forgotten the rest of what happened on that freaky Friday. Fortune favours the bold they say, therefore, he drew her into his sweetest kiss, wiping away her grudge with a caress on her cheek.
"Liar." He gruffed, smirking cheekily against her lips. And Rebecca thought he hadn't been any illegally hotter than that. "I know you're dying to know the truth about Chris and Claire!"
"Alright, you got m-"
"Just like I'm dying to kiss you again like on the other night." He continued, interrupting her. "Just the fucking school bell has a shitty timing."
By then downright molten in his embrace, with her mind intoxicated by his scent, the girl surprisingly got to restart a couple of her neurons and proposed Leon to exchange their numbers. "Just not to get our pockets full of papers... and save some trees." She giggled.
Part 2 – Elementary
Just a few hours before that nightly rushing on a lengthened bicycle, the two had texted. After a long exchange of verbal cuddles and banters, they tickled the real big loose end. And Leon and Rebecca found themselves sharing the same concern for their respective friends.
Leon: I think we should talk with them. If the story of the switch is true, they might need someone to talk to.
Rebecca: What? NO! Are you out of your mind?
Leon: I thought we were ok about finding out the truth
Rebecca: we are! but we can't just show up and ask them to blab something they kept hidden just because we're two snoopers!
Leon: so, what do you suggest we do?
Rebecca: Elementary, Leon. We need evidence. E (clap) VI (clap) DENCE (clap)! We find 'em, we smash 'em in their faces just like they lied at ours and then we lay back listening to their confession while sipping the winners' drink (devil grin)
Leon: (laughter) ok, Sherlock. How do we get EVIDENCE? (thumb up)
Rebecca: Well, our friends have been pretty good liars (frown) but... there's something that might have betrayed them all the time (smirk and starry-eyed grin)
Leon: and it is...? (side-glancing eyes)
Rebecca: Oh, it is handwriting, my dear (Horatio Cane sunglasses gif)
Rebecca explained that she once read that handwriting is like your hand's accent, and that funny statement had flashed in her head while doing her homework earlier on and something simply clicked. If the body switch was true, thus Claire had been actually Chris and vice versa… so their "accents" had switched as well!
Damn, now all those times she'd seen Claire so nervously hide her copybooks, all the reproaches she got for not taking notes during classes… it all was so corroborating! The puzzle was recomposing. One piece at a time.
They just needed to get to the smoking gun so their friends and all their lies would be screwed once and for all!
But where to find some without breaking into their house like burglars?
Well, there she delivered the second elementary of the day.
The night came much slower than their rushing to Raccoon City High School on a tandem.
Rebecca imposed herself not to call their research mission a date, despite the she-tiger inside her head who went nuts and hollered like a hooligan. It was just a matter of collecting documentation… alright, alright, it was late at night with her crush, and they'd be side by side in a lonely place but… but sure as hell it was no date!
After all, they weren't even alone.
"Jill's already there!" Rebecca announced from the backseat of that fanciful tandem, shoving her phone back into her pocket.
Leon hummed a nod and began riding faster even if, inwardly, he was dubious about the opportunity of extending their overnight "secret date" to a third person – especially when it was about something that might make them look like two complete gullible idiots. "By the way, why did you tell her?" he asked, trying to sound neutral.
"I couldn't not tell her!" Rebecca bluntly explained.
Leon could only shake his head and put his inquiry off. He had to admit those girls were as thick as thieves when it came to gossip, so it was already quite a victory that Rebecca hadn't bleated it all out to Claire herself!
"And does she believe us?" he questioned.
"Well… uh…" Rebecca mumbled. "She's sceptical but curious."
Sceptical… such a euphemism!
Jill had brushed it off as total rubbish for quite the whole evening and Rebecca kinda sensed her friend had lastly given in and accepted to come over only to please her. "If that's what it does to your mind, I'll never let you drink tequila ever again, Becky!" Jill had said.
With hearts in their throats both for the long ride and for the adrenaline of being implementing such a genial but risky plan, transgressing literally every single behaviour society expected them to stick to, they parked the tandem behind some bushes and walked to the school gym's emergency exit.
Jill was waiting for them in the dark, halfway between already regretting having heeded her friend's ravings and the nostalgia for the comfy warmth of her bed. If she still stood there shivering in the cold, it was only because she thought highly of Leon. If the boy was involved in such surreal bullshit, then… maybe… it wasn't that much of a bullshit. Otherwise, the only remaining reasonable explanation she could muster was that some synthetical drug had been blended in that toxic liquor – which would also explain that must-have-been-a-mirage so realistic kiss of Chris's!
Furthermore, keeping an eye on how he would behave around Rebecca would do no harm. He might even have had the reputation of a good boy but… better safe than sorry, right? Especially when the nice guy takes you out on a late-night date to put up a full-fledged effraction!
"Alright." Leon sighed. "Are we all ready?"
The girls nodded, one more determined than the other, but both extremely curious. In for a penny, in for a pound.
"Let's synchronize our watches!" Leon joked to break the ice.
"What? Why? We're not even parting ways!" Rebecca cringed.
"They do it in movies." Leon cackled. "I always dreamed of saying it!"
"Oh we got an action man, here…" Rebecca cooed.
"There's just one thing I still don't get." Jill intervened, utterly unimpressed by the cheesy and lame flirting going on. "How do you plan to get in?"
Taking a deep breath, Leon extracted a set of keys from one of his fancy pockets. "With these." He replied. "We'll get into the school by the gym."
"How have you got them?!" Rebecca gushed, astonished, staring at the tiny brilliant sticks of steel.
"Well, Luis the janitor owed me one." He gloated while fiddling with the keyhole to open the fire exit.
The acquaintances he had slowly been gaining down at the RPD, got him to be able to ask a cop who had taken a liking on him to close an eye to the school gym's handyman's speeding ticket. And how to ever say no to such a kind, angel-faced and nice guy like him?
"That's so cool, Leon!" Rebecca exulted.
"And he didn't question why you need the gym keys by night?" Jill asked, more cautious and pragmatic that her dreamy friend, regretfully following the two into the gym.
Leon turned and, walking backwards, he flashed a seductive smile that took the girls' breaths away. "I told him I wanted to impress a girl with a romantic screw in the swimming pool."
"Sounds like an awesome date…" Rebecca sassed, mentally shouting in need to that huge load of naughtiness. She had so many fucking chances to be that lucky girl now.
A date on Monday?! Jill wondered, but she had to raise her hands to that show-off of cocky confidence by the captivating reply of Leon's.
Opening one door after another, they finally managed to leave the gym behind and get into the actual school. To walk the corridors in the night's darkness had a very peculiar fashion. The flashlight they carried along casted long and dense shadows, managing to brighten only a brief tract of darkest hallways that otherwise seemed to emerge from pitch-darkness just to be engulfed by it anew as they walked forward.
They proceeded silently, being careful that the only audible noise was their shoes hitting the linoleum floor. It was like walking in a third-class horror movie and the sneaky kids had to focus even more on their quest now that ancestral fears threatened their minds. The school is a safe place, especially when desert, but night-time obscurity can give shaky knees even to the bravest people.
"Ugh… Can't believe I'm in the school for the second time in a day!"" Jill huffed, more to alleviate the heaviness of their transgressive sneaking than to entertain a conversation.
"Does it make you feel any better if I tell you it's been tomorrow for two hours?" Rebecca joked.
"Oh yes! Thanks Becky! Now it's just alright." Jill deadpanned.
"Girls." Leon murmured to catch their attention and pointed at a specific point in front of him.
At the end of the last empty corridor, the archive.
Beyond that metal door, tests, quizzes, essays and papers of all the school's students were accurately stored. They approached, almost holding their breaths and, without wasting time, Leon grasped the handle…
"Fuck! It's locked!" he grunted.
Oh, yeah. Locked, you brain-box! What did you expect? A red carpet and blinding spotlights?
Leon was awestruck. "You must be fucking with me!"
The deft and grace in which Jill had picked the metal door were downright impressive. With a crooked smirk, the girl had pushed the boy aside and knelt before the door, tinkering with some curious thin sticks she had shoved into the keyhole.
"Where did you learn that?!" Leon exclaimed as the lock clicked and Jill opened the door.
Leon didn't necessarily have to discover all the truth on that night, did he? The girls telepathically agreed not to breathe a word about the unorthodox childhood of Jill's, when her father used to live on pilferage before he'd officially retire from thievishness and converted to the honourable life of a taxi driver.
"Well... let's just say it's in my blood." Jill shrugged at the boy and winked at Rebecca over her shoulder.
"Do you always go around with lockpicks in your pocket?" Leon sarcastically asked, making his way into the dark room. Not really sure he would investigate that unexpected side of his new sneak-in mate. Then again, he sure did not!
"Normally, I don't. But normally I don't break into public buildings either!" Jill replied, following him right behind.
"Fair enough." Leon shrugged and reached out in the dark, gropingly searching for the light switch.
None of them had ever set foot in the archive before that night so they had a purely personal idea of how that room was. They expected everything but the predictable forest of high metal racks that materialized under the first flickering blinks of the cold light.
Boxes!
Stored on the several shelves there were uncountable boxes.
"Holy shit!" Rebecca's shrill yell ringed in the air causing Jill to cringe in disapproval and Leon to chuckle. "This place smells like old paper and bad grades!"
"Where do we start?" Leon sighed.
"Well, I guess we gotta figure out how they store things in here first!" Jill suggested, not less dispirited than the others.
"Let's get moving, guys!" Rebecca cheered.
The trio began skim reading the labels glued on the dusty boxes, growing astonished as long as they came by files that dated back a couple of decades. No wonder they could even find their parents' texts in there! It took them a while before they got to decipher the code in which the documents were arranged, but in the end they found several boxes containing also their friends' papers. Now it was all about figuring out which one to pick.
"I got Chris's!" Leon announced.
"And I got Claire's here!" Jill said, hopping towards the lopsided old desk upon which her mates had unceremoniously poured over the load of a couple of boxes. "Which subjects do you have?"
"History and… uh, English!" Leon answered. "What about you?"
"English."
"Alright, guys." Rebeck Holmes started, resuming that cute focused gaze she had anytime she had to rack her brains. "We all agree that if this body-switching thing is true, it must've happened in the last month, one month and a half at maximum, right?"
Both the boy and the girl nodded. They couldn't deny their friends had been a hell of a lot like two freaks in those last weeks. If any weird business had fucked up their lives it must've been recent fresh shit.
"Good. Let's suppose we have a two months long window time. September and October to be clear. We can compare their essays with last year's ones and check if the handwritings correspond!"
Trying not to mess too much around, they soon produced the sought documents. With extreme care, the kids handled the sheets containing two essays about English literature written by Chris. They arranged them on the little desk they had specifically cleared. The shadows their curious heads casted obscured the already mediocre light descending from the ceiling, nevertheless none of them beckoned to peel their noses back from the papers. Taking advantage of the icy light of their torch, they analysed the two writings.
When they finally plucked away, they all had the same scowl printed on their faces.
No difference.
The essays of both periods of time were just identical in everything but the content.
"Shit." Leon grunted, smashing a sheet against the metal tube of the nearest rack. "We drew a damn blank!"
Jill was already prone to turn on her heels and head home, by then totally convinced that she was hands-down the dumbest of them all for having let them drag her into such a bottomless foolishness, when Rebecca slammed her open palm square on her forehead in an exaggerated manner.
"I'm a total imbecile!" Rebecca yelled.
Leon wished to contradict her but the truth was, he felt like an idiot as well. After all, it had been precisely him to drag Rebecca in a research of the absurd. The bubble had been pricked and he seemed to wake up only now. Damn, how could he even have believed the Redfields didn't notice there were two drunk kids making out in their pantry?! They most likely just fooled him and Rebecca and tricked them to believe their idiocy… so whimsical and even too well improvised but… oh, they had fucked with them in grand style and they had fallen in their trap like two children!
"Are you realizing it only now?" Jill cracked up, determined to have a laugh at her friend's expenses. Becky kinda owed her.
Rebecca gave her the finger. "Actually… we all are imbeciles!"
"What do you mean?" Leon questioned.
"The essays!" Rebecca enthused, shaking the sheet in the air with vigour. "We all do them at home! So it's quite obvious that the handwriting is the same as each one wrote their own!"
"Fuck me… it makes sense!" Leon mumbled in realisation.
Oh, I wish I fucked you, boy…
Rebecca cleared her throat and her mind from that smutty thought and continued in her investigation. "We have to change the subject! We must choose one in which they must do the test in the classroom but that wouldn't imply only multiple choice questions!"
They all exchanged a look and uttered in unison "Maths!"
Once they spotted the right boxes – and it took them another eternity, they pulled out some new paper sheets.
"Look, here!" Rebecca gasped. "This one is Chris's from last year whereas this other here dates back to last October the first. Look at the signatures on it!"
"Well… they look pretty similar…" Jill susurrated with little conviction.
"But they're not identical!" Rebecca pointed out, with the pride of who knows is on the right track. "Last year Chris's writing is… shitty."
"Yeah… Chris holds the pen like a caveman!" Leon cackled.
"Whilst October Chris…" Rebeck Holmes continued and trailed off, enjoying the sight of her friend's faces shifting from discouragement and scorn to purest incredulity.
"Oh, Jesus!" Jill wheezed. "Look at those letters! And… oh my gosh, those numbers two!"
Leon's eyes shuttled between the two sheets and faltered "they're rounder…"
"This is not enough." Rebecca murmured to herself. She needed a helluva smoking gun, not just some rounder figures scribbled on a test. It wasn't corroborant enough. Chris could easily contradict her by saying that his handwriting had simply improved. And she couldn't absolutely force him to write in front of her to prove it.
Think, Rebbie, think!
Out of the blue, a new lightbulb turned on in that room. Rebecca precipitated towards a box they had discarded on the floor and furiously rummaged in it. At the confused question of Leon's, Rebecca babbled that they weren't giving enough importance to the fact that both had switched bodies. "If Chris has been in Claire's body… and if he holds the pen like fucking Fred Flintstone…" she panted, finally pulling out some of Claire's papers. "Then Claire… I mean, the fake one… he must've had a very hard time in trying to write as harmoniously as his sister!"
Rebecca tilted the pages to have them perfectly illuminated and read them through. Her legs simply sagged as she handed them over to Jill and Leon.
"Ffffuck... me..." Leon breathed as his heartbeats began maddening.
"If this is Claire's handwriting, then I'm a fucking penguin!" Jill exclaimed.
The night was already eschewing the first, faint gleam of dawn when the tandem's brakes screeched on the sidewalk opposite Chambers'. Rebecca unclasped her helmet and shoved it back into the front basket.
Planting both feet on the ground, Leon stretched his sore neck backwards and sighed. Now that the surreal story had gained consistency, now that he had pics of fucking evidence stashed in his phone, he seemed even more worried than he had been in the morning.
Rebecca noticed his pensive frown and approached, sitting side-saddle on the crossbar and slid between his arms as he leaned forward to grab the handlebars again to keep the big bicycle balanced. Gently, she fiddled with the chinstrap and pulled his helmet off. The two teens shared the same pair of dark circles and weary gaze. Their eyes had reddened both from the tiredness and the archive's merciless dust and closing them while kissing was a double relief. It was a short kiss, full of her gaiety and his honesty, but it was what they needed in that moment, let it be only not to go home on that not-a-first-date without having shared even a little peck.
"What's next, Sherlock?" Leon asked with a feeble voice, nuzzling the point of her nose with his.
"We shake ourselves a cocktail!" Rebecca joked.
"Drunkard." He chuckled. "Isn't it either too late or too early for a drink?"
"I didn't mean now!" she jokingly eyerolled. "We must have something to sip while they confess! Don't you remember?"
Leon forced a titter trying to feign he was in the mood for jokes, but his reddish eyes betrayed all his sadness. He lowered his head and rested it in the crook of her neck, careless that by doing so her poor tiny heart maddened even more. "We have to talk with them." He murmured against her skin still so heated up for the ride.
"Tomorrow. That's actually today... But later." She susurrated in his ear and, yawning, she added that it was either too late or too early to go to the Redfields by the way. Better take some rest and procrastinate it all.
Leon hummed in agreement and slumped an arm around her waist. "Rebecca."
God, she loved how he pronounced her name! So smooth and gruff at the same time. "Mh?" She moaned, expectantly, caressing his shoulders.
"There's something I have to tell you." Leon said, without raising his head from her neck. He didn't want her to look at him in the eyes while saying what he was going to say. "It's about Claire."
Rebecca frowned badly as she heard him spell that name with such concerned voice, but she pretended to ignore it. She simply rested her chin on his shoulder and incited him to go on.
"Chris is like a brother to me, and I reckon Claire's like a sister to you as well." He continued, his tone softening as she began caressing his nape.
A faint smile died as fast as it bloomed on her face. "Yeah… sister from another mister…" she sighed, more a memory whispered to remind herself than a blunt admission to Leon.
"While she was inside Chris apparently…" he resumed, by then no more incredulous when saying such things. "I reckon you gotta know that she was… sick."
Rebecca's hammering heart lost a beat. Sick?!
It was like a veil falling off her eyes. If Claire had been her brother for who knows how many weeks… she hadn't been with her. Discovering that she had missed so much of her friend, that Claire might have needed her and she wasn't there… by her side… it tore some strings inside her chest that hurt more than words can describe and all the chagrin was simply blown away.
"How sick?" she susurrated with barely the hint of a whisper. "Please, tell me the truth. At least you."
"I think she suffered from panic. She almost had a fucking heart attack in front of me." Leon murmured, and held her tighter, wringing his eyes at the memory of what he had witnessed at Kevin's, as it was now even more painful to remember. "I feared he… she… was gonna die in my arms."
Leon felt the girl under his mouth softly twitching as if she was having a hiccup. He peeled his head off her neck and glanced at her teary eyes.
"Hey…" he whispered in concern, kissing her cheek. "No, no, no… don't cry…"
Unable to hold back tears at the thought of her best friend suffering, Rebecca sniffled as two rivulets of shiny tears crossed her round cheeks. Claire had been through hell and all Rebecca could think about was a stupid little white lie her friend had told her for her sake! She thought she was the worst friend in the world!
"Please… Don't let me be the guy that made you cry on a first date!" Leon chuckled to cheer her up.
She wiped her tears with the hem of her sleeve and a coy smile cracked on her face. "Beware what you call a date! You owe me a helluva first date!" she joked and let out a babbling wet giggle. "You should really ask me out once and for all!"
Leon flashed a smile and kissed her again. "Will you go out on a real date with me whenever you like?"
"Sure!" the girl almost yelled. "But not today. Claire comes first."
OMG did I just steal Claire's outstanding line and shoved it into Rebecca's mouth? Yes.
To anyone who's reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart!
A little note for guest readers: as I always reply to reviews (because there's nothing like a good exchange of opinions) I will reply also to yours! So, if you haven't an account but want to write a review, go on, you'll find my reply in the review section as well!
Love, a Fangirl
P.S. don't you worry, Claire and Chris will come back in the next chapter!