RE: Inclination
A/N: Apologies for the space between updates. Life's demanding caprices ensued.
May 2006
Sometimes Leon hated himself.
It was a reasonable reaction. He did stupid shit sometimes. Giving in to Claire's request for dinner… letting her up off the bed… that was stupid.
In other situations, he was stronger against her will, formidable thought it was. If their safety was in question, if there was work to be done, nothing could persuade him. This, or rather that, was not work.
Leon was probably so easily turned because it had been so long since pleasure… since leisure had been allowed to be just pleasant that it was confusing. Not that he and Claire didn't have issues. No two people who'd known each other as long as they had could get around having at least a little baggage. It was inevitable. They weren't constantly around one another, but they were in frequent, almost regular contact. He could easily say that they knew each other intimately. Just without touching.
Claire made him wait for her to change clothes. He hadn't really cared to change his, but she decided that she was going to dress for dinner. She didn't even mention he might want to do the same. He liked that. Sitting up, Leon let Claire up. She climbed off the bed, straightened herself a little, and headed for her suitcase. Claire flapped a hand at him when he started to ask her a question, dragging her bag into the bathroom with her.
It was comfortingly familiar. Claire was. Her mannerisms were easy to predict after so many years of knowing her, and so many situations with her. He thought, and he was fairly certain that she felt the same. He might have changed, he reasoned, from when they first met. He might have gotten quicker reactions, smarter instincts. If you could train instincts.
Waiting, awkwardly, he took off his jacket and removed his shoulder holster. There was no sense being overly paranoid.
But was it really paranoia? Maybe no one was out to get him personally, but that didn't mean that there weren't things out to get him. He let his eyes rest on the H&K where he had set it on the prefab hotel table.
No, it wasn't paranoia.
It was preparedness. He turned his head, glancing at the bathroom door. If he listened closely enough, he could hear Claire moving around in there. It was… no. It wasn't like he wouldn't have a gun if he left this one behind. There was preparedness and there was over-caution.
His companion, while she had a fire in her and was good at MacGuyver-ing a situation, was not one for terribly large amounts of planning in her personal life. In contrast, the immediacy of the trip they were on was probably one of the more impulsive things he'd ever done in his life. Of course the night before he drove to his new post had been similar, but…
Leon couldn't help thinking this would go better than that time.
Even if there was an outbreak… He struggled not to think of that possibility. That IM-possibility! He was on vacation. Nothing would happen.
But the calm, cold voice in the back of his head didn't care about the current situation. As usual, the owner of that calculating voice was three steps ahead. Even if there wasn't an outbreak, a part of Leon would always be ready for one. A part of him would always be anticipating one.
And that part of him was always there, always awake. That part of him kept him alive.
So. It was almost like the cool, collected one had a voice that could speak from within the quiet corner of Leon where he resided. If there was an outbreak, at least the two of them were together. He could think of very few people he would rather have in his corner in that circumstance. In that situation, the only person he knew he could completely trust was Claire.
Other options presented themselves for good back-up, decent support, good aim…
But Claire…
Claire came out of the bathroom checking the straps on whatever shoes she had on. Leon couldn't tell what kind they were. His eyes weren't on her feet. She was wearing a dress. And the dress… A younger Leon might have reacted very strongly to seeing her figure… like that. Low-cut, skin-showing… The more-adult Leon reacted in his own way. He appreciated the view as she straightened, turning to the mirror to check her hair. Leon wagered he'd at least need to rearrange on man's opinion on what was decent to approach Claire with that evening. He was getting to know how good it felt to hold Claire… he hadn't quite had his thoughts jump so quickly to what her skin would feel like uncovered, but…
Leon slapped his thoughts soundly, but couldn't keep his eyes off her cleavage. He'd seen it in tight clothes before… but not exposed like that…
The hotel restaurant wouldn't do. Claire insisted upon that. The two of them took a cab into the city, and found a decent enough restaurant to eat at. It was obviously a tropical restaurant, there were barely any walls in the place. It was shielded from rain by roll down shutters that wouldn't do much good if one were trying to defend the place. Leon noticed that when they entered, and Claire had either noticed as well or been watching him. Her reaction was to politely elbow him in the arm. Leon felt exposed without his back holster, but he was reassured by the weight of the gun on his ankle. There was only one though, and Claire…
Was in that dress. Claire wasn't someone he'd pictured in dresses, before. But he had to admit, he liked what he saw even if he couldn't quite recall the color of it from one moment to the next without checking again. The color was unimportant. It was like the dress was just something holding the rest of Claire.
Claire's body was toned, slender… but without the military training… without any formal training in martial forms, she was still curvy like a woman ought to be. Not that Angela or Ada had been lacking in the feminine… His last encounter with Ada had proved she trumped Claire when it came to revealing dresses… but neither of them had been redheads.
He didn't even know what he meant by thinking that, but the dress wasn't helping his thoughts make sense. Leon wondered why he didn't find it more annoying. Usually he was in control of his hormones. Or if he wasn't in control of them he was at least the master of them. He knew when he had to… and he even hated to think that it was so basic as that, but he knew when he had to pay due homage to his hormones in order to maintain control in average situations, and he did what he had to do.
Leon set his jaw. Claire was not something he had to do. He slapped himself again, mentally. This was not a good start to what was supposed to be a restful vacation with a good friend. Well, good friend turned… what exactly were they? His eyes strayed across the table to Claire, and inevitably descended to Claire's… endowments.
Their table overlooked the beach, she smiled to look out at it past the torches. He smiled to look at her in the torchlight. "You're still staring at my chest, aren't you?" Claire asked, tipping her head back towards him and leaning her cheek on one hand. "How long has this lust of yours been festering? Should I get my own room?"
Leon lifted his eyes to hers.
Under dark red bangs, a pair of what he could legitimately call baby blues regarded him. Claire chuckled playfully. Yeah, this was more like the Claire Redfield he knew. She must be feeling more herself. He hoped he was helping, at least. "Are you always this much of a tease?" he quipped back.
Claire glared at him, eyes sparkling playfully. "You think I'm teasing?"
"I think you're enjoying this," Leon replied. "I think, knowing what you know, after this afternoon… you're enjoying holding this over my head."
"Yeah, well, we'll see about that later," Claire said. She put her hand on the table near the middle. Leon reached out towards it, but there was a loud noise outside of the restaurant, overhead. Leon turned his eyes from the pleasing sight before him to look, and frowned, hand stilling before touching Claire's. No. The streak in the sky wasn't a fighter plane. It wasn't.
"No," Claire said softly, echoing his thoughts.
The waiter came by with their food. "Please don't be alarmed, we see this all the time," the man said. He smiled.
Claire reached up and took Leon's hand, drawing his eyes across to her. She offered a slightly strained smile, and when his responded, hers relaxed a little. "Paranoia runs high in these ones," Claire said. She squeezed his hand and picked up her knife and fork.
The waiter's smile didn't make dinner any better, after that.
Leon couldn't quite bring his appetite up to what he'd ordered. Not that he had much of an appetite anyway. The antibiotics were killing that for him. The anxiety of thinking about why a plane was passing overhead was making it worse.
"Earth to Leon," Claire said.
Startling back to attention, Leon glanced across the table at Claire. She had her elbows on the table, fingers steepled under her chin. She was glaring at him. "Ah…"
"It would help to be officially dating before you start ignoring me," Claire said.
"I'm sorry," Leon said. "I guess I'm just not hungry."
"You still need to eat something," Claire replied.
"Yeah," Leon replied. He lifted his fork and took a bite. His tongue felt coated. The food didn't taste as good as he thought it would when they came in. He managed to finish the meal, but as soon as the plate was taken away, he forgot what he'd ordered.
Across the table, Claire sat silent. She was looking out at the beach again. "At least I'm not the only one who found that a little-"
The waiter approached, lifting their empty plates and putting desert menus in front of them. Leon pressed his lips together, and started to turn to the waiter, but Claire's foot touched his ankle under the table.
"And what will the two of you be having for desert?"
"The check," Claire said, not even looking over at the man.
Leon had no complaints, he would rather be somewhere more closed off than the open restaurant. The waiter returned with a small nude leather folio that contained the bill. Leon didn't bother looking at it, he'd seen the prices on the menu. He put a credit card into it and handed it back to the man. Claire didn't say anything. He figured she was probably still a little mad at being 'ignored'. Preoccupation should be counted differently, Leon thought. If something was threatening their safety… if something on the island was dangerous…
She kept her foot against his ankle as he signed the bill.
Glancing over at her as they rose, Leon felt his brow furrow a little. He knew what his priority would be, in that situation. As they headed out, he put an arm around her waist and pulled her to his side.
"Leon, what?" Claire asked. Her voice was higher than normal. He knew that tone. He'd heard it more than once when she was chewing out her brother for some assumption or supposed pig-headed chauvinism.
So she was annoyed.
Tightening his hand slightly on her hip, Leon hailed a taxi as they descended the steps that lead from the front of the restaurant to the curb. "If anything happens, stick by my side. We're better together."
He didn't know what response he expected from Claire. Maybe she'd get annoyed, like when they'd talked just before that Thanksgiving in 1998… maybe he'd wake up and she'd have hopped a plane back to the states. Claire, when riled to it, had a temper. Her reactions could, at times, be fairly extreme, and… it had already been pointed out to Leon, that day in fact, that he was bad with women.
She was quiet a long moment. The two of them were the only people from the dinner crowd out of the restaurant just then. Everyone else was probably enjoying the lingering wait between dinner and desert. The evening sky was dark overhead, and beyond the fall of the torches that lit the entranceway, her hair was dark. One of the taxi drivers waiting in the line across the street had caught Leon's gesture, and was starting the car to pull around and pick them up.
"Please, Claire."
Claire looked up at him, and her hand covered his where it was on her hip. In the darkness between the torches and the street lights, he couldn't quite see her eyes. But her hand was warm on his, and she leaned into his side. "We are," she agreed. "I think…" she paused, her voice wavering. "I think… you better mean that."
Leon squeezed her side. A relieved calm spread through him, overpowering the ache in his shoulder and the soreness he felt lingering. He was glad, this time, like in Harvardville, his assistance wouldn't have to be impressed upon her as it had once or twice when they were on missions with the other members of the Anti-Umbrella movement. He was happy, and that made him wonder about his mental state that he could be happy about something regarding an incident with zombies. To think that this time he wouldn't have to let her go away from him and only hope that she survived…
In Harvardville, it had almost made him crazy, pushing her off to safety he couldn't be certain of. The feeling was much stronger than when Claire left him with Sherry to go look for her brother. He knew it was stupid. Especially in Harvardville. She was good with a gun, well… she was injured. Running, forcing himself to move and to work had been the only thing that had kept him going until he had a stronger focus.
The taxi took them back to the hotel, but he kept his arm around her. Claire relaxed against him, shoulder tucked against his side, her head leaning on his collar bone in the dark back of the cab. She had asked when his lust had started… when… he wondered. He couldn't say it had crossed his mind on being close to her like that before she reached for him. Before she wanted to be close to him in that manner, though he cherished the idea of someone he could be so intimate with he did not always need words, he had thought very little of touching her so closely. The kisses, and her reactions to them, had been very unexpected.
He was opening the door to the hotel room when he realized that she wasn't shoulder to his side. Claire had shifted to put her arms around his middle, and was leaning her cheek against his collarbone. She was right when she said he was bad with women… he pushed the door open, eyes fixated on her. The way that her chest pressed into his side… the low cut of her dress showing the curve of her skin… She shifted her head a little, and her lips brushed against the bare skin of his neck. It sent a shiver through him.
The door was barely closed before she drew his head down to hers and their lips met. Something nagged him in the back of his mind. Something wasn't quite right. Claire… dear Claire, strong Claire…
Recently broken up Claire.
The acrid taste of that thought called Leon back to his overly-reserved senses. He pulled their lips apart. "I'm not a rebound."
"Leon," she said in an annoyed voice. "Neither am I." His eye twitched at that. She pressed her lips together. "Sex doesn't mean rebound."
He watched her. He felt her warmth against him. He smiled a little. "You do realize it's you and me in this hotel room for two weeks, right? Are you sure you want to now?" He slid his hand down her back, into the slinky dress she was wearing.
"Are you really offering to wait?" she asked softly.
"No, not really," he replied.
*