Chapter Text
To: Leon S. Kennedy <[email protected]>
From: Claire Redfield <[email protected]>
Subject: About this year's Christmas dinner
Message:
Hey Leon,
I know you never really enjoyed it, so I appreciate that you come every year and have dinner with me and Chris. Anyway, you'll be happy to know that there won't be our usual party at my place this Christmas Eve. As you know, Sherry is on an assignment in Edonia, and so are Chris and Jill. I assume that you're gonna be abroad as well, but even if you're not, I don't think you would like to come anyway. So, you're free this year!
Merry Christmas.
Hope to see you soon, though. Maybe next year ;)
Claire
Another sip of wine would warm her soul, Claire thought as she poured the rest of the fluid into the glass and placed the empty bottle aside. The chicken wings were sizzling happily in the oven, waiting for her to drown them in a bathtub of her special spicy sauce—a secret recipe of her mother. It wasn’t a very christmassy dinner, but it wasn’t meant to be one anyway.
Claire swung the glass around and admired the dark-red of the content as her rough tongue slid disgustedly over her teeth. Swallowing down the taste of sour and bitter in her mouth, she began to wonder when she had become so hard-drinking, and if she could blame it on the company of people like Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy, who had never learned a better way to cope with their demons. She herself was supposed to be tougher, though; to stand upon every mental crash and breakdown just for the mere fact of being a woman. Sherry had survived years of experiments the government had performed on her; Jill had come back from her captivity in Wesker’s hands and had gotten back to work without even blinking; Moira had spent six months on a creepy island full of infected; and Claire could finish off a bottle of wine on her own and walk out of the kitchen as fresh as a flower afterwards.
And that’s what she did. With slow and clumsy but determined steps, she dragged herself into the living room, where she would decide what movie to watch while she would let the sauce of the chicken wings glue her fingers together before she would doze off in the cushions of her couch. Something full of action, or mystery maybe. It wouldn’t help her keep her thoughts away from Edonia, but at least she wasn’t going to think about Christmas all night long, and whatever made her think less about anything was welcome. Before she could get into the reach of her home movie-collection, though, her doorbell rang. Claire blinked towards the door in bafflement, as she wasn’t expecting any visits that night—not anymore—and she feared it could be one of her nosy neighbors asking for a last-minute supply of salt or sugar. They wouldn’t understand that she would be alone that night.
Not that it was their fucking business anyway.
At the second ring, Claire rolled her eyes and wabbled towards the entrance, opening it with a swift spin of her hand, and the door nearly crashed into the wall next to her as she saw who was standing outside in the corridor.
“Leon?!”
A handful of snowflakes fell from his blond strands as he shook his head and stepped into her hall.
“Merry…” he exclaimed cheerfully before something stole his voice and he blinked into her apartment, looking around like something was missing.
Something was missing indeed. Leon turned back to the corridor, where the muffled sound of Christmas carols and the shine of colorful fairy lights had guided him up the stairs to her apartment door—something he had expected to find behind said door, too. However, it was like he had just jumped a couple of months forward in time, when nothing of the shiny joy would be present in the life of the citizens of New York City anymore.
“What happened here?”
Claire leaned against the door to keep herself from falling. With one of her eyebrows jumping so high it nearly touched the line of her hair, she asked, “Didn’t you read my email?”
One headshake later, Claire couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling. No, of course, he hadn’t read her email. He hadn’t read a single one of her emails since those she’d sent him from France in 1998. He also never took her phone calls, which was the reason why he always forgot to bring drinks to their Christmas dinner. Her eyes jumped to the bottle in his hands. Apparently, this year he had remembered to bring some wine.
“I told you there was no Christmas party this year,” she said as she walked into the kitchen and let Leon take care of the door. “Sherry, Chris and Jill are all in Edonia. We will celebrate it when they’re all back.”
Leon closed the door behind him, still baffled by the undecorated living room of his redhaired friend. Where was the Christmas tree, the stockings over the false fireplace, and the candles? What had happened to the cookies and milk they usually had themselves because they were all grown-ups and knew there was no such thing as Santa Claus? Why was Frank Sinatra not singing about however many days of Christmas and about little drummer boys?
What the fuck had Claire done to Christmas?
“I get that you don’t have a party, but you didn’t have to put away the tree and...”
Claire turned back to him and hissed, “Chris doesn’t have a tree right now, either.”
Their bond had always been a very special one. He had sensed it from the very beginning, and it had been the main reason why he hadn't begged her to stay with him and Sherry after escaping Raccoon City.
“Why aren’t you in Edonia?” he followed her into the kitchen and left the bottle of wine on the counter, waiting for the redhead to respond.
Claire shrugged and shook her head before she knelt down in front of the oven, letting out a heavy sigh.
“I was supposed to be sent there a week ago.”
She placed the tray of chicken wings onto the counter and began to pour her special sauce over the food.
“I wanted to be home on Christmas Eve, though, because it’s the only fucking day of the year we all get together. So I pressed my coworkers to change shifts and operations with me, in order to be here with you all,” she said as she violently mixed meat and sauce. “And then Sherry was sent to Edonia to track down some guy and Chris got the call and Jill just fucking went with him because it’s what she needs to do. Naturally, I can’t just change my work schedule again.”
Claire sighed as she poured the food onto a clean tray of fine porcelain with blue ornaments on it.
“So, I’m here alone.”
Leon crossed his arms over his chest, clearing his throat before he said, "I'm here, too," sounding a little offended.
The redhead turned around and gave him an apologetic shrug.
“Sorry, I wasn’t…” She closed her eyes in defeat and smirked. “I’m sorry there’s no party tonight, but I guess that you will stop marking my emails as read without opening them from now on.”
It was kind of embarrassing to admit that he hadn’t paid the needed attention to her written communication, leaving him outed as the worst friend ever, but thanks to that inconvenient of his, he had somehow managed to be with Claire on Christmas Eve. It somehow made him feel better, as his redhead genuinely seemed to be losing it. Also those chicken wings she had prepared smelled and looked delicious, if not very festive.
“Now that I’m here,” Leon said with a shrug. “Maybe we can have dinner together.”
Claire eyed him curiously as she considered his offer. Wasn’t he a sweetheart? It was obvious that he’d rather be somewhere else, with someone else, having something else for dinner, but he was offering his company for that lonely night, and declining would be more than unkind—in the best of cases. So, Claire shrugged a shy shoulder as her lips drew a smile.
“It will be Un-Christmas dinner, though.”