Work Text:
03/05/2000 1:46AM
The television in Claire’s bedroom was on. Diane asked for “The Human Body” for $500. Trebek read the prompt.
“Roughly triangular in shape, this muscle gives the rounded contour to the shoulder.”
As the prompt flashed blue on the screen, the text was hazy. The center of the domed glass had been seared from the inside with the rectangular ghost of trivia prompts, beamed through it on a constant, unerring four hour loop. In another two hours, she would pull herself from her bed, rewind the tape and start it again. In a few more weeks, this tape would wear out and she would swap it for the next one she kept on top of the VCR. The next tape was another eight episodes of Jeopardy! and the accompanying commercial breaks.
In the past year, Claire’s television had been dark and silent for a total of six hours; four of which were due to a power outage, during which she did not sleep. She knew the mellow music would hum crunchily through the old speakers, then Joseph would buzz in quickly.
“What is the trapezius?” He would say.
“Incorrect.” Trebek would reply mildly.
What is the deltoid. Claire thought. 1:47AM.
Diane buzzed in.
“What is the deltoid?” She said, unsure.
“That is correct.” Trebek said. Polite applause followed.
Claire blinked at the wall, watching the light from the television dance with the lamp that kept an equally constant vigil over her room. She wondered why she was awake. Her body was locked in place, listening.
Sleet hissed against her window. Diane asked for “American History” for $100. A quiet knock rattled the screen door. Three beats, half a rest, two beats.
Leon?
Claire slid carefully out from under her quilt, the springs in her mattress squeaking their protests. Her hand closed around the frayed tape she had wrapped around the handle of a baseball bat that leaned against her dresser. Hearing the familiar knock, she carried this to her door instead of the pistol in her nightstand. Her hair fell unbound over her shoulders and her brother’s t-shirt hung loose around her legs; her bare skin bristled with the chill as she crept carefully toward her front door.
Through the fisheye lens of the peephole, beyond the torn screen hanging limply from the corner of the storm door’s frame, Claire saw Leon wincing in the harsh light over her doorstep. His hair was wet and he was carrying something orange – a bag. Peach rings?
“Claire?” He called.
She dropped the bat in the corner and set about unlocking the column of deadbolts on her front door. The goosebumps on her bare thighs tightened at the rush of frigid, wet air that pushed in when she swung it open.
Leon looked up at her from the bottom of the concrete steps, drenched and smiling weakly.
“Sorry.” He said.
Claire pushed the screen door out and waved him inside without a word. She shouldered the solid door closed and worked on setting all the deadbolts back into place.
When she turned to ask him what happened, she found Leon standing just inside the door, moving slowly and dripping water onto her floor. The alcohol on his breath was expected, but she was surprised to find his cheekbone bruised, his shoes muddy, and his clothes soaked through to the skin. She’d seen him low, but this was new. She let the alarm move into her hands instead of her face and started peeling his jacket off of him.
He watched her, numbly following her movements a second or two behind. She let his jacket fall in a wet pile on the floor and gestured to his cheekbone.
“Who did that?” She asked him.
“Didn't get his name.” Leon said. When Claire didn't smile, he continued. “I didn't mean to hit him, he snuck up on me.”
Claire’s mouth tightened but she nodded. He had been jumpy since they made it out of Raccoon City; they both had. On his worst days, a drink couldn't fix that. Tonight, it seemed he had failed to fix it with several.
“Shoes.” She said, looking at the clods of mud and dead winter grass on his sneakers. The knees of his jeans were smeared with it too.
Leon started to toe himself out of his shoes and saw the trail of mud he had brought in with him.
“Shit- Sorry, I’ll clean it-” He promised.
She had taken his hand to steady him while he stepped out of his shoes. His fingers were frigid.
“Jesus, you’re freezing!” She said, “How long were you outside?”
Leon continued shuffling out of his shoes.
“They put me in a cab. I fell asleep, I think. I had to go back for these.” He said, holding up the bag of peach rings. “For you.”
Claire began to piece together the events of Leon’s evening. If someone from the bar sent him here in a cab – he must have gotten dropped off and decided to walk a mile back up the road to the 24 hour gas station. He always showed up with snacks, usually her favorites – he couldn't allow himself to show up empty handed, not even this time. Maybe especially not this time. It apparently hadn't occurred to him that it was after midnight and sleeting, not far above freezing. She wondered where on his adventure he had fallen in the mud.
She wasn't sure if Leon needed to be this drunk to do something this stupid – he might've done it sober, for her. The fact that he ended up here instead of his own apartment went unspoken in Claire’s mind. She didn't question if the bartender knew him well enough to know that he should be sent here tonight or if the cabbie had just asked him,
“Where’s home?”
He was shivering in her kitchen now either way.
“Leon…” Claire smiled at him, exasperated and sad.
He handed her the bag, smiling back vaguely. His hair was plastered to his forehead with rain and the bags under his eyes were frighteningly dark. She was still helping him stand, holding his icy hand in hers. He stood in his soaked socks, swaying a little.
“I couldn't sleep.” He said eventually, explaining, she supposed, what had led him to the bar earlier tonight. His eyes were closed.
She palmed his cheek and frowned – it wasn't just his hands, he was too cold all over. She needed to do something.
“We gotta get you cleaned up.” She said, more to herself than him. He didn't respond anyway.
“Okay-” She said, pulling his arm around her shoulders, helping him stay upright and leading him down the hallway toward her bathroom.
“Come on big guy,” she grunted under his weight.
03/05/2000 1:58AM
As she shuffled him into her bathroom, Claire dimly registered Deana Carter singing about strawberry wine on the tiny radio that sat on the back of her toilet. Another constant fixture of friendly noise, it quietly and dutifully filled the silences when she rewound the tapes in her bedroom. Now, it underscored the sounds of her struggling to keep Leon upright.
He was leaning on her more heavily now. She reached around his back to flip the light switch, nearly dropping them both to the floor as she did so. Leon groaned at the bright, yellow sheen overhead.
She huffed her hair out of her eyes and paused, trying to decide what she needed to do. Vague ideas of hypothermia swirled in her head, uselessly unspecific. He was shivering. The cuffs of his hoodie were smeared with the same mud on his knees. If she could get him warm and clean enough to get into bed, they could handle the rest tomorrow. She glanced at the shower, then up at his face, pale and apparently asleep on his feet.
“I’m gonna help you get cleaned up, okay?” She said too loudly, hoping to rouse him.
He nodded slowly. That was a good sign.
“Can you stand up for me?” She asked, shifting his weight off of her shoulders. He caught his weight against the wall, nodding.
She squeaked the sliding glass door back on its track and cranked the knob of the faucet. They’d have to wait for hot water. In the meantime, she worked on getting him out of his wet clothes.
Claire negotiated his hoodie and his t-shirt over his head. They fell to the floor with a wet thump. He stood shirtless and shivering, wincing in the bright light. She started to go for his jeans and stopped. They were soaked and muddy, they had to come off. And even if he got in the shower with his boxers, they'd have to come off afterward anyway. He was still swaying gently. She ran a hand over her face.
“You wanna take these off?” She asked, tugging on his belt loop.
He blinked at her slowly. He looked around the room, seeing it again for the first time. His eyes found the shower, then her finger in his belt loop. His brow furrowed.
“We gotta get you in the shower, can we-?”
Leon nodded.
“Off.” He mumbled.
Claire watched his thumbs hook into the waistband of his boxers and sent her eyes to the ceiling. He leaned on her heavily, peeling out of his socks. They joined the rest of his clothes in a soggy pile.
Steam was rising out of the shower now. She held his hands as he stepped wobbily through the open door. After a moment’s consideration, she stepped in behind him with her t-shirt on. At least one of them should be clothed, she thought.
Her shower was already small, and almost impossibly so with the two of them in it. He was standing on his own now, squinting at the spray of water hitting his chest. She stood behind him, laughing a little at how big he looked in here. The tallest angle she could get out of the stream of water, which normally crested over the top of her head, would only spray at his neck. She got him to stoop a little, letting the hot water run through his hair. When it did, she watched his back swell with a deep sigh. Soon, he wasn't shivering anymore.
She squeezed soap out of the mostly empty bottles arranged on the lip of the tub and scrubbed her sudsy hands over his back. They’d both smell like green apple for tonight. She turned him around and took his hands, squeezing more soap into them. He blinked down at them and slowly understood, helping her get him clean. Now and then, he swayed too much and she caught him by the elbows.
She was turning him around again, making sure he got rinsed when he caught her hand. She looked up at him and found his eyes a little clearer than they had been before. He was seeing her, she thought. She was here with him, and perhaps for the first time tonight, he was here with her too. He squeezed her fingers gently in his hand, looking down at the two of them standing in her shower.
She watched him swallow hard. His voice came out of him having lost some of its drunken wobble.
“Thanks, Claire.” He said.
The smile she gave him was sweet, and it ached. She wanted to hug him.
“Anytime.” She said.
He stayed there under the hot water, holding her hand.
“You wanna go to bed?” She asked.
He nodded.
“Hang on,” she said, squeezing past him.
She left him under the hot water and stepped out, shivering on the mat. She dripped her way into her bedroom and came back with towels and pajamas for the both of them – two of Chris’s t-shirts and a pair of his sweats. In the doorway of the bathroom she peeled herself out of her wet shirt and underwear, letting them slump into their own pile beside Leon’s clothes.
03/05/2000 2:31AM
Shania Twain tinned quietly out of the tiny radio. Claire had rewound the tape and its sound hummed dutifully in her bedroom. Leon sat on the closed lid of the toilet in Chris’s clothes, holding a mostly empty glass of water in both hands. His eyes were open and unfocused, gazing through Claire, who stood at the mirror. She was running her brush through her tangled hair, watching her hands move and not seeing much either.
Leon had stopped shivering, the doors were locked, and noise buzzed in this room and the next; she didn't notice when she had faded out, but her body had decided it was safe to do so. She blinked, moving slowly, working on a tangle under her ear.
She blinked again, and her eyes fuzzed back into focus on the girl in the mirror. With her hair hanging wet around her cheeks and smocked in her big brother’s too-big t-shirt, Claire saw years shed from her face. A child, no more than twelve, stared back at her now. She blinked at her, feeling eerie and heavy. Claire frowned. She looked so tired.
She saw Leon’s head turn, finding the young girl’s eyes in the mirror. Sitting there, his hair wild from the towel dry, somehow also dwarfed in Chris’s shirt, Claire thought he looked like a little boy. Her throat squeezed with oncoming tears.
She turned away from the girl in the mirror and looked down at the little boy she had never met, but found on her doorstep every now and then. Tonight, his cheek was bruised. Someone should brush his hair, she thought.
She steadied his head with her free hand and moved her brush over his hair in careful strokes. As she worked, she counted them in threes.
One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three.
Soon, his hair was smooth. Her hands kept working gently over his head. Getting lost in the counts, unfamiliar tears blurred her vision.
When his hand settled on her hip, she jumped. His fingers tugged at the fabric of her shirt in a slow rhythm. She realized her hands and her lungs had started moving too fast; he was asking her to slow. She looked down at him, seeing him again. His tired eyes met hers and understood.
He looped his arms around her waist, settling his forehead against her collar bone, and waited for her breaths to come slower. She hugged him back, setting her chin on the top of his head. Claire watched sleet spray against the little window, and after a while, she was steady again.
They shared swigs of listerine and left the bathroom. The light stayed on.
03/05/2000 4:46AM
Billy Mays shouted quietly about OxiClean on Claire’s television. They were asleep; her back was pressed against Leon’s. They ended up like this under her quilt not out of modesty, but because the only thing safer than a wall at their backs was the familiar weight of the other.
The steady tide of Leon’s sleeping breaths was beginning to grow turbulent. He started stirring, a low sound growing in the back of his throat. Claire’s eyes shot open, feeling his shoulders shift against her.
She sat up, scooting away from him cautiously.
“Hey, you’re okay,” she said quietly.
The sound in Leon’s throat continued to swell, chopped by his sluggish panting. His legs were beginning to move, his body begging to kick through the weight of sleep.
“Leon- you’re okay.” She said a little louder. She wouldn't touch him. They’d learned a long time ago that it wouldn't end well.
He rolled onto his back, his arms coming up to protect him from whatever he was seeing. His face was tight and drawn, even through sleep. The sound in his throat was becoming a cry. The fear on his face struck through her chest painfully. His legs were kicking strongly now, sending the quilt off of them both.
“Leon,” she said again. She chanced touching his hand.
He tore it from her fingers, seizing as the cry in his throat became a shout. She watched him scramble back from the end of the bed, blindly seeing something she could not. In the scramble, he knocked his head on the headboard. He was reaching for a gun that was not at his hip. His eyes were open and wild, still blind.
“Hey, it’s Claire.” She said gently.
He blinked at her, his chest swelling with his shallow, rapid breaths. His head snapped toward the foot of the bed, then around the rest of the room.
Claire offered her hand, not touching him.
“You’re okay. It’s Claire, you’re safe.” She said.
“Claire-” He panted.
Mild applause swelled out of the television as the commercial break ended, 4:48AM. Leon jumped at the sound, noticing the television again. He took her hand with his clammy one, still looking at the TV.
“You’re safe. We’re home.” She told him.
“Claire-” He said again, looking at her hand in his. “You’re safe.” He echoed.
He pulled her into his shaky arms and told her,
“Claire, you’re safe.”
She nodded against his shoulder, squeezing him gently. She felt his chest expand with a lucid breath and felt him look down at her in his arms.
“Hey, there he is.” She said.
His breath caught in his throat. He didn't let her go.
“Sorry,” he croaked.
She shook her head, running her hands over his back.
“I got you.” She said.
His arms tightened around her.
“Sorry.” He said again. His voice was heavier.
“We’re home, we’re okay.” She told him again, patient and quiet.
“Sorry-” He whispered again, his throat choked with tears.
Claire shook her head again, rocking them both gently.
“We’re safe.” She said again.
“We’re safe.” She told herself.
Quiet tears rolled off of her chin while his body shook out the worst of the fear that woke him.
03/05/2000 5:17AM
Trebek congratulated Theresa on her successful acquisition of the Daily Double. Claire slept, propped on pillows against her headboard with an arm slung around Leon’s shoulders and her hand in his hair. His head rose and fell with her slow, sleeping breaths as he slept with her heartbeat pressed against his cheek. Beneath the quilt, his arms were wrapped around her waist, and their legs laid still, tangled together and warm. Neither of them dreamt.
03/05/2000 7:03AM
A quiet, authoritative voice from the television told Leon he may be entitled to financial compensation. He didn’t hear it as he crept carefully off of the mattress, negotiating the squeals it offered down to a squeak. Claire coiled into herself in her sleep. He pulled the quilt higher over her shoulder and smoothed her hair off her forehead.
03/05/2000 8:17AM
Diane asked for “Mountains” for $400.
Trebek read the prompt.
Claire squinted in the light that squeezed into her room through an unwelcome gap in the blinds. She numbly pulled herself from the bed, running fingers through her sleep-tangled hair. The springs in her mattress squealed. She thought she could hear something, but her head was too heavy to make sense of it yet. Her body was moving too quickly for her drowsy mind to keep up.
In her kitchen, Leon knocked on her cabinet. Three beats, half a rest, two beats.
“It’s me.” He called.
The tension in her shoulders dropped.
She stood at the foot of her bed and blinked at the television. It had to be after 7AM, and Diane was back, but Claire hadn't gotten up to rewind the tape.
A little smile spread across her lips. She headed for the kitchen. As she passed her bathroom, she saw her t-shirt and underwear from last night hanging damp over the towel bar. When she turned the corner into the kitchen, she saw a grocery bag of his muddy clothes tied neatly next to the front door; the floor beneath it was clean. Days old dishes she had left forgotten in the kitchen sink dripped on the drying rack beside him, standing over her stove.
Every time he did this, she was amazed that he could wash them without waking her. Now he stood with sunlight creeping up his back. The kitchen smelled like coffee – the pot was half full. On the tiny, worn table she found her favorite mug. A packet of powdered hot chocolate sat emptied within it, waiting for her to smother it with the coffee. She knew he made it weak, the way she liked it.
He smiled at her over his shoulder, cracking her egg into the pan.
“You sleep okay?” He asked her.
“Not bad.” She said, coming to stand beside him.
She rested her head on his shoulder.
“You okay?” She asked him.
“Better than last night.” He said.
She nodded.
“Thank you.” He said, looking at her again.
In waking hours, he thanked her instead of apologizing. She felt more words roiling within him. She shook her head, still resting on his shoulder.
On the counter beside the stove, there was a glass lined with the translucent remnants of the prairie oyster he’d downed before she got up. He’d sworn to her many times, often reaffirmed by Chris’s testimony, that his hangover was lessened by the slime in the glass.
She poked at it idly, smiling a little.
“Gross.” She said.
“I have bad news.” Leon said. She looked up at him.
“You’re out of eggs." He said.
She smiled wider.
They would do this when she showed up outside his door and tried to make up for it the next morning. She didn't know when it would be, but she was certain it would happen, and she was certain he would be there when it did.