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alchemist_aliceTitle: If the Dead Do Dream Then Dream You Shall
Fandom: Resident Evil
Prompt: West
Medium: Fic
Size: 1054 Words
Rating: T
Warnings: Cursing, character death, gun violence, and gore.
Summary/Preview: Claire is no stranger to death and the loss of someone close to her, having lost her parents at a young age, but when she is faced with the choice of killing the man who rescued her for the sake of self-preservation, Claire has a hard time with the tempest of emotions that follows soon after.
Notes: Spoilers for Claire's first run in the Resident Evil 2 remake. The direction West also possesses special meaning that pertains to the end of one's life as according to Native American beliefs.
"It's almost like they're asleep," Claire murmurs as she moves to grasp her brother's hand, shivering a little less as his fingers twine around her own. "Do you think they can dream still?"
Chris turns to look down a his sister, still holding the umbrella overhead with his other hand, and his solemn features soften some. "Of course they do, kiddo, and they'll keep dreaming until we see them again. When we're all together again someday, they'll finally wake up."
Claire moves closer to her brother's side and coils her arms around his, burying the side of her face into his side. "So, we'll see them again?"
"Claire," Chris says and drops to one knee, holding the umbrella over her head so she doesn't get drenched by the rain, "I promise you that we'll see them again, okay? Until then, we'll have to stick together and look out for each other."
Lifting her eyes so that she meets Chris's between them, she nods at length and rushes into his embrace.
Claire Redfield is no stranger to death.
The Raccoon Police Department is teeming with it, and as much as these zombies freak her out, without actual lives and faces to put to the shambling corpses, she doesn't have as hard a time putting them out of their misery than one would think. It hurts a little, but her strong sense of self-preservation perseveres against any thoughts of apology or sadness.
After being forced to leave Lieutenant Branagh in the mail hall once she opens the underground exit, Claire starts to feel that same foreboding as the day of her parents' accident. She has Sherry to focus on for a short time before she loses her, too, and to the deranged Chief of Police to boot. Forced to retrieve parts necessary to work a switch board in the Chief's office, she returns to the same place she was trying to escape earlier for the parts necessary.
"Marvin?" she calls as she rounds the corner where the the large metal shutter has been lifted from the east hallway. Her voice bounces off of the walls but none echo back to her in lieu of a response. "Marvin, are you here?"
Unsure of just how much time has passed since she opened the underground passageway, Claire reaches the front desk and swallows the hard lump caught in her throat. The hall is so quiet that she can even hair drops of rainwater falling into a puddle from a roof leak somewhere in the rafters above. Marvin's labored breathing is usually the first thing she hears when she enters the hall, so she keeps her weapon drawn just in case.
"Marvin?" she asks when she peers around the makeshift medical station set up behind the desk. "Marvin, are you awake?"
The police officer is sitting upright with his eyes closed, hand still staunching the wound on his side, and Claire swears that he's just napping but as she gets closer, she doesn't see any rising or falling of his chest to indicate that he's breathing at all.
"Oh, no," she chokes, daring to take a few steps closer. "Please, no."
A pained grunt and Marvin's eyes flash open suddenly, dark and listless as he turns towards Claire with a slack-jawed moan. His arms flop at his sides as he peels himself away from the leather couch and lumbers towards her. He reaches with spindly fingers and outstretches his arms, forcing her to back away from him.
Claire keeps flashing back to the car crash that killed her parents; she sees her father stumbling towards her instead of Marvin, and his warm eyes are nothing but bottomless black holes and flies pour out of mouth as he groans. Breathing raggedly, Claire shakes her head and focuses on the task at hand, just like her brother taught her to in times of crisis when he couldn't be there to help, and suddenly her handgun weighs heavier than it ever has as she lifts it.
"I'm sorry," she croaks, pulling the trigger. "I'm so, so sorry."
The first bullet skims past his cheek.
"Fuck," she murmurs, her aim having been thrown off by the delusions she's suffering.
The second bullet misses its mark entirely, severing his arm at the shoulder joint, and it does little to slow Marvin's ravenous approach.
"Concentrate," she hears Chris tell her. "Don't worry about whatever or whomever may be threatening you. It doesn't matter; all that matters is that you incapacitate the threat and save yourself, okay?"
Furrowing her brows, Claire aims true this time and fire a bullet right into Marvin's neck, into the lucky carotid and up into the skull, and his head pops like a wet balloon. Blood and sinew spatter her as he falls over backwards, hitting the marble floor with a sickening squelch. A metallic ping also catches her attention and as she slumps to the floor on her knees in exasperation, she looks over to see Marvin's badge lying a few feet away.
Crawling over and retrieving it, Claire settles against the wall to stare at it for a moment a collect her thoughts. Time isn't a luxury she can afford right now, she knows, but her emotional state is a mess and warrants tending to. Tears sting her eyes and blur her vision, but after a few minutes of smoothing her fingertips over the cold surface of the badge, she wills herself to stand again.
"Thank you for everything," she says quietly and fetches a soiled blanket from one of the gurneys nearby to drape over his body. Blood seeps through it and she lays his badge atop his chest, closing her eyes for a minute. "You went above and beyond your line of duty, and you saved many lives. I'm sorry it came to this."
She spots his gun laying on the couch where his body used to sit and she takes it as well, placing it beside him on the floor. Her head throbs from holding back the tears and her ears are still ringing from the shots fired at such a close range, but she resolves to press on for Sherry's sake and her own.
"The nightmare's over for you," she tells Marvin, rising to her feet once more. "I hope your dreams are sweeter now."
Fandom: Resident Evil
Prompt: West
Medium: Fic
Size: 1054 Words
Rating: T
Warnings: Cursing, character death, gun violence, and gore.
Summary/Preview: Claire is no stranger to death and the loss of someone close to her, having lost her parents at a young age, but when she is faced with the choice of killing the man who rescued her for the sake of self-preservation, Claire has a hard time with the tempest of emotions that follows soon after.
Notes: Spoilers for Claire's first run in the Resident Evil 2 remake. The direction West also possesses special meaning that pertains to the end of one's life as according to Native American beliefs.
"It's almost like they're asleep," Claire murmurs as she moves to grasp her brother's hand, shivering a little less as his fingers twine around her own. "Do you think they can dream still?"
Chris turns to look down a his sister, still holding the umbrella overhead with his other hand, and his solemn features soften some. "Of course they do, kiddo, and they'll keep dreaming until we see them again. When we're all together again someday, they'll finally wake up."
Claire moves closer to her brother's side and coils her arms around his, burying the side of her face into his side. "So, we'll see them again?"
"Claire," Chris says and drops to one knee, holding the umbrella over her head so she doesn't get drenched by the rain, "I promise you that we'll see them again, okay? Until then, we'll have to stick together and look out for each other."
Lifting her eyes so that she meets Chris's between them, she nods at length and rushes into his embrace.
Claire Redfield is no stranger to death.
The Raccoon Police Department is teeming with it, and as much as these zombies freak her out, without actual lives and faces to put to the shambling corpses, she doesn't have as hard a time putting them out of their misery than one would think. It hurts a little, but her strong sense of self-preservation perseveres against any thoughts of apology or sadness.
After being forced to leave Lieutenant Branagh in the mail hall once she opens the underground exit, Claire starts to feel that same foreboding as the day of her parents' accident. She has Sherry to focus on for a short time before she loses her, too, and to the deranged Chief of Police to boot. Forced to retrieve parts necessary to work a switch board in the Chief's office, she returns to the same place she was trying to escape earlier for the parts necessary.
"Marvin?" she calls as she rounds the corner where the the large metal shutter has been lifted from the east hallway. Her voice bounces off of the walls but none echo back to her in lieu of a response. "Marvin, are you here?"
Unsure of just how much time has passed since she opened the underground passageway, Claire reaches the front desk and swallows the hard lump caught in her throat. The hall is so quiet that she can even hair drops of rainwater falling into a puddle from a roof leak somewhere in the rafters above. Marvin's labored breathing is usually the first thing she hears when she enters the hall, so she keeps her weapon drawn just in case.
"Marvin?" she asks when she peers around the makeshift medical station set up behind the desk. "Marvin, are you awake?"
The police officer is sitting upright with his eyes closed, hand still staunching the wound on his side, and Claire swears that he's just napping but as she gets closer, she doesn't see any rising or falling of his chest to indicate that he's breathing at all.
"Oh, no," she chokes, daring to take a few steps closer. "Please, no."
A pained grunt and Marvin's eyes flash open suddenly, dark and listless as he turns towards Claire with a slack-jawed moan. His arms flop at his sides as he peels himself away from the leather couch and lumbers towards her. He reaches with spindly fingers and outstretches his arms, forcing her to back away from him.
Claire keeps flashing back to the car crash that killed her parents; she sees her father stumbling towards her instead of Marvin, and his warm eyes are nothing but bottomless black holes and flies pour out of mouth as he groans. Breathing raggedly, Claire shakes her head and focuses on the task at hand, just like her brother taught her to in times of crisis when he couldn't be there to help, and suddenly her handgun weighs heavier than it ever has as she lifts it.
"I'm sorry," she croaks, pulling the trigger. "I'm so, so sorry."
The first bullet skims past his cheek.
"Fuck," she murmurs, her aim having been thrown off by the delusions she's suffering.
The second bullet misses its mark entirely, severing his arm at the shoulder joint, and it does little to slow Marvin's ravenous approach.
"Concentrate," she hears Chris tell her. "Don't worry about whatever or whomever may be threatening you. It doesn't matter; all that matters is that you incapacitate the threat and save yourself, okay?"
Furrowing her brows, Claire aims true this time and fire a bullet right into Marvin's neck, into the lucky carotid and up into the skull, and his head pops like a wet balloon. Blood and sinew spatter her as he falls over backwards, hitting the marble floor with a sickening squelch. A metallic ping also catches her attention and as she slumps to the floor on her knees in exasperation, she looks over to see Marvin's badge lying a few feet away.
Crawling over and retrieving it, Claire settles against the wall to stare at it for a moment a collect her thoughts. Time isn't a luxury she can afford right now, she knows, but her emotional state is a mess and warrants tending to. Tears sting her eyes and blur her vision, but after a few minutes of smoothing her fingertips over the cold surface of the badge, she wills herself to stand again.
"Thank you for everything," she says quietly and fetches a soiled blanket from one of the gurneys nearby to drape over his body. Blood seeps through it and she lays his badge atop his chest, closing her eyes for a minute. "You went above and beyond your line of duty, and you saved many lives. I'm sorry it came to this."
She spots his gun laying on the couch where his body used to sit and she takes it as well, placing it beside him on the floor. Her head throbs from holding back the tears and her ears are still ringing from the shots fired at such a close range, but she resolves to press on for Sherry's sake and her own.
"The nightmare's over for you," she tells Marvin, rising to her feet once more. "I hope your dreams are sweeter now."
