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fembuckAuthor: Janine
Fandom: Resident Evil
Pairing: Alice/Claire
Rating: R (overall rating)
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Summary: A look at what life might be like for Alice and Claire and the others onboard the Arcadia if they had been able to sail the ship to Alaska.
Note: The story uses the same timeline as Pull My Heart. This is really only relevant during the parts of the story that reference how Alice and Claire first got together, so it is not necessary to have read Pull My Heart in order to follow this story.
Chapter One
xxx
PART II
Flames flickered attractively in the fireplace warming the occupants in the living room of the cabin. Claire was seated on the large couch, one arm lazily flung over the back of it while the other gently combed through a full head of curly blonde hair. Young Kevin from her former convoy was sleeping quite peacefully with his head in her lap as a few of the other children from the convoy and the Arcadia sat on the rug in front of the fire, their eyes trained raptly on Alice who was lying in a fetal position on the floor.
A hand touched Claire’s shoulder, and as Alice began to wriggle on the floor, Claire turned her eyes away from her lover and looked up at her brother, a gentle smile touching her lips as Chris smiled down at her.
“Is it Terror at KLKB, again?” Chris asked sliding over the arm of the couch into the small space between Claire and the end of the couch, half sitting on top of his sister until she sighed irritably and carefully shifted herself and young Kevin to the side to make room for Chris.
“Yeah,” Claire confirmed, letting her eyes track back over to Alice who was now on her knees, gesturing animatedly with her hands. “They love that one,” she continued shaking her head, even though a little smile was on her lips.
The survivors they had picked up onboard the Arcadia had never seen Alice when she still had her powers, but the remnants of her convoy well remembered what Alice was capable of. The children had watched her from afar for those first few weeks aboard the Arcadia, just as they had watched her surreptitiously through windows while they were still traveling through the desert, but Alice’s friendly smiles and, Claire suspected, K-Mart’s encouragement, eventually led to a few of the braver children approaching Alice.
When those children lived to tell the tale, the rest of them became convinced that Alice was safe, and one night in the mess hall Alice had found herself surrounded by tiny little people bombarding her with questions about her super-powered adventures with zombies. Those questions had led to the first ‘Story Time’, which emerged as a resounding success and since settling in Alaska, at least one night a week the Redfield Cabin – as their home had come to be known – was host to a swarm of small children and teenagers.
Though, Claire thought glancing down at young Kevin, many of the children were not so small anymore now that they were eating at least two proper meals a day, and were getting a developmentally appropriate amount of uninterrupted sleep.
“It’s a good story,” Chris noted watching as Alice moved her hands around in circles as she spoke to the group gathered around her of flipping off of the wall in the radio stations basement to escape an infected dog that ended up impaling itself on a wild piece of metal. “I would have liked to see what she was capable of back then.”
“She was breathtaking,” Claire said softly, closing her eyes briefly as she remembered Alice setting the sky on fire and how majestic she had looked as ash rained down on her. “But she was lonely,” she continued, looking back over at Alice who was now smiling as one of the kids spoke to her, everything about her in sharp contrast to how she had been when Claire had first met her. “Wesker was an evil bastard,” Claire went on, her voice hard and cold, “but he did one good thing,” she finished, her tone and expression gentling as she looked back over at Alice.
Her eyes lingered fondly on the brunette for a moment, tracing her features lovingly, and when she looked back over at Chris, she found him regarding her with amusement.
In response, Claire reached out and hit him lightly in the stomach.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked grumpily as colour rose on her cheeks.
“You are so in love,” Chris whispered, laughing lightly as Claire glared at him. “If paper wasn’t a non-renewable resource these days, you’d write ‘Alice+Claire 4 ever’ in a giant heart, surround it with smaller hearts, and border it all with rainbows.”
Claire stared at him for a moment after he finished speaking, and then darkly muttered, “I’m not a little girl anymore. And you’re a dick,” before looking away, though the affectionate smile that touched her lips as she turned away from him took the sting was taken out of her words.
Chris smiled pleasantly, knowing she didn’t mean it, and the Redfield siblings were quiet for a while as their eyes turned back to Alice. They listened as Alice described the infected dogs tugging relentlessly on the wire cables she had tied around them until they collapsed the roof the basement and created a ramp up to the main floor of the building. However, as she began to talk about the dogs racing up the ramp they had created, Claire felt eyes on her again and turned to the side to see Chris watching her.
“You’re going to give me a complex,” Claire muttered.
Chris smirked at that, but didn’t respond right away. He simply continued to look at her, and when Claire saw him begin to blink in rapid succession she understood the emotion behind his silence and saved him from having to speak by placing her head on his shoulder. Teasing her about her feelings was easy for Chris, but she knew he would rather have taken on a gang of infected with his bare hands than talk about his own.
“I should have been there for you,” Chris whispered so softly that even with her head on his shoulder Claire almost missed it. His large hand lifted so that his thumb could softly trace the edge of one of the scars visible on collarbone, and his jaw clenched. She had five other identical scars on her chest from the device Umbrella had attached to her. With the data pads they had found on-board the Arcadia they had been able to remove the other survivors devices safely, but Alice had been forced to rip hers off and the claws that had been inside of her had left visible marks.
“You were doing your job, saving lives,” Claire replied gently, reaching out to place a comforting hand on his thigh.
Chris was a good big brother. He had always been protective of her, and she knew that it upset him greatly that he hadn’t been able to spare her from the horrors of life after the outbreak.
“Besides, you were with me in a way,” Claire continued smiling gently. “All of that time I spent with you in the garage, fiddling around with those old junk heaps Dad used to bring home, is what kept our rust buckets going for so long. And those hunting trips we went on when you came home from school. Learning how stalk quietly, how to use a rifle, how skin and clean an animal, those skills kept us fed for years.”
When the animals began feeding on infected flesh and became infected themselves, the convoy had to start relying almost exclusively on canned goods, but when she’d first put the group together they’d always had enough to eat because of what Chris had taught her.
“You were with me every day,” Claire told him earnestly.
Chris was quiet for a few moments after she finished speaking, but eventually he released a ragged sigh and lifted his hand to the top of her head and ruffled her hair.
“You’ve gotten good at pep talks,” he drawled as Claire lifted her hand to try and return some order to her hair after Chris’s blitz attack.
“I’ve always been good at pep talks,” Claire said once she was certain her hair no longer looked like a family of badgers had been nesting in it. “With a sulky boy like you as a brother, I had to be,” she continued smiling as Chris frowned down at her. “Don’t give me that look. Do you remember what you were like when Elizabeth broke up with you?”
“No, I’ve forgotten. It was obviously an unmemorable event and not worth talking about,” Chris responded, though he remembered every agonizing detail of the break-up with his High School girlfriend, including how he stayed in his room for days, in the dark, listening to obnoxiously loud music until Claire had finally used their Dad’s tool kit to take off his doorknob and enter the room. She had then proceeded to fling open the curtains, turn down his music, and jab him repeatedly in his soft tissues until he took his blanket from over his head. Once she had his attention, Claire then spent the next half an hour listing all of Elizabeth’s flaws, and repeating every complaint Chris had ever made about her, until he actually became convinced that the break up was a good thing and agreed to leave his room.
Claire’s lips curved in the wake of her brother’s words and her lips parted to tease him about his completely unconvincing response, however, before she could speak Luther emerged from the kitchen calling out “Cider, anyone?” and Claire groaned and slumped against the back of the couch.
“You’re being unfair,” Chris chided gently. Luther had kept him locked up in a box for months and he’d found a way to forgive the guy, so it seemed rather unreasonable to him that Claire was holding a grudge because Luther had a penchant for staring at Alice’s ass.
“I’m not being unfair,” Claire replied stubbornly.
“He’s never tried anything with her,” Chris pointed out, which had surprised him until he learned that Luther had been aware of the romantic relationship between his sister and Alice weeks before anyone else due to him walking in on them at an inopportune moment.
“That’s because he’s seen me handle a gun,” Claire muttered darkly.
“Come on, Claire. Alice is attractive, you can’t hold a guy looking at her against him,” Chris continued earning a withering glare from his sister.
“Oh yes I can,” Claire declared turning away from Chris huffily. “And for the record, the only thing the ‘I was just looking’ excuse accomplishes is enraging any female within earshot. It doesn’t actually get you out of trouble.”
“Okay. Duly noted,” Chris responded holding up his hands, hoping to stave off any further lectures from his little sister.
Claire’s gaze calmed then and Chris lowered his hands as little feet began to scamper towards Luther in search of cider. Looking down at her lap, Claire saw that young Kevin was still asleep and gently began to shake his shoulder knowing that he would want some cider too, and that he’d be quite cross with her if she let him miss out.
“How does he do that?” Alice asked shuffling over to the couch now that her audience had abandoned her.
“It’s got to be a natural talent,” Claire responded, resisting the urge to comb her fingers through Alice’s hair. The brunette was seated on the floor against the front of the couch with her arm pressed up against Claire’s leg, in the perfect position for Claire to easily run her fingers through her silky hair, but she knew that if she yielded to the urge Chris would tease Alice. “They all learned how to sleep through a certain amount of disturbance, but Kevin has a gift.”
It took a few more shakes but eventually young Kevin lifted his shaggy head, blinking slowly at Claire in confusion until she said, “There’s cider in the kitchen.” At that point his eyes widened and he scampered off of the couch, nearly kicking Alice in the head in his haste to join the other children.
“Well, I suppose I’ll be a gentleman,” Chris declared standing up. Alice and Claire were gazing dreamily at each other again, and he was sure that they would be wearing each other’s lips soon, which he had no desire to witness. “Would you ladies like some cider?”
“We’d love some,” Claire responded, smiling fondly at him, knowing that he was being considerate and giving them an opportunity to be alone for a few minutes before everyone came crashing back into the living room.
Chris nodded and then wandered off, and Alice slipped up onto the couch beside Claire and immediately leaned forward. They shared a brief kiss, and then Claire sighed tiredly and rested her head upon Alice’s shoulder, snuggling closer to the brunette when Alice wrapped her arms around her.
“You sound tired,” Alice whispered, nuzzling her nose in Claire’s soft strawberry blonde hair as she drew her hand soothingly up and down Claire’s arm.
“I am,” Claire breathed out snuggling further into Alice’s arms. “But don’t worry, I’m not that tired,” she continued, smiling before she placed a kiss against Alice’s neck.
“Mm, well I’ll take care of that,” Alice responded, her raspy voice full of promise that made Claire wish she couldn’t already hear feet beginning to clomp their way back into the living room.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Claire whispered, teasing her fingers up Alice’s thigh before returning it to a respectable position.
A few seconds later the smaller kids who had been served first made their way loudly back into the living room. The older kids soon followed, and then Chris emerged with a precarious hold on three mugs while Luther brought up the rear, whistling as he cradled his mug in both hands. Claire’s eyebrows scrunched together in distaste as she regarded him, and Alice and Chris shared an amused look before Alice relieved him of two of the mugs and shifted a little closer to Claire to make room for him on the couch.
With Story Time concluded, the older kids made their way to a corner of the room to talk, while the younger ones rolled about on the bear skin rug, drinking their cider, shoving each other and talking animatedly about things that Claire, Chris, Alice and Luther didn’t even bother trying to follow. Instead, the adults occupied themselves discussing how the firewood chopping had gone, organizing a hunting party for later in the week, and confirming the need to teach the older children how to hunt with bows and arrows since their supply of ammunition was steadily declining.
Soon after the cider was finished the guardians of the smaller children began to arrive to collect them, and once the young ones were gone the teenagers began to pack up and call it a night as well, and within twenty minutes of the first guardians arriving, the living room – which had been buzzing with noise for hours – finally fell silent.
“So tired,” K-Mart complained piteously, forcing a spot for herself on the couch between Chris and the arm of the couch not occupied by Claire. “Carry me upstairs?” she asked turning to look at Chris, holding her arms out to him like a three year old ready for a nap.
“Carry yourself upstairs,” Chris grumbled in response. “I’m not a cable-car.”
“But I’m tired,” K-Mart whined, her voice hitting a piercing note that only teenage girls were capable of.
“So am I,” Chris responded, completely unmoved by her belly-aching. “I’ve been working hard all day.”
“Yeah right you have,” K-Mart declared looking him straight in the eye. “After you got back from fishing with Alice, I saw you go over to ...”
“I’ll carry you upstairs,” Chris interjected before K-Mart could continue. “But we have to go now. If you say another word I’ll be too exhausted to enable your laziness.”
“Hold on, wait a minute,” Claire said holding out her hand as if that would stop them from moving. “Where did you see him go?” she asked, directing her question to K-Mart, who had just risen to her feet.
K-Mart stared at the imposing staircase for a moment, and then turned to take in Chris’s warning expression, before she finally looked over at Claire’s curious face. She deliberated for a moment, and then shrugged helplessly at Claire and murmured, “Sorry, I really don’t want to walk.”
Chris threw his hands up to indicate that there was nothing he could do about it, though there was a decidedly pleased look in his eyes, and then he bent down so that K-Mart could climb onto his back. K-Mart gladly scrambled onto him, and within seconds they were out of sight.
“Well, that’s my cue to go,” Luther declared, pushing himself up out of the armchair he had been lounging in.
He actually wouldn’t have minded staying to talk a little bit longer, but his interest in Alice before he had stumbled upon Alice and Claire in the women’s change room of the Citadel and realized that Alice was not on the market, had put him on Claire’s shit-list and the redhead still wasn’t quite ready to let bygones be bygones – not that he could really blame her, considering the fine specimen of woman she had landed.
“Goodnight ladies,” he continued, bowing charmingly before making his way to the door.
They said their goodnights to him as he pulled on his jacket and boots, and then with a final salute, Luther slipped out of the cabin leaving Alice and Claire on their own.
“So, do you want me to carry you upstairs?” Alice asked playfully when they were alone once more.
“That would be nice, but it’ll take too long,” Claire responded, pointedly dropping her eyes to stare at Alice’s mouth.
They had discovered that Alice was still quite capable of carrying her, though she wasn’t able to do it with the ease she had while she still had her powers. On occasion it was quite charming when Alice carried her across the threshold into their bedroom, but they had a standing date that Claire was eager to get on with as quickly as possible.
“You’re right, we should both walk. Quickly,” Alice added before standing up and holding her hand out to Claire who grasped it with a smile and allowed Alice to help her to her feet. “Help me put out the fire?” Alice asked as she moved over to the fireplace to extinguish the flames.
“I’d rather help you start one,” Claire breathed out as she came to stop beside the brunette, placing her hand on Alice’s ass and then squeezing the firm globe suggestively.
Alice’s jaw clenched and she breathed in sharply through her nose before murmuring, “You already have,” thickly, as a familiar ache began to pound between her legs.
Bending over, Alice quickly put out the fire, and then she reached for Claire’s hand, drawing an airy laugh from the redhead as she dragged her towards the stairs, just as she had promised that morning.
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Date: 2011-01-02 01:48 am (UTC)Please continue and keep up the great writing!
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Date: 2011-01-02 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 03:26 am (UTC)Another amazingly cute and heart-warming chapter! The way that they are all sitting together with Alice telling her previous adventures is a very nice touch. I love it!! Even though they are so tough in the movies, I can totally see the picture you paint, how all of them share a peaceful moment like this! And I really like how you bring in the children, so full of hope and definitely a positive future ahead of them. Also, I love the interactions between our two beloved Redfields; bigbrother!Chris is sweet and their frank conversation makes my heart hurt a little, but at least things are all good now... I can't help but wonder what K-mart saw though... muat be something juicy! lol *wink*
Alright, my rambling ends here and I really need to get some sleep! Super duper looking forward to the next part. (My feelings are torn here, I want to read the next part so bad but I don't want this to end...)
OT
Date: 2011-01-02 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 04:29 pm (UTC)Well done, and keep it up!
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Date: 2011-01-02 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 07:27 am (UTC)I laughed at "two proper meals a day" and seeing Claire all GRRR at Luther. Poor Chris, trying to make things okay and nearly getting his head bit off too. I liked the little dip into Claire and Chris' childhood, showing Claire's loyalty and her no-nonsense attitude.
I love the fluff so much. ♥
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Date: 2011-01-03 10:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-05 03:37 pm (UTC)cant wait for more soon..
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Date: 2011-01-08 03:51 am (UTC)Loving your version of RE!
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Date: 2011-02-04 03:42 am (UTC)I love the sweet family atmosphere you've built and the bonds between these people. The teasing between siblings and in-laws and Luther being in Claire's shit-list! *LOL*
It's truly amazing.
Who knew an apocalipse could be so.. homey!
This is the sweetest story ever. I'm usually not a big fan of fluff, but this story is so perfect I'm scared to even think of drama. No drama. In fact, forget drama, this is good. This is great! Please update often =)
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Date: 2011-02-21 02:29 pm (UTC)