Chapter Text
"Leon?" Claire's striking blue eyes met the blond's as she looked up from the file she was reading. The sun was almost out of the sky, seeing it was nearly six pm. Leon and Claire rarely see each other as of late due to both's hectic work schedule, and Leon's multiple disappearances as of late. But, neither would trade accomplishing their jobs for pretty much anything at this point.
"Uh, yeah?"
"What was your weirdest dream?" Her question was met with an eyebrow raise and half-hearted scoff. A, now, usual response from him.
"And why do you want to know?" He placed his elbows onto the table in front of him, and laid his chin in his hands. A facetious grin tugged gently at the corners of his mouth.
Claire's eyes flicked back to the file as she scanned the pages, "I found this research file on a study that was conducted as part of some new virus, and it mentioned something about a side effect involving your weirdest dream." After a few more moments of page flipping, she slid the file over to Leon. "Take a look for yourself."
Leon scanned the pages set in front of him, "...It appears as if your weirdest dream you have had will become your mental reality as you go through the infection process…". He lifted his gaze to meet Claire's once again. A look of bewilderment danced within his pupils.
"Unbelievable, right?" She grabbed the file back, flipping back to where she was.
"Terrifying." A shudder ran up his back as he sat back in the chair. Claire's office was quite small for two people but in what it lacked in size it gained in being the closest to the 'library', a decent size room filled with file upon file on past and present information on the majority of virus Umbrella and its successors have released to date. Leon has read a good portion of them as research for possible future missions, but it was more curiosity than anything. This one, well this one was new and a strange one at that.
"Is yours that strange?" Claire didn't look up from the file as she lifted her drink to her lips.
"It involved dating that Tyrant from Racoon City."
Claire's sip of her water was no longer in her mouth but sprayed a over in front of her. Her eyes wide as she looked at a blushing out of embarrassment Leon. "Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"You're not just making a joke to get a rise out of me, right?" She swallowed a new sip of her drink.
Leon's embarrassment was quickly replaced with annoyance as he shifted in his chair, "I'm not joking, Claire. I really did dream about Mr. X and I being romantically involved."
Claire's borderline giggling cut short as she realized that Leon couldn't lie. He was basically incapable of physically lying. Even if he did try, Claire knew him well enough to catch it quickly.
"How long ago did you have it?"
"The first time?"
"Its reoccurring?" As Claire asked the question, her office door swung open with ease revealing a fairly casually dressed Chris. He was scanning the room as if it was part of a mission or something of the sort.
"Excuse me?" Leon huffed softly as he rubbed his left shoulder that just nearly missed the 'violently' swung door, "People are trying not get killed by doors."
Chris ignored the blond's statement as he looked his sister up and down for a moment before his eyes landed on the file she had been reading, "Ah, you have it…"
Claire looked at him puzzled before following his gaze. She quickly grabbed it off the table. "Yeah, Leon and I were just discussing it." She punctuated the statement with a poorly hidden devious smile.
"More like teasing a grown man over his dream…" Leon mumbled as shifted once again in his chair. Apparently, Leon just couldn't sit still today. Yet again his mind was just brought back to the topic of the dream and his genuine fear of this 'virus' possibly being the one that finally gets him. Though, he's quite sure he has, what he could only ever remember being called, superior genes.
"Dream? What does that have anything to do with this?" Chris almost sounded inpatient at them for possibly wasting his time on chit chat that might not even be quite of use.
"Claire, don't you dare tell him…"
The warning only met deaf ears as Claire attempted to hold back a laugh at the absurdity of the fore-mentioned dream. She had flipped the file open to the page containing the context that Chris so nicely requested. After sliding it in Chris's direction, she nodded towards it. "Read this first."
Leon, yet again, attempted to protest furthering his embarrassment to more people, but before he could speak, Chris had raised one of his hands to shush the agent. Which only caused him to scowl and slump further into his chair.
Chris scanned the page as if it was the last letter ever written from a lost lover. Intensely. His sister studied his facial reactions as he finished reading.
"How…?"
"That's the weird part, the file goes on to state that they can't find a reason for the side effect or how it even came to be." Claire grinned as she side-eyed a pouting Leon, "Which leads us back to our dear Mr. Kennedy."
"I'm not telling him." His hands shot up in defense.
The blond wasn't quite embarrassed of the dream per say but more scared of the dream's implications. Leon, at one time many years prior, would be eager to share, but that naive twenty-one year old was long gone. A man whose reality was shattered in one night. Now that he's older and more shut off he doesn't want to even begin to explore parts of who he is that he wouldn't be able to act on.
"I'll tell you about mine, if you want." Chris offered up as a way of obviously tricking him into telling the curious siblings. Naturally, Leon bits the bait.
"You first, big man." Leon shakes his hand in a circle pointing at him. A cocky smirk plastered on his lips as he sat up in the chair.
Chris looked between the younger two as he thought on which one wouldn't scare them, "Well, you have the one that was normal till the end or you have the one that seemed plausible till I saw something quite off." He scanned their faces as he spoke. Claire seemed intrigued by the latter. Leon, on the other hand, still had the smirk. Which Chris noted was a usual expression for the blond, but this one appeared to have intentions.
"I suppose I should go with the second, correct?"
Claire nodded, "Whichever…". A shrug of her shoulders following close behind.
"Here goes nothing…" Chris chuckled as he leaned back onto the wall as he realized this conversation probably wouldn't end soon, "It was a normal dream, well a usual one for me. Jill and I were chatting at a coffee shop or something of that sort about something to do with S.T.A.R.S. and it's members. As she was going to pick up her drink, I happened to look over to my right and see someone walking hand in hand with a large Tyrant-esque man. They had a -"
"Licker with a blue bone collar with an orange leash?"
Chris's eyes snapped wide open as he looked over at Leon once again, "Did I tell you this before?"
Claire busted it out laughing, "What're the odds that you would know that?"
Leon frowned and slumped into the chair yet again. He fell silent, watching Claire (and to some extent Chris) do mental gymnastics to figure out why the agent would know that specific detail of Chris's dream.
"Wait, did your dream involve walking a licker while on a date with Mr. X?" Claire tilted her head in a confused puppy-like fashion.
"Mr. X?" Chris butted in in confusion.
"He was a Tyrant who terrorized Leon and I in Racoon City all those years ago. He must have left a bigger mark on Leon than he did me, telling from his reaction just now and the fact he knew the detail…" Claire took Leon's continued silence as confirmation that she was right.
"Leon, is she right?" Chris turned his attention back to him. A hint of sympathy present in his brown eyes, otherwise they seemed oddly dead.
"For the most part, where did your dream go from there?" Leon deflected the attention from himself as his brain raced with thoughts once again.
"Shopping with Jill for something or another, the licker on the leash did put off a weird aura…"
He had stopped mid-sentence as if that wasn't quite the words he was looking for. He shifted slightly as he turned his attention back to his sister, who was holding back her laughter as much as she could. Though he would never tell her, he did want to yell at her to knock it off. Something he would tell her quite frequently growing up. She was a very inquisitive kid, which never fully left her to this day.
"Alrighty then…" Leon spoke up after taking in the room again,"Claire, how about yours? Anything strange? Stranger?" He had a slight smirk grappling the corners of his mouth.
Silent.
Claire shot him a look as if to say, 'Thin ice buddy!' as she took a deep breath, "About that...I prefer not to say due to the topic of the fore-mentioned dream of mine…"
The statement was met with a knowing look from the blond and a concerned eyebrow raise from the older Redfield.
"Topic?"
"I shouldn't say, but your sister here has good taste…" Leon nearly dodged Claire's hand as he chuckled out the last part, "I'm just saying!"
Now, Christopher Redfield is a very intelligent man. Though many would try to argue that, himself included. But this time, this time, Chris was clueless. He knew they weren't being secretive about it, but he still wasn't picking up on it. It might of been the fact it was his sister, but the one thing that came to mind felt implausible.
"Leon, you can't just go around saying that." Claire huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest, "It wasn't like that…He was kinda a pervert…". Her words spoke of one thing but her soft smile, which she tried to hide with a turn of her head.
"Kinda? Claire, he was the most perverse guy I know you to have dated!"
Chris was flicking between his thoughts and the bickering pair. He had heard enough to be clued into their conversation. His eyes widened as he turned to his 'baby' sister.
"Wait! Did you have a…?"
His louder than necessary voice scared both enough to make Leon choke on his drink and Claire shot him a cat-like smile. Though Leon did also almost fall off the chair yet again.
"Well? You gonna answer the man?" Leon gestured towards the baffled brunet, who was yet again in thought on how she could have 'grown up' so fast. To him just yesterday he had introduced her to Barry and his family and now she's having adult dreams. Wait, how was this her weirdest dream?
She had flushed a light red as she realized that Chris caught on, "Yeah, that wasn't the odd part of it though. It was what happened after the...well that part." She began fumbling her words, quite similar to how her brother would when embarrassed.
"Go on…" Chris gestured for her to continue as he pulled out a chair and sat backwards on it. He was holding back his protective older brother's attitude as he looked at her.
"Well after my partner and I -"
"Who?"
"You remember Steve Burnside?"
Chris's eyes narrowed as he flipped through the men he knew that his sister came in contact with. Once landing on the right face, his face contorted into a partial look of confusion and relief. "The redhead with the bomb collar?"
"Him." She nodded, "May I continue?" She didn't wait for a response, "After the act, I was looking out the window taking in the fresh mid-day air when I saw passing by was a tall man in a hat and trenchcoat walking hand in hand with his, what I could only assume, lover walking a -"
She cut herself off. Her eyes flicked in the direction of Leon.
"What?" Leon looked at her wide-eyed in defense. He made a connection but he was concerned she made another.
"They had a leashed licker as well." She let the tension drop as she searched her brain for more connections, "Thinking about it, the man was most likely the Raccoon City tyrant as well…"
"Are you trying to say your dream is connected to mine?" Chris butted in, a tad harshly.
"It's a possibility. There are cases of connected dreams within close friend groups or families but we could only know this for certain if we ask…" Her voice trailing off as the siblings' eyes focused onto the last remaining person in the room.
"Leon-"
"Absolutely not."
"Leon, come on. We came this far; we need to know if it is an actual connection or just a simple coincidence." Chris was stern, much like a parent scolding a child. His eyes seemed to be pleading for Leon to help.
"You should already know the answer." His arms crossed as he slumped down again, "I already told you mine involved romancing Xav- the tyrant."
"Xavier?"
"Did I say Xavier?" Leon chuckled nervously as he shifted in his seat once again, "I don't know why I would say that…"
"His name is Xavier, isn't it?
The room was deathly quiet as everyone slowly came to the conclusion that Leon had 'fantasized' about at least a romantic relationship with an eight foot tall bioweapon that was sent to exterminate RPD officers such as he was.
"He was oddly sweet in the dream." Leon shrugged, breaking the silence as he came to the conclusion he wasn't getting out of his one. "Not that I would want to be as close as I was with the real thing."
"You know that dream probably has deeper meanings." Chris was teasing him and that was quite known but Claire still lightly hit his arm.
"What is wrong with you two today?" She rolled her eyes, "Now if you don't mind, could you tell us the whole dream now?"
He nodded and took a deep breath before starting, "From what I could remember, it started with me being carried back to the lobby by a large man who had just saved me from a group of zombies."