Chapter Text
It would make sense for the southern Pacific Ocean to be freezing; she wished she’d thought of that before she let go. All she could think of was the strained sound of the grapple gun’s motor dying from the weight of two people. Better one in the drink than both and a working grapple gun. She yelled at the panicking red haired boy in front of her that she'd catch up with him at the island’s airport. Steve flew away as Claire let go of his waist and plummeted towards the December waters, 200 feet below.
The sensation of hitting concrete knocked the wind out of her. When her body immediately demanded air, her insides scorched at the inhalation of brine. Tears added to the salt of the sea as she went into shock. Claire couldn’t move her limbs, no matter how violently she wanted to fight for air. Her arms began to float in front of her body as she slowly descended.
No, please, not like this! I need to find Chris!
Her desperation to move any part of her paralyzed self dwindled and the terrible reality completely took over. This is how she would die. Her death would not be surrounded by loved ones in old age, but rather just another forgotten corpse sacrificed to the sea. Tiny bubbles escaping her mouth were the last thing her blue eyes saw before fluttering shut on their own accord, forcing fate upon her determined soul. Claire finally allowed herself to go when she felt her dad embrace her and start moving them skyward to a better place.
A couple moments of silence passed before there was a blinding light, and her eyes squinted. Everything was unnervingly quiet from where Claire found herself standing. Part of her wondered if her eardrums blew out upon hitting the water. The thought subsided when she started to hear the faint clicks of familiar shoes. Even through slitted eyes, the red flowers on them were unmistakable. She picked those shoes out herself for her mother to be buried in.
“Hello, darling.”
And with those words the light died; replaced was her childhood backyard. She was in between the rows of carefully tended plants in her mother’s garden, where she would spend hours helping her and playing in the mud. Claire watched in enchantment and sorrow as the older woman wiped the dirt from her hands onto her work clothes. Mrs. Redfield’s burial shoes were still adorned in the fertilized soil; a somber confirmation this vision wasn’t just a memory. She smiled and laughed as she saw her daughter start to sniffle.
“After all these years you still have those chubby, chipmunk cheeks. I could've sworn you’d grow out of them,” worn hands came up to pinch the moist cheeks, “It’s nice to know some things never change.”
The wrecked teenager started to cry, “Mom,” but her lungs instead spasmed, causing her to exhale hard. The fit would have knocked her to the ground had her mother not grabbed her by the arms. Not even the long forgotten touch of her mother could satiate the terror in the girl’s eyes.
“Easy,” the older woman cooed before the air of the garden thickened. Her face hardened, ready to chastise Claire for recklessly throwing herself away, but the girl convulsed again in her grasp. Her daughter was acting like someone connected a fireplace bellow to her windpipe. Suddenly, Mrs. Redfield’s green eyes flashed in understanding and she went back to a more comforting tone.
“Okay, it’s okay,” the mother started to stroke her child’s hair, “I’m glad I got to see you so soon, but don’t you dare come back here again on your own accord. Claire? Are you listening? Once you’ve truly lived your life, then we can catch up. Until then, don’t be reckless. Survive.”
The girl desperately tried to say something, but air filled her out of nowhere. The red-shoed woman held her daughter close as her lungs continued to be forcefully taken over. Tears flowing, Claire begged herself to simply say, “I love you,” when her mother kissed her forehead. She heaved a final time and felt her chest shatter.
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Claire was freezing. Freezing to the point needles pierced her every pore. Her blue eyes shot open, but stung from salt. All of these sensations came second to violently vomiting brine. The wooden floor next to where she was laying on her side couldn’t absorb the water any longer. It was already damp beyond capacity from her clothes; her coughs left small pools. Moments later, all that was left coming out of her mouth were desperate gasps for air. Her throat and lungs were raw after she finished purging the water from her system. The taste of oxygen proved sweeter than the sting.
A warm palm came to rest on the shaking girl’s shoulder. It seared her frozen skin like an iron brand. Claire jumped as far as her locked limbs would let her, scrambling over onto her now obviously broken ribs with a sharp cry. Once the quivering girl composed herself enough to move with the pain, she turned fully to find a blurred effigy of black and yellow looming. Focusing her fuzzy vision the best she could, she watched a hand rake through wet blond bangs, trying to sweep them out of an annoyed, sharp looking face. A grimmance appeared as they flopped back in front of the man’s weird eyes.
Orange, what kind of guy has orange eyes?
They lingered on her face in a mix of exhaustion and satisfaction, but never met her eyes. He seemed more interested in her mouth. The frozen gears in her brain began to thaw and they rapidly turned two slots. Understanding swept over her and fingers bolted to swollen lips; she couldn’t catch herself from darting her tongue along them. Even if it was reflexive, Claire knew seeking a taste other than salt and bile was pointless. It was obvious by Wesker’s labored breath and his kneeling position over her that he had literally breathed life back into her.
Oh my god, this monster had his lips against mine.
The girl’s breathing quickened to near hyperventilation; she needed to get away before he could do any more damage than what was delivered in the palace courtyard. Frantically scanning the single-roomed shack for an escape or her weapons, Claire instead found something more dire. Her vest, shirt, and bra tossed in a corner. Between being busy vomiting and her freezing skin, she hadn’t realized she wasn’t wearing anything above the waist. She couldn’t feel anything above the waist except for pain. No pressure, no air movement, just pain. She didn’t know if she should be more panicked over her lack of a top or sensational feeling.
Despite everything, blood flooded her cheeks, “W-w-w-what the f-f-fuck-k?” Claire snapped her arms up to cover her chest. The burn of her sudden movements became dull compared to his hands when he reached and took one of her’s. Between his two palms, the nerves of her fingers ignited. Air sucked through her teeth and the suffering girl’s eyes suddenly had more tears to cry.
“Your sense of touch will return, the pain is proof of that.”
Claire shrieked, “M-m-my b-b-bra!?” and managed to rip her hand back to her chest.
Wesker’s brows furrowed, “Explain to me, Dearheart, how someone gives CPR with something obstructing the recipient’s chest?”
The half naked woman couldn’t think of a rebuttal, instead she continued to look for a weapon of some kind. One of Claire’s hands found an old journal that had fallen off of a nearby desk and attempted to whip it at Wesker’s head, missing by a mile. An old can of peaches soon followed but with even less accuracy.
Ignoring her pitiful attacks, the man got up and grabbed a moth-eaten wool blanket off of the bed in the room’s corner.
He said, “You don’t seem very thankful for being saved.” as he knelt down, swatted away a couple pathetic kicks, and wrapped the itchy fiber around his unwilling patient.
Claire cried, “I’d rather have drown-n-n,” trying to sound more angry than traumatized.
“Your shivering is getting worse,” the man ignored her outburst and began to remove his shirt, “we need to start sharing body heat.”
The angry mask she tried to wear quickly dropped, exposing the utter terror in where the situation was going. “Excuse me-e-e..?” Claire rasped between chattering teeth. She started to push herself backwards by her feet towards the wall.
Wesker sighed, throwing his soaked socks into the corner, “I suggest you start taking off your remaining clothes.”
“N-N-N-o!” Even though the heroine knew he was right, her drenched clothes were only making her colder, she didn’t want to believe it. Part of the her wished she sank to the bottom of the ocean instead of having to deal with this.
The last of his politeness went to meet the rest of it in the arctic waters outside. “Either you do it or I will remove them myself. Now is not the time to be modest, I’m trying to save your life. If you think this is for either of our enjoyment, then you’re more delusional than your brother.” Finishing, Wesker’s eyes gave off the same red aura the half naked woman had seen when he looked back at her, leaping over the palace’s walls towards the training facility.
At the mention of her older brother, a sense of clarity came to her mind. He was the reason for getting through this.
Shortly after Chris was shipped off to basic training, at the age of 11, Claire went grocery shopping by herself for the first time. She was terrified of walking 3 miles through the woods and partially along the highway. Normally the tween would smirk away any apprehension to those around her, but now that she didn’t have someone to put up that front for, she couldn’t trick herself too. The stories on the news of serial killers, and the urban legends Chris would try to scare her with, became clearer in her mind with every rustle in the trees. But no matter what, she kept going until she closed the last cabinet in the kitchen, even if at some point she ran around the barren house locking doors and crying with one of Chris’s bowie knives clutched close. She needed to be a grown-up and not cause her older brother any more trouble than she already was.
This is no different; you do what it takes to survive to see your family again. It's just that instead of buying buttered toast, I’m getting naked with my brother’s crazy boss who was trying to kill me only 2 hours ago.
With a sharp huff and glare, a weakened semblance of her normal self returned. Claire sputtered, “This-ss-s never happened-d.”
“Of course.”
Despite complying to unclothe herself, her fingers were shaking too violently to get a proper grip to unbutton her jeans. She tried repeatedly, desperate to get it undone in fear of the alternative he proposed.
Wesker knelt down again beside Claire and easily snaked his arms under her. He shot the shivering girl a look not to be difficult. Even though she let herself be carried out of pure exhaustion, she used her last bit of strength to keep from pressing against his bare chest. Every quickly dying cell in her body screamed for the heat at her side, but her dignity held on by a thread. The blond set the blanketed girl on the bed before going back to fully undressing himself, much to the woman’s discomfort. Once she heard the plop of soaked combat pants and a belt on the floor, she braced for what was next.
With eyes shut and a deep breath, Claire muttered, “Light-t-t.”
The blond had to suppress a sigh, but whatever it took to get her to swallow her pride. He didn’t find it worth mentioning he could see in the dark. The oil lamp’s knob turned with a click and darkness smothered the remnants of light left by the flame. Carefully, he started to undress the stiff, quivering woman underneath him. As much as he’d rather use his knife to cut her clothes off, being gentle was the least he could do to calm Claire’s shaking to just a physiological response. He undid the button of Claire’s jeans and peeled them off before they could soak the bed any further. Once they were discarded on the floor, the blond moved on to the most dreaded article: a pair of blue striped panties.
Just before his fingers grazed her bare skin, he paused. The true implications and consequences of what he was about to do managed to sneak into his mind. It was easier to objectify her as a corpse or even a combatant, but this was a different beast altogether. The anxious face she was making in the dark, her labored breaths, her shaking body underneath his... without a weapon and helpless. Wesker had control over someone’s mortality like so many other times, it’s just now he was playing God by saving them; an itch he used to rub all the time back as the captain of STARS.
When the situation initially came to a head, he thought it would be good blackmail to use between the Redfield siblings. But along with the ramifications, it washed over him just how big of a stain that would be on his image. What invincible, heartless superbeing would brag about saving a woman and wrap himself around her in order to halt the rapid approach of hypothermia?
Shoving all thoughts aside of Chris Redfield, blackmail, and playing God, Wesker tried to seep back into his apathetic self as he unceremoniously took off Claire’s final piece of clothing. Despite this, his eyes involuntarily began to glow their signature scarlet. He shuttered them quickly to the woman now equally as exposed under him. Behind his lids, his eyes rolled at the unwanted display; the last thing he needed was her tensing further.
But she didn’t. Instead, her eyes were slowly fluttering open and shut, and her grip on the blanket wavered before she simply released it from her grasp. Now on his hands and knees over her, Wesker tried to swaddle her again
She calmly said, “I- I’m ok.” Her voice took on an airy, light tone and her icy hands weakly pushed up on Wesker’s chest in an attempt to move him. “I promise I feel better,” she let out a little giggle, "I'm on fire.”
Wesker sharply inhaled.
“No, no you are not ok. You’re about to succumb to hypothermia.”