by loveindubitably
I haven't played either of the Outbreak games so Kevin is likely to be very OOC.
Normal girls, Kevin Ryman thinks, would be losing their shit all over the place if they wandered into a town with a population consisting mostly of zombies and half-devoured corpses.
But Chris Redfield's sister appears mostly composed, except for the fingers on her right hand tapping incessantly against the door handle.
Everything about her is the perfect picture of calm: her face, her posture, her voice... But her fingers keep tapping. The beat is consistent and measured.
He'd offered her a moment to let the current goings-on sink in. It was the undead, afterall, and shit like that doesn't happen everyday. He'd promised not to tell anyone if she screamed or cried. But she waved him off. Said she was fine. Said she was a tough girl.
She's still drumming that frenzied beat against the door handle.
'Don't bottle it in, Baby, 'cause one of these days that cap's gonna give, and everything you think you're hiding is gonna blow.'
But he's one to talk.
He's been through hell and back tonight; some real Book of Revelations-type shit, and he's still trying to pretend that there's nothing in the world a bottle of Jack and a well written dirty limerick can't solve.
But at least he knows he's bullshitting, and he figures that puts him at least three or four steps ahead of her in the emotional wellness category.
"So what now?" The tapping finally stops, and she's facing him.
Does she even have to ask? "We're in a car with a full tank of gas. I'm thinking we drive ourselves the fuck out of here and then drink these memories into the ground." He takes one hand off the wheel to rub against the stubble on his chin. "How old are you, anyway?"
"I'm not leaving without Chris," she states firmly, and Kevin has to hold back an exasperated sigh. Claire Redfield is just a short, girl version of her brother.
"You're too young and pretty to be a tragic hero, Kid. Take care of yourself first. That's the way your brother would want it."
She's appalled at what he's suggesting. "He could be injured. Or trapped. Or-"
"He could be dead," he interrupts her, trying not to wince at the harshness of his own tone. He doesn't consider himself cruel or compassionless, but sometimes people need to hear things that will upset them. The next part, he knows for sure, will upset her a lot. "Or worse, he could be dead and still walking around."
But the expression of steel never leaves her face, and she raises her chin, like she's standing up to some heartless oppressor. Kevin wonders when and how he became the enemy. "If that happened, I'd want to know," she says.
"You'd know if you never saw him again," Kevin sighs, and softens his tone, realizing he's not getting anywhere with callous frankness. "Listen, let me spell it out for you, because I don't think you've really considered the consequences of what you plan to do," Predictably, she doesn't take that remark well, but he ignores her scowl, "These things are not people anymore. All they're capable of is killing and feeding. Could you handle seeing Chris like that? Could you accept the fact that he's already dead, and no amount of wishing or hoping can undo what's been done? You think you could put a bullet between Big Brother's eyes?"
She says nothing; still maintains the defiant upward tilt of her chin. But her eyes are uncertain. Terrified. They're the eyes of a chick in a slasher movie, of every survivor he's stumbled upon since the outbreak started.
Claire Redfield may be a Redfield, but she's still a human underneath it all.
Kevin thinks he's finally convinced her, and the death grip he hadn't even noticed he'd had on the steering wheel loosens. He's just about to let out the breath he's been holding this whole conversation, when the sound of her voice -- soft and fragile -- stops him.
"I could never live with not knowing what happened to him."
There's something in the way she says it that tells Kevin that there is not a thing he can say or do to talk her out of staying in this death pit of a city until she finds her brother.
In a last ditch attempt, he tells her, "You could die tonight."
The possibility does not surprise her, and Kevin realizes that she's already considered this. "So could Chris. And that scares me more than anything else in the world."
She wants to cry. She wants to fall to pieces. She's terrified out of her mind and probably wishes she could just go running back to daddy, or the dorms, or wherever the hell it is she came from.
But she stands her ground, holds her chin up high, and intends to fight, even though she knows the kinds of things lurking all over the city.
Kevin Ryman curses his luck.
That's just the kind of person he can't leave alone.
NOTES
Claire seems to have really good coping skills. At least, in the face of danger she does. I'm not certain whether she's the type that keeps it all together until she finds an appropriate time and place to go apeshit, or if she's just that difficult to faze. Which was half the reason I wrote this.
The other half had to do with a rumor I heard about Claire and Leon making a milisecond cameo appearance in one of the Outbreak games. I did a minute of research on google and it appears to be true.