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Language:
English
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Published:
2025-08-02
Updated:
2026-01-02
Words:
24,058
Chapters:
8/?
Comments:
51
Kudos:
132
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2,568

Play Dead

Summary:

Claire Redfield hasn’t seen Leon Kennedy in nine years.

Nine years since he protected the government instead of the people. Nine years since he broke her heart.

Having indulged in some less-than-savory coping mechanisms, she finds herself a thirty-something stumbling into an AA meeting at the church down the road. Where did all the years go, anyway?

Time flies when you’re drinking it away.

Claire realizes her fatal error upon attending that first meeting: this city is also his, no matter how much she re-plans her routes.

And he’s tasked with getting her sober. A sponsor.

The untouchable Leon Kennedy is perfectly healthy while her head barely stays above water. Maybe that was always their dynamic, and she was too gone for him to realize.

But the only way to get sober? Break through the anger that got her here in the first place.

You know what they say about a woman scorned…

**All characters are intellectual property of and owned by Capcom. I did not create them.

Notes:

This story illustrates what it’s like to have a dependency on alcohol. With that come graphic depictions of sensitive topics, such as suicidal thoughts and actions. Read at your own risk. If you feel that any topic throughout the story is misrepresented, please let me know. I’m relying on personal experience, research, and testimonies to guide me; Unfortunately, I can't always maintain full accuracy.

If you or a loved one has ever struggled to see a life free from addiction, there is always hope. No time is ever too late, and acknowledging your addiction is a valuable step in the path to sobriety. Please refer to the hotlines and resources I will provide at the end of each chapter. Help is available to you.

You are loved, and you are stronger than you know. I see you.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

“I missed the train again / I called your name / As if you’d drive it back.” -Beabadoobee

 

1998

 

Claire,

 

I hope you get this. This place is crawling with monsters, and your brother’s not here.

Just get out of here as soon as you can. 

I really hope you’re safe. 

 

Leon

 

His handwriting is precisely what Claire expected it to be: elegant and sure. Her fingertips trace against the loops, catching on the final line.  She shouldn’t read into that, right?

It would be entirely plausible that he was just that genuine of a person, caring wholly for the safety of a near-stranger. 

But part of her holds onto the hope that whatever this is… it means something. 

Claire Redfield has always lived her life with the belief that there are no first words. She’s been more fixated on the possibility that every word, every greeting could be the very last. Even if it seems like just the beginning.

All of her significant stories ended right on the precipice of something great. Her parents were struck by a drunk driver in the peak of their life, and her brother disappeared into a terrifying, flesh-eating metropolis during her first semester of college. 

It wasn’t a mystery: the reason behind her initial choice to seal away her heart.

Until she nearly collided with a gun-brandishing stranger at the gas station just outside Raccoon City. The same stranger who, without hesitation, saved her life in a matter of seconds. 

It reminded her of those rom-coms Elza made her watch before midterms to “loosen up”, but if they were steeped in horror. Their meeting–which, for the first time in her life, felt like a first, and not a last–held all the same predictable qualities. Throwing open a door in haste, locking eyes…she could go on.

Even now, as she wastes time tracing his handwriting rather than reloading her revolver, Claire can still see the beginning of a story. She can practically taste the years that will come after this, because there is an after. 

Leon Kennedy will survive. Something ancient and long-buried tells her that. 

Her eyes lift from the letter to the box of bullets she found laying beside it. He actually took the time to leave her ammo. Ammo that he could’ve used himself.

With a soft smile, she stuffs the note in her back pocket and returns to hell.