Title: No Hero.
Fandom: Resident Evil (games).
Characters: Sherry Birkin, Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield.
Rating: R for bad language and zombie situations.
Length: 509.
Content notes: Spoilers for RE:6.
Author notes: for the mythology challenge.
Summary: Sherry grew up cold and stopped believing in her childhood saviour...
 
Leon and Claire in the buttery glow of a streetlight, crusading through Raccoon City, shoes on fire, just running, running for our lives baby. Sherry clinging to Claire’s belt, red jacket hanging off her shoulders, eyes closed and praying for dawn. She was twelve, she was stupid; her parents never wanted her and she had no idea how she survived. There was gunmetal in her mouth and antibodies shacking up in her blood, but she was alive. She had to remember to thank them for that.

A hero. That’s what the president had called Leon when he stepped in for questioning. He had mean eyes and a slight smile, and he looked at Sherry with pity, which she always hated. She reminded him of his daughter, he said, same eyes, same blond hair. Sherry was sick, sick to her stomach with the G virus, and there was nothing any of the doctors could do about it; did she have that in common with the First Daughter? She was sick, maybe dying, locked in a cell and filleted with cannulas, and Leon just upped and left.

He was her saviour. He was her white knight, her father, her sun. She had fallen headlong out of childhood into nightmares and zombie bites, and Leon had caught her. “You’re a tough kid, Sherry,” he said when Claire left, “you’ll be okay.”

She was just twelve. Way too young for this cannibalistic, nightmarish shit. She spent years making wishes, writing letters, growing up in a hospital or a prison cell, holding on for one more week until Leon would come back for her, until one day she caught a glimpse of her skinny white stomach in a hospital mirror. She was tall, she had curves, she was healed, but mostly – and she thought of Leon at this – she was no longer a child.

Claire had visited just once, on Sherry’s thirteenth birthday. She had a card, and a cake, which the doctors tensely allowed. They ate it like pack wolves waiting for an attack, and Sherry kept her eyes on the door. They’re the closest friends I’ve ever had… When the time came for Claire to leave, Sherry went primal, clutching and weeping and pleading. Love me Claire, she begged, don’t go. Claire patted her shoulder, forced her to make eye contact. “It’s difficult sweetie,” she lied, “this is the best place for you.” She lied through her teeth. Even then, in the hospital with her, Claire was thinking of Chris, always of Chris, vectoring through life to him.

She grew to hate them – the four of them with their pally bravado and their customary B.S.A.A jokes. She heard of them through the doctors, of Rockfort Island, of Spain and the First daughter, of the Spencer Estate. She grew up cold, a disbeliever, an orphaned virulent woman who still had nightmares in college. She forgot Leon, forgot his majesty and the promises he made. She joined the B.S.A.A, learned to fight her own battles – he was no hero, of that she was certain.