Chapter Text
Claire really couldn’t care less about the fact that her only pair of biking boots were now ruined from trudging around in sewer water. The only thing on her mind was finding Sherry.
After waking up at the bottom of the elevator shaft with Marvin and no Sherry, Claire hasn’t been able to calm herself down. We just got her back from that creep Irons! How could I have let this happen?! Please be ok Sherry!
As she carefully dropped down from the control room into the monitoring room, Claire quickly turned to help Marvin as well. He let out a soft grunt as he landed, and his hand flew to his injured leg.
Quickly, Claire pulled Marvin’s arm over her shoulder, and helped him limp over to a metal folding chair that was sat to the side of the room.
Once she was sure that Marvin was situated for now, Claire began to circle the room for anything useful.
Her search first took her to a long narrow window that took up an entire wall. Peering through the window revealed a garbage room of some kind. While the lighting in the room was pretty dismal, Claire was still able to spot a small form lying amongst the trash.
“Sherry!” Claire cried, throwing her hand up and pounding at the window. Unfortunately, despite her shouting and pounding, Sherry didn’t even twitch. Please don’t be dead. Claire desperately stared at the small form for any sign of life.
Behind her Marvin was trying to get her attention. “Sherry? Do you see her? Is she ok?”
Claire was too afraid to breathe, as she stared down at Sherry lying amongst the trash. Please! Breathe!
After what felt like an eternity, Claire let out an explosive sigh of relief as she saw Sherry’s chest gently rise and fall. Oh thank god. “She’s alive,” she confirmed to the Lieutenant. “Unconscious, but alive.” Behind her, she hears Marvin also sigh in relief.
Life now confirmed, Claire pushed away from the window and began to search for a way into the garbage room.
In her search, she managed to find a map of the sewers, which revealed that there was only one way into the garbage room. And it just so happened to be through the very locked door in the monitoring room.
“Oh what the hell is this?!” Claire groaned in frustration as she observed the electronic lock and the series of fuses needed to open it.
“Here Claire, come take a look at this,” Marvin spoke up from his chair, holding out a pamphlet. “According to this, some idiot interpreted ‘superior industrial design’ as making single purpose chess-themed fuses with no spares lying around.”
Skimming through the pamphlet that Marvin had handed her, Claire could feel her frustration growing. “Fuck! We saw one of those fuses on the way here!” She exclaimed.
“Well that’s one of them, but we still need two more. The king and the queen. Any ideas where they could be?” Marvin mused. Claire quickly held out the sewer map that she had found, and the two of them began intently scanning for any areas that they had yet to explore.
“Hmm, if I’m reading this correctly, then the only large area that we haven’t explored yet is here,” Marvin pointed to the bottommost section of the map. “The supplies storage room just past the bottom waterway.”
Claire then opened her mouth to start suggesting a plan when she was interrupted by a large bang.
Both her and Marvin’s heads snapped to the corner of the room where they had descended from the control room, fearing some new horror was about to charge them.
Instead, to their surprise, the source of the bang was Leon.
But Leon seemed to not notice them at all, as his pupils were narrowed into pinpricks and copious amounts of drool was leaking from his open mouth.
“Leon?” Claire called softly, not yet moving so as to not spook him.
Leon’s head twitched, and at first Claire thought he was acknowledging her and Marvin’s presence. But instead of properly responding, Leon flew across the room to a set of lockers on the far wall.
Without a word he tore the metal door off of the locker and pulled out an entire box of chocolates. How did he know those were in there?
And then to Claire’s fascination and mild disgust, she could only watch as Leon proceeded to tear into the box of chocolates.
Bar after bar disappeared into his open mouth as he barely paused to chew before he swallowed. Drool was dripping steadily onto the floor, and the sounds that Leon was making could only be described as disgusting. Huh, I didn’t know his jaw split open like that.
Leon maintained a frantic pace as he continued to decimate the box, sometimes not all of the wrapper was taken off of the bar before it was shoved into his mouth. Oh man, I hope he doesn’t get sick from all of this.
“Leon?” Claire called again as she and Marvin slowly began to approach the feasting bug man.
Leon continued to ignore them completely as he finished off the last couple of bars in the box. He then fell still, panting and drooling over the pile of shredded wrappers.
Claire could see the moment that Leon snapped out of his sugar frenzy, his posture suddenly stiffened, and the tail that had been lazily swaying behind him froze.
“Leon?” Claire called out once again. She watched as his already tense posture stiffened even further, his shoulders starting to rise towards his ears. Well this has got to be embarrassing for him.