[Week 1 Afterparty] Now kid, I know I haven't been a perfect man

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

That all sure fucking happened, didn't it?

Again, Leon walks out of the crypt with blood on him that is not his, and it's absolutely no comfort that he didn't even get the worst of it this time. He spends longer than he means to washing it off in the bathroom sink, going over and over and over things in his mind, before gravitating towards the kitchen to see if Luis is looking to play host to another wake. When he doesn't find him, Leon decides he might as well try to put something together himself.

Thankfully for him and also everyone in attendance, he gets plenty of help. Otto, Garry, Yuri, Lortel, and Shauna all lend a hand in the kitchen, which leaves dragging the furniture from the library back into the sitting room to him. Before long they've got a spread of snacks and drinks - better than he would've probably done on his own, having planned to make something that could be eaten quickly to efficiently replenish energy after a whole day spent arguing as opposed to like. Something tasty.

Once it's all set up, he'll go scouting around the now considerably more sensibly laid out house, knocking on doors and telling people that dinner's ready in the sitting room. Once he's at least told everyone he could find, he'll be standing guard/being a wallflower in there. Second verse, same as the first.

Comments

[windmilled]

[He's taking a break to stretch his fingers and nibble on a sandwich.]

She did. Very generous of her, and the house.

[He rests one arm along the gentle curve of the guitar.]

I did a lot of busking, to make up the difference where my scholarships couldn't stretch. It didn't hurt that it was also popular with the señoritas.

[doctopoda]

Ah - yes, I remember those days. Though I just got a job in the library.

[Which also turned out to be a good place to meet women, but - ]

[windmilled]

Eventually I worked my way up to paid lab assistant. I got to sample several different disciplines that year, it was a nice break from the rest of my courses.

[doctopoda]

Oh, yeah? Which ones?

[Science - well, it's been a while since he got to talk science with anyone, and the topic feels...ginger. But it's worth trying.]

[windmilled]

I spent a week camping in a forest tagging Pyrenean desmans - an endangered relative of moles and shrews. That was fun, although more fun was the lovely company that went with me.

Another three weeks was spent gathering groundwater samples to develop a new test for various contaminations. And then to finish out, the one I stuck with the longest was testing a more precise radiotherapy that could target specific invasive or cancerous cells without devastating healthy tissue.

That one, I learned some tricks from that I ended up needing to use later.

[doctopoda]

Oh, that's fascinating! I'm - well, I'm sorry you weren't able to continue with that sort of thing.

[Mind control spiders and all. Between what Luis and Leon have said, it sounds like their world has gone to serious shit. Otto knows perfectly well about Events getting in the way of scientific pursuits.]

[windmilled]

[Luis shrugs with an easy grin.]

It was fun, but at the time I thought my true calling was still with my little bugs and microorganisms.

[You know, the mind control spiders.]

[doctopoda]

[Dryly:]

The mind control spiders?

[windmilled]

An oversimplification, but a forgivable one, given Leon's experience with them.

[He sighs, though.]

We call them las plagas, where I grew up.

[Which, okay. Calling it The Plagues isn't MUCH better than calling it mind control spiders.]

I wanted to find a way to neutralize its negative effects. I wanted to study how it worked, the way it connected to the host's nervous system, to try and replicate that to help people who had suffered damage or deterioration.

[His eyes fall, and his brow furrows.]

I was naive. By the time I saw how my research was really being used, it was too late.

[doctopoda]

...don't be too hard on yourself. It's a difficult needle to thread. I always did my best to try and avoid military funding and the like, for my work, but I'm not confident OsCorp was much better.

[There's reasons he and Norman fell out all those years ago.]

It's next to impossible to do any real R&D without some...compromises.

[windmilled]

[He laughs bitterly at the weight on the word "compromises," shaking his head.]

Your OsCorp, my Umbrella - cut from the same cloth, maybe, but...

[He debates whether to even admit it. But, they've had enough bummers today already.]

Well, it's in the past now. Now, I am a man with no future, and a past I don't wish to claim - so I may as well try and enjoy the present, eh?

[doctopoda]

[He sighs.]

You're right. We're in the same boat, there. I was meant to be going home, when I got dragged here, but I really don't know what I was going to do there.

[Die, he expects. Even with forewarning, some things are difficult to fix.]