[Week 2 Afterparty] If only you'd have known me before the accident

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

That. All sure fucking happened. Didn't it?

Almost on autopilot, Leon starts pulling people aside who look like they might have it even slightly together right now and recruiting them to the task of making sure the rest don't just go straight to bed and pass out without eating all day. Anyone who doesn't seem to have it together but wants to lend a hand to stave off the grief and existential dread can help too. He's not picky at this point.

Without Yuri's tea or Otto's cooking things don't exactly turn out the same, but it's. It's something. Between all of them they get a meal together, something that can be easily picked up and squirreled away to the rooms if anyone really doesn't want to be around any of the rest of them right now, but Leon will insist that they have to come get it themselves as he goes around knocking on doors and shepherding people to the dining room. This is a check-in as much as it is dinner.

Comments

[doctopoda]

...I invented a new type of nuclear fusion reactor. Clean energy, all of that...they were meant to help operate it.

[Don't worry about how exactly that works!]

It's gone, now. Or it will be.

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Oh. Jesus, really? I feel like I should be giving you more respect, if you could literally solve the energy crisis on top of all the robotics stuff.

[ Not that Otto's asked him to, or that Leon's the most reverential person when it comes to hanging around those aforementioned brilliant scientific minds in the first place, but. It's a big deal! Which makes what Otto says next all the more worrisome. ]

...Why's that?

[doctopoda]

.....well. [carefully controlled] It imploded, and now I have a hundred pounds of metal welded to my spine. For one thing.

[God knows there were a thousand much worse consequences also!]

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Oh. Well. Fuck.

[ Leon thinks for a split second about asking about the larger implications of a nuclear reactor failing, before instantly deciding he spends enough time having nightmares about that kind of thing already and doesn't need to add to the pile or dredge that up for Otto any more than it's dredged up already. ]

I'm sorry. Know just saying that probably doesn't count for much, but.

[doctopoda]

[Good, no one can explain how he came out this relatively unscathed anyway!]

Don't worry. I wouldn't know what to say either. But I do...appreciate the thought.

[He hasn't gotten much of that. Mostly because of his own actions, but still.]

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

[ Leon just nods, frowning sympathetically. He considers bringing up the Raccoon City Incident, and how he knows what it's like to narrowly survive something like that, but given Otto built the reactor that failed that feels a little like telling Oppenheimer about it. Probably best not to. ]

'Least the arms seem to be working out... okay? [ he says, tentatively. Otto doesn't seem thrilled about them, but- ] I know a lot of veterans who would've - [ he catches himself before saying 'killed', grimacing as he thinks about what happened to Krauser. ] - given just about anything for a prosthetic that worked half as well.

[doctopoda]

[Otto frowns reflexively.]

It's not that simple. [But - as things stand now, he does know that Leon's right.] Though I had...hoped to use this technology in that field, someday.

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

[ Leon just nods, frowning as well. He doesn't exactly get the full picture, but he's more than willing to take Otto at his word about it. ]

Well, I hope you do get to. Someday, sooner or later. It could help a lot of people.

[doctopoda]

It's a nice idea, but I suspect my work's rather tainted in the public mind now. I doubt I'm getting anything like that off the ground.

[He'll allow Leon to assume it's about the malfunctioning nuclear reactor - which, you know, probably would've been enough on its own anyway. Even if as far as the actuators go, it is definitely about the murders.]

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Yeah...

[ There are a lot of ways to completely fucking end a scientist's career, huh. Regardless of what intentions they went into things with, or the efficacy of their work. Leon can't help but think of Luis and how the report Hunnigan turned up about him mentioned he'd tried to bring a lot of different medicines to trial during his time at Umbrella. At the time he'd assumed that was all to cover for what he was really doing, but. What if it wasn't? ]

It's a shame. Wish there were something more I could say about it that'd actually help.

[doctopoda]

Oh, well. It's my own fault.

[He seems a lot more bitter about that than really seems explained by the failure of even a life's work.]