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César has found a new way to amuse himself: ordering from Providence HQ's cafeteria. White Knight would be furious a skeleton walked in and ordered food. That's the funniest option.

He also enjoys having a 5 compartment melamine tray. César can use it for crafting, probably. Plans are being hatched.

On his tray are tacos, steamed veggies, a banana, a small slice of chocolate cake, and then a whole heap of fries. He's down to one taco, which means he has space to squirt out his condiments: ketchup and mayonnaise.

The mayonnaise has been hit hard with the ketchup mostly untouched. Another fry dips into the mayo, and he eats it. He's found a table on the Green to sit down and eat on this nice turning to fall day. It's a trap set for Americans and Canadians only.

"You think you got enough food, there?"

Leon is, perhaps unfortunately, not above inviting himself over to talk to people who are eating in public. It's a deliberate thing - if he doesn't push himself he doesn't talk to people outside work basically at all, so he makes a point to push himself in an effort to be less awkward. Sometimes it even works out!

"Actually, hold on. Where'd you get a cafeteria tray here?"

Do they even have the tech to make that plasticy stuff on the island? And if they do, wouldn't it be in pretty high demand for more useful things? This is a mystery now, César. He's latched onto it.

César fights off a laugh; trap successful.

"I figured I'd get some extra fries to share." He says with amusement, turning the tray partway to offer the fries for easier reaching and not answering the second question.

Judging by how his eyes crinkle with warm mirth, it's deliberate to tease. "Long time, no see, Leon."

Dastardly. Ingenious, even. Leon snorts and settles down across from César, reaching out for a french fry.

"Yeah, I'll bite. The fries they make here are - I mean they're fine, but they're pub fries, not fast food fries, you know?" You start to miss the real garbage after a while, even when you're a gym rat like Leon. Some indulgences are just too important.

(He does, in true American fashion, go for the ketchup without hesitation, eyeing the mayonnaise with some mild puzzlement.)

"Yeah. Fell off the island and out of time for a little bit there. Still getting my feet back under me. Good to see you again too, though."

"Yeah, I know. Sometimes you want mass produced fries from a freezer bag." César gets it, even if he's got a gym rat-like girlfriend.

He makes a huh noise. "Glad you found your way back onto the wagon." César takes another fry and almost starts to say something, stops himself, and dips the fry in the mayo instead. "... You've missed a lot, but the bad stuff can wait until after we're not eating. I'm getting engaged to Magne soon, one of her friends showed up, Magne's opened up a brothel to protect the red light workers, and we had a bunch of short term visitors. My mother and brother were two of them. And Mama told me that she and Papa were cured to be themselves again by the global cure event my brother created. My parents are alive."

"Thanks," Leon says, popping a fry into his mouth and settling into listen to César's explanation. His expression briefly goes confused and concerned when he mentions that Magne opened up a brothel - Leon knows prostitution is legal on Marrow Isle, he's done his reading as an officer of the law, but that always struck him as weird and a little worrisome. César moves on before he can react beyond that, though, and he files it away to think about harder at a later time. Especially since -

"Sounds like congratulations are in order," he says, once he's had a chance to swallow. "On the engagement soon and getting to see your family again. So they're really okay?"

Given their first conversation had been all about how not okay things seemed, Leon's pretty fucking thrilled on César's behalf that didn't turn out to be as permanent as it seemed, and it shows even though his bad case of resting murderface.

César isn't surprised by the reaction, and in fact, it's one of the reasons why he blew past the mention. It takes a shift of the mind to accept. Seeing Magne's passionate need to protect people that others wouldn't made it easy for César. Leon will talk to him later if he has concerns.

It's okay, César can half-read resting murder faces by now. "They're really okay. My parents will need to be picked up and a bit out of sorts after being like that for so long, but they're otherwise fine. And my mother absolutely adores Magne."

"That's fantastic," says Leon. "And understandable - them being out of sorts. Wouldn't expect anyone to bounce back from something like that right away. But it's great that you got to see your mother and your brother again and get an update on the situation. And that she likes Magne."

And he feels a brief pang of - something hard to identify, as he thinks about where they are, and the nature of time being so weird here. Is there a chance he could meet his biological parents again here, if by some fluke of fate Mortanne picked one or both of them up? Probably not, but the idea sits in the corner of his mind now, heavy and strange. Would either of them even recognize him? Again, probably not.

The blessings of having a case of resting murderface are that very little of this brief foray into existential crisis land shows in his expression, which just goes distant for a moment before he goes back to paying attention to César.

"So it sounds like things have been going pretty well," he says. "You wanna drop the other shoe now? Or is there more of the good news to share?"

"I'd be going insane if people hadn't helped me deal with my grief. I should mention that. I can stand being separated from them right now." César really does mean that.

He would offer sympathy if he knew.

And he offers a sigh at that question, his good humor fading somewhat. "Depends on how tough of a stomach you have. Some of the bad stuff was... pretty gross. Although the last time I died, Mortanne put me on a week of vacation as punishment for working too hard. Magne thought that was hysterical."

"Yeah," Leon says, frowning sympathetically. "Sounds like you and your family are all pretty close."

The statement's spoken with something like wistful admiration to it. Leon's not distant with his (adoptive) parents by any means, but between moving away and what happened in Raccoon City being about as classified as possible, it's been harder to be as open with them as he'd like.

"You'll see them all again. I'm sure. But as for how strong my stomach is, I wouldn't worry about me. I'm pretty used to 'gross'." He shrugs. "Up to you whether we move on to the bad stuff just yet or not."

"We are." There's something more to that statement: Rex has amensia, but César doesn't want to divert the discussion to that, and César also notes the wistfulness, but doesn't pry.

"Well, I'll avoid descriptions for my sake. The highlights are:

1. A flood where we were picked up by a boat with people infected by insects that would slowly munch on your insides and turn you into a hollow version of yourself.
2. We had a fair. That one wasn't too big of a deal.
3. A plague that made people aggressive and altered memories, among other effects. We created a vaccine for that... and you should get it.
4. The demon Mendel ruined Dahlia's birthday Gala by announcing her as both his brother Aster's daughter and the Pine Devil. She's had to sustain herself by eating people against her will. And then everyone was thrown into a maze with mind or balance altering masks that you couldn't take off. Mendel's now dead."

"Ugh." says Leon, scowling a little and shaking his head. "Yeah. I was around for the first one and the last one, but..."

He huffs, tapping a french fry against the bottom of the ketchup cup a little more aggressively than necessary.

"Think I'm glad I missed out on the plague. Not a fan of those for, uh, reasons we talked about." Sang about, in Leon's case. He's still kind of embarrassed by that whole thing. "I'll go talk to Chris about the vaccine as soon as we're done here. Thanks for the heads up."

"Most people aren't. And you're welcome." César does remember the singing, now that Leon's mentioned it, and he's quiet for a long moment. "Honestly, I think things are only starting to heat up. Mendel upped the game with that reveal. And reveals like that usually change future trajectories."

He finally brings his fry with mayo on it to his mouth and eats it, chewing.

"Ugh. You aren't kidding." Leon watches César dip the fry in mayo with some continued curiosity before doing the same himself, though he continues speaking before eating it. "And I thought the US intelligence community was bad about backstabbing each other for the sake of career advancement."

That said, he takes a bite of the french fry and pulls just the slightest bit of a face, not pleased with the result.

"You always eat your fries like this?" he asks, looking over at César skeptically.

"Which reminds me, my previous boss overthrew her predecessor because he was getting in the way of world domination. Her 'reign' ended with pretty much the entire organization unilaterally accepting him back the moment he asked if they wanted to go against her when she and her bosses made her move. Now she's on the run."

César laughs as Leon takes the bait. "Yes. It's a thing in other countries. I've been all over the world, so... I tried it and liked it."

Leon just nods with a look of exhaustion on his face, hearing that.

"Why can't people in important offices stop doing shit like that?" he asks, flatly, before shaking his head. "Anyway. I heard they do mayo and french fries in parts of Europe? Hadn't really thought about it all that hard before though. I don't think I'm a fan. There's no acidity to cut the grease. Just tastes fatty."

Like he's some kind of connoisseur. But in a way, with how infrequently he eats junk food like this, it's important to make sure it's just right.

"Because we wouldn't be interesting enough to live a second life if they didn't." César's light-hearted sarcasm does have a point; few ordinary people have been brought here.

"And elsewhere, too." He nods respectfully to that opinion. "Sometimes I mix the two to compensate for that, but each their own. I've learned tastes are just a fun way to be different. But I'm the more experimental type anyway."

"You think so?" Leon did catch that César was joking, but he can't help but ask anyway, eyebrows raised. "I mean, I guess it does seem like there aren't a lot of folks Mortanne invited here who had normal nine-to-fives, but..."

Huh. He's gonna have to think really hard about that one. Sure enough he hasn't exactly interviewed everyone here about their lives before winding up here, but from the sample he's got it is kind of a pattern.

"We're people that can handle this. Our lives have proof." César shrugs a bit. "Magne and I had life experiences that have some... similarities, and we learned quickly that our opinions aligned on most matters."

"Guess we have all been through a kind of trial by fire," he says, drumming his fingers on the table thoughtfully. At the end of the day he's still not sure how useful his being really good at guns and not dying (barring two exceptions now) is when it comes to breaking a demonic or potentially old-god-bullshit curse, but he has some faith in Mortanne's judgment. Someone has to be the dumb muscle, he guesses.

Anyway. He shakes his head, smiling.

"I think it's great that you two found each other here, by the way. That's something pretty special."

"And it wouldn't be fair to ask a normal person to go through this. Not everyone's made out to survive Occasional Horror Town."

"Yeah, you got a point there. Guess we are kind of the goddesses' chosen ones? I mean, I knew that, but it hadn't really clicked that way."

Weird, but sensible. It definitely wouldn't be the most fair to ask just anyone to do what they're trying to do here. He'd only been thinking about it from the angle of Mortanne giving them a second chance, rather than the responsibility that came with it.

"We can suffer without breaking." César says it almost without thinking, then realizes how true it really is, and sobers up a bit more. "We've already faced trials proving that. It wouldn't be a fair ask for an ordinary office worker, you know? They deal with a different sort of hell."

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