InsaneJournal

Who: Leon and Liv
When: August 5th
Where: The morgue
What: Leon interrupts Liv's lunch
Rating/Warning: Medium? Brain eating and language
Status: Complete

Liv was starving. The bad thing about being on the fraternity brother’s brain was that it made her a bit irresponsible. Sure she was having a great time. Going to parties. Attempting to help Leon pick up chicks. Getting wasted. But she had forgotten to check just how much brains she had left and stock up for when she ran out. Which of course she did and as luck would have it her boss had been with her in the morgue all freakin’ morning. Finally he took off on his lunch break and Liv could satisfy her appetite.

Once the brain was removed Liv didn’t even bother to prepare it like she usually did, mixing it with human food and hot sauce. No, she was too hungry for any of that. Instead she just dug right in. Literally. Lifting the brain up to her mouth and taking a nice big bite. Yum.

Leon had been quietly watching Liv for a few weeks now, using Steve, Revy’s rat, to help him spy on her in exchange for food. He didn’t have a lot going on. He’d told his boss he’d pulled one of his pec muscles in New York playing football, which was a better excuse then ‘I got shot in the chest and didn’t go to the hospital or make any report of it happening,’ and was stuck on desk duty for the next week or two until he was sure he wouldn’t reinjure himself.

He was sitting in his car across from the morgue when he saw Steve running back to the car. He leaned across the car to open the door and then closed it behind the rat when he jumped into the passenger seat.

“You’re back quick,” Leon said.

“Oh yeah, I have big news,” responded Steve, looking at the bag of fast food burgers in Leon’s lap.

“Well?”

“Well?”

Leon gave an angry sigh, handing over the extra burger he’d picked up for the rat. Steve dug in. “Oh, well, your friend’s eating brains.”

Leon paused. He wasn’t sure if he’d heard that right. “Did you say brains? Are you fucking with me?”

“Swear on Revy’s life,” Steve assured him, shooting him a pointy-toothed grin as he took another bite of the burger.

“You’re fucking blind,” Leon said, but that didn’t stop him from getting out of the car and leaving the rest of his lunch to the delighted rat. He walked quickly into the morgue, not running only so he didn’t attract undue attention, though once he was well into the building he did start to run, throwing open the swinging doors of the morgue.

And sure enough, there was Liv, brain in hand that was missing a chunk that looked suspiciously like a bite mark. Without a word, Leon leaned over the garbage can near the door and lost his lunch.

Liv was about to take another satisfying bite when the sound of vomiting distracted her.

Shit.

Someone was there. Liv quickly looked up almost dropping the brain only to see Leon with his head practically in the garbage can. “Oh, uh, hey Leon,” she said quickly setting down the brain behind the body. It was the best she could do on short notice and maybe Leon had been too sick to notice. “I thought you were off duty for a bit? What are you doing here? You okay?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” Leon said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and straightening up as he got his nausea under control, and instinctively placing his hand on the butt of the gun around his waist. “Just fine. You know, just another day of watching your friends eat brains. Is this some kind of sick Robert Maudsley bullshit?”

Or how her psychic powers worked? He fought down another wave of nausea as he thought about the fact that she might have been eating brains since they started working together. That all her visions and weird-ass personality changes were something to do with that.

Great. He had seen her munching on a brain. Well, this was just great. “No,” Liv replied quickly, almost snapping at him. “It’s my lunch. You got a problem with that?”

And the brain was kicking in. Taking over Liv’s personality. Part of her wondered if she should deny the whole brain eating thing but he had clearly seen it. And Leon knew weird shit got around this place. He really shouldn’t be so surprised.

You got a problem with that?! “Do I - Of course I have a freakin’ problem with it!” Leon exploded. “Who wouldn’t have a fucking problem with cannibalism on the job?!”

“He’s already dead,” Liv snapped. “Would you prefer I go around killing people for their brains?” Damn she was cranky.

“No!” Leon exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation, though even as he did so he was aware he probably shouldn’t take his hand off his gun. Still, Liv was all the way on the other side of the room, and he couldn’t honestly see her attacking him. “I’d prefer it if you stopped eating people’s brains.” Would you rather I go around killing people? What the hell kind of stupid question was that?

Liv may be a bit on the grumpy side but she certainly wasn’t going to attack Leon. Even if he was yelling at her. “That’s not an option,” more snapping. “Unless you want me to turn into a mindless predator.” Okay so she wasn’t explaining the whole zombie thing too well. But whatever, he was the one acting like she was some type of monster when she was just trying to eat her lunch.

That actually made Leon pause, giving Liv a bewildered look. The fuck was she talking about? That didn’t even make any goddamn sense. “The fuck are you talking about Liv?” he asked, his hand back on the butt of his gun.

Liv eyes fell to his hand on his gun. “Seriously, Leon? You’re going to shoot me?” She would have laughed if the idea didn’t actually hurt her a bit. Sure the bullet wouldn’t do much with the whole immortal thing. But her so called friend shooting her? Just because she was eating some dead guys’ brains? Was Leon really not getting what was going on here. “It won’t hurt me. I’m a zombie.” Well he wanted to know what she was talking about.

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Leon snapped. It took him another moment to realize his hand was still on his gun though, and he tentatively removed it. Maybe if she came at him, but he definitely wouldn’t shoot to kill. She was his friend after all. His cannibalistic friend. He… really should take more care in choosing his friends, now that he thought about it.

“Uh. You’re not a zombie.” Leon knew all about zombies, and Liv wasn’t nearly brainless or shuffling enough.

“You’re right. I just eat brains for fun.” Sarcasm, obviously. Maybe not the best way to go about this but so far no one she told really had trouble accepting the whole zombie thing. Or reacted so adversely.

She sighed, a frown forming on her face. “I’m a zombie, Leon,” she said again a bit more calm this time. “If I don’t eat brains regularly I’ll become like the ones that came out of that portal thing.”

“Yeah, because, being a homicide detective, I’ve never run across people who eat brains for fun,” Leon snapped, his voice raising. Okay, maybe not in this life, but D had definitely one time dated a cannibal. He’d killed and eaten at least forty people before Leon had figured it out, and he’d shown up just in time to keep D off the lunch menu. D hadn’t even said thank you, the ungrateful little turd.

He was feeling a little ill again. “I don’t know what’s worse. You eating brains by choice, or because you’ll become some brainless monster if you don’t.”

Liv rolled her eyes at his first comment not even bothering to dignify it with a response. Whoever Leon ran across wasn’t her. They had been working together long enough for him to know better. But perhaps she had been mistaken when she thought they were actually friends.

“Doesn’t exactly thrill me either,” she mumbled still annoyed with Leon.

This was too much. First he’d worked with the Triad to help hide a body to keep Revy out of prison. And the worst part was he knew if he had a do over, he would have done the exact same. But now he was expected to just ignore Liv snacking on their vics? How many crimes exactly was he supposed to turn a blind eye to in a week? He needed a drink. Maybe no one would notice if he cut out of work early.

“I’ve got to go. Enjoy your fucking lunch.”