Who: Revy & Leon What: A date where they first met, but without pointing guns and Leon's now a vegetarian, gross When: Early October Where: A bar and grill sort of place Rating/Warnings: Some violence due to a fight breaking out, lots of language, but that's it Status: Complete!
It only seemed fitting that they come back here, didn’t it? Upon their first interaction over the fucking internet - where tone was usually impossible to decipher - he’d arranged their first meet up as something of a date that ended up in a total goddamn (but hilarious) disaster with their guns drawn at each other. It had set the tone for their unusual relationship since then, from friendship to something…else. Revy was sort of proud of herself for coming up with the idea too, because it’s not like a romantic bone in her body even existed but the ‘sentimental value’ or whatever this place sort of had was important, right?
They could bond over their love of mooing meat on their plates and beer, except there was one issue that ruined the spirit of it all.
Leon had suddenly decided he was - and fuckin’ wait for it - a vegetarian.
Still didn’t stop her from ordering a practically bleeding ribeye that took over her entire plate with a side of fries; she had feelings for the cocksucker but she wasn’t going to sacrifice her love for fucking meat for his sake of comfort. His sudden choice of diet was exactly that, his choice, so why the hell did she have to suffer for his poor life decisions?
“So, how’s your…” Revy tried not to grin but she failed, horribly, as she motioned over towards his plate. “Whatever the fuck that is?”
Though not right now. Right now he was looking at her plate with a mixture of revulsion and hunger. Because god damn did it look delicious. He’d only stopped eating meat a couple of days ago, but he already missed it. Except for the very thought of it, after meeting all those slaughterhouse cows, turned his stomach. Now he could understand why D was a vegetarian. He wondered if Liv felt the same way about her brains sometimes.
“It’s called a veggie burger,” Leon growled, rolling his eyes. He didn’t know why he bothered answering her. She obviously knew what it was; she was just trying to get a rise out of him. He gave it a dissatisfied look, and then took a large bite out of it. It took him… an incredibly long time to actually swallow what tasted like a piece of cardboard crammed between two buns. “And it’s… delicious. I’ll have you know,” he said, frowning deeply as he placed it back on his plate.
“It’s called a shitstain on this fucking planet,” Revy corrected, still grinning like the asshole she was. At first the revelation of his sudden switch from meat to rabbit food made every vein in her temple throb in annoyance but think about all the opportunities she had to give him hell about it. Was it a phase or would it last?
Jury’s still out on that one.
Her steak, however, was juicy - the knife cut into it like butter. “Seriously, Leon. Why don’t you just do the grass-fed beef bullshit? Don’t they treat their mammals nicer?” A piece was stabbed with her fork and it was waved in front of him, tauntingly.
Leon scowled at her, more so because he couldn't even argue it. This was by far the worst burger he’d ever had, with the texture and taste of soggy cardboard. He really wouldn't have been surprised if the ingredients read ‘cardboard pulp and vague flavouring.’ It was disheartening, especially since a good, greasy, juicy burger was - sorry, had been - his favorite food for the last twenty-five or so years.
“You don't get it, Rev,” he said around another mouthful of said soul-crushing shitstain. “You didn't see them. It would be like taking a bite out of someone’s favourite aunt.” Just the thought of it turned his stomach, especially as he watched the revolting, succulent piece of flesh that Revy was waving in front of his face. His mouth watered a little, and he tried to convince himself it was because of his own meal.
That piece of meat was plopped into her mouth, chewed and swallowed, all without guilt. “Your sympathy towards cows you can talk to ain’t gonna stop someone else from eating their favorite aunt,” Revy shrugged. That fucking skill of his was fine up until it was becoming a pain in the ass, like in this scenario. For christ’s sake. They’d bonded about their mutual dislike for vegetarians in this very establishment and here he was, being a goddamn vegetarian.
Maybe guns would get drawn again this time, but she’d probably put the muzzle of hers to her own temple and shoot. Revy gulped some of her Heineken down, and leaned against her chair with an elbow propped on the back of it. “It’s the food chain. Don’t fuck with the natural order of things. You can’t sit here and seriously tell me you’ll spend the rest of your life avoiding things like bacon and eating mush that’ll give you the runs. I might have to kill you earlier than we expected.”
Leon’s stomach lurched when he saw Revy take a bite out of the meat, and hand to hold the back of his hand against his mouth. This was definitely going to take some getting used to. “I’m not trying to make you stop,” Leon said, despite his somewhat disgusted look.
Leon sighed. “High cholesterol runs in the family anyway,” Leon sighed. “I probably should have cut back on the bacon anyway.” The bacon, and burgers. And bacon cheeseburgers. At the realization that he’d probably never eat a bacon cheeseburger again, he groaned and slumped back into his chair. “You know, I probably wouldn’t even be that upset about it if you did.”
“Cutting back and quitting cold turkey are different things, and you’re quitting cold turkey,” Revy pointed out. Her shoulders rolled into a nonchalant shrug, and she shifted closer to the table to continue the slicing of meat and its utter, shameless devourment. “But at the rate you’re going and the rate you’re looking? You’ll probably kill yourself before I do.”
What? His face said it all. Leon was fucking miserable and also grossed the fuck out, and he wanted meat but obviously had an issue about consuming it. God, she hoped this was just a phase. Revy guessed she could get used to it if she had to, but if he was going to keep looking at meat the way he did (she’d always either have a steak or burger, it was an American fact), then going out for a bite was going to be a shitty experience. “We can talk about something else to keep you sort of distracted. Catch Liv eat any brains recently?”
That also fell under the category of ‘things that grossed Leon out,’ come to think of it. She was awful at this stuff.
Leon did pale then, at the thought of Liv eating brains. What was left of his appetite quickly evaporated into thin air. He gave one last look at his veggie burger, sitting there in all it’s soggy, tasteless glory, and then pushed the plate to the edge of the table so the waitress could pick it up on her next go around. Sure he’d be hungry again in an hour, but a liquid dinner was pretty much just as good as a solid one. Maybe he’d switch to Guinness.
“I stopped visiting her at lunch,” he said. Now that he knew what she was eating, he couldn’t watch no matter how much it didn’t look like human brains. “I saw you and her got together for some selfies though. You guys friends now?”
Revy wasn’t always unnecessarily greedy. Her plate spun and was pushed towards him with the mountain of salted fries facing him - he could at least eat those unless Leon suddenly had a deep philosophical conversation with a sack of potatoes at a supermarket. Sharing was caring, something like that. “I guess,” she answered without much thought. “I got curious and paid her a visit while I was in the area.”
Liv seemed alright. Part of her was admittedly psyched to know a zombie, but she was also Leon’s friend and she thought she did need to take a more active role in his social circle, maybe? Not be ‘total besties’ or whatever the fuck people said these days. Revy wanted to put an effort because she fucking cared. “She looks off, for starters, but personality-wise you wouldn’t think she’d be slurping up intestines like a bowl of ramen noodles. I like her.”
Revy wasn’t the sort of woman who’d go out for manicures and oh gosh, let’s get some lattes. Drinks, though? She’d get some drinks with the zombie, and eat some pizza while watching something stupid on television while only wearing underwear (at least for her). That was the extent of ‘girl’s night.’
Leon gave Revy a grateful smile. Wordlessly, he plucked a couple of fries of of Revy’s plate. “Yeah, I might have thought her dreams turned her into a goth,” Leon admitted a little sheepishly. So much for that great detective instinct that he liked to brag about. “I’m glad you slapped some sense into me as far as she’s concerned.”
“Hey, you’re sitting in my stool!” a man slurred loudly from the bar. Leon paused, fry halfway to his mouth, and glanced over.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Leon groused, watching as the drunk man punched the seated man from his stool. This could not be happening.
Revy rolled her eyes at that because, yeah, he jumped the gun a little bit on Liv but she knew he didn’t mean to be an ass. Leon was the sort that was filled with goody intentions and the urge to ‘do the right thing,’ all that shit - he’d come around. A verbal punch in the face probably expedited the process though.
Now, the noise from whatever was going on behind them hadn’t bothered her. Honestly, she’d be more than happy to ignore them and go on about her goddamn meal until she realized that Leon would take interest - and he did - which caused her to groan.
“Let them fucking sort it out,” she sighed, cutting up another piece of ribeye to quickly devour. Because if this was going the direction she thought it was going despite her suggestion, she wasn’t going to be enjoying the rest of her dead cow meat served on a cheap plate anymore.
“Fine,” Leon said, angrily biting into the fries. He was less inclined to break up their fight than he was last time; he could let them sort it out. But dammit, he was on a date - a real one, this time - and the sounds of a beer bottle smashing and the men and bystanders yelling made his eyebrow twitch. It was really killing the mood.
He half sat up in his chair and turned to yell at them. “Would you two knuckleheads fucking shut up or take it outside?” he snapped at them. “Some of us are trying to eat.”
Both the men paused in what they were doing to look at Leon. “Yeah? Well maybe you should shut up,” one of the men slurred.
It was typical background noise for Revy. Fists hitting flesh and bone, glass shattering - usually when she was out having a drink somewhere by her lonesome she didn’t even notice the eruption of mayhem. Expecting Leon to act in a similar way was just asking too much, considering the whole ‘civil duty’ thing was ingrained in instincts even outside of the office.
Her beer bottle was empty, which was why she decided to use the end of the table they were at to break it in half - shards hitting her lap, not in a way that’d cut skin - and she waved the newly created shank in their general direction. “Hey,” the ex-con barked. “Eat a dick and quiet the fuck down before I cut you.”
Back in the days, years ago, murder and bloodshed was an acceptable outcome for a scenario like this but the times had changed Revy, and she was trying to not give this boyfriend of hers an excuse to non-sexually cuff her.
Sometimes, though.
Sometimes the struggle was really fucking real, as the internet put it.
A beer bottle was definitely better than a gun of all things. He remembered quite vividly the first time they’d gone out, when Revy had shot some guy in the wrist and then ended up turning her gun toward Leon. She’d been lucky he hadn’t arrested her on the spot.
As it was, he had to rub his nose with his index finger to keep the smile under his hands hidden, both from her and from the dumbasses at the bar. He managed to turn it into a more neutral look, and turned his attention from Revy back to the guys at the bar. “She’ll do it too,” he said calmly.
The man showed a bit more hesitation, then scowled. “Fuck this. There are better bars than this one,” he scowled, heading for the door.
No guns, no murder, no enormous show of men thinking it’s alright to shit out testosterone for whatever goddamn reason. Revy’s threat wasn’t empty either but, god, she was trying really hard to not give Leon a blatant reason to arrest her.
“Any other time, if I’d been having a bad day, I would have shot them both in the ass,” she griped and...for once, well, she didn’t know what the fuck to do with the shank in her hands so she just set it on the ledge next to them, and then dusted the bits of glass from her lap. “Don’t ever say I don’t like your ass when I just avoided giving you a shitload of paperwork on purpose.”
It was one of the sweetest things she had ever probably said to him.
“It’s appreciated,” Leon said, fighting down another twitch of his lips. He really was proud of for not pulling her gun on the drunk idiot, but only Revy would ask for kudos for not shooting someone in public. He plucked another fry from Revy’s plate, presumably for a reason other than pointing it sternly at her even if that’s what he was doing with it now. “You know you can’t just shank people though,” he said sternly. “It’s not much less paperwork than someone getting shot.”
Revy’s brow raised sharply, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or smash the plate of steak and fries right in his face. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” she snorted, but still managed to put forth the effort to lean across the table and plant a kiss to his cheek. “How about I bash their heads in with a fucking bar stool and knock ‘em unconscious? Less messy than murder, and maybe I’ll be out of jail after a month for good behavior.”
Leon blinked in surprise, and then his expression softened. Deciding that he’d probably made his point, he tossed the fry in his mouth and settled back into his seat, looking pleased with himself. “See, that I can get behind,” he said. “Nothing wrong with a good old bar fight. Besides, the only people who report fist fights are pussies.” He personally didn’t know any cops who took good old-fashioned, weaponless bar fights seriously if none of the participants dragged anyone else into it. They did their jobs because they had to, but most of them were in the corner of the poor bastard getting reported.
“Making a note of that for the future - no guns, no shanks, but fists will get me in the least amount of trouble with you,” Revy chuckled in her usual raspy sort of way. There was already an odd linger of guilt for having him involved in what happened with her father, like fuck did she want to compromise him in anything else.
But there some final pieces of cut steak left on her plate, and she gave it a lingering look before she blinked back up to Leon. “If you feel like killing this I won’t tell anyone a damn thing. That family of cows won’t ever know.”
He was barely even a vegetarian, and already temptation was staring him right in the face. But he was nothing if not a slave to his vices. He frowned deeply at Revy’s plate, then gave a quick glance around the bar as if to make sure there weren’t any cows lurking in the corner watching his every move. “Fine,” he said aggressively, admitting his defeat. Anyway, people were allowed to cheat the first few days after making big changes like this. There was probably a law about it somewhere. He picked up his fork and skewered a chunk of the steak onto the end of it. “But this doesn’t leave this goddamn table.”
The last fry of the plate was swiped by her own hands, and pinched between her teeth through the wide, shit-eating grin stretched across her face before it was swallowed up. “Deal,” Revy promised. “I won’t tell a damn soul that you ate some cow’s mom.”
Yeah, she’d give it a month or two before he caved in and reverted back to his more carnivorous self. But she could - sort of - play the role of ‘supportive girlfriend’ until then.