(no subject)

[adifferentpath]

He's in this part of town because he's decided to start going to Little Lorenzo's. There's not a lot of call for Lee to be in top physical shape these days— no Viper runs, no ops — but he doesn't have very fond memories of the last time he let himself go to seed, and isn't really looking to repeat it.

Stopping into a coffee shop on the way home, though, mostly for a bottle of water and a sandwich, he spots a familiar face. He hasn't really met the man before now, but Molly's talked about him enough, and he thinks she must have pointed him out a couple of times.

It'd be too frakking weird to see him and not say hello.

"Russell, right?" he says, approaching the other man, who looks pretty okay, for someone who just got shot not too long ago.

Comments

[boo_fuckin_yah]

The first thing Russell thinks is that he's been caught. That Katie or Molly have discovered he's been going out when he's very clearly not supposed to be up and around just yet and they've sent someone to track him down and drag him back to the apartment. Or worse, the hospital.

So when he hears his name, he freezes, his eyes going a little wide and when he turns in a circle on his crutches, he's debating his options. He could pretend he's someone else, which probably won't work, or make a run for it, which definitely won't work, not in the shape he's in, or just pretend like he had no idea he shouldn't be up and walking around. When he sees who it is, though, his shoulders relax a little and he laughs.

"Yeah, it's Russell," he says. "Lee, right?" Molly's mentioned him, even pointed him out once or twice, but he's never actually met the guy. He should be keeping an eye out for Molly, he thinks, after everything, but he's not exactly in the best shape for it now.

[adifferentpath]

"Yeah. Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," Lee says, and he thinks that maybe he ought to have been more careful, just walking up to Russell without preamble. He knows what happened to him, because of Molly, but not how Russell might have reacted to being shot.

He's seen Viper pilots lose their frakking heads over just being shot at in a bird, and this is something that's probably a lot worse.

[boo_fuckin_yah]

"No, it's fine," Russell says with a laugh, waving his hand as best he can while still holding onto his crutches. "I was just thinkin' maybe Katie or Molly found out I was out when I shouldn't be and sent someone to drag me back to the apartment."

Now that he's said that, though, it isn't impossible and his eyes narrow a little as he looks at Lee. He's still mostly joking, but he's also prepared to brandish these crutches as a shield if he has to. "Molly didn't send you after me, did she?"

[adifferentpath]

Lee holds both hands up in surrender. "I come in peace, I swear," he says, and can't help but crack as mile at the insinuation. He doesn't think Molly would send him after Russell for being out and about anyway.

Odds are, she'd do that kind of dirty work herself.

"It's all just a coincidence."

[boo_fuckin_yah]

Russell grins at that and shakes his head. "She'd probably just come after me herself anyway," he says. And he knows better than to ask Lee not to tell Molly they ran into each other today because he knows damn well he wouldn't keep anything from Katie, but at least he'll be safely installed at home again by the time Molly finds out.

"I was just goin' kinda stir crazy bein' cooped up in the apartment," he says. "I don't know how the hell I expected to be able to carry a coffee while I'm on crutches, but I just needed to get out."

[adifferentpath]

If it weren't for the fact that he's never met Russell before now, Lee thinks that he might try to keep it to himself. As it is, he's probably going to have to mention it.

"Well, if you need an extra hand, I've got one," Lee says and he gets how it is, feeling cooped up. He felt the same way after he was shot himself, stuck in sick bay with only Doc Cottle and a few nurses for company before he was released to recuperate in his own rack.

[boo_fuckin_yah]

"Yeah?" Russell asks, a little surprised. It's not that he thinks Lee isn't a nice guy, but they've just met. He doesn't have to hang around and help him out, but the offer is nice and he could really use he coffee. And the company.

"That'd be great. I can buy you a cup, too," he says with a grin.

[adifferentpath]

They've only just met, but Molly's said enough about Russell-- both before the day of his accident and after-- that he almost feels like he knows the guy.

"Deal," Lee says, though his offer wasn't exactly conditional, "Besides, I think Molly might kill me if I didn't at least offer."

[boo_fuckin_yah]

"Yeah, probably. She's scary like that," Russell agrees with a snort of amused laughter. It's sort of weird, or it should be anyway, that they're meeting now. Maybe he doesn't know exactly what Lee and Molly are to each other yet, but he's got a pretty good idea that Molly likes him, and he has to wonder how much Lee really knows about what went on between the two of them before.

It's never been a problem, their physical relationship has never gotten in the way of their friendship now, but he sort of hopes it's not the kind of thing people talk about. He doesn't ever want it to end up being a problem.

"C'mon. What're you feeling?" he asks as he heads to the counter.

[adifferentpath]

"Black's fine," Lee says, following Russell. It's not that he's trying to keep it cheap, since Russell's paying, but because he hasn't had it any other way since showing up in Darrow. For a long time, there was only black coffee with the Fleet, anything he might have added to it rationed once they started running out of food.

"Everything else is too sweet."

[boo_fuckin_yah]

"Yeah, that's what I'm used to, too," Russell says with a grin, then leans against the counter as he orders and wrestles his wallet out of his pocket. "We never really had much in the way of coffee chains in the town I'm from. You wanted coffee, you either made it for yourself or you got it from the diner in town and with them it was pretty much just cream and sugar if you wanted something."

He's never been able to get used to these mocha latte frappe whatever the hell they are. And maybe that's small town of him, but he doesn't much care.

[adifferentpath]

"We were mostly living on algae rations when I ended up here," Lee says, and there are a lot of things he misses about the Fleet, but the quickly dwindling supply of food isn't one of them.

Lee doesn't know how much Molly has told Russell about where he comes from, but it's never really been something he's hid from people in Darrow.

[boo_fuckin_yah]

"Algae rations," Russell echoes, his nose wrinkling a little as he pays for their drinks and then shuffles aside with his crutches to make room for the next person. He doesn't know a whole hell of a lot about Lee and he doesn't know why he'd have to be eating any kind of rations, but ones make out of algae sound especially unappealing.

"I bet you're glad for a step up on the whole food thing, then, huh?" he asks.

[adifferentpath]

"That's definitely an understatement," Lee says, because even though it hadn't been very long in the grand scheme of things, getting used to a lot of things in Darrow had taken a lot of time. He walks down the the other end of the counter, waiting for Russell to make his way over.

"You never realize how much you take certain things for granted until they're gone."

[boo_fuckin_yah]

Russell had only ever experienced something like that for a few days, but it had been jarring. Suddenly having all sense of stability and civilization stripped away in such a violent manner had been the most difficult thing he'd ever experienced and so he nods his agreement as he makes his way toward Lee.

"What happened?" he asks curiously. "That you were eatin' algae rations? If you don't mind me askin'."

[adifferentpath]

It's not a light subject. As much as Lee was forced to come to terms with what happened to the Colonies, it doesn't exactly qualify as small talk.

"I don't mind," he replies, though he's not entirely sure where to start, "But it's kind of a long story, to be completely honest."

[boo_fuckin_yah]

Russell glances down at himself and then looks back up at Lee with a faint grin. "I ain't goin' anywhere," he says. "And if you want, I can tell you my own long story."

His story has significantly fewer algae rations, but only because there was no one left behind to eat. Sometimes he suddenly realizes that he, David and Judy were the last people left alive in Ogden Marsh. That all the people he's ever known are all dead.

[adifferentpath]

The barista brings their drinks to the bar, and Lee grabs both of them, nodding over to an empty table nearby. It wasn't in his plans to sit and talk about life back home today, but right now, he figures that maybe Little Lorenzo's can wait. At least for a while.

He hasn't told this story often, and he's not entirely sure where to start.

"Well, it starts with the end of the worlds," he says, leads the way to the table first, waiting for Russell to make his way after him on his crutches.

[boo_fuckin_yah]

"Doesn't it always?" Russell asks with a huff of laughter, though there's no amusement in it. He sinks into one of the chairs and leans his crutches against his thigh, smiling his thanks at Lee for carrying the coffees.

"Probably a different kinda apocalypse than mine, though," he adds. His, as far as he knows, hadn't extended beyond the borders of Ogden Marsh, but he has a feeling it didn't stay that way. Nothing as bad as that virus can really be contained.

[adifferentpath]

Lee thinks he remembers Molly saying something about the world Russell came from, but nothing specific comes to mind just then. There's ever reason to believe that what happened to Russell back home is just as frakked up as what he went through with the Fleet.

"Only if yours didn't involve being on the run from cylons," Lee says as he takes a seat, and then remembers that most people aren't familiar with the word in Darrow, "Robots."

[boo_fuckin_yah]

The closest connection Russell can make is Terminator, but he doesn't think it's like that. "Nah, no robots for us. No cylons. We had a biological weapon accidentally released in our town when a plane went down in our water supply. People got infected. Went fuckin' crazy."

He's smiling a little as he says it, trying to make light, but the edge of his smile are a little tight and his eyes have lost any humour they had. "Seems like we find all sorts of ways to fuck up our worlds, huh?"

[adifferentpath]

"Hell of an accident," Lee says, and for a second, it reminds him of when they almost released a biological weapon that would have wiped out the cylons. Gods, for all they knew, something like that could have happened somewhere down the line. But Lee still doesn't exactly agree with the way that situationw as handled in the end.

"Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the cylons were created on purpose."

[boo_fuckin_yah]

"Yeah," Russell says. "So was the virus."

And that's the part that really gets to him. This virus had been created to destabilize cities. It was biological terrorism, it was meant to do exactly what it had done. They just hadn't counted on it getting lose on home soil.

"So someone made these robots that wanted to kill you?" he asks.

[adifferentpath]

Thinking about it now, it's more frakked up than he realized. And to someone not from the Twelve Colonies, Lee's not sure it's gonna make a lot of sense.

"Yeah, uh... we did," Lee says, "Trying to make life easier."

It all happened before he was born, back when his dad was a kid. It's been so long that war with the Cylons has always been a way of life for him, even during the armistice.

[boo_fuckin_yah]

Russell nods his understanding, because it makes sense. It's bound to happen, he figures, given the way people are with technology. It's not always a bad thing, he knows advances in technology have shaped the world he's most comfortable in, but the way things had gone for Lee's world, it had reached a point where it hadn't worked anymore.

"Yeah," he says. "Seems like we create all sorts of fucked up stuff that goes wrong, don't we?"

[adifferentpath]

"Seems like it," Lee says, and even though he knows it shouldn't be amusing, he can't help but huff out a quiet laugh at it.

"But I guess that's the good thing about Darrow. Somehow, this place does all the work for us."