Mortality Anxiety

Lan felt a hand grasp him, and immediately his spine stiffened in fear, a slight shake going through him as he felt certain, for at least a moment, that the Revenant had had enough, and he was about to be thrown into a wall or slapped off his feet by an angry human being full of spite for Lan's awful treatment of him... He'd worked hard for that, he supposed.

This, of course, left him incredibly surprised when Meilius pulled him full-on into a hug, his face being one of complete confusion and... while not pulling back, he looked uncertain about what to do with this sort of contact. Eventually, as Meilius let go, Lan gave a long sniff as he choked back some tears, looking a little bit better... though others had already spilled across his tears. "I-I'm s-sorry... Here you are hurt, a-and I'm the one c-crying..." Lan offered with a sad, ashamed smile. "...That's pretty s-selfish of me... I'll j-just..." Lan started, before taking a deep breath and trying his best not to feel crushed by his own stupidity. "...H-help you to the, uhm, med-room!"

Lan's expression got a little better, though he did quickly pull out a handkerchief to blow his nose from his vest pocket after a few sniffles too many. "I... uhm, so w-what's... your story? Or... uhm, I guess it's a bit much to ask you to sign while in, uhm... while you are how you are right now." Lan added, clearly feeling a little guilty. "S-so, uhm... maybe I should ask something a l-little simpler... uhm, I feel kind of terrible for this whole thing still... c-can I at least buy you lunch somewhere nice? P-p-price is no object, since my contracts kind of, uhm... got me a lot of m-money. A-and I prefer keeping it f-fluid, or.. into Investments, s-since it's not the most reputable money t-to have." Lan would admit after a moment with a nervous shrug. "A-assassins are most often caught by the IRS or the FBI, a-and I do a lot of o-operations in America, s-so I think I'm probably being monitored. a-at least they haven't found out about my bitcoins!" He'd add cheerfully.

Lan shifted in his seat, sighing as they waited for the CORPSE restaurant's food to get there. Lan had ordered relatively light stuff, avoiding too much grease - it tended to upset his stomach - and thus, the meal he'd ordered was actually something grabbed off the 65+ list.

It's not like his stomach needed any extra anxiety thrown into it after the Doctor's gave Meilius the news, anyways. The idea that he'd scarred this nice man, disfigured him for life maybe, and he was still being so nice to him...

It almost drove Lan to tears, but the small kid held them back as they began talking, focusing on what Meiliu had to scribble.

"Oh. A truck? That sounds awful. D-did you come out of it al..." The boy muttered, before trailing off, realizing that... Well, no, he didn't come out quite alright at all.

"...Well, I'm glad you lived. even if only kinda. I'm..." Lan trailed off, before looking to the nearest window. "...I am sorry about the scar on your chest... That was a very needless deathmatch, wasn't it?" Lan asked with a frown. The whole incident didn't sit right with him. not the people who ordered it, or the actions.

"...I've at least learned to question my superiors the next time they order me to do something out of my contract, and refuse orders like this... but you should never have had to suffer for that. And... now I've left a mark on you I can't take back..."

Lan sighed, looking at his food, before finally continuing.

"...I guess I don't have much of an interesting story either. I lived a pretty normal life, but I might have been bullied a bit... a lot... as a kid. My cousin, Prima, took me in, and she was a professional assassin. I didn't realize she was buttering up a mark, and when he went to take advantage of her..."

Lan struggled to continue, as if trying to remember something distant, details showing in his mind. "I took out my pocketknife, and handled the problem." He finally finished. "and then, when Prima saw I just kinda knew how to do that, she trained me to do it too. And that's... how I end up here, more or less."

Lan quickly put up a hand. "...Well, it's not exactly murder. It's assassination... okay, so, that is definitely murder. but..." Lan took a breath, quickly a little more focused as he seemed to be trying to think of terms.

"...So the other month, I ended up having to go deal with some people for a non-corpse operation. there's some special interest groups funded to deal with, well, pedophilia rings that have a little too much draw to be dealt with in the open. Prima got the job, but she passed it along to me, since it was a little... below priority." Lan would say.

"The mission did, uhhh, go a little sour, admittedly, and I only managed to get the kill after I scrambled away long enough to pick up a spritzer bottle of Febreze air effects and spray him in the eyes with it." Lan would add with a sheepish smile. "...They were a little more ready for me than I expected, and my knife got slapped out of my hands... anyways..."

Lan would give a little shrug. "I don't mean this in a mean way, but I always kinda saw death as sort of an inevitability, so... I never felt it was that bad a way to go with my skills. I use my abilities where I think it can help people have a good life... that's why I figured joining up with CORPSE might help the world. I don't really do revenant assassination, but i deal with defectors, corrupt people using the funds of CORPSE to their own ends, or just the more mundane groups that occasionally feel like tangling with super-strong ghost people for some reason." He'd add with a nervous look.

"I don't know if it's the best thing to do with my life, but... it's just kinda, what I was born for."

Lan's face looked a little strained as his smile fell slightly, before sighing, putting his hands together as he looked at Meilius. "...No, actually, I think many of them do have other choices." He finally states. "I could say that if I didn't do it, some other assassin could do the job. I might even say that these people might end up hurting more people if I took that chance. But that's really not what it's all about."

Lan looked down a little. "These people did bad things, and they didn't look for help. I think I'd be fine if some of them found a way to be better people, but that's... not really something I can do. I'm not good at the whole 'talking to people', thing, y'know?" Lan would admit.

"...Frankly, before I picked up assassination, I was actually a pretty big loser." Lan will admit. "...This is the one thing I'm any good at. And... well, at the end of the day... well, it used to be all the same, anyways." Lan would sheepishly admit, gazing just a little too long at Meilius's chest, where he struck, before promptly looking away with a faint shade of red going over his cheeks. "I guess people living after death sort of messes with that whole assured mortality idea, huh?"

And with a shake of his head, Lan would add. "...I don't mean to say I'm a good person for doing it, either. I hope I didn't make it sound like I really feel like this is an okay profession. Assassination isn't what good people do. But it lets me stop bad people from doing bad things to others. And..."

Lan looked to himself with a look of slight bitterness. "...Well, it's the only thing I ever really enjoyed doing as jobs go. It let me break off from what my family's doing, and, well, with their reputation I really doubt I'd ever be allowed to keep a regular job anyways." Lan would add, a slight bitter tone entering his voice as he mentioned his family.

Lan's smile perked up a bit at Meilius's own smile, as the stress on his heart released. Meilius was a really good guy, but Lan was more than afraid he'd leave after hearing Lan's terrible reasoning. It wouldn't be the first failed attempt at friendship he'd ever faced, but... it really wouldn't have hurt any less.

My fam... oh! Um..." Lan's smile fell a little as he winced. "I'm, well, I'm a Cameo, and the Cameos, uhhh... Kind of own one of the larger sections of the Italian Mafia. They're a bunch of really strong gangsters. Mostly." He'd say. "One of the things that's weird about me is that I, uhh, don't actually have a job within the family business proper. Only me and Prima have managed that one."

Lan would scratch behind the back of his head. "It's a bit of a weird thing, 'cause I was already weird just for, uhhh... being me, as the family went. they're not mean to me, but... I don't really agree with everything they do, and they were, uhm, a bit enthusiastic about protecting me, growing up..." Lan would add, sighing, before he continued.

"I got bullied a lot in school, but it was... never the same bullies for long, ya know? There was a lotta 'accidents.'. So I went to live with Cousin Prima in Japan to, well, avoid more accidents, and she was nice enough not to, but her and I are kind of the only independent part of the whole Cameo family nowadays. I mean, I was asked to come back and get a job with them, but... I decided not to, y'know?" He'd add, before shaking his head. "I don't think the mafia does all bad things, but they do a whole lot of bad things and I don't want to be part of it... but it means that, just 'cause I'm a Cameo..."

Lan trailed off.

"Well, 'cause I'm a Cameo, that means I've got a price on my head. And a lot of legitimate organizations will do everything in their power to stop me from getting anywhere in life." He admitted. "...So this is sort of one of the few things I have left I can't be restricted from."