"...So what's the situation, Luis?"

Huh - Leon couldn't believe himself, so openly smiling as Luis swaggered on out of that office…!

...Same time, he couldn't blame himself, though.

The guy was a sight for sore eyes.

He didn't look like he'd been salvaged from the brink of death, especially by way of emergency parasite-taming; that and the assurance that his tests had come back clean, healthwise, might've been keeping Leon from bringing to worry more about it all, at least for now. His eyes were bright; that smirk he always seemed to have a bit of lingered. Couldn't tell if he'd shaved, since Spain, but his hair was tied back, and that, at least, might've been what lended to him looking fresh.

He looked good, sauntering up into the light of the window beside him to meet him; sounded almost believably like he hadn't got a care in the world as he breathed as if yawning after a stretch.

"...Well, Leon? My American…" A pause. "...compadre?" he finished, with that same kinda languidness; placed his hands on his hips.

Looked at Leon partly sideways, in full-force daylight, chest puffed out. A quick hmnh-chuckle.

"...Not as hard to work something out with the handlers of you hero-types as I'd got myself braced for...!"

The side of Leon's mouth tugged, stiffly, at "hero-types". He repressed the wryness and kept it small. "How you mean?"

With a meandering half-pivot, Luis's stance opened. "Well...!" His voice crackled and sizzled along an upper edge; he shut his eyes, in thought that he mocked himself by having the beam of a cheeky teenager. "...You can bet your higher-ups weren't so, ah - ...peachy with a former death cult accomplice owning up to his involvement right to their faces... sorry, by the way, that you never got to hear that straight from me..."

"'S in the past," Leon said. And then, louder, as an afterthought, "At least it's all out there now."

Not so much it's nothing as...

Luis scoff-snickered, and brushed at a bit of hair that'd fallen untied along the side of his face. "...Lo que será, será, right...?"

Leon arched an eyebrow.

"Anyway... at least I was able to charm them into accepting honest cooperation when they saw it, it would seem...!" The ends of consonants were dusted with a lightness that Leon couldn't quite pin down as either cautious retreat or, well... indeed. Charm. The kind you bought. "Most of my files are long gone - besides the ones you and Miss President's Daughter found before the island went up in flames - buuuuut I offered my expertise on samples like the ones your buddies in the B.S.A.A. found over in Africa, so, putting everything together, despite me being, uh... heh..." His grin showed cheekily, witheringly slanted to offset it as he turned his chin up higher; tugged the lapels of his vest. "...the - shady guy that I am..."

Leon partway skewed the kinda-smile back, and puffed through it. Both hey - there's something to be said for self-awareness and you don't look so shady to me.

You've never looked less shady.

"...they're willing to give me a job," Luis finished, turning further in a step like the beginning of a dance, practically bowing into the movement - punctuated with a nod - as he faced Leon fully. "So long as... ah..." His eyes lifted to Leon's from thoughtfully-meandering place. His eyebrow lifted - the one-two boost of a waggle. "...they can get one of their most trusted guys to act as my handler...!"

There was that turn of wryness again - most trusted.

And yet Leon could chuckle over it, more openly, a lift in his chest that pressed up against a ceiling. "You don't have to butter me up to convince me to work with you," he said, holding out a palm.

Luis stepped forward; slapped it, shook it, with that cheeky-broad smile curving back in, so bright...! "Ahhhhhh, but you haven't told me if you approve of this whole deal yet...!" he said. "You need an advisor down in R&D? Maybe a - personal field medic, from time to time?"

Something flickered in Leon - battered side-to-side without impact; black and purple.

"Partners?"

"I mean, if..."

Leon paused.

He took in a drag through his nose that he hoped wasn't too long; too loud. Thought of monster-filled towns. Bloody holes, high falls, split-ups, reunions with people not so familiar anymore.

Gunfights back-to-back. Friendly faces defying your expectations and popping back up again, like a fox pops out of a hole.

" - Done," he said, it somehow heavy but not forced.

"Great!" Luis said in a swell; he slapped Leon's hand one more time before pulling back in a leisurely rock, thumbs slipping into his beltloops. Added, in a rolling murmur, "Had a feeling you might be in the market for that second one in particular - if you still fancy yourself the stuntman the way I remember...!"

Leon watched him, backing back up into the hallway's light.

"Going back in there to sign my career away to Uncle Sam - seems I'll see you around, Leon...!"

"Luis."

Luis had just begun to turn.

He stopped, however, right on cue, looking to Leon again over his shoulder.

Leon took one step after him - back to the window.

"...Particular reason you came back?" he asked, throat dry and breath stuffy, not particularly sure that that was the shape they'd wanted the question to take. " - To 'feel better'? Like back in Spain?"

- He shut his eyes hard for a second; grimaced, lightly, looking aside, wondering why he said that first "back".

A small puff. "...Over Los Illuminados?"

When he looked back at Luis, his smirk, as just about always, lingered.

If more reservedly.

Luis's shoulders rolled a shrug. "...Nooooot precisely, I don't think."

"Then over...?"

Luis's lips sealed. He shook his head; shrugged again. " - Had some other things I felt like it'd be better for me to... ah... check up on. Follow through with, you know?"

You tell me, Luis.

But I think so.

"Are you?" was what Leon said, instead. "'Feeling better'?"

Luis blasted a thin laugh through his teeth; tossed his head, and when it bounced up from a nod, it held high. " - As a... matter of fact, Leon, I already think I am...!"

" - Me, too, Luis."

Leon wasn't sure that he'd caught it, making right for the door he'd come out from again, from slowed to swaggering again.

Repeated, nonetheless, contemplating exactly better than what as he did so, "Me, too."