His smile never left as Aeria went about helping him put on his cuff-link. He watched her in silence as she fiddled with his wrist, the scent of vanilla greeting his senses once again. "I don't think I could get sick of that scent," he mumbled, sinking slightly into his seat as he allowed himself to relax some. He hadn't scared her off with his appearance, though he also had not shared much. Still, it had been nice to share something. When she asked him "What happened," he paused for a moment, putting the glove back onto his hand. A long sigh dragged out of his lips as he wrung his hands together. "It's not a real pretty story," Leon said, flashing her a dreary smile, "but you asked. No backing out now!"

"Around six years ago I started working in the food distribution center. I was part of the group that would butcher meat and send it off to be sold. There were a lot of us there, plenty of older guys, people who've been working with their hands their entire lives, people who're veterans with knives. We got along pretty well at first. I worked my ass off and they appreciated it. I wasn't paying attention one day and cut my hand open and didn't think twice about healing it. Word got out and spread like a wildfire. Apparently one of the worker's kids got killed by a guy with a mutation that let set people on fire or something. Guy wanted to take out his anger, I was there, and I wasn't able to fight back. A few guys held me down and..." Leon brought a finger up to his ear, then down to his collar, which he pulled slightly, flashing the beginning of a scar across his throat. "My arm was hacked off, my throat slit, and well... There's a reason I dress like this. That was back when I was unable to create shields, back when I could only heal myself. My mutation hadn't really developed yet, so I did an awful patchwork job putting myself together. I'm still working on fixing things, like the dead nerves in my arm. A couple of months ago, I was still a mute."

The yelling of bug boy could be heard across the entire train, him going off about smelling vanilla. Tollnak pulled the kid aside, not that it did much good. Bug boy was not the type to quiet down easily, not that this was much of a surprise to anyone on the train. "Ya'know, I've gotten pretty good at working with vocal cords," Leon rubbed his throat for a moment, an eyebrow raising as he looked toward the direction of the bug boy's yelling, "I can't imagine if it would be all that difficult to take away the gift of speech." A slight smirk crawled across his face and he put on Aeria's forearm, "Thanks for being listening, Aerira. I appreciate it, I really do. If you don't mind, could I ask you a question though?" Leon hesitated, fearful of putting her off, "Why do you try so hard to hide your emotions? You have a wonderful smile and it's not fair to keep it to yourself!"