LEO'S ART

it depends how long he’s inhabited this body! at first, he was completely silent. unable to comprehend most of what was said to him but eventually he would respond with nods or shakes of his head once he’s found some resemblance of control over basic motor functions. (safe to assume for the majority of his early life after the crash was spent staring at shit and trying to make sense of it)

then body gestures come into play; shrug of his shoulders, arms crossing, hand movements. 

speech is the tricky one. words sound wet and gargled and horrendously slurred in the beginning. playing puppet with a cadaver isn’t as easy as it seems. all those muscles, all those tendons. god help anyone who catches him without his helmet and sees what he considers a smile is. it’s all trial and error from here. 

he still doesn’t really get the hang of it and slips up from time to time. sometimes forgets to move the mouth when speaking, so it’s just a groaning rumble varying in pitch. forgets to blink, or his blinks are unsynchronized. 

OKAY SO. digging through the scattered pieces of their host’s memories, they found the name ‘diego’ and thought - shit okay this is who I am now. was it the host’s actual name? who knows. it was just a name that was repeatedly heard. could have been a pet’s name. a brother. regardless, it’s theirs now and they keep it. 

technically, they still have a head. it’s lodged up that helmet of theirs and if needed, can just screw that thing back on and play human but it’s always... off. their blinking loses synchronization sometimes, or they forget to blink all together. facial social queues are lost. it’s easier to control a body, but face muscles? fuck that. so they just keep the helmet on. they’re all about the easy life. 

- and figuring out life is a lot of trial and error, and going with the flow. someone approaches them after another failed race with the offer of a different opportunity. they shrug. why not? being a stunt double sounds fun. wanna jump risky shit with the extremely low chance of ever landing a jump? hell yeah. sign them up. afterall most of the excitement from races come from the wrecks, right?

they’re basically an undead crash dummy who hasn’t learned that MAYBE they shouldn’t get on a bike or behind a wheel. ever. 

i’m gonna keep this short and sweet. diego was a motorcycle racer but he wasn’t a very good one. he was complete shit, honestly. but he still tried and in the end it killed him. what finds him is this alien spore that’s in search for a lifeless host to reanimate and begin it’s cycle of life: survive and thrive.

it has diego’s memories; it knows how to appear human but just barely. it’s like flipping open a picture book that’s in another language. the pictures, you understand. the words? not so much. so it’s struggling but it’s making do.

he still races, but he still fucking sucks and constantly wrecks. and what happens to an unkillable racer who constantly totals their bike? they become a stunt driver/daredevil. they never land their trick, but the crowd likes how they can still stand after hitting the ground with a wet smack.