The Beach near Chimera Ct, Sunday Morning

[firstofitskind]

So.

Liam had spent the past four days as a teenager. And it was funny, really, because when he'd been approached about teaching up at the school over the summer he'd been worried about the fact that he really had no idea how to relate to any of the students, having never been that age himself. And then Fandom, in all it's Fandom-ness, had decided it ought to show him what it might have been like.

And it hadn't been bad, exactly? Just weird. He remembered the actual first 24 hours after he'd been born, and how he'd had to piece together parts of Sandoval and Beckett's memories to forge an actual cohesive personality as an adult. And there had definitely been gaps in his knowledge that had needed to be filled. But this had been different. There were more holes. Probably because was never supposed to have been a child, so his mental processes didn't really know how to deal with it. At least, as near as he could figure. It wasn't as if there was anyone he could ask about this sort of thing.

He was still trying to unpack everything that had happened over the past few days, and apparently that involved heading down to that piece of shoreline Reno had dragged him out to, that first morning. He wasn't throwing pebbles or anything, though. Just... sitting on a particularly large rock, staring out at another large rock in the water. Like you do.

[ooc: opennnn]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

After a fair bit of time, a pebble came flying past Liam, to hit a very particular spot on that rock out in the water.

A Reno followed behind it shortly after, more at a saunter, stepping up beside him and looking out after it.

"Less than a week," he noted, his tone even. "Looks like I made the deadline, yo."

[firstofitskind]

Liam snickered. "Don't give yourself too much credit. I'm well aware- now- that it was just the island being the island."

[raspberryturk]

"Aw, but if I can't take credit I don't deserve, what's even the point?"

Reno shot Liam an easy grin.

"So, how's bein' all grown up again treatin' you so far?"

[firstofitskind]

Liam turned the pebble in his hands over a few times as he tried to figure out how to answer. "Certainly more familiar," he admitted after a few moments.

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah?" Reno looked out over the water again, giving a little hum. "I'm hearin' some mixed feelings, ain't I?"

[firstofitskind]

"I don't know if I'd go that far," Liam said, shaking his head. "It's more..." he shrugged. "Just trying to put it all together, I guess." He'd let a lot more slip as a teenager than he ever had as an adult, after all.

[ooc: hey. hey squirrels, if you're listening (and somehow i suspect you are, given who this thread is with), details after this are nfb plzzz.]

[raspberryturk]

Roger roger!

"Lot to pull together, hm?"

Reno kind of gathered, between comments about aging and his purpose right along to being made.

[firstofitskind]

“Yeah,” Liam nodded. “If you’ve been around Fandom as long as you say you have, has that ever happened to you? Becoming... younger, I mean?”

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah," Reno agreed. "Few times, there. Mostly went all the way back to bein' about five. Cute kid, full of the devil, yo."

He smirked faintly. And then slipped right back into something a little more neutral.

"The teen thing was new to me," he confessed, "but it wasn't just you, so it ain't like I was gonna worry too hard."

Well. Once it had gone on for more than two days, he was kind of starting to get paranoid. But for nothing! Woo!

[firstofitskind]

“Can I ask what it was like, after?” Liam asked curiously. “Your memories of uh. Whatever happened?”

[raspberryturk]

Reno tilted his head a little.

"You know, kinda depends on the weekend, on how much I was payin' attention at the time. Not like little kids pay all that much attention in the first place when they really get goin', though. I remember playin' on a chair with wheels, once?"

Ah, those had been the days.

"There are times when people get older, too. Depends, from person to person for that. Some people remember every minute. Other people only get bits, or draw a complete friggin' blank. I blame Fandom, yo. It likes fuckin' with people enough to change 'em in the first place, of course it's gonna take liberties with how much they get to keep from it."

[firstofitskind]

“I wouldn’t know anything about what little kids are like, actually,” Liam admitted. “I never really was one.”

[raspberryturk]

"Kinda got that impression," Reno mused. "You ain't the only one I met around this place who can say that."

Fandom. Kinda ruined the weird shit after a decade or so.

"So being a teen's extra new to you."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Hey there stranger," Verity said, coming over to sit down next to him on the beach, knocking their shoulders together. She'd gotten to like that greeting over the weekend, even if she hadn't quite realized--then--how ironic it was. "Figured I'd come and check in on you now that we're adults again."

[firstofitskind]

"Hey, yourself," Liam returned with a grin. He liked the greeting a lot more now that they were back to normal and he knew Verity didn't actually consider him someone she'd just met. "I'm..." he paused, looking for the right word. "Processing, I guess?"

[arboreal_priestess]

"That's fair," she said, laying back on the sand so she could rest her head in his lap. Easier to watch his face that way. "Being a teenager is tough, no matter how many times you've been one before. Wanna talk about anything in particular?"

[firstofitskind]

"You know, people keep saying that, about how rough it can be, and at least now I think I finally get it, a little?" Liam said with a bit of a laugh.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Yup," Verity said with a sympathetic laugh. "Adolescence is a hot mess of hormones and self-consciousness and trying to figure everything out, all rolled into one. And then dipped in more hormones, just for the fun of it. Adulthood isn't much better, but at least the hormones have died down. Some."

[firstofitskind]

"Some," Liam agreed with a smirk. "What do you remember, of the whole thing?" he asked, curious.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I remember the whole weekend very well, but not a lot of what I was thinking or why," Verity said. "I mean, I had a whole series of memories and everything and most of that's all blurry and gone. Anything that happened on the island is clear, and all my real memories, but all of her memories about stuff--that's all hazy now, like a dream. You?"

[firstofitskind]

"See, that's the thing. I don't have any real memories of being that age, you know? But now, it feels like I do? And I'm trying to figure out what to make of that."

[arboreal_priestess]

"Well, I guess the first thing is--how do you feel about the memories?" Verity frowned, gesturing in the air as she talked. "Not everything around them, like what they all mean and other existential stuff, but like--how was the weekend for you? If it was just a weekend full of memories for you, courtesy of how weird Fandom is, what would you think?"

[firstofitskind]

"It was... mostly good, I think," Liam said slowly. "Getting to experience things for the first time."

[arboreal_priestess]

"You weren't half-bad at flirting," she told him with a smile. "Tiny-you had some smooth lines in there. Tiny-me was impressed. And intrigued."

So not that different than regular-her, to be honest.

[firstofitskind]

“They didn’t feel smooth at the time,” Liam laughed. “Mostly I felt like I was tripping over my own tongue every time you came near me.”