The Beach, Sunday Morning

[firstofitskind]

Liam owed Verity a lot of coffee, and he'd promised Kaidan an explanation of what the hell was going on at a point where he wasn't all drunk and maudlin. So in the name of efficiency, he'd gone for a walk this morning, shooting Kaidan a message to meet him at the beach. After they were done, he'd swing by the Perk and get the biggest, fanciest coffee they had to bring back to the apartment.

See? Efficient.

[ooc: expecting the one, but also could be open, so long as you don't mind work-induced SP.]

Comments

[firstofitskind]

"Maybe," he said. "But if it involves this, I don't want it," he insisted, his voice fierce. "Because it's not just his DNA. It's his thoughts, his memories."

And Robert Bullard was not a good person.

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan tilted his head a little. "And now you're worried you're going to .. what.. suck other people up like a sponge? Turn into this other asshole you've suddenly got in your head? Liam. You've gone your whole life up til now not doing that. I'm not sure of the exact circumstances but judging from the word 'purge' and the way you're twitching every time Verity's name's so much as mentioned.. I think it's safe to say you were under some significant stress and pressure at the time, buddy."

[firstofitskind]

"I don't know," Liam ground out, frustrated. "I can feel him in there. I can remember- things he did." He shuddered.

"And you say my 'whole life' as if that's some significant span of time but it isn't, you know? Not really."

[spectre_alenko]

"Half a decade isn't exactly a short period of time either, and you got to skip all the awkward growing years," Kaidan pointed out calmly.

"Liam.." Kaidan held out his hand, "Find out. It's going to drive you nuts not knowing otherwise and you've touched me before. You know nothing I've got is going to give you the screaming icks."

[firstofitskind]

Ha'gel had lived for over eight million years. It's possible Liam's sense of time was slightly skewed.

And as for the offer... Verity had touched him the other night. He'd held her as they slept every night since. He knew that probably meant this would be okay, but on the other hand... Verity was Verity, and had existed in a category all her own for some time now.

"If you're sure," he said, a little dubious.

If you ended up unconscious on the beach, Kaidan, you could end up with sand in all sorts of uncomfortable places. You really want that?

[spectre_alenko]

"I'm sure," Kaidan said, throwing Liam a lopsided smile, "Worst that happens is I get knocked out and you get me stuck in your head for awhile until we figure out how you can put me back."

Optimism thy name is Kaidan.

It wouldn't be the first time he'd had sand in uncomfortable places and he'd get all the fun of blaming Liam for it without further explanation.

[firstofitskind]

Liam reached out to clasp Kaidan's hand in his own and-

Nothing.

The crackle of energy he'd come to associate with biotics, sure, but none of the... transference... he'd felt with Robert.

Liam let out a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding in.

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan raised a brow. "I seem to still be standing. You aren't screaming and you're not bluescreening like you did the last time."

[firstofitskind]

"...Bluescreening?"

[spectre_alenko]

"Going blank in the face while your brain goes somewhere else. Last time I triggered memories that weren't mine," Kaidan reminded him, "During the amnesia weekend."

[firstofitskind]

The reference still escaped Liam, but at least he understood the implication now.

"The-" he hesitated, and shook his head, not saying the word aloud. The idea of speaking the name aloud was strange, as if he were doing something wrong, forbidden. "Never mind."

Even though those who would be angered by his speaking that name had been dead themselves for years now.

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan gave him an odd look and shrugged a shoulder, "Whatever, man. I'm just glad you came back from it on your own."

[firstofitskind]

"It happens," Liam said. "Usually I can bring myself back, as you said. It didn't help that I had no idea what was happening, that time."

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan nodded. "Alright, so.. jerk in your head and you don't want him there. You're worried he might somehow manifest and want to be taken out if he does. Do your memories tell you anything about how to purge him? There has to be some way to get rid of him, right?"

[firstofitskind]

... Did you really have to use the word 'purge', Kaidan?

"Ha'gel didn't exactly leave me a handbook," Liam said, expression twisting into a bitter smile. "But I'm working on it. I hope." Things were looking... a little brighter than they had been on Wednesday, at least.

[spectre_alenko]

Probably in his vocabulary from their earlier conversations.

"Didn't you say they sort of did?" Kaidan asked, "You have the racial memories, right? Just no legend for how to access them?"

He scrubbed a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck, "Are the new guy's memories attacking you in any way? Trying to take over? Or are they just the creepy sort that come out of the dark and try to influence you when you least expect it?"

[firstofitskind]

Liam scrubbed a hand over his face. "Yeah, but- I have eight million years worth of those, that's not hyperbole, by the way, and- how do you remember something you don't even know that you know?" he asked. It was mostly rhetorical.

"There was- a moment. When Beau and I were sparring. She said it was like I just... became someone else."

And then there were the nightmares about what he'd done to Verity. But that wasn't something he could discuss without violating her privacy, and so he wouldn't.

[spectre_alenko]

"The amnesia weekend, people seemed to retain muscle or cultural memories, just nothing personal," Kaidan said while thinking it over, "They didn't know they knew any of it until someone asked, though. So.. Liam.. how do Kimera get rid of leftovers once they change to another body?"

He was still processing the 'became someone else'.

[firstofitskind]

So was Liam, Kaidan. So was Liam.

His expression went distant as he tried to, well. Remember. But Ha’gel’s memories had always been harder to recall than Beckett’s or even Sandoval’s, surfacing at seemingly random points. Obeying some internal logic that he, as a hybrid with no real training in the matter, was not privy to.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, focusing back in on Kaidan. “I could see- glimpses. Of times where Ha’gel was nearly subsumed by the host’s desires, but... nothing more than that.” Nothing about how his father had fought to reassert his own consciousness, though he was certain it had happened.

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan frowned a little. "Might be because you're worried," he suggested, "Getting in your own way, so to speak. During amnesia weekend, most people were happy and not worried when they were asked. Kind of caught them off guard, you know? Not on purpose, just.. they didn't remember. It made it a little easier to reassure them."

[firstofitskind]

"Yeah, that was..." Liam trailed off. "Weird. Looking back on it, felt a little like my first few days."

[spectre_alenko]

"Memories trickling in as you learned you needed them?" Kaidan asked.

[firstofitskind]

"And I didn't really understand that that's what was happening," Liam nodded.

The whole experience had... raised some uncomfortable questions about personhood and memory that he was still working through.

[spectre_alenko]

"Kinda like right now, only without another presence attached?" Kaidan asked.

[firstofitskind]

"Mmmhmm," Liam gave a little hum of agreement, hands twisting together as he pressed a thumb into one palm, then the other. "I don't know how to fix it," he turned a look on Kaidan, "And I don't- I'm not expecting you to either," he added. "You're here, you're listening. That helps."

Even if they couldn't do anything about it, knowing that the people in his life weren't about to abandon him because of this new and terrifying thing that was happening meant a lot.