fandomtownies | Atlas Gym, Monday (6/17)

Atlas Gym, Monday (6/17)

Just because everything looked like it was back to normal this morning didn't mean Beau felt any immense amount of relief about it, because that just felt like it would be playing right into a trap. Or maybe she was just too cynical and inclined toward suspicion to be willing to accept it at face value, but that was just common sense and self-preservation, right?

She did notice that the skyline over on the mainland seemed to be all wrong, which oddly made her feel slightly better about the otherwise apparently normal island, but still. She kind of missed having the Splicers to fight on her walk to work.

Which also looked like it was back to normal, when she arrived, and free of signs of water damage.

So that was nice, at least. Everything else seemed to be in order as well, but rather than just assume as much, Beau was just going to spend a good hour or so at the beginning of her shift checking over all the equipment.

[OOC: Gym and post are open, subject to daytime SP per usual!]

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Liam’s morning had not been great. Not by a long shot. His usual morning run had ended with him getting rather unceremoniously dumped into Selkie Lake. Then he’d gone home and something Verity had said to him struck a nerve, and he’d ended up snapping at her. He’d apologized right after, but that he’d even gotten to that point was still bothering him, especially since he couldn’t actually pinpoint what it was she’d said that had set him off in the first place. He’d worked hard to cultivate a level of emotional control that he absolutely hadn’t been born with; the idea that his grasp on it wasn’t as firm as he’d come to believe was... troubling.

So the gym it was, in an attempt to work off some of that pent-up frustration, wherever it had come from. A curt nod in greeting to Beau, and then he was heading directly for the heavy bag.

"'sup, Liam," Beau called after him, eyeing him in that way where she wasn't sure whether he wanted to be talked to or not, but she was just going to put that conversation opener out there and pretend not to care if it went unanswered.

There was a noise that could have been a reply. Could’ve also just been an expression of general frustration.

Given the smoking hole left in the punching bag when he pulled his fist away... chances were it was the latter.

Beau sighed, though to be honest the expression was equal parts exasperation at the ruined bag and envy, because why couldn't she do cool shit like hit things so hard they incinerated?

"That kinda day, huh, man?"

“Yeah.” Oh look, actual words. Or a word anyway. Liam looked at the ruined bag, hand still clenched tightly into a fist to hide the glow of shaqarava in his palm, and let out a sigh of his own. “Sorry.”

"Is this gonna start being a regular thing, Liam?" Beau asked with another sigh, but a gentle and indulgent one. (Well. For her.) "Am I gonna have to, like, set you up a tab for damages? It's cool, really, what else are punching bags for, right?"

“It’s not cool,” Liam replied, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have done that.” He could feel it, the anger simmering beneath the surface; he wanted to snap at her, too, the way he had with Verity earlier today, but he wouldn’t, he couldn’t , he kept reminding himself.

"Better the bag than something that isn't meant to get the shit beat out of it though, right?" Beau asked, shrugging one shoulder. "What's your deal today? Something crawled up your ass, or are you just pissy for no good reason? Which, I mean, that's valid if you are."

She was just . . . not great at being comforting, even if she was trying.

"Suppose," Liam grumbled. "I don't know," he admitted in answer to her question, throwing another punch at the bag. This one was more halfhearted than anything else, so didn't cause any more structural damage.

Edited 2019-06-18 06:21 (UTC)

"It happens, right?" Beau perched on a railing nearby and just watched him for a few moments. "I'm always kinda pissed off, even when I don't have anything specific to be pissed off about, sooooooooo . . ."

She shrugged.

"Not that I'm saying you should, like, aspire to be like me or anything 'cause who fuckin' wants that. I'm -- I'm not actually sure what point I'm trying to make here. I'm trying to be reassuring or some shit, but it's not working, huh?" She trailed off with a vague, self-mocking snort of laughter.

Liam shot Beau a look, because even with the... whatever-it-was currently buzzing beneath his skin, he wasn't about to let her get away with putting herself down like that.

"I used to. Be like that," he said haltingly. "Angry all the time, I mean. When I was-" 'new', he'd been about to say, because 'younger' wasn't quite what he meant. "Before."

Beau just looked at him, kind of deadpan, kind of resigned, and spread her hands. It'd be a good long while yet before she made any progress toward not putting herself down.

"Congrats on getting past that then, I guess?" Yeah, she couldn't really see that happening for her any time soon. Didn't mean she wasn't genuinely glad he'd gotten past it, though. This shit was exhausting.

“Kinda had to,” he shrugged. “I had a job to do, and if I couldn’t figure out how to act like- how to stay in control- I couldn’t do my job.”

Not that subsuming anything resembling a negative emotion so deep until he could convince himself he wasn’t feeling it anymore was any healthier, but it was apparently somewhat more socially acceptable at least.

Whereas Beau had yet to have it impressed upon her that sometimes you really did have to do the socially acceptable thing.

"Guess that makes sense," she allowed, shrugging again. "I mean, I've heard that advice before but usually it sounds a lot more pretentious so I kinda tend to tune it out, you know? But if it works for you . . ."

Then she might actually consider it.

"Well, it was," Liam grumbled. "Right now..." Well. She could see how well his self-control was at the moment.

To a degree, anyway. Beau didn't have much more than a passing familiarity with the concept of self-control herself, so.

"Right now you're just having a super off day," she decided, nodding.

You know. To grossly understate things.

An off day that was going to turn into a straight-up off week. Not that he knew that just yet.

"It almost feels like something's literally under my skin," he admitted, uncurling his fists and staring down at his hands.

The shaqarava were a deep red, almost purple. That probably wasn't good.

"What the fuck . . . ?"

Beau hopped down off the railing she'd been sitting on and came over to get a closer look.

"I'm definitely no expert, but . . ." She jabbed a finger in the direction of his hands, about as accusatory as anyone could make a simple pointing gesture look. "Are those . . . supposed to look like that?"

"What, my hands?" Liam asked, blinking at her in apparent confusion.

(The answer, of course, was 'no'- usually, the marks resembled brands, or burns of some sort. Noticeable, if one had an eye for detail, but not this noticeable.)

"Is this an alien thing? It's an alien thing, isn't it?" Beau asked with a small sigh. Everybody got to have cool powers and shit except her, damn it.

If she wasn't as good at figuring out something was really off as she usually was, it was because she was busy feeling sorry for her boring ordinary human self.

". . . I mean yeah, it's the hands."

Liam's face blanched, and he took a half-step back away from Beau.

"It's- why would you- what?" Liam. You'd destroyed at least two punching bags, and talked about how you came from a world with aliens. It wasn't that unreasonable that she'd been able to put certain things together.

"Liam, come on. I'm not stupid," Beau said, and she sounded slightly more put out than she meant to about thinking he might have thought she was. Which, granted, was slightly unreasonable given how much she tried to act like some mediocre blowhard. "You just fucking set some of my equipment on fire, practically, and you've talked about this shit like you're some kind of expert before, and remember the face stealing thing? That's not typical human stuff unless you're some kind of magic nerd and you don't strike me as the type."

He'd been kind of clinging to the desperate hope that she would have passed that off as some sort of magic thing. Even so, he wasn't thinking she was the stupid one, here. Some of that anger he'd been feeling all day was definitely being directed inward, at himself, because he'd let his guard down, he'd gotten careless... and he'd let himself believe it was fine because she'd never actually called him on it, until now.

"Fuck," he wheezed.

And that had been . . . pretty tactful and gentle, as Beau calling anybody out on anything went, even. She wasn't even trying to hold the information for leverage or anything!

"I mean, it's not like I'm going to have a problem with this," Beau began, frowning. "If I did, you'd have sure as fuck known about it before now."

"I guess," Liam muttered, but his posture didn't lose any of its tension as he said the words. Look, even if he hadn't had some sort of weird eldritch horror infection affecting his emotions, he had Ha'gel's memories; Ha'gel who'd been imprisoned for eight million years for being what he was.

"And I'm not gonna go running around telling people, either, if you're worried about that," Beau went on, holding her hands up, palms outward, in front of him.

Probably the worst possible gesture she could have made at that point. Because while humans considered it something akin to a surrender, the alien part of him was screaming inside his head, instinct telling him that she was announcing an intent to attack.

He snarled, actually honest-to-god snarled, and took a step back.

"What the actual fuck, man?" Beau yelled, backing up a few steps herself but finding her feet shifting into a defensive stance anyway. "I literally just fucking told you this shit doesn't make a difference to me!"

Now might be a good time for you to dial in your language, Beauregard -- oh wait, that wasn't going to happen, was it.

"Yeah, and then you-!" Liam started to yell back, and then a tiny shred of reason seeped through the haze of anger and panic. "Fuck," he muttered again, pressing a thumb into the palm of his other hand, letting the pain center him.

"Liam. Man." Beau kept her hands down this time, edging a step or two closer, but cautiously. "You sure you're okay? Because I'm not really convinced here."

Maybe he'd absorbed someone else's memories and they were taking over again?

Beau was half-right? Something was definitely taking over, though it wasn't so much a person as an... entity? Kind of?

"I don't know," he ground out, clearly frustrated.

"Is hitting shit some more gonna help with that?" Beau smoothed a hand over her hair and kept a close eye on him. "If so, fuck up as many bags as you need to, I'll deal with the damage later."

Look, Liam, she cared even if she wasn't going to say so.

"You can bill me," Liam growled out. Violence probably wasn't the best way to deal with whatever was happening, but it wasn't like Liam knew he was under the influence of anything.

And it wasn't like Beau, of all people, was going to discourage him from using violence to work out his feelings anyway.

"Yeah, I'll get that tab started for you," she drawled only half sarcastically. "Just no damage to the actual building, are we clear?"

"I think I can manage that."

Any other time, that would've been accompanied by a sarcastic eyeroll. Not so much right now.

Yeah, that kind of worried Beau a little bit.

"Okay," she said, still watching him as carefully as she could while pretending to be nonchalant about it. "I'm gonna remember you said that, okay? Please don't make me have to kick your ass for doing it after you said you wouldn't. Like. Seriously. I don't want to do that."

That, at least, startled a bit of a laugh out of Liam. "You? Not want to kick someone's ass? Never thought I'd live to see the day."

Beau snorted. "Listen, man, I don't have that many friends that I can afford to beat the shit out of the ones I do have, okay?"

Yeah, that was sad. No, she didn't care if it was, at least not around Liam. Apparently he was one of the people she trusted enough to say these things to.

And that, at least, was enough to cut through some more of that haze of anger and irritation. His expression shifted, understanding settling on his face as he recognized that admission for what it was. "Sparring being the exception since we're both consenting adults who know what we're getting into."

More than once, he'd ended up walking home with bruises after a sparring session with Beau. Never as bad as after that whole mess with the Covenant, and he usually gave as good as he got, but bruises all the same.

Beau flashed him a quick smile. "Yeah, exactly. And this wouldn't count as sparring, you get where I'm going with this?"

(See, look, Dad, some people thought she counted as an adult.)

"Yeah," Liam nodded. He wasn't moving to take her up on the offer of destroying some equipment just yet, though. Yeah, the feelings were still there, but now that he'd stopped, he was realizing just how much everything hurt.

"You want a bottle of water or something?" Beau asked by way of trying to convey that she was worried about him in her awkward, totally-doesn't-care-about-people-really way.

Sorry, Beau. Liam was on to you.

"Sure," he shrugged.

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Atlas Gym, Monday (6/17)

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