The Beach, Tuesday Afternoon

[firstofitskind]

The beach might have been a little too chilly for yoga today, but you know what it was perfect for?

Sitting on a rock with a cup of hot chocolate, staring out at the ocean, and pretending that everything is totally fine (which, for the record, looked rather a lot like brooding, but details.). That literally every inch of Liam's skin save his face was covered was just a concession to the aforementioned chilly weather. Sure.

[ooc: broody (... not that kind of broody) but open!]

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[thatwaslucky]

Rey'd made it through all that just fine, save for being stuck remembering the feeling if everything, which was new and she didn't like it. And she had narrated that she sort of missed the beach because if it, so she decided to take a little walk on her way home.

While freezing in several layers, including a coat that had probably previously belonged to a guy twice her size.

"Hey."

[firstofitskind]

Even the desert-at-night had nothing on the damp cold that came with being surrounded by ocean.

Liam glanced up, expression carefully neutral. He wasn't sure what, if anything, Rey had seen after the portal had dropped them on the causeway, because by the time he'd come back to himself, there had just been Verity and Beau.

"Hey."

[thatwaslucky]

She had missed it. Because I saw that post too late.

She still said, "How're you doing?" because she'd have asked that either way.

[firstofitskind]

"Fine," he shrugged. "More or less."

Mostly less, honestly, but since she seemed to be okay, he didn't feel like calling attention to the fact that he'd fallen apart the way he had, when they'd essentially just gone through the same thing.

Well, almost. Minus the part that had been the reason for that little breakdown of his, anyway.

[thatwaslucky]

"Are you still stuck with it, too?" Rey asked. That was more or less a guess.

[firstofitskind]

"That's," a short, sharp, bitter laugh. "An accurate way to put it."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey nodded, and asked, "Do you want company?"

[firstofitskind]

“I wouldn’t mind it,” he admitted. Truth be told, it’d be nice to have someone to listen to that wasn’t inside his own head.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey took a seat next to him, and asked, "Do you want to talk about it, or about literally anything else?"

[firstofitskind]

He wasn’t entirely sure, was the problem. Being asked what he wanted still threw him for a loop sometimes, even when it was just about conversation topics. “What would you prefer?”

[thatwaslucky]

She considered it.

"Talk about it while we come up with something happier to follow it up?"

[firstofitskind]

“Sure,” Liam said, cracking a tiny smile. “I’ll even spring for doughnuts from JGoB, later.” Maybe she’d meant a happier topic, but he also figured sweets wouldn’t go awry.

[thatwaslucky]

That even got Rey to smile a little, because food would do that.

"So how're you really doing? Without using the word fine."

[firstofitskind]

“I think... I fucked up?” it was more a question than a statement, because when all was said and done, that choice he’d made had helped, but. Maybe they would have been fine even if all he’d stolen was the guy’s clothes, and not his appearance and memories.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey frowned. "You were incredible," she told him, since she didn't know what would make him think that.

[firstofitskind]

Okay, that assessment was a little unexpected, though not unwelcome. “The face thing, I mean,” because yeah, there had been the fighting, and the healing... and all of that had gone down just fine. “It’s only the second time I’ve done that. And the first time, uh. Wasn’t on purpose.”

[thatwaslucky]

"Oh," she said. "You think you did it wrong?"

[firstofitskind]

“Maybe,” Liam admitted. “There’s so much I don’t know. About who I am. What I am. My father could change hosts as easy as taking off a shirt and putting on a new one. With me...” he trailed off, frustrated.

[thatwaslucky]

"I know what it's like to not know," Rey said, seriously. "You can't compare your skill set to anyone else. What you do and how you do it is going to be unique to you. Especially if you're learning things on your own."

[firstofitskind]

“Actually doing it was easy enough,” Liam said with a shrug. “Almost too easy.”

It was the aftermath that was the hard part.

[thatwaslucky]

"What part about it is bad for you, then?" she asked. There were probably some options there.

[firstofitskind]

"You remember the farmer we freed from the cells?" Liam asked.

The one whose face had been beaten to a pulp, one eye swollen shut, the other not doing much better.

[thatwaslucky]

"Yeah." She wasn't going to be forgetting them anytime soon.

[firstofitskind]

"I remember," Liam glanced down at his gloved hands, curling the one not holding the to-go cup into a fist. "I remember hitting him. How I enjoyed causing pain for no real reason other than to cause pain."

Yes, he knew, intellectually, that hadn't been him. But those memories felt like his, and that was the problem.

[thatwaslucky]

"Ah," Rey said, understanding. "You really are stuck in it."