MHA #6, Thursday Morning

[firstofitskind]

After whatever the hell had happened on the beach, Liam returned to the apartment feeling incredibly unsettled. He didn't understand what had happened or why, just that there was something going on with bad memories, and, well. Nightmares were honestly a pretty regular occurrence in the Price-Kincaid household, between the two of them.

Honestly, he'd even entertained the idea of just trying not to fall asleep at all. Except that hadn't worked, because even part-aliens who only needed a few hours of sleep a night still needed some sleep.

"You're right, Major. I do enjoy my job." Being held down by the energy field, twisting to see Sandoval's mocking expression before he pressed the button that sent bolts of electricity coursing through his body.

Staying still, so very still, as the needle approached the underside of his jaw. Listening to Zo'or as he spoke to Sandoval as if Liam himself were not even there. "Major Kincaid has been resourceful in the past, but he has also demonstrated discontent with me. I want him searching, but I want him on your tether." And then nothing but blackness as the CVI started to replicate within his brain.

Wrenching, tearing pain, pain so bad he could barely think. Hands holding him down as he screamed and fought to no avail. Another hand jamming a needle into his abdomen, extracting... something. He tried to remember why this mattered but all he could think about was how much it hurt.

Liam woke with a gasp, twisting away from the form cuddled close to his own, not really registering that it was Verity and not just another nightmare construct. He kicked at the blankets, desperate to get whatever was holding him down off, now now now.

[ooc: for the wife and SP!]

Comments

[arboreal_priestess]

And Verity, being woken up from unsettling dreams of her own and only half-awake at best, did the absolute worst thing possible in this situation.

Leaning over, she rested her weight on him. "Hey, babe," she murmured. "Wake up, you're having a nightmare."

[firstofitskind]

Liam let out sharp, keening cry of distress at the feeling of something (someone?) holding him down, and twisted away from her touch, still caught in that twilight between asleep and awake.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Liam!" Verity said, further awake now. "Liam!" She reached for his hand, trying to go palm to palm.

[firstofitskind]

Honestly, for these two, the physical contact wasn't even necessary for the dream, those memories to make the leap and bring her into them too, but it certainly made it easier.

So, uh... sorry, Verity, for that feeling of being restrained, helpless, and all the terror and pain that came with the acts that had been perpetrated while he'd been like that.

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity thrashed and struggled, suddenly back in the sewers, bound and helpless as Betty stood over her, sacrificial knife raised... Or no, she was in the warehouse, staring up at Robert while he stared at her from behind the gun, agony racing through her abdomen from the first bullet...

[firstofitskind]

Betty, Sandoval, the kryss needle, the bullet, all of them blurred together until it didn't seem to matter which dream was whose anymore (it didn't help that some of Verity's nightmares were also Liam's nightmares, just from a different point of view).

Liam's body convulsed again as he relived the 'interrogation' that had consisted of Sandoval repeatedly electrocuting him, sending him tumbling off the bed, wedged into the corner between the mattress and the wall.

[arboreal_priestess]

Once the physical contact was broken, so was the worst of the link, shocking Verity back to full consciousness.

Okay. Touching Liam had been a bad plan. Time for plan number two. Verity darted into the kitchen, grabbed the pitcher of water from the fridge, and ran back into the room to dump it over Liam's head.

Between the shock of cold and the shock of wet, she was hoping that would do it.

[firstofitskind]

“Wha-“ Another shuddering, jerky movement, this time from the shock of the water rather than an all-too-realistic dream.

[arboreal_priestess]

"Liam," Verity said gently, leaning over him. "You with me?"

[firstofitskind]

"You were bleeding," Liam frowned up at her, confused. "I was-" one hand drifted to the circular scar left over from the kryss needle. The scar that had long since healed.

He'd get around to speaking in something that wasn't sentence fragments eventually, promise.

[arboreal_priestess]

Sometimes it took time. Verity got that.

"You were dreaming," Verity told him, voice gentle. "I couldn't wake you up."

[firstofitskind]

Liam swallowed hard. “Not a good dream,” he admitted. Something nagged at him, just out of reach in the post-nightmare haze.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I know," Verity said quietly. "I...you pulled me into it."

[firstofitskind]

And there it was, the thing that had been nagging at him. He closed his eyes. Took a deep, tremulous breath. “Shit,” he exhaled. Not that she hadn’t seen worse, experienced worse, but that didn’t mean he’d wanted her to have to see any of that.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I'm here," Verity said, kneeling down next to him and bringing him in for a soggy hug. "It was terrifying, but what was more scary that I couldn't wake you up."

[firstofitskind]

“I was stuck,” Liam murmured into her shoulder. “Something- something is making people relive things. Not just me.”

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity nodded. "I was having nightmares, too," she said. "Anxiety dreams, I thought? Until I got pulled into yours."

[firstofitskind]

“You were dreaming about the sewers,” Liam realized. “And the warehouse.” He’d had dreams about those events before, but it had always been from his perspective (or sometimes, in the case of the latter, Robert’s).

[arboreal_priestess]

"...Yeah," Verity admitted. "It was. A lot."

[firstofitskind]

And now he was rubbing gentle circles on her back. "Do you-" want to talk about it? he almost asked, before changing tracks somewhat. "What do you need?" he asked, instead.

[arboreal_priestess]

"I feel like I should be asking you that," she murmurs, deflecting slightly. "You couldn't wake up."

[firstofitskind]

Liam frowned slightly, but let it go for now. He nodded. "It was like that last night, too. Except I was awake. Couldn't do anything but let the memories play out."

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity holds out her hand to pull him up. "Let's dry you off," she said. "And we can figure out what the hell is going on."

Because it was always something.

"...Couldn't have given me just a few more days?"

[firstofitskind]

"Least we got a few days, this time," Liam pointed out, taking Verity's hand. Remember when they'd come back from their road-trip-slash-honeymoon and she'd been immediately kidnapped?

[arboreal_priestess]

Those were the days. Except for how they really weren't.

"You think we can get all the way up to a week next time?" she asked, voice wry. She pulled him up to his feet and helped him to the bed. "Just last night and tonight? Or...?"