29 Chimera Court, Wednesday Morning

[firstofitskind]

When Liam had gone to sleep the night before, he'd been a child. He knew, on some level, that something had gone wrong, because his instructions from his father when he'd been born hadn't involved spending any time as a child, and yet there he was. He hadn't been overly concerned about it, in any case.

Still, when he woke up this morning and noticed that he seemed to be taller, his limbs longer... well. It was a relief.

Until he looked in the mirror and saw a face staring back at him that still seemed kind of childlike. Older, yes, but too young to infiltrate Companion Services and fulfill his destiny. That was... troubling. Perhaps human DNA interacted oddly with Kimera DNA? Liam had no idea, and it wasn't as if there was anyone around he could ask.

He figured he ought to just make the best of it, starting with finding some breakfast.

[ooc: open for housemates or anyone else! i'm off to work until afternoon so pings from me will be sloooow for a bit.]

Comments

[firstofitskind]

Liam was far too empathetic for his own good. It was what had made him good at his job, but it also made things like this somewhat difficult.

"It won't hurt the tree, will it? If I throw it?"

[raspberryturk]

"It'll hurt the egg a hell of a lot more'n it'll hurt the tree," Reno said, resisting the urge to reach up and pinch the bridge of his nose.

Barely.

"We can find a wall or somethin' to chuck it at if you feel better. Or we're right by the beach. There's gotta be a big rock somewhere, yo."

[firstofitskind]

"That might be better," Liam decided. Look, Reno, just be glad he didn't bring up the fact that this was wasting food!

[raspberryturk]

Reno had grown beans to supplement eating rations in a nuclear wasteland for about a decade now.

He knew all about wasting food.

He'd probably cry, less about the food, and more out of despair.

"C'mon," he sighed, gesturing toward the shore. "There's gotta be a nice inanimate rock to chuck that little bastard at, yo."

[firstofitskind]

Liam nodded and followed along, rolling the egg between his palms.

"For fun," he said, still sounding kind of dubious.

[raspberryturk]

"At this point, I'll take doin' it just to get me to shut up," Reno replied, picking his way over the beach, looking for a nice big rock. There, in the water, was a pretty decently sized one, not terribly far from shore. "How 'bout that? How you feel about that rock?"

[firstofitskind]

"It seems fine?" Liam said, gaze following Reno's. "I could hit that."

[raspberryturk]

"Good," Reno said. "Pretend that rock is that thing you're annoyed about. Just, really look at it hard and pick it out. That rock there? That's that thing you hate."

[firstofitskind]

Asking Liam to channel his emotions towards a physical object, Reno?

... That was a good way to end up with exploded rocks.

He could already feel the heat of the shaqarava building in his palms.

So, naturally, he panicked and flung the egg at the rock in question, hitting it square on, before jamming both his hands in his jean pockets.

[raspberryturk]

... Reno looked at the egg. And then at Liam. And then down at those hidden hands.

"That was interesting."

Not quite what he was going for. But interesting.

[firstofitskind]

"What?" Liam demanded. "I did it, didn't I?" He kept his hands hidden for a moment more, until he could feel the energy that had threatened to burst through dissipate once more.

[raspberryturk]

There was a long moment of silence, and then Reno reached down to pick up a rock from the beach. Small, smooth, round. Just an ocean-polished pebble, really.

He threw it up into the air and caught it again.

"Scared yourself though, didn't you?"

[firstofitskind]

"Maybe," Liam said, sullenly. Rapid, unexpected mood changes? Unfortunate side-effect of hybrid biology, one that the adult Liam had eventually managed to grow out of.

Of course, this version of Liam also had teenage hormones piled on top of that.

[raspberryturk]

Reno nodded at that. Okay, that was... some kind of development, anyway.

"What do those hands of yours do, Rookie?"

[firstofitskind]

"Throw eggs," Liam rolled his eyes. And then held his palms out for Reno to see. "They're just hands, see?"

Except for the quarter-sized triangular marks on each palm, that looked almost like a burn or some sort of brand.

The truth behind the snarky answer was that he didn't really know what they did. It had just been... instinctual. And just as instinctual was the need to not let anyone else see.

[raspberryturk]

Reno looked at those palms and nodded.

Nah, they didn't ring any sort of bell. But something had been up there, and Reno was apparently going to go into 'protect the Rookie' mode, even if the person he was protecting him from was himself.

"Catch," he said, and tossed the pebble at Liam in an easy underhand. "We ain't gonna work on frustration anymore, yo. We're gonna work on target practice."

[firstofitskind]

"Okaaaaay," Liam said slowly, but caught the pebble.

Why would he need target practice?

[raspberryturk]

"You're gonna throw pebbles at that rock," Reno said, "until your arm gets tired or you run outta pebbles, yo."

... It'd probably be that first one. They were on a beach, after all.

"Or until you think of basically anything else you'd rather be doin'," he added. "Go on. Throw."

Yeah, he rarely made any sense to the other Turks, either.

[firstofitskind]

"There a reason?" Liam asked. "Or you just like getting people to throw things?"

[raspberryturk]

"I think at this point I'm half wonderin' how long it'll take for me to piss you off," Reno replied.

This was probably not actually the case. It was sometimes difficult to tell, with Reno.

[firstofitskind]

"... Really?" Liam looked at him, disbelief written all over his face.

[raspberryturk]

Reno blinked back at him, and then broke into a little cackle.

"Shit, kid," he said, shaking his head. "You take everything at face value like that? I might need to teach you how to know you're bein' fucked with to go right along with enjoying yourself from time to time."

He nodded at the pebble.

"Throw it. Just for the sake of throwin' it. Throw it for the burn you feel if you keep doin' it. Challenge yourself to hit a certain point on the rock, if that makes it more interestin' for you, yo. See how many you can fire off in under a minute. Hell, see if you can throw 'em faster than I can run and catch 'em."

[firstofitskind]

Not taking everything literally had taken him a few days to master the first time around, too.

"And if I don't want to?" he challenged.

[raspberryturk]

Reno tilted his head a little.

"Then you'll be doin' somethin' because it's what you want? That ain't bad, either," Reno noted. "But I'd love to see if you can hit that egg splatter with that pebble, yo. I don't think you can."

[firstofitskind]

Liam narrowed his eyes at that challenge. And yeah, maybe part of him suspected that Reno was just egging (heh) him on, and didn't really have expectations one way or another about whether he could hit that egg splatter.

But he threw the pebble, and hit the target.

Hah.