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MHA #8, Monday Morning
It had been an odd weekend. Odd in a better way, or at least a less painful one, than last weekend had been but still odd. This weekend hadn't involved any barfights or subsequent trips to the pond, for one thing. It had just mostly involved watching out for a much younger than usual friend while Faye tended to Grogu, and then meeting a very unusual version of Din.
Stark had left Liam asleep and curled up on the couch last night, eventually. Maybe the frappucino hadn't been the wisest choice but Stark was inclined to indulge children, especially temporary ones, when he was able to do so.
He was hoping that Liam would be back to his usual self this morning. These things usually ended with the weekend but not always. If Liam was still a tinier version of himself Stark would deal with that. He was fairly certain Liam would do the same for him if the situation had been reversed.
"Liam?" he called out softly as he walked out of his bedroom.
[For the no-longer-tiny guy on the couch! If you have a reason to also show up? Go for it.]
Stark had left Liam asleep and curled up on the couch last night, eventually. Maybe the frappucino hadn't been the wisest choice but Stark was inclined to indulge children, especially temporary ones, when he was able to do so.
He was hoping that Liam would be back to his usual self this morning. These things usually ended with the weekend but not always. If Liam was still a tinier version of himself Stark would deal with that. He was fairly certain Liam would do the same for him if the situation had been reversed.
"Liam?" he called out softly as he walked out of his bedroom.
[For the no-longer-tiny guy on the couch! If you have a reason to also show up? Go for it.]
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Both because the couch was not made for someone of Liam's stature to fall asleep on, and because... well. The whole being-a-kid temporarily thing was always complicated when you were never one to begin with.
Had this been a normal morning, Liam would've been up hours ago, but as was traditional with these sorts of strange weekends, the transformation always ended up meaning he slept in.
Still, he was a fairly light sleeper, so Stark's voice- familiar but also unfamiliar in this first-thing-in-the-morning context- was enough to wake him.
"Hm?"
Why did he feel like some sort of... awkwardly folded mostly-human origami?
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"Good. You're yourself again," Stark said. "That's good. Always better than not being yourself. Are you alright?"
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“Yeah. I think so,” he said, running a hand up his face and back through his hair.
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You don't get pancakes though, Liam. Sorry.
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“Tea would- tea would be good.”
And a shower, but he could manage that when he went back to his own apartment.
Also some sort of decompression that would probably take the form of hitting things- inanimate object things. Which would also not be taking place right now.
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"I can make you tea," Stark told him, heading for the kitchen. "I know it helps, sometimes. Are you sure you're alright? It's disconcerting, not being yourself.
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Fandom had a bad habit of reminding him what he'd missed out on. Although judging by the memories of his next-universe-to-the-left self, maybe he hadn't actually missed out on all that much.
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"You're back to yourself now," Stark said, hoping to sound reassuring. He did at least know better than to say anything about how that ought to last for a while. That was just asking for trouble.
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Not the greatest of conversationalists at the moment, unfortunately.
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somewhere, Seivarden was sighing without knowing whybefore walking back into the kitchen for two mugs."Or... had that happened before? I remember those weekends but they've skipped me. So far."
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“Happened once before,” he confirmed. “Well, twice, but the first time I wasn’t me I was the real Liam Kincaid. The last two times it’s been… me, but not me?” he frowned, trying to think of a way to explain it that made sense.
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"You were yourself but not this version of yourself?" Stark had known multiple versions of most of his shipmates. Alternate realities were almost normal at this point.
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"Me, but if I hadn't just, you know," he made a sweeping-upward gesture with one hand that was meant to communicate the whole 'grew from infancy to adulthood in a matter of hours' thing.
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And frightened, unsure, not well-cared for...
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The Taelons who had raised that other-Liam had certainly seen to his material needs. But there had been a lot they'd neglected, too, either because they didn't know or just didn't deem it important.
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"He seemed lonely. And hungry. That's why I didn't want to leave him alone. I understand lonely."
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"Two thousand is a very large number. I...the oldest person I've known wasn't even half of that though she wasn't old. At all."
"I can imagine they would have forgotten many, many things about what children might need after all that time. Or maybe they never knew what he needed if he wasn't their usual sort of child?"
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... Aside from what was in any Companion-Protector's personal quarters, anyway, but it's not like the kid-Liam would've had an opportunity to interact with any of them, forbidden from talking to the human crew members as he was.
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Stark had spent much of his life having barely enough. He didn't think anyone else needed to experience that.
Which would explain, of course, his willingness to indulge the little Liam and most other children he came across.
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