Welcome to Gaia! ::

Liamh scowled, lurking in the doorway of his duplex with a hand, Samson-like, on each side of the doorframe as if somehow with a single, mighty heave he could tear down this whole island that had caged them all. No dice, he thought. Critical botch, game over, insert coin now. He took in a deep breath and held it, peering out at the bright afternoon and scanning the village area without really seeing. He hadn't really come out of his duplex in a few days, stewing and playing the disturbing images of Gaius' transformation over in his head.

But there was something else disturbing, something that he'd been slow to realize. Only just now was he beginning to feel.... hungry. He'd been lethargic, yes, dozing near the open windows when he ran out of energy, but there was something not right with him. He just didn't know what, other than the lack of appetite. Perhaps his little slump was affecting his metabolism.

With a grunt, he turned from the doorway, snagging a shirt from the rumpled heap near his bed and squirming into it on his way out the door. He was restless now, blast it, and determined to prove himself wrong. He could use the walk anyway. Strolling down to the cafeteria with his hands shoved into his pockets, he came up to the building and pushed open the door. His stomach gave a slight twinge at the recycled air smell. He'd been leaving his windows open a bit in his duplex, he must not be used to it. Strange. He set his jaw and went to get a tray, feeling a bit unsettled. If he ignored it, it would certainly just go away.

Glopping some self-serve macaroni onto his plate with a grimace, Liamh moved on down the line. Blue jello? Check. Chicken nuggets? Sure. Pickles? Mashed potatoes? Tiny carrots? Why the hell not. By the time he reached the end, he had a rather appalling combination for dessert involving nacho cheese sauce, pretzels, and rice krispy treats.

Giving the cafeteria matron a wide, mirthless grin, he turned on his heel and paraded his way across the seating areas, looking for someplace to stash himself to devour his kill - or at least his murder of the food pyramid - in peace. He stalked past the table where a brick of a bent-nosed man was grazing behind a magazine. He paused, pedaling backwards until he was across from the other man again, and gave him a slightly unhinged stare out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't spoken to anyone in days, and he was going to be social, dammit.

"YOU." He pointed at the man with his finger. "I think I saw you at the Halloween party." He was still leveling the slightly torqued stare in what he hoped was a friendly manner. "You new? Not new enough to traumatize, I'll bet. What-you-here-for? They hire you, or did you win some kinda fantastic one-way vacation?" Still standing, he put a foot up on the bench posessively, staking new territory for... Good lord, he had to get out more often.

"Yup, that was me. Obscure old sci-fi for 400, Alex." Liamh ran a hand over his bald, pale head. The veins were looking a lot more green than blue and still protruded slightly. "Yeah, I hear it's all the rage in Milan. Or was it New York? Maybe Iowa. I try my best to stay on top of all the fashion. I'm trendy like that, me." Not being summarily shot down with a hearty GTFO N0oB, he swung his other leg over the bench and sat himself and his cauldron of pickle macaroni down across from Oz.

"Ahhh, hell of a place for an AA meeting, but i couldn't think of a nicer getaway for it, if this were a nice getaway." He dug into the mac'n'cheese. "I work here. Or i was going to work here." He paused and chewed. "Here was going to be a fancy resort, and work was going to be computer security. It was all crap though. Fancy that."

He plucked the pickle from it's cheesey submersion and bit off a chunk. "Now i just get a long, long vacation in Gillagan's Twilight Zone Island of the Lost World. How long you been here, before the party that is? -Pass the pepper, would you?- I'm Liamh, by the way." He gave a slightly less sardonic and more apologetic, warm smile at the man across from him, extending the pickle-less hand.

Liamh shook the hand eagerly, though suddenly more aware of the size of the other man as his hand was dwarfed by Oz's. The guy did look a bit more sizeable now that he was on eye level and not half-hidden by a magazine. Liamh flashed a grin, wondering idly if he would indeed have approached so spontaneously if they'd been under different circumstances...

"Oz, huh? I guess you must get all the terrible wizard jokes, so i'll skip that part," he smiled, gesturing with the pickle in his other hand. "What's that short for, anyway? I could never figure that out."

The big guy seemed friendly enough, despite the scarring and obviously - perhaps more than once - broken nose. Perhaps he'd been a boxer, shooting for a championship title until a terrible mob deal gone wrong had cost him his career. Or perhaps he was one of those tough guys who worked the docks, gutting fish all day and bar-fighting all night. Or perhaps a kneebreaker for some kind of British mafia... Liamh blinked the errant thoughts away. Perhaps it'd be healthier if he didn't ask too many questions. He'd hate to get education at the business end of a polo stick... or whatever that one sport was they played in the U.K. Crazy bunch.

"I'm sure they've been treating you well? They tend to do that, what with us being suddenly worth our weight in gold to them now."

Come to think of it, an ex-mafia prizefighting fishgutter like him could be rather useful were they to attempt to put any revolutionary wheels into motion... once they got the notion how to do such a thing. But with the look on Gaius' distorted face still in his mind, he was determined that something had to be done. And being friendly never hurt.

...Much.

"Australian? Oh! I get it, Aussie, Ozzie..." He smirked. "Were your parents Ozzie Osbourne fans or anything? Maybe it's more common on your side of the 'Pond'..."

He gathered up a handful of baby carrots and arranged them tip-first in the mashed potatoes, using one to carve a hideous fanged maw in the starchy glob. "Me, well, Liam's usually short for William, but I didn't get the benefit of a long name. It's just Liamh... with an H," he pondered his potato monster seriously. "I'd blame that on the trauma i caused them as a child - 'horrible', 'hellion', in 'hot-water' - but I'm pretty sure it was dad's idea. 'Nuff said."

At Oz's questioning, Liamh shrugged, picking his fork back up and spanking his blue jello abusively with it. "We're an experiment. One that's probably costing a fortune in genetic.... stuff. Stuff is the technical term," he added seriously. "But i mean, drugs and equipment and whatnot. This has to be worth a lot."

He shoveled some jello into his mouth with the fork. " 'an I wonder 'ow far 'ey'll go..." he swallowed. "- to keep us little cash piggies from being damaged... or kept in line." He glanced up at Oz, making eye contact with the fork still in his mouth. "Tricky business, huh?"

He pondered to himself the fine line he had considered walking between sitting down, shutting up, and accepting the pampered lifestyle - mixed with the odd horrific torturous event - he was forced into, and the possibilities of something sure to be more painful... unless it succeeded. Curiosity killed more than cats, but it was a seductive hope.

Liamh wrinkled his nose. Whereas he'd normally rather enjoy nacho-krispies, his stomach was already protesting what he'd eaten, and he wasn't quite sure that was an argument he was willing to have right at the moment. His eyes strayed over to Oz's girlie magazine and his eyebrows drifted upward. Now there was something he hadn't seen in a while... he wondered idly whether he should remedy that, or whether it'd just be adding another layer of torture on the cake. It wasn't as if a forsaken island of mutant... people... was the best place to pick up women. But then...

He shook his head. Glancing up - and up - at Oz and his comment, he made a face. "Sheep's hearts... ugh." He pushed the plate of mangled food away and stared at his 'desert'. "Probably started there and moved on to bigger, better things like whole frogs and cow fetuses... and then perhaps kittens and children who cry too much in grocery stores."

He certainly was a... large... fellow. Liamh made a small note in the back of his mind under 'continued self existance'.

Liamh made a face. "Eh, you could say that. I think it gained sentience.... it'd probably be wrong to devour the first member of a new species, right?" he got a mischievous look on his face and leaned down to eye-level with the plate, glancing over the top of the gross pile at the other guy. "Think of what we could learn from it! We shall be its mentors, raising it up to true being-hood in our own image!" He grinned madly and looked up again. "What shall we name it? I think maybe Liamh Junior. Or perhaps Li-bourne.... or Oziamh... or Liazbouriamh...." he shook his head and picked up his drink, taking a chug. At least that didn't seem to be upsetting his stomach today.

"You know, perhaps i should have taken up mad science myself. I could have ascended to the heights of true mediocrity as my colleagues laughed my "refridgerator evolution" theories out of town." he nodded sagely. "But they'd see. They'd all see, in the end." his expression was that of sincere deadpan, but the friendly twinkle still lurked in his eye.