taxonomites | 021: You Can't Sleep Forever [Visual]

Entry tags:

021: You Can't Sleep Forever [Visual]

It was late in evening when DG returned to Taxon after three weeks of something far stranger than sleep. The moon that should have been shining above her was obscured by thick cloud and she stepped out of the deserted work shop into a wall of snow.

Pausing to pull her collar up against the bitter cold, DG wondered exactly how long she'd been gone. The last thing she remembered was the warmth of summer. There had been sunshine and clear skies and a party on the beach and ...

"Oh my god," she breathed, stopping dead in her tracks, "Glitch."

She remembered their last conversation. How could she forget it? The hamsters had given him the rest of his brain back. Not as part of one of their games, but as a gift that would last.

Instead of walking straight to the Northern Island as she'd intended, DG ducked into the relative - but still rather meagre - shelter of the nearest large building, pulling out her tablet with icy fingers. She was frequently impatient and her stasis hadn't changed that. She needed to know how he was now.

"Glitch? Glitch, it's DG. I'm ... I'm back." Back from wherever she'd actually been. "Please tell me you remember me?"

She didn't know how long that she'd been gone, only that it had been a long time. Months at the least. What had she missed? What had changed?

DG closed her eyes, pressing the palm of her free hand over her eyes in a gesture of understandable exasperation.

"You stopped being twisted a long time ago, flea bags," she added a moment later, addressing the hamsters, "This is just ridiculous."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There was a ridiculously swanky club, with a bar and a restaurant and a casino upstairs, and Glitch had found himself turning up there after RoWSA had beeped at him enough to shoo him from the shop. It was a bit of a balm before making the trek back to the palace, always filled with Extras laughing and a band playing jazz, or just a piano player crooning the same song over and over: You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh...

That night he was having a coffee to ward off the chill from the storm outside, but very nearly spit it out when he heard that voice. He shot up from the table, blinking, jaw dropped open as nearly two years of memories shuffled around and turned upside down and suddenly everything made sense and he was furious.

"What's your problem, buddy?" a male Extra drawled from behind him. Glitch wheeled, heart pounding, the outrage which couldn't be directed at the aliens roaring up and he gave the Extra a solid right hook to the jaw. A woman screamed, there were shouts, get him out of here, and grabbing hands which he swatted away before he picked up his hat and coat and stalked to the exit.

And when two lovers woo, they still say 'I love you,' on that you can rely--

The door closed, and the club's palm trees and bright lights were replaced with the dark cold of Taxon's sudden winter. He sighed and closed his eyes, thinking of mistletoe (twice) and wandering scared and helplessly lost with his mind a blank slate. When he opened them again to look at the tablet he felt the anger ebb, replaced by something like relief.

"I do now," Glitch said and managed a smile. "Hey, doll. Where are you?"

And in transit to meet DG, Glitch sent the following:

They brought DG back. I'm pretty sure I owe you an apology.

Exactly what he had to apologize for was complicated, but he was sure he'd work it out.

Don't. I'm happy. Cain typed back, fingers hovering over the touchpad for a split second before adding a little something to this...sudden bout of honesty.

He may have made a promise not to advertise, but some part of him wanted to share. He hadn't felt this close to okay in a very long time, and with DG back-- Well.

Things make more sense now, at least. It's something.

A lot more sense. If only one could convey ruefulness in text form. He'd been thinking...oh, miserable things (and looking back he suspected there were moments in which he almost knew what was wrong) but now the perspective had shifted. The loneliness hadn't been something he'd missed, but something he'd been missing, and that was--

More than something, I think. Almost comforting.

Almost.

And a second later comes another text. Stop texting me, get going. You don't want to keep a princess waiting.

Yes sir, Mr. Tin Man, sir.

And off he went.

DG let out a strangled sob when she heard Glitch's voice - and he called her doll, just as he had so many times before - on the tablet. She hadn't intended it. (She even clasped her free hand over her mouth in an attempt to hold it in.) The tumult of emotions that had been bubbling in her chest since she'd returned to the city simply spilled over before she could stop them. She didn't know what she'd missed, but he remembered her.

He remembered her.

She could deal with everything else, but being forgotten - and knowing that the hamsters would be unlikely to restore the memories they'd taken away - would have been unbearable.

"I'm ..." DG paused, squinting through the snow in search of a street name before finding the sign. "I'm in Osten. Not far from the workshop."

That sound chilled him more than the icy wind and he drew a sharp breath, then coughed from the cold. Glitch winced and shook his head before trying to speak again. "DG...I'm not far from there either, just hang on."

He called up the map and turned to head in her direction, stopping only to slap his hand on a hatch to produce a scarf but since he couldn't decide how it should look he ended up with a length of mottled orange and teal woolen silky fleece. It'd do.

"It was like when Kaylee was gone, a-and River," he explained, grimacing at the stammer which still cropped up when he was stressed. "Everything...it was just a blind spot where you were supposed to be, but it's gone now, everything's back."

She had a hundred questions about what had happened and why it had happened, though she already knew that it would have been useless to voice them at the moment. The hamsters - or whoever they really were - weren't listening. They didn't even care.

Glitch, however, cared. Glitch was on his way. She was freezing cold and more shaken than she would ever admit, but she held on fiercely to that knowledge.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said fiercely, "Not this time."

Nothing - not aliens, not witches, not vampires - would keep her from him.

"Good," Glitch said faintly and hurried along, tossing his texts to Cain as he want. Finally he made it to where DG was holed up, shouldered the door open and let it bang closed behind him. There, she was there and she was real and he kept walking, unable to settle on an endearment so he just ended up gasping her name.

The scarf could wait. He needed her in his arms first.

She had no choice but to duck inside the building why she was waiting, frozen to the bone by weather that was unlike anything she'd seen growing up in Kansas. (Had she seen it growing up in the O.Z?) DG jumped up from a convenient bench when the door slammed open. Before she knew what was happening, she was in his arms and clinging in a way that suggested that she'd never let go.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to go. I never meant ..."

She gave up, burying her face in his neck instead.

With a shuddering breath Glitch tipped his head back, blinking at the dim overhead light. She was so cold. he kept one arm latched tight around her waist and rubbed her back with the opposite hand, hoping to comfort and warm at the same time.

"It wasn't your fault, DG," he whispered. Not her fault she was gone when he needed her, when he was more confused than ever by the clarity of his thoughts. "It was them, they took you and--"

Gods, and what? He made a tiny distressed noise and dropped his head back down. "Are you okay? Did they do anything to you?"

But she'd let them take her. If there was one thing that DG hated it was being helpless and she hadn't been able to fight back. He'd been trying to work out who he was after rediscovering so much of what he'd lost and she'd just ... gone. Left him to it. Left him like she'd left Azkadellia, first in the cave and then, later, when she'd been taken to Kansas.

She bunched her hands into fists, grabbing a handful of his shirt material to make sure that Glitch wouldn't disappear as she had.

"No, I'm not ok. I was gone for ... I don't even know how long I was gone for! I don't remember what they did, but I wasn't here. I wasn't where I was supposed to be."

"They're playing with the weather again, it was just...weeks." It had felt like forever, but now that Glitch could put all the pieces together he could see the gap for what it was. He tried easing back, just a little, just enough to see her face. "You're here now," he murmured, and it may not be where she (or any of them) were supposed to be but at least they were together.

The big empty palace wasn't so empty, there'd been kissing in the ballroom and skinny dipping in the pool, quite, lazy afternoons of reading and sketching and keeping each other company. He hadn't been alone all this time, and knowing that now took away some of the bleak disappointment he'd felt since getting his brain back.

"We'll figure everything out, okay? Like always. Let's get you somewhere warm now."

Relief flooded through her, bubbling up and spilling over as a delighted - shocked, relieved, ecstatic - laugh. Weeks. Just weeks. Not months or, even worse, years. Weeks. She gazed up into his eyes with relief shining from in hers. (It didn't occur to her, even for a moment, to question him. He'd never lie to her. He certainly wouldn't lie to her about something so important.)

"I don't care where I am as long as I'm with you," she said, sincerely. "I thought it had been months. Longer."

Glitch managed a smile back and shook his head with a weak, breathy laugh. He freed the scarf from being trapped between them, gently draped it around her neck, and leaned in to kiss her brow. There. The crazy wobbling axis his world had been spinning on righted itself.

"Just weeks," he repeated. "Close to a month and it's...been busy, but that's typical. As for where, I was thinking home. Can you manage that?"

Yes, teleporting. It's nasty out there.

Although she had presumably been unable to use her magic effectively over the last three weeks, she didn't feel out of practice. The people who had been left in the city had carried on with their lives with a strange gap in their consciousness. DG, on the other hand, had gone straight from then to now. She had no memory of what had happened in the interim. Almost as if it hadn't happened.

"Yes," she said, with confidence. "... home is still where I left it, right?"

"Exactly there," Glitch said. "Exactly the same."

Only it has been so much colder and darker without her, thinking he'd spent all that time alone, convinced he'd missed any chance for...no. Those were thoughts for a time which didn't exist anymore and never should have in the first place. All just a dream, and now he was awake.

He placed his hands firmly on her hips and nodded, completely trusting her ability to get them home. "Ready when you are."

"Good." She paused, the faintest traces of a mischievous smile tugging at her lips. "But I'll have to check the bedrooms."

If she had been uncertain, his unwavering faith in her would have been more than enough to restore her confidence. She closed her eyes, putting her hands on his shoulders to keep him close.

"Here we go."

In response he could only laugh and close his eyes as well...

And then they were in his-- their room, which he'd taken to organizing. His general clutter was neatly stored, and DG's belongings...were where she'd left them, as if Glitch hadn't seen them, or they hadn't been there before.

"There," he said, his hands now moving. "Better?"

Although she did have her own room in the palace, DG spent - had spent? - so much time in Glitch's room that it had started to feel like hers. It had certainly started to fill up with her belongings.

She opened her eyes, looking around and letting out a half sigh of relief when she confirmed that it was just as she remembered.

"Much better."

"Good," Glitch said, nodding vaguely, staring in case they snatched her away again the moment he took his eyes off her, leaving him to just--

His nerves were shot, still, and the silence wasn't helping so he did what he always did and started talking. "Well it's...August, depsite the weather, and there's a thing going on because there's always a thing, you know how those aliens are with their things. I could get you a blanket and some tea, get a fire going, catch you up..."

She longed to promise that she wouldn't disappear again, but, at the same time, she knew that she couldn't. It was yet another decision that had been taken out of her hands. At least she was old enough to be aware of what was happening now. And wise enough to get angry about it.

"Just hold me, ok? That's all I need for now."

Glitch blinked, then nodded as all his frantic plans evaporated in favor of that simple request.

"I can manage that," he promised. It was all he needed too, to dispel the isolation the aliens had woven into his life while they'd taken her away. He kissed her brow and guided her toward the plush sofa, toed off his boots, and settled down, arms spread, with plenty of room for her to curl up with/beside/on him.

"See? Managed."

DG didn't waste time removing her own shoes. She joined Glitch on the sofa before he'd had a chance to settle down properly, pressing up against his chest and looping her arms tightly around him. When she finally stilled, she could feel the beating of his heart.

"Thank you," she mumbled, counting the steady rhythm and savouring how real it was. Although her hair tumbled across her face, she didn't want to let go in order to brush it back. "You're managing it well."

There was a deep breath and a long exhale to go with the heartbeat, and fingers gliding in her unruly hair to smooth it back. That was easy and familiar and comforting and he held onto her as if his life depended on it...which it sort of did, if the last few weeks were anything to go by.

"I am now," Glitch replied, voice breaking just a little. "When...it was so-- DG, I didn't know what to do."

It had been the worst sort of helplessness, like he hadn't felt since he'd been lost in the O.Z. for all those annuals.

She closed her eyes for a moment, simply savouring the contact and the steady rise and fall of his chest. When his voice cracked, however, she sat upright again, meeting his eyes with her own.

"I know," she whispered, soft and sorrowful. What could she say? She couldn't promise that it would be all right or come up with a perfect solution that would make it all work. All she could offer was the truth. "But I'll come back. I'll always come back. I don't care where they take me."

Edited 2011-09-23 21:32 (UTC)

Back? This woman had been gone? As far as Liz knew, when people left, they left for good. She wasn't aware of anyone having left to come back while knowing they were supposed to.

"You know Glitch?" She asked instead of what she wanted to. As curious as she was, she didn't want to come off as immediately intrusive.

Piper had returned to the city without any memory of her time in Taxon. The friends that she'd made in the city still remembered her. When Kaylee and River had gone missing, it had been different. Their absence had gone ... not unnoticed, as such. It was difficult to describe. It left a gaping hole in the memories of their loved ones, but, until they returned, the gap went largely unnoticed.

DG was no stranger to amnesia, but that trick was enough to make her shudder in distaste.

"He's my best friend," she said, firmly. The word 'boyfriend', while technically correct, had never sounded right. Besides, she'd been gone - erased - for a long time. She didn't want to think about what might have changed.

How much the aliens were able to mess with them was frightening, but not surprising. She'd seen (and experienced) Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess do extraordinary, impossible things. It was no shocker to learn that these aliens, who had already pulled them all from their homes, were able to tamper with their minds so easily. It was disturbing, but she doubted there was anything they could do about it. They were so... helpless.

"Oh," she said. "He seems like a really nice guy." If not a bit odd, but voicing that would've been rude.

"The best," DG agreed. She'd never tire of meeting the friends that he'd made in the city. He'd been alone for so long in the O.Z that he deserved every single one of them.

"I'm DG," she added, realising that she should probably offer an introduction of sorts. She'd been shaken at first, but she was also very good at taking weirdness in her stride. She could deal with this, just like she'd dealt with everything else.

"They took you, too," Brennan stated instead of asking. The anthropologist wore a dismayed expression, eyebrows pinched and lips pressed tightly together. It hadn't been long since she'd had a conversation with DG about other people getting pulled temporarily from the city, and now it had happened to the woman in question. The irony wasn't lost on Brennan, and she didn't really like it.

DG nodded in response to the question that wasn't a question, offering Brennan a wry smile that didn't contain as much humour as she would have liked. She was tired and cold and still unsure of exactly how much she'd missed.

"Maybe they were fed up of me telling people their secrets?" she offered.

Brennan had no answer to that, if that was indeed an actual question and not simply an attempt to be facetious - she often couldn't tell.

"Are you alright? Do you need assistance?" she asked instead, a note of concern in her voice as she appraised DG with her gaze, trying to determine if the other woman was injured.

It had been a joke without humour, attempting to cover up just how worried DG was by the current situation. Only the slight frown betrayed her uncertainty.

"I'm ..." Fine. But she wasn't, was she? She didn't know why she'd been taken or where she'd been taken and she definitely wasn't all right with that. "I'm not hurt. I just wish I knew what I'd missed."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

021: You Can't Sleep Forever [Visual]

[visual / location: osten] oh hey it's tl;dr

[text (locked to cain) ]

[text (locked like a locked thing, for once) ]

[text (shhhh, seeekrits~) ]

[text (you know it is) ]

[text ( <3 ) ]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[location] /godmodes and makes up locations forever

That's how Taxon rolls!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

[ visual ]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]

[Visual]