021: You Can't Sleep Forever [Visual]

[tothelightshown.livejournal.com]

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."

Comments

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

[aintnoconvict]

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?"

[ visual ]

[cametolife]

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.

[Visual]

[bonescientist.livejournal.com]

"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.