taxonomites | System Glitch: In The City

Nothing felt right. Coming to Taxon hadn’t felt wrong but now it all felt entirely off and slanted sideways and she couldn’t seem to make her mind stop spinning even if it felt like it was the ground beneath her. Part of her wanted to hide, to do what she never had before and bow her head and pretend the world was not there. It wasn't something she did then, nor that she would allow herself now.

Still she kept her chin raised despite the way her lip trembled, carefully wrapping the yarn about the parchment and securing it with deft fingers. That they shook more than a little bit was something she tried to ignore. She glanced over, taking a breath. “I can look away if you’d rather.”

"No, it's--" He says, cutting himself short and forcing himself to look at her. Even when the rest of him is carefully assembled and neat and in control, he's never been that good at stripping his eyes like he can the rest of him. The lines of tension around them would be enough.

"I can't," he admits, barely raising his voice above a whisper for needing it to stay steady and firm. He can't crack, so his voice can't either.

"I don't know where to start, so I can't, and--" He shakes his head, clears his throat, "Let's just find a place for that one, all right? Then we'll have some coffee at my place, or tea. Maybe sandwiches, would you like a sandwich? I'm not half bad at sandwiches."

Azkadellia frowned, setting her parchment down, hand clutching into a fist to try and stop the shaking from being obvious. Drawing a deep breath, holding it, she tried to remember the decorum she was taught, the strength she knew she possessed. Not for herself, but for him.

Reaching over, her hand covered his. "Cain," she whispered softly, staring into his eyes if he doesn't look away. "You don't have to. Not do anything. And... and you're not alone in this. I know I've done a bit of breaking down myself but you don't have to be strong for me," she whispered.

She slumped slightly, her fingers squeezing his. "You don't have to start. He knows. Anyone that you're thinking of, they know," she said, her hand moving to almost ghost over his chest, over his heart. "Just like you know."

He feels sick.

He can feel all the blood draining from his head to cling around his neck like a bright pink scarf, and he can't look away from Azkadellia's eyes despite the fact his own burn like fire.

"It's different for Glitch," he says finally, because she's got to be thinking of Glitch, who else would she even have reason to think was on his mind.

"He gets to go home and start a new life." He tries a smile that actually makes it all the way to his eyes. "He gets to go home, and be surrounded by people who cares about him. He's surrounded by friendship and love, and belonging, and he'll be fine."

The smile falters, though sheer stubbornness keeps it there. "But Smecker-- Paul. He's my friend. My partner, and friend, and he's not so lucky. When the aliens grabbed him, he'd been shot. Badly. And they, they just fixed him right up, like brand new. Not a mark on him but a bloodied shirt."

He swallows, tension-thinned lips sticking together dryly. "He's gone home, and probably to die, and I don't know how to cope with that yet, so I'm not. Okay? I can't right now. It's bad enough his music's gone and I'll never hear it again."

He huffs, mouth twisting into an empty chuckle. "I don't even know half the composers. I wouldn't know where to begin looking them up, I don't have a clue. So that's gone. And he's gone, and I... I'm no good with words. I don't talk, I act. I do things, I don't--"

She stared up at him, attentive and rapt, listening though she said nothing. Yet she watched him as well. The brightness of his eyes, that moment they light up, and then that change.

A small bit of a frown curved her lips, head tilting to one side in curiosity. “If… if they’ve all been sent home, he may return there as he was here. Well and healthy, healed by them and returned,” she offered in soft, slight tones still not sure what to think when they had to consider that so many left at once, and the nonbraceleted besides. There was no way to know, even in her short time she knew that, but she would do no less than try and offer Cain something to hold to. Her hand brushed his hand, hesitant but offering solace as she could.

“Then don’t cope with it. Not yet. Remember the music,” she said, smiling at that. Oh how some of the men in her life were so alike with their music. “Remember him and we’ll get through this,” she murmured, leaning in against his arm, half hugging him. “Then, when you’re ready, we can use the library and the others here and even those weird little things… hatches? And we can try and find them for you.”

She would offer whatever she could, feeling a bit stronger in trying to be helpful.

It's wishful thinking, what Az is handing out like alms to the poor. It's stupid, and silly, and he doesn't do wishful thinking, because the last time he let his hopes run away with him all he found at the end of the rainbow was a gravestone.

No rainbow this time. No cottage beyond the lone white elm tree. No way of knowing for sure if Paul gets help, or if he's left to die alone on some cold, dark street somewhere-- And there's nothing he can do.

He can't do a single damn thing, and it's like he's stuck in the one man prison all over again. Stuck behind a tiny round window and almost completely immobile, and looking away would be cheating. Looking away would be a betrayal.

He gives Az a small, stiff nod, placing his hand atop hers. "Yeah, we'll... We'll get through this."

She knew there wasn't much there in her words. She wanted to make him relax, to untense. She wanted to try and offer more than what she was capable of, and they both knew it. Taking a breath, she put down her pen and turned away from the parchments.

Her arms slid around Cain, giving him a tight hug. She couldn't offer anything more than words and her presence, and she knew well that they were likely nothing more than hollow things but they were all she had in that moment.

There's one stray thought that hits him in the fraction of a second between being hugged and that fact actually getting to him: he has to wonder what it is with people turning the tables on him with empathy and hugs and friendly concern. Last time someone did that was Party, after Glitch had been killed courtesy of one of the aliens' more sinister games.

This time, he only copes marginally better. Last time, he was already under a lot of physical stress, the victim of hypothermia and goodness knew what else from spending a week completely void of pain receptors.

This time, it hits him squarely in the heart, which has been on a tight leash since this morning. He has to be strong, he's got to be, because there are people here who depend on there being at least someone around who isn't about to crumble like so much overworked pastry.

But then the embrace registers, and his skin burns wherever they touch like it did those first Hellish months in Taxon (he doesn't even know what Hell is, but he knows he's lived it twice over and that's all that matters right now, fuck semantics or lexicon or whatnot). Still he returns the hug with one arm, cheek pressed to the top of Az's dark-haired head, his other hand coming up to rub at his face. Forehead too hot, cheeks too cold, eyes burning and dry, jaw so tense it will snap any minute now.

Only, it isn't his jaw that snaps. It's his lungs, expelling one treacherous, wordless sob. What started as a hairline fracture sends the rest of his brave front cracking.

Damn hugs. There's a reason he doesn't do hugs.

Emotionally stunted as she was, Azkadellia knew little about such things as comfort and sympathy. Empathy though, something that even her scarred emotions could remember from her childhood, was something else entirely.

It was why she hovered when Glitch stood in the brain room, staring at the liquid filled container holding his brain. It was also why she avoided her own place, especially if she noticed on the tablet that he was in the neighborhood and might be coming by to visit the room once more.

It was why she was pressed to Cain now, her face buried against his chest as that sob racked his body. Her arms only tightened around him though, holding him tight as she might.

"Do you want me to cry," she asked, voice thick and proving it wasn't merely an offer for his sake but her own tears bubbling up to the surface. "I can be louder than you," she said in a small whisper, both an honest offer and an attempt to fix what she had apparently broken. Even if she felt that broken wasn't such a bad thing to be. Weren't they all, after all?

Cain shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose while he holds on with his other arm. "I know, kiddo," he says, voice coming out more gravely than he'd personally prefer, but beggars can't be choosers, and guys reaching the end of their tether can't very well double back.

"Not here," he says, and it sounds more like a request than anything else. "I'll be fine. Let's just... Let's just get out of here. We can come back with the scrolls later."

She stayed close to him, prepared to make a spectacle if only to let him hide. Something in her felt almost protective of him, though of all those there from the O.Z., he was the one she knew the least about.

"Of course. Do you need a moment or may I join you," she asked in that same soft voice, tilting her head back to look up at him with bright eyes.

She gets a small smile for the offer, but his arm stays put around her shoulders. While his eyes are bright he's holding together through what must be sheer stubbornness.

Sheer stubbornness or a masculinity complex, boy scout syndrome or cowboy vibes.

Damn it all, but he misses being called cowboy. Silliest term he knows, and he doesn't get how it applied to him, but now that it's gone just like all the rest...

"Come on, princess. I promised coffee and sandwiches, didn't I? Of course you can come."

~*~

Cain's home is like it has been for the past few months, in various states of redecorating. He goes room by room, having started with the lounge and worked his way from there. It's all about the light, which is especially vivid in the lounge itself, catching the evening sun. It's rustic but without needless details. Sturdy furniture that stands on its own merit, the walls themselves a semi-matte white and the ceiling painted in all the colors of the rainbow, courtesy of Glitch. Cain hadn't had the heart to tell him no from the start, just added the proviso that he was likely to change it some time or another.

The kitchen is a decent size, but cosy in a way the lounge isn't. It's where Cain goes after showing Az to the lounge and her pick of armchairs or sofas. He promised coffee, and that's exactly what he's going to make. Coffee and treats of some kind.

He comes to the open entryway. "What kind of sandwich would you like? Or, if you'd rather have something sweet, I could make pie."

Azkadellia had offered for him to go home on his own but she was glad he hadn't left her there. She was working so hard to stay brave, to remember her upbringing and the royal blood that ran through her veins. But even if she was mature as her age, she would still be off kilter and more than a little uncertain in these moments.

She peered at this and though, finding so much about his home to be interesting. It said a lot about Cain to her, especially as she settled into an arm chair. Tilting her head back, staring up at the rainbow ceiling.

For a moment she felt peace, losing herself in that swirling beauty, in not being alone. She had so much fear of being abandoned and alone that being here and not out there in that empty town, was the first moment she'd had that maybe something would work out for the better. She could only hope. If for nothing else but Cain's sake.

She broke from her thoughts, looking at him. "You bake," she asked, smiling at that. "A sandwich is fine. I shouldn't probably eat," she said, trying to remember the last time she had. "Is there anything I can help with?"

He nods, the ghost of a smile reaching his eyes. "My wife was a baker. She taught me a thing or two."

He holds out his hand. "You can pick your own toppings, how about that?"

He has a hunch that getting to make her own decisions, even in trivial, everyday ways might be a good start in figuring out who she is or wants to be.

Even if it's just what to eat or not.

Azkadellia found herself watching him. The way he smiled, the look in his eyes. There was something about him that made her feel more relaxed, more centered as to who she was becoming.

She takes his hand, nodding as she rose with grace and poise, moving easily without a thought.

"Do you do this a lot? Cook," she asked, glancing back at the ceiling. "And painting?"

"I mostly bake. I can cook well enough, but Paul enjoys it more than I do." It's become a thing between them. Paul would cook, Wyatt would eat out of a sense of social obligation, and somewhere along the line it turned from social obligation towards a friend and his efforts, and into real enjoyment.

"Glitch was helping me redecorate. The ceiling was his idea. The leafy motif by the window, too. See how it mimics the floors?"

He leads her into the kitchen, also largely uncluttered and very neat. Everything has its place, right up to the small cactus plant in the window above the sink.

"I spend a lot of time at the green house too. Tending the plants. Gardening. Fixing things what need fixing. There's not much policing to do here, so... I figured I might as well do things I enjoy."

The term partner when he’d used it before had made her think of the pairings of soldiers she had known of before. Those who were friends, closer than friends, and there for one another. She hadn’t thought more of it. Until now, when he spoke of Paul cooking and Cain baking and she couldn’t help but wonder. She couldn’t help but smile a bit, moving to lean against the counter, watching him. It was the one thing she knew she was good at after so many years. Watching and learning.

At the mention of Glitch, she flinched, looking down and away though it didn’t last long, looking back to the other room, thinking of that design and of the floor. “He has such a great eye for things,” she said, fairly choking on the words as her memories and emotions threatened to overwhelm her. “Is that something you did in the O.Z.,” she asked, curious of the man he’d been as well as the man he was. “Gardening? I admit, I enjoyed a bit of it, of digging in the woods for things, though I rarely had the patience though I enjoyed the science of plants very much,” she said, smiling at the memory of her studies.

“What does Paul do,” she asked, refusing to speak of him in the past tense. Too much had changed, too suddenly, and she didn’t want either of them thinking in the past tense of those they cared for.

On the counter, the coffee maker bubbles quietly, doing its thing and filling the room with warm, fragrant steam. It soothes Cain in a way very little else does. The smell reminds him of home, of better times both at home and at work. Some nights he can't sleep without it warming him from the inside out. Not far from the coffee maker is a wooden platter stacked with fresh produce taken straight from the green house at Sanctuary, or the small vegetable patch he's set up on the roof. Plum tomatoes and baby cucumbers mingling with broccoli and great red bulbs of onion mingling with garlic and a sprig of dried herbs.

"Glitch is an artist more than anything, I think. He has this affinity for it that just hits home every time it surfaces," he says, moving for the fridge where he keeps the things he can't grow or make himself. Cold cuts of meat, cheese. A few other dairy products, left overs kept in neat stacks of plastic containers.

"I was a police officer back home. A Tin Man. Me and Adora had a small house in Munchkin Country. It was more a cottage, but it was big enough for us. We were largely self sufficient. Had a small garden full of herbs and vegetables and fruit. Even flowers. My family had a farm. Guess I got the green fingers at an early age."

He brings out a small jar of home made butter, the cheese and thinly sliced horse meat, setting it out beside the loaf of bread and vegetables.

"Paul..." He glances her way, turning his head for a proper look. "He's an Othersider. He was in law enforcement too, but on a much higher level than me. I think... I suppose his branch was equivalent to the Royal Guard, but I'm not sure. His world's so much bigger than the Zone. Takes a lot more levels of management."

The scent of coffee brought memories. Good and bad, and all those colors of grey in between. In truth, she thought it all good, only in that she survived. It was easy to think of it that way, right until she was faced with the reality of that time that was neither there or not for her.

Adora. She knew that she was Cain’s wife and, from talks between the witch and Zero, she knew she had been used against Cain. While such things that happened to Glitch had been going on since before the witch’s reign, it was still a horror to face because of the intimate views she had of it.

Yet coffee meant the mornings. Those brief moments when, for a startling and shining moment as she woke, she thought she was herself once more. It was work beginning, and her mother smiling and so many little things that came from darting through the kitchens as a child, avoiding their tutor and seeking out the adventure that DG seemed to feed on.

Even this kitchen reminded her of that little space. Wood and vegetables, light and heat and coffee. It was childhood and yet her new life, and that was where she found herself poised. Learning new ways instead of sinking back into the past. That was what she needed to do, to learn and move on. She needed to make a life here, for however long here lasted.

“When I was a child, I was… enamored of him,” she said, fingers picking at her skirt, smoothing it down as she spoke. “Everyone seemed to notice how regal and handsome he was but all I saw was this brilliant man who was everything I had hoped to become. I wanted to grow up to be that smart and respected.” She laughed, the sound nearly bitter at how things had turned out.

As they spoke, and he moved about the kitchen, she carefully moved to not get in his way even as she peered curiously at his actions and those things he chose and those he didn’t.

“So your companion is also an officer. Interesting,” she said, smiling though there was nothing smarmy about it. “I suppose that makes sense. Just what little I’ve seen of you, I can’t imagine someone without that same regard for order and law would appeal. Not to one a Tin Man.” She remembered them from her childhood, and remembered what became of them under the witch’s rule.

“Did you ever want to go there,” she asked. “As a child I always thought I might want to. Just to learn,” she admitted, blushing slightly at that thirst for knowledge she found she still had. “I always want to ask everyone about the Otherside because I want to learn more about it but I worry I’m bringing up bad memories of what they’ve lost.”

The thought of a childhood crush made him smile, just a bit, and when she says companion rather than partner, he can't help but feel... It feels like it isn't such a bad thing to talk about. It's good that she figured it out, and while he's never had a problem with being discrete, he's never liked feeling like he's hiding something. Like he's hiding away Paul. They agreed, almost an entire annual ago, not to hide. They wouldn't flaunt anything, because it was a private thing just between the two of them and nobody else's business...but they wouldn't hide.

Carving nice slices off the chunk of bread, he gestures for her to make her own sandwich. "Paul's... He's difficult to describe. But the most important thing is he's a good man."

Even having done the things he did for the vigilante brothers, there's no doubt in Wyatt's mind he's a good man. "He's real smart. Intelligent, I don't even know how to tell you, he just knows so much about so many different things."

He gets coffee mugs then from one of the wall mounted cupboards. Cream and sugar, in case Azkadellia wants it and because he thinks he needs the sugar. "He's not just intelligent," he settles on, coming back from the fridge and pantry. While it hurts to talk still, it's settled into a heavy band around his chest rather than the sharpness of knives in his heart.

"He's intellectual, and witty. He's got a mouth on him like you've never even heard before, and he won't hesitate telling you how he sees things." He ducks his head, brushing a thumb over the rim of his empty mug. It's dark blue, covered in a matte glaze.

"I've always liked that about him. He doesn't try to make friends with everyone. He doesn't fake it. He's real, through and through. Adora was like that too. No nonsense... Just, straightforward, cut to the chase, speak your mind. That he's in law enforcement was just common ground when we first met. I knew how to explain Taxon to him. Kind of."

She pulled a plate to her, two pieces of bread and considered. Even with foods she remembered what she liked as a child but as an adult, she wasn't always sure. She took up a knife though, spreading butter to one slice of bread and layering meat and cheese delicately. She was careful, lining them up along the edges of the bread.

She paused as he spoke though, taking moments to watch his face as he talked about the missing man. A slight smile curved her lips as she paused, turning to face him fully as he got the mugs.

It was nice to hear, to listen to someone who had shared emotions with another. Her own were so distant, the memories she had of watching her parents so fuzzy as to nearly be gone. What she remembered from the witch was nothing like this, and it was sharp knot in her throat facing they might never know when they'd be reunited with those missing, if at all.

"He sounds like a really amazing man," she said, refraining from adding the part where she hoped one day to meet him. They had to assume that he and Glitch, like others before she'd come to Taxon, were gone to wherever they went.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she whispered, realizing the full extent of what he'd lost. It seemed so unfair a man like Cain who had been this good to her would lose not just one but two people he cared about.

He nods, eyes lingering in the darkness of the mug, but he looks up at the spoken condolences. "Yeah, me too, kid," he says, giving her a smile that falters halfway.

"Me too."

His left hand comes up to brush at his right eye, but when he smiles next it's coming a little bit closer to an actual smile. "And, you know what? I never wanted to go to the Otherside until I met him. It's not just a legend, or myth, it's a real place with real people, and yet everything seems so different there. I'd like to see it someday, but I think I'd want to show him the Zone first."

And then, just as the coffee maker's lamp switches off to signal the fresh batch, a thought strikes.

"...would you like to see him?"

Azkdellia hesitates as he wipes at his eye. She ached to hold him, to hug him tight and fight not giving him platitudes that came to her tongue. Instead she held her ground, lowering her gaze until she saw his hand fall.

Looking up, catching that smile and echoing it with one of her own. "I saw that it treated DG well and I wondered more than I ever did, though I guess this is closer than the Zone," she admitted, looking around.

Azkadellia blinked, looking stunned and confused. "See him?"

"I didn't have much time to think about the Other Side when I met DG, though I think she's influenced me too."

He gets a tray for the coffee and its fixings. "Yeah, see him. The tablets, they record everything you ever transmit. And Paul, well, he's a proactive guy. Unlike me."

He nods his head towards the lounge, heading there with the tray. "I'll get the tablet, won't be long. Help yourself to coffee and anything else you want."

"You were... you were busy then," she said, realizing how horrid that sounded as it came from her. It may not have been her but she bore the same face.

She followed him into the lounge, smiling at the very idea of watching the tablet, to see this man that Cain was thinking about.

"No rush," she said softly. "Take your time," she said, seating herself in the same chair once more.

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[Greenhouse -> Cain's place]

[Greenhouse -> Cain's place]

[Cain's place]

[Cain's place]

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