taxonomites | [text: recipients

Ahhh, shit.

Paul grimaces down at the text on his tablet, runs a hand through his hair, and digs out what he bets will be the first cigarette of a few during the day.

Fuckit, Princess Peach's gone. She was just getting to wearing clothes he actually liked, too.

The glibness in his own head he knows and recognizes as defense, shield against another person being gone, someone you'd liked, cooked for, teased, all that crapola. Paul rubs a hand over his face and flips through his contact list as well, scanning to confirm that Azkadellia is gone, checking for other names.

Shortly thereafter he sends an answering, if very short, text to the city:

Josef Kostan, too.

He'd kind of liked the guy, that one time they'd talked. Jetpacks and cigarettes. And then the guy had turned out to be another fucking vampire, and Paul has feelings about that, and they hadn't talked since, but...

But what-ifs and what-might've's don't count for shit or shinola. Paul goes to find his coat.

***

Thirty minutes later he's knocking at Wyatt's door, other hand busy with a shopping bag. "Open it up, cowboy."

"...oh."

That's not the reply, that's the reaction. And, like with DG, Glitch starts parsing it out. She's with her sister, and they're taking care of each other and getting the annuals they lost back. And again, if what he understands about the nature of the city is true, he's there too, and Cain, and there's another life going on. It's all right, they'll keep her safe, and she can get used to being herself without also having to get used to this place.

That aside: he leans on his kitchen counter, palms down, head down, deep breaths. Another bit of home gone and Azkadee...the childlike wonder, the unexpected teasing, the flashes of stubborn tenacity. Would he have the chance to get to know her like that, back home? Would the headcase let her in, stand up to (for?) her, would-- who was next?

The immediate answer was another text-beep, this one from Paul and that made his heart sink for just a moment but reading it...oh. A different sort of oh, but still another gone.

Glitch looks out the window to his snowy back yard, the dormant garden and bare trees and icy grotto. Two clocks are ticking out of sync and his cereal is getting soggy and the wind is rattling the hopelessly tangled wind chime he forgot to take down and Az is gone. She's gone.

He opens a locked call to Cain, not trusting his voice but certain his friend needs to hear it, and then he stops the first words that want to come out in favor of something less impossible.

"Let me know...when, where. I'll-- you know. I'm here."

When Wyatt gets the reply, he's pretty certain Paul will come over whether he wants him to or not. It's a moot point trying to pretend he doesn't want him here when every damn braincell's yelling at him to go and find him, make sure he's okay and still here and not dead.

But Wyatt stays put. He tells himself this is just another case of Taxon taxoning right on, regardless of such a silly concept as human emotion. You never know when your number's up. You never know, and you just have to get used to it. But this? This hits closer to home than Josef, than Scott and Raziel, closer even than Buffy. So many gone in such a short space of time, and for one horrifying moment he can't breathe for the pressure building up around him. He'll get crushed, he'll break to pieces and there's no doctor in town to patch him up. He'll explode, painting the kitchen red and pink and purple--

Half an hour later, he's lost last night's dinner to Taxon's very own sewer system, and he doesn't think he's ever getting his appetite back.

That Paul doesn't just open the door and sashay on in tells him one or two things: he's giving him space (almost a definite), and he's probably brought something (less of a definite). He opens the door with an attempt at a smile that falls flat the moment their eyes meet.

"Hey. Come in."

Paul answers with a wordless nod, slips in and beelines for Wyatt's kitchen where he puts down the bag of stuff. There's nothing in there needing fridging, at least.

He checks to make sure his tablet's still at the bottom of the bag with the groceries, then heads for the couch. Paul shrugs out of his winter coat, dropping it over the couch arm, then sits himself down.

He gives Wyatt a brow arch, taps the spot on the couch next to him, Hey, you, over here.

Wyatt hovers by the door, eyes to the floor by the coat rack as if it's the most intriguing thing in the world. He could go outside, get some fresh air, get some damn space; Paul's moving around in the background, in the kitchen that isn't covered in guts or brains or bone, and before he knows it, Wyatt's eyes are tracking him instead. It's the eyebrow that gets him moving, rubbing a hand across his mouth as if it's the only thing keeping the pressure in.

It doesn't help. Halfway to the couch his face twists, and those baby blues well up with silent tears.

He sits down heavily, shaking his head. Sorry. Sorry.

It's not that Paul's at a loss for words; Paul Smecker is rarely at a loss for words. He can count the number of times he's been really speechless in his life without needing to use his toes. No, he's usually got shit to say, and now's no exception to that.

It's just that the shit he's got to say is usually the wrong shit to say.

So he doesn't say a thing. He puts an arm around Wyatt's broad shoulders, and wordlessly tugs downward, urging Wyatt to lie down, put his head down on Paul's lap, so that Paul can put one arm around his chest and use the other to touch, light and ginger, at the ash-blond curls, fingers carding slowly through Wyatt's hair; because if he's got to try and play nice then he's a lot better at with hands than words.

Truth of the matter is, no one actually knows what happens when people disappear from the city. Wyatt for one, isn't at all sure anyone gets to go home. For all anyone knows, that could be nothing more than a pacifying bedtime story told by an alien plant. And Fitz's account of going back home and not remembering? What's to say he wasn't a plant too?

Just because he's better these days, doesn't mean Wyatt isn't still prone to paranoia. But this, this blow is just too much. So many people gone in so little time, and so many new ones in nearly the exact same time frame. Maybe they're all being replaced. There's no telling who's next.

Right now, though, right here and now, outside of Wyatt's insistent mind, he folds himself onto the couch, head on Paul's thighs, hands wrapped around his legs, one set of fingers gripping around a bony kneecap as Paul's own hands begin to smooth away the tension and pain. This, this quiet acceptance is probably the best and only thing for him right now.

It's a long time coming, but eventually it doesn't hurt quite as bad. He can very nearly breathe like normal again. There's a hole in his gut and a fire in his chest, but the pain's dampened.

He sighs, eyes fogged up still. "...I hate feeling like this."

Paul lets Wyatt have all the time he wants. His fingers just keep carding through Wyatt's hair with the one hand, resting over his painfully-beating heart with the other, palm flush to his chest.

At the words, his lips quirk slightly, bittersweet. "Like what? Like a real live boy? Sorry, chief, no passes out of that one, at least. Or no good ones."

He chuckles despite himself, turning his head to send a look up over his shoulder. He releases one of Paul's legs to instead slap lightly at the arm currently keeping him together and in one piece, like some sort of magical belt. Fresh tears well up, but at least he's smiling through them.

"Yeah. Got it in one, sweetheart."

"That's cuz I'm a motherfucking genius," is Paul's sedate response. "And smack me again and I'll shove you onto the floor."

Obligatory banter aside, his fingers never stop their slow, careful stroking of Wyatt's scalp, ball of his thumb seeking out pressure points and sore spots here and there. His other hand presses against Wyatt's chest, not hard, an almost-subliminal pressure, gone the next second, then pressure, then gone, then pressure...

Just keep breathing, cowboy.

There's only one reason he doesn't return the banter. His heart's not in it, and for once it feels like that's okay. It's fine. He relaxes, or tries to as best he can, keeping his arm next to his lover's. No one's going anywhere, they're both there, in the damn flesh, and no one's a figment of anyone else's imagination. Okay. Fine. Good.

You're too good to me, he doesn't say, tongue-in-cheek or otherwise. Please don't go begins and ends as a thought at the back of his mind. As previously decided, neither one of them is going anywhere, and that's that.

Instead he breathes, and blinks his eyes slowly closed. For every breath it gets easier to just let go and leave the body to its own survival reflexes. Slowly, the psychosomatic pressure lifts from his sternum, and maybe (just maybe) it will all be okay. Maybe the living room won't suddenly become a roaring sink-hole swallowing the entire block, Sanctuary and all. Maybe he won't explode. Just as slowly, the pressure eases away from behind his face. The building headache stays a slow humming presence around his skull.

"Did you...bring groceries?"

It's a short while before Glitch gets a reply. It isn't as though Wyatt's feeling any better, or even able to talk about anything, but he can pretend for Glitch's sake. Wouldn't want him to worry too much, and all.

"Black Friar, tomorrow night? Haven't gotten piss drunk in forever."

He nods, then scowls at the ineffectiveness of that.

"Me either. Okay so...tomorrow. Tomorrow night. See you then."

As it turns out, Cain's timing sucks. Over the course of Thursday, snow falls steadily, building up with a near fatalistic determination. Where it falls, it stays, and before long it's clear that no amount of snow flurries will fool anyone. Winter is here. It's back with a vengeance, and out for the proverbial kill of anyone's hopes for an early spring.

Just the same, Wyatt braves the weather. Fuck the weather. Fuck it all the way to the hills and back. Fuck his damn life.

By the time he reaches the pub, he's literally covered from head to toe like some kind of snowman come to life.

Please excuse him while his lashes begin to thaw in the warm cosiness that is the grand indoors. Maybe in a minute he'll be able to see properly again. "Glitch? You in here?"

In the corner there's the quiet sounds of tuning: guitar, fiddle, the rustle of sheet music. The small crowd, those brave or foolish enough to venture out, is chatting and laughing in little groups and pairings, a smattering of different accents. The smell is clean old pub: alcohol, hearty food, a faint blend of tobaco and peat smoke.

Glitch remembers a time when maybe a quarter of those details would exist, and suddenly in his mind there's his first visit to a Taxon bar, before DG's arrival. A brandy tha tasted like nothing and a man named Nathan (not his Nathan though and where did that thought come from?), but now the nothing-tasting brandy and Nathan Petrelli and DG (and Azkadellia and River and and and and and) and probably that nondescript bar are long gone.

Cain's here though, and he slides off his bar stool the second he hears that voice.

"Yes, here," he calls and hurries over to help relieve him of his snowy outerwear. When his vision clears there will be Glitch, tips of his curls which escaped his hat damp from snow, crooked nose still pinkish from cold, and dark shadows under his eyes. And a hint of whiskey on his breath. "Here, I-I'm right here, Wyatt."

And he's about to deliver a positively crushing hug.

So much for thinking a day would be enough time to digest. Instead of the smile he'd prepared very carefully in his head, of course his mouth does the exact opposite. Damn hugs. Damn Taxon. But he hugs back, all big arms and firm grip and solid, sturdy tree trunk of a friend. And if he should hide his face for a moment in those damp curls, if he should rock from side to side, well, that's just the way it is.

"I know," he grinds out, patting Glitch's back. "I know. Me too, Glitch."

He can't remember the last time Glitch called him by his given name.

It's a Thing reserved for Moments because of Reasons and he ducks his head, bunching fabric in his hands briefly and again stops himself from saying it. Maybe later, after much alcohol, but for now he folds it down as a silent prayer.

Please please please, gods, please don't leave me, don't ever.

He draws back with a pat to Cain's arm and a quick nod, looking up at him with too-sharp eyes.

"Right, okay, that's established." He gestures to the bar with a ambitious grin. "Let's go experiment with the warming properties of booze, my inital findings lead me to believe further testing with a wider sample array is in order."

Of the many recipients of Wyatt Cain's text message, Horst Cabal is at that moment lying in his bed, enjoying a few quiet hours of reading before he drops off to sleep for the day. When the text comes in, he's got a book open in one hand, and his other hand petting a brown rabbit that's sitting calmly on his chest. He sets the book down on its face, pages buckling into curves against the bedsheets, and takes a moment to remember how to check his text messages.

Azkadellia has gone home, he reads, and wonders what that means, 'gone home.' From what he's been told, no one's sure what happens to the people who disappear, though one person claimed they returned to their old lives as if Taxon had never been. He doesn't know. But to Wyatt Cain -- sturdy, reliable old lawman Wyatt Cain -- she was apparently family. Horst knows at least a bit about family. And he understands grief, too, and how it is that the comings and goings of friends and strangers in this city have all served, are all serving, to drive the captive people in it apart, and that bothers him.

But it's Azkadellia herself he can't get out of his head, a girl he met only once, by happenstance, on a tram ride. She was different than anyone else he's seen or met here: different from the world-weary, the grizzled, the jaded residents of Taxon who are old enough, and have seen enough, to have lived before they came here. She may not have looked any younger than Metody Green, or Bagoas of Susa, but the sweet-natured young girl Horst met on the tram that night really was just a kid.

I was the epitome of studious, Horst remembers her telling him. Always a book in hand. Well behaved and quiet. I think even since birth. DG was the adventurous one, the one always seeking out more. I was often just along for the ride.

Something about that last part sticks with him, and he wonders how often in her life that was true, for how much of her existence she was just along for the ride. Even here in Taxon, where they're all, apparently, just along for the ride. But there she was, on that tram, Horst's oversized hat drowning her head, determined not to be a princess anymore.

She really was too young to deserve to deal with all of this.

The second text reveals another departure, one that prickles at Horst's mind for a moment with a different sort of guilt, because he knows that name too: Josef Kostan. But that one he knows only from one place -- the Taxon map on his tablet, where he's often glanced down to find 'Kostan' and 'Spike' and, not ready to face his own kind, avoided both names assiduously. Now he's missed an opportunity ever to meet one, and he's not sure what emotion he's feeling about it. Sorrow? Shame? Relief?

Liesl is comfortingly unaware of Horst's thoughts, sitting quietly in place and consenting to be a resting place for both of Horst's hands as he ponders these new disappearances. He passes her a fresh slice of celery from a plate on his nightstand, and she chews on it merrily while Horst attempts, with difficulty, to return to his book.

* * * *

Horst is up and about when night falls, grateful that it comes earlier in winter, while the shops are still open. Unfortunately, it also comes in a much more wintry fashion than summer does (for reasons obvious), and in this case, when Horst leaves the house, he's greeted with a soft, steady snowfall in the air and accumulating underfoot. The cold makes it a bit harder to find people to talk to, since more of them keep to the indoors on a snowy evening, but after a bit of asking around, he manages to find what he's looking for -- and he makes it to the engraver's shop to get a quick piece of work done and back out again with his purchases while the evening's still fairly young. Plenty of time before his work shift.

His next stop is easier to find -- every city has plenty of them, and Horst has been Casanova (or, according to Johannes, Lothario) enough to have visited plenty of them, in his day.

It's past dinnertime and shops are closing by the time he makes his way to the center of the city, to the huge, blocky building they all call The Sanctuary without justification.

Horst hasn't been back here since his arrival, some weeks ago. He hasn't wanted to. The Sanctuary is a dumping ground and a macabre little museum, and he can't imagine it holds any comfort for anyone to come and look at the things on display. Its museum seems to be nothing but a repository for bad memories.

That's why he chose this, of all places. It needs something pleasant in it, something people might visit and want to still remember. So he finds a section of wall with enough open space in front of it, and there, Horst sets down two small pedestals, each with little engraved placards on them.

Azkadellia
6. March 2013

Josef Kostan
6. March 2013

Next to Azkadellia's pedestal, he sets down a vase full of brightly colored flowers. He'll come back in a few days to change out the water, then again, to clear the dead flowers away. For now, he has to get to work -- so he glowers at the zombies on his way out, tells them to pipe down, and then leaves the Sanctuary a bit mess miserable (in his opinion) than he found it.

[[Note that Horst is no longer here, but feel free to stop by/notice/interact with the little memorials at any time in the future if you wish (though depending upon how often characters actually visit The Worst Ever Museum, it may be a while before anyone notices XD).]]

"Mhm," Paul says, sliding his hand from Wyatt's skull down to the base of his neck and beginning to attack the muscles there, a little more firmly.

"Some bread. Some soup. Nothing requiring a hell of a lot of chewing. Some vodka. No chewing there whatsoever. None of it's going anywhere. Continue to make my leg fall asleep for as long as you want."

Paul Smecker actually hits up the Sanctuary with some regularity, at least when the weather's not being a bitch and a half. There's the pool there, for one thing, and exercise bikes, and the snow means he doesn't want to run outside so there's treadmills.

The snow's getting heavier, he notices on his way to the Sanctuary the day after Azkadellia and Josef's disappearance is noted. Maybe he won't bother with the exercising for the next week if this keeps up, Christ.

In through the front doors, ignoring the zombies because while Paul is no fonder of zombies than he is vampires (maybe less so, the zombies DID actually kill him after all-- but then again, they didn't do it wearing the face of someone he trusted, and they've never told him he should be happy he's not being regularly eaten either), Paul's attitude towards this shit is fuck if I'll let it keep me from doing what the fuck I want to, which has been his attitude towards pretty much everything in his life.

He does keep his gun with him every time he goes through the Sanctuary, though.

He's nearly to the elevators when a flash of color catches his eye. He stops, pivots, tense-- but no, it's not blood or a brightly-colored dinosaur, it's....

...flowers?

Taking the long way across the lobby to avoid the caged zombies, Paul heads over to them, dropping down to scrutinize the... shrine.

His first instinct is Glitch or Wyatt, of course-- the other Ozzies, the two closest to Az, although as far as he knew neither of them had known Kostan that well. But no. Wyatt's got his tree, which he's pretty sure Glitch might use too, their little memento mori ritual straight from the Outer Zone.

Flowers and placards and pedestals strike him as an Earth thing. Maybe.

Paul studies the little cards wordlessly for a while. He thinks about Az, AK-47, Arizona, all his stupid names for her. Thinks about the most awkward family dinner ever. All of it rendered so much memory because the guys running the show think it's funny to pull them out like lobsters from a tank.

Finally he takes a pen from his pocket (never broken that habit) and scrawls on Josef's card, beneath the fancy writing:

Who the hell says it's 2013?

Paul tucks his pen away and heads again for the elevators, and upstairs, where he exercises with a vengeance.

Wyatt nods, and gives a squeeze to Glitch's shoulders before letting go and heading to the bar for his first order of the evening.

"I'll have what he's having," he tells the barkeep with a thumb pointed in his friend's direction. Barkeep nods and serves up two fingers of nearly golden, molten amber. "Thanks. You know what?" He glances at his curly-headed partner-in-crime and brother-in-arms.

"Make that three of the same." Why pretend they're here to talk.

The barkeep complies, and Wyatt takes a seat beside Glitch's bar stool and slides one of the tumblers his way. "Something something, reliability and validity, right?"

Just because he's surrounded by geniuses five days out of seven doesn't mean he didn't pay attention in the class room (nor that he doesn't pay attention when his genius friends talk, and afterwards look stuff up on his own if needed).

His hand drifts from Paul's arm to his own eyes, fingers brushing over damp lashes and the faintly aching skin around his eyes. Vodka sounds good; food less so; and that last comment tugs at his jaw hinge.

"First off, you're trying to turn me into as much of a relaxed heap of mush as possible - kinda counter productive, there. And second, you're not supposed to tell me your leg's falling asleep. You're meant to suffer in silence, like the sensitive gentleman you are."

He can aim at something less depressing, can't he? Teasing, if not outright banter?

"You must be confusing me with someone from the next dimension over," Paul says, addressing the 'second' and ignoring the 'first'.

He knows Wyatt probably won't much want to eat. Which is why he brought food. He can browbeat you into it if he has to, Wyatt.

His grinds his thumb into the taut muscles at the base of Wyatt's skull, fingers seeking out the skin behind his ears and rubbing there too.

Horst is on his way to work again, trudging merrily through the deepening snow, water soaking the fabric of his khakis till he's wet nearly up to the knees. He's got plenty of time before he has to be at Nighthawk's, though, and not too much to do in the intervening hours, so today he's helped a pair of small children finish up a snowman before shooing them back off to their parents with cheerful admonishments about playing outside after dark. Aren't you cold? one of them asked him as he packed a handful of snow between his two bare hands -- and he'd tapped the side of his nose and winked and said, Not me. I'm Jack Frost. And off they'd gone, protesting no way and fat chance, but in good spirits.

Now he finds himself back at the Sanctuary, at the little memorials he set up the day before. Horst is just here to change out the water on Azkadellia's flowers, but while he's there, he notices he's trailing a rather large puddle of water with him whenever he stands still for too long. Eventually he decides he'd better stay a few minutes just to let the heat dry his clothes a little before heading back out.

It's in the process of swapping out the water in Azkadellia's flowers that he notices the little note someone's left on Kostan's card. "Everyone's a critic," he bemoans with a shake of his head. "And for the record," Horst says aloud to himself, "Sherlock Holmes says it's 2013. The two of you, whomever you may be, can fight it out amongst yourselves. I'm not buying new engravings." He hefts the vase in both hands and stands up, thinking about where he'll get fresh water on tap. There should be a restroom or something similar close by, he has to assume.

Edited (sorry hugh hefner, you are not a verb and if you were, i wouldn't do it to a vase) 2013-03-07 23:07 (UTC)

The only answer Paul gets is an indrawn hiss of breath, followed by a gravelly, guttural moan. Damn tension. Damn muscles. Damn near everything being a constant mass of knotted up muscle and sinew and not being able to fully relax. It's been two years, and the only time he's ever truly a heap of so much mush is when he's warm and unconscious.

Damn cold. Damn everyone for leaving.

"...sadist." Love you.

"Your very own personal bastard, yup."

Paul closes his eyes. Neither of them are gonna be getting up from the couch soon, he doesn't think. He breathes, slow and steady, and doesn't move except for his hands, continuing to try and repair some of the dings and scratches on this particular Tin Man.

As the glasses line up Glitch's smile finds a little more stability, and he deftly collects the one directed his way.

"Precision and accuracy," he says - elaborates, expounds, elucidates - and takes a sip. "Which we can also test later, there's a snooker table in the other room."

But that sounds like effort, and despite his usually hyper-kinetic tendencies he is feeling decidedly sedentary.

"...or just sit here and get stewed. That sounds like a more reasonable expectation for this project."

Edited (more betterer words) 2013-03-08 04:07 (UTC)

It's fucking cold, and Wyatt for one isn't planning on moving an inch until he feels warm again. This may take a long while, but that's the plan.

And...and, okay, his brain needs to take a godsbedamned holiday already. "Yeah, I'm not bending over any kind of table to handle any sort of big stick, Glitch. Not nearly drunk enough yet."

Speaking of which: he does ease up on the teasing snark-banter, and raises his tumbler. "How about a toast?"

The side-eye is so tremendous Glitch's head swivels to transform it into a proper look. Stop that, sir.

At the suggestion of a toast he lifts his own glass. "Right. Um. To Azkadellia: for...showing us all that we shouldn't let the past define the present."

That sounds hollow, but it's too soon for the big words and feelings and she's still something abstract in his mind. He knew what to do at DG's departure and the heartbreak and guilt and anger came easy. For him this is a much quieter pain, something more like numb regret. Hollowness.

"May her life be lived on her own terms-- something. I'm miserable at these."

Let me know if ... if there is going to be something.

A short time later, she adds, Josef is gone too. And that feels like someone has ripped the band aid off of a wound she was doing her best to ignore.

Jason reads the message with a frown. He puts his tablet down and closes his eyes, leaning back in his study's chair.

The girl is gone. For all their talks, arguments, for all the awkwardness the aliens had seemed to delight in inflicting upon them-- she is gone.

So then is gone one of his safeguards.

Jason closes his eyes. Etrigan has things to say-- Etrigan always has things to say-- but he does his best to tune him out. Instead he thinks of the stream, the words exchanged over the babble of the brook, the sunlight on the water and rocks tossed into it. Simple things.

Perhaps back in her own world she will be able to find her answers, and the key to her magic. One can only hope.

Eventually...eventually Glitch will be by. On some morbid level he thinks of himself as the museum's curator, the witness for all these horrors and misfortunes. Maybe someday he'll be an exhibit himself, a bronze bust in a fancy alcove.

Meanwhile he pokes around from time to time, and pauses at the memorial and its various notes. He shakes his head, leaves, and an hour or so later returns. On Josef's pedestal he sets a simple mother of pearl cuff link, and on Azadellia's a tiny, unpolished emerald. The he leaves his own note in his precise-but-somewhat-stilted handwriting:

It's "year" four. I was told by James Kirk and the first Buffy Summers that Taxon began on an April 15, so that's when the new annual begins here.It'll be "year" five at the next one.

Edited 2013-03-09 21:48 (UTC)

Yeah. is the short reply that follows Madelyne's first message. The next is only marginally longer.

I know.

Wyatt shrugs his eyebrows, the skin above them crinkling slightly in a mix of approval of the toast, and uncertainty: where to go next, what to say, what to do. He touches the sides of their glasses together, and gives a soft, quiet "To Az," in return, then tips the rim to his lips for a sip. He'd down the entire thing if he could, if he didn't already have heartburn of a both poetic and literal kind.

"...do you ever wonder..." he says, slowly, beginning and ending on a stifled sigh. "--if you're next?"

Yeah, conservative drinks for now, though at the question Glitch goes for a second, slightly more ambitious one.

"I used to," he begins, shrugging a little. "But a while back I figured out - or decided, or something - that I'm not going at all."

He's pretty sure that's an intensely unhealthy attitude to have but it's what he latched on to. Why else him? Why would he stay when everyone else kept going away?

The sigh Wyatt gives at that couldn't possibly be any heavier, or the floor would crack beneath his bar stool. It's horrible. It feels horrible, to the core of him, and wrong on so many levels (too many), to think Glitch (of all people, Glitch) have lost hope of ever going home. And there's that pang of guilt, again, the sense of wrongness and shame, because where Glitch has lost hope, here sits Wyatt with an even darker secret.

He presses his right hand flat to the polished counter, hiding the tremor under the guise of feeling the faint grain. Instead he picks his glass up with his left, drinks. The whiskey burns like fire, but that's good. It's good. Nothing ever burned like this when he was locked up.

"I don't..." he says, stops himself, and starts again. "I don't want..."

No. No go.

There's no way for Glitch to stop himself from covering his friend's hand with his own, fingers carefully curling for a moment before relaxing and just being there. He looks over and up, tyring to decide how that sentence ends.

I don't want you to go is too obvious, and as has been established Glitch is the word-waster. To be next as well, there's no reason...which brings him to a conclusion.

"You don't want to leave," he surmises quietly, his tone impassive.

Glitch's hand is a warm, solid presence, a shield against the void that threatens to swallow him whole even now. He bites the inside of his lip, shaking his head at Glitch's observation. He's right. He's very nearly always right, and that's both good and bad, because now it's out there and Wyatt doesn't know whether to feel relieved or terrified.

"I'm so scared," he confesses in the hushed tones of dirty secrets revealed.

"I don't..." No go again, it seems, but he pushes on this time, strengthened by the touch of his friend's hand. He turns his own hand palm up, fingers closing around and twining with Glitch's fingers. "I don't want to forget."

That fear is familiar and tangible and terrible and Glitch quietly draws a breath through his teeth, focusing all his attention on his friend. He squeezes those fingers maybe a little tighter than necessary and leans in a bit, offering what little refuge he can.

Yeah, forgetting's a fear but for so long it has also been a reality, and at some point Glitch even turned it into an asset. Forgetting has protected him, and a large part of the trauma of getting a working mind back was remembering and adapting to that. None of this matters, he'd told the Witch/DG an annual ago, and for a while he'd let a cold, objective part of himself believe that. Now he's caught in between, head and heart locked in an endless dance around whatever the truth is.

It's the season still, the one of horrors sliding slowly into the one of regrets, and Glitch finds himself daring to invoke one of his greatest ones.

"DG told me," he begins carefully, because he wants the right words and because it still hurts and it will always hurt. "Over and over again she said to make the most of this place, to jump at every day and live it. No regrets, no--"

Breathe.

"She didn't want to forget either, and always refused to believe she would. And maybe...we don't know." He brings his other hand around to settle on Cain's wrist, covering the bracelet. "In any case I'm not letting you go, and if I'm not going anywhere then that's that."

See? He can be irrationally stubborn too.

No regrets. No regrets. Wyatt nods into his glass, brow knitted in obvious pain. The rest of his face attempts an outward show of placid stillness, comes up short. He misses DG, damn it, but he misses her, and he doesn't even need to imagine how Glitch must be feeling. He knows all about loss: he doesn't need imagination.

He drains what's left in that first glass of his, then pushes it away in favor of the next one. His hand stays curled around his friend's. "That's... That's what I've been trying to do," he tells Glitch, still quiet and still and trembling faintly.

"I wake up, and I try to make the most of the day, but I can't... I can't think ahead. I don't make plans, I make preparations. Just in case. And it's-- It's good because I can focus on the here and now, but... It's good and bad, because I go to bed worrying about whether I'll still be here in the morning, or if someone else will be gone."

He shakes his head. Blinks slowly. Sighs deep and soft, dismissing his own jumbled train of thought. "I'm such a mess."

Glitch likewise finishes his drink, then quite deliberately rests his zippered head on his friend's shoulder. He listens, he nods, he reaches for his second glass and straightens, peering at Cain with a searching expression.

"You're a mess, I'm a wreck," he points out. "And-- really checking the tablet's a special torture I make myself do most of the time. And I think by now I'm only making plans to see how they'll get screwed up. Like now I've gotta figure out what to do with my Thursdays since consulting my brain with Maddy's off the table."

Yeah we're just going to try and skirt around that whole wrinkle of this.

"So I'll plan, you'll prepare. What are the most recent preparations?"

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