039 ± [visual | location: the northern island] all us snakes find our tails pretty damn tasty
When Glitch awoke, he knew the following: that he was in Taxon, in the palace, in his own room, in his own bed, his limbs were comfortably entangled with DG's, his right shoulder ached a bit but that was typical and would fade as the day went on, and that there was a lengthy list of things he wanted to accomplish. When plans for how to organize and
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It isn't until he's crossed half the distance from the kitchen nook to the tablet that the rest of Glitch's broadcast sinks in.
...one hundred percent brainier.
Glitch, but a hundred percent brainier.
For a moment the room spins; he catches himself on the back of the couch, staring at the tablet, at the tiny little screen and the familiar face. No stutters. No mumbling, no stuttering, just clear, crisp speech, no stumbling anywhere. He sits down heavily on the floor, back to the couch and just breathes for a good few minutes.
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Stepping back has its advantages: it allows you to see the big picture. Such as what an amazing thing this must be for his best friend. To have his mind restored, however briefly... It would be like having all the bad thoughts plucked out of his heart; to have it mended from one day to the next. It would be priceless. Precious beyond compare, and trumping any notions Cain may ever have had about a man in a mirror. Friendship trumps all else.
He started his own feed with a small smile of his own. "How come it feels like I know that song? That was you singing a while ago, right?"
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Only until that morning he'd forgotten the words, and he still wasn't sure where it had come from. Maybe home?
Of course there were much more pressing concerns, which Glitch now felt guilty for not contacting Cain privately about: "So. Didja happen to catch anything after the singing?"
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"A bit, yeah," he admitted, pausing for a sip of tea. "You're not stuttering anymore."
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Glitch tilted his head. "Huh. I guess the words are easier to find now. That's kinda cool."
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The tea wasn't helping; all it did was remind him of times long gone and lost to the darkness obscuring too much of his memories. He missed his wife, he missed all the chances that had slipped him by back home (as well as here, his treacherous heart supplied helpfully), he missed feeling on top of his game. There was a time when he kept himself two steps ahead of everyone else, but those days seemed awful far away now. He didn't think he'd ever feel that certainty again. Not here, where things changed without any discernible pattern, randomized and with no care for timing or toes what might get stepped on. What might have been suddenly weighed very heavily on his mind, no matter that he'd promised himself not to dwell on the past but look to the future and live in the present.
"Did you say this has happened
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He nodded at the question. "Yeah, a few months after I got here."
Before all manner of mayhem and Mayhem, zombies, snow, flying around in the body of a teenage girl, the dead other city (with its tattered scarecrow he'd refused to look at too closely), singing and dancing and the blast of an explosion. How had he survived all that to make it back to this place?
"I think there were more memories that time," Glitch mused, then tapped the zipper. "And they'd thought to get rid of this thing. I guess you can't win 'em all."
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And then his face falls as Glitch goes on - more memories, no zipper... It touches too close to yet another regret: one that he ought to have told Glitch about months ago.
He cleared his throat, averted his eyes for a moment, deciding (or trying) what to do. What to say and how to say it, how much.
"I, uh-- I met someone like that a few months ago. Remember the carnival? When the place was flooded by newcomers?"
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He straightened up from his forced-casual lean against the counter and frowned with a (likely quite familiar) blend of curious confusion. That was news. And ages ago.
"I met a vampire who looked like me but talked with a funny accent." Really that incident had been too surreal to dwell on, but since they were apparently sharing... "I take it this was...someone else?"
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"Ambrose. He... He caught sight of me in the crowd. He was...from a future O.Z. No zipper, plenty memories."
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He'd been a thrice-damned, pumpkinheaded, impatient, selfish fool. The aliens had made him this offer, this paltry surrogate for the one thing he truly desired beyond anything else in any world, and he'd accepted with a smile and promised he'd do anything for it. He thought he'd finally won, finally found a way to make this damn place work for him, spent months toiling and lying and what was his reward? A pacifier, something to make him even more complacent. Why fight to get home when they could give him what he wanted here ( ... )
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He sighed, starting over. "I didn't mean it like that."
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"No, no, I know you didn't, I was thinking more about them." He gestured outward, alienward. "They give it back once and and and take it away in a week, then they bring in the real thing to see how that works, then when they get back around to me they just do it halfway. Three quarters. Whatever this is."
He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. This was really no time to be having an identity crisis with himself. "Well, I guess it's nice you got to meet...me. How am I?"
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And Ambrose...
Where to even begin? "You're you. He was...just like you where it counts. Different."
His nose wrinkled when he smiled, Wyatt remembers. Though his hair had been dark, it was laced with silver here and there. While his hair was straight, it still seemed to have a will of its own, falling in front of his left eye.
"He--" Wyatt shook his head, closing his eyes and pulling his eyebrows up in a shrug that involved face and body alike. "He was gone from one day to the next, as if he'd never been here at all."
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"Wish I'd had the chance to see him, though I can imagine how awkward that would've been all around." Which was an understatement: awkward, distressing, painful, maddening, and generally disasterous. No, it was better to have remained separate.
Still he smiles, wry and crooked. "But at least then I wouldn't be sitting here tryin' to figure out your riddles." Pause. "He didn't trouble you too much, did he?"
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It had been good, not being alone for a change.
He blinked, returning focus to the tablet screen with a small smile that almost reached his eyes. "You're one to talk, though."
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