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

tothelightshown in taxonomites

021: You Can't Sleep Forever [Visual]

Aug 15, 2011 20:14

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 ( Read more... )

glitch, { temperance brennan, dg, wyatt cain, @ osten, { liz parker

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[visual / location: osten] oh hey it's tl;dr justaddmarbles August 15 2011, 20:09:03 UTC

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, ( ... )

[text (locked to cain) ] justaddmarbles August 15 2011, 20:21:05 UTC

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.

[text (locked like a locked thing, for once) ] tin_hearts August 15 2011, 21:43:57 UTC

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.

[text (shhhh, seeekrits~) ] justaddmarbles August 16 2011, 02:53:53 UTC

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.

[text (you know it is) ] tin_hearts August 16 2011, 09:45:20 UTC

Almost.

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

[text ( <3 ) ] justaddmarbles August 16 2011, 11:34:17 UTC

Yes sir, Mr. Tin Man, sir.

And off he went.

[Visual] tothelightshown August 15 2011, 21:45:17 UTC

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."

[Visual] justaddmarbles August 16 2011, 03:30:23 UTC

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."

[Visual] tothelightshown August 16 2011, 10:31:07 UTC

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.

[location] /godmodes and makes up locations forever justaddmarbles August 16 2011, 17:13:58 UTC

"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.

That's how Taxon rolls! tothelightshown August 16 2011, 20:40:01 UTC

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.

justaddmarbles August 17 2011, 17:52:09 UTC

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?"

tothelightshown August 17 2011, 21:42:25 UTC

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."

justaddmarbles August 19 2011, 16:33:21 UTC

"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."

tothelightshown August 23 2011, 15:36:28 UTC

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."

justaddmarbles August 24 2011, 18:49:28 UTC

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.

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