amicably_absent

When you set up a resistance camp in the middle of the biggest forest you can find, and have to switch locations at the drop of a hat, a keen sense for survival comes in handy real quick. It's stuck with him, and it isn't about to be unstuck anytime soon.

"Well, you'd think a guy wouldn't need his memory to know when he stinks." He grins.

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Glitch laughs. "You get that cheek from both your parents, I think." He winds back out to the manor house. "Well, people aren't avoiding me, so I guess I'm good."

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"Yeah... Mom was a real nutter, sometimes. She'd say the craziest things." The grin fades to a smile. "She could bullshit anyone, anywhere, about anything."

He shrugs, shifting his grip on Glitch's books. "I don't know if she was like that before the Longcoats. I don't remember."

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"I think she was. That's how Wyatt describes her as well. When we found the house..."

He remembers the pain. He remembers walking silently next to Cain.

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"And the grave."

He slows to a halt, watching Glitch somberly. "He really didn't know, did he?"

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"No. He thought you were dead. That he'd watched the two of your die for years... Then Zero let slip that you were alive. We were trying to cross the divide when he found a... something. A soldier carved it, resistance soldier. Just like the one that stopped the bullet. The guy told us where you were living. Behind the white tree."

Glitch stops and looks back. "I think he only kept going for the hope he'd find you."

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A cold wind blows from the North, but Jeb isn't sure it's all in his mind, because it moves nothing, brings nothing with it where it goes. It chills him to the bone.

"What did you say? What do you mean, 'watched us die'?"

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"Mm?" He looks confused. "The TDESPHTL. Tri dimensional energy stored projected holographic time loop. I invented it for teaching classes." It seemed like a good idea them.

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He doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to take the word of a man lacking more than a quarter of his brain, doesn't want to believe one word out of his mouth, because it means...it means...

"How long was he in that thing, Glitch? How long?"

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What was a nice, easy conversation just turned into being bellowed at and feeling cornered.

The books drop from his hands and he holds up his hands, trying to pacify. "No need for shouting." Pause. "No need for shouting." Pause. "No need for shouting."

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It's a small miracle that he manages to get his half of the books on the ground in an intact pile, because he doesn't think his hands have shook quite so bad his entire life. His heart's hammering, his lungs feel like they've turned to stone and he can't feel the air. It's like he's watching it all unfold through a tiny, rounded window. It's worse than that, even.

He feels just like he felt that day, when the Longcoats came and, and, and he can't stand not knowing. He grips Glitch by the shoulders, pleading with him to please, please, "Tell me, Glitch. Please, tell me, how long?"

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Glitch is caught in the cycle and when it breaks, he's being grabbed by someone he doesn't know who was yelling at him.

His hand snaps out, planting into Jeb's chest. His foot sweeps to knock his opponent's legs out from under him, both arms snapping around to dislodge the grip.

There's a reason he survived on half a brain.

Then he just stops, paralysed by conflicting messages.

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There's a rising murmur of alarm coming from inside the large building, from the people out in the yard, and suddenly the staff entrance door to the kitchen slams open, and a furious former Tin Man comes striding out, very eager indeed to know what all the commotion's about.

Just in time to see Jeb roll onto his stomach on the ground, pushing himself up on shaking arms - and Glitch, frozen into one of his martial arts stances, books on the ground in varied amounts of disarray. He doesn't know what to believe.

"What the Hell is going on here?!"

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The shouting snaps Glitch into looking over at Cain, then down at Jeb, then back to Cain with a blank look of incomprehension. He has no idea what has happened, completely lost. "He grabbed me! He was shouting and he grabbed me and I don't know who he is!"

He has no idea why though, or what it was about.

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"You didn't tell me." He gasps for air, looking up at his father and trying so hard to keep everything inside, but something just snaps at the sight of him. Something too big and too frail not to be jostled off its safe perch and crash to the bottom of the precipice at the sight of his dad. His dad, who hasn't aged one, single, day.

He shakes his head, voice growing louder and weaker at the same time. "You didn't tell me. You didn't TELL ME."

He's off the ground like a feral animal going for the throat, even as Wyatt hurries closer.

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The analogy rings too true, like a feral animal going for the throat.

The same snapping switch has him stepping in and trying bring his leg around in a twisting, roundhouse kick, aiming to plant his knee into Jeb's chest to stop him attacking Cain.

Of course, he's right in position for Cain to throw him off balance or Jeb to avoid... or even shove over.

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With one long sweeping motion of his arm, he grabs Glitch around the chest, pulling him to the side and behind him; his other arm parries Jeb's first blow to his face and swings around to pin his arm to his side.

His son, screaming and crying and so very angry; his lover, confused and protective; and Cain, unable to get so much as Jeb's name out, he's too scared, too horrified to be in the middle of this to get one, precious little word out.

The next blow slams into his ear, and somehow Jeb wrenches his pinned down arm out of his grip; but he knows it's a losing battle for his son. It's a losing battle for both of them, because blow after blow and word after word, and for every garbled outcry Jeb is crumbling into his arms.

And finally, "Jeb, no, shh. I'm here. I'm here."

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Glitch isn't even sure what's happened, standing there for long moments blinking with confusion that his opponent has vanished and he's somewhere else.

Then the glitch breaks and he snaps around to see the young man collapsing in Cain's arms, Cain holding him and murmuring to him as he cries it all out.

He has no idea at all what's going on... but he thinks maybe everyone should go away for it.

Ambrose takes over, striding towards the staff, ushering them back in with a wide sweep of his arms, flutters of his fingers and briskly murmured, "In, in, give them some privacy, in."

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Wyatt sinks to his knees in the middle of the yard, not feeling strong enough to hold up the ten annuals and more of horror and grief weighing his son down. He's figured it out. Somehow, probably from talking with Glitch, Jeb's figured it all out. That not only were they sold out by someone they trusted, by someone they took into their home, shared what little food they had with, someone they let lay low time and again when the resistance movement was taking its first, tentative baby steps.

Not only were they sold out by one of their own; not one of them had the decency to repay the risks they took, their hard work, by setting Wyatt free. Not one of them, for over ten annuals.

He squeezes his eyes shut, rocking his son to and fro - his only son, his boy, Adora's beautiful baby boy - and begging forgiveness every way he knows how.

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Ambrose ushers everyone inside, strictly instructing staff back to their jobs and that annoying woman to go find something better to do than annoy him over 'malfunctions' and 'serious physiological disturbances'.

He doesn't go back out for a long time. He lets the two of them have peace and quiet and makes sure no one else is silly or insensitive enough to go and disturb them.

Eventually, eventually, he moves his chair from in front of the door, drops what he's been working on in his pocket and peeks out. Deciding it's all right, he walks over, footsteps soft enough not to intrude, clear enough to be heard. "Are you both all right," he asked quietly.

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"No."

Wyatt sighs, turning his head to look up - and everything about the other man tells him it's Ambrose looking out from the depths of those dark eyes. "But we will be. Thank you."

Jeb's hands are still curled like claws in his shirt, one at his chest, one around his back, but Wyatt doesn't mind. He knows the feeling, knows exactly how bad you feel when you want to help someone so much, and you can't. He knows what it feels like to have control ripped out of your hands.

"Just...reliving the worst day of our lives." He'll take Jeb to his room the moment he can breathe all right again.

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Ambrose nods silently, not really sure what to do for a long moment. "I'll have the staff heat his room and bed up and the basin filled for when you get inside."

Ambrose is practical. Hopefully he'll remember long enough to actually deliver his instructions to the staff. "I'll be in my room if you require anything, Mister Cain."

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He's a practical man, and Cain could kiss him right this moment, if he just...wasn't Ambrose. He nods, cheek pressed to the top of his son's head.

"Thank you, Advisor." He pauses, hesitates, wondering how to say that he won't require anything, and that he'll stay with Jeb tonight, without sounding like an ass.

"If... If you want to have dinner with us, feel free."

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"Just Ambrose, please." He bows his head. "I think... maybe you could do with time with Glitch. And in honesty, I am very tired."

Glitching like that was exhausting.

"Thank you, but no thank you. I think I will retire for the night."

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