(no subject)

[amicably_absent]

They arrived the day before Wyatt and Jeb left.

Glitch happened to be in the entryway when they came, getting tackled full on by DG before he was quite prepared. He hugged her, listening to her bubble about how well he was looking and her mother had told her he might not even be up.

Then he was being cuddled by Raw as well and pushed forwards a bit and there was the tank, nicely decorated and with a smiley face on the side. He was touching it before he stopped to think, looking at the much smaller portion encased in the much smaller and more portable tank they had moved it in to.

"Mother said we should bring it down with us." DG at least never seemed disgusted by it. Not DG, not Raw, not Cain. Never Cain.

He nodded, taking the tank in his arms and trying to adjust to it.

"Glitch glad to have it back?"

He looked up to Raw and nodded. "Can you-?"

Raw nodded and touched Glitch's face, his other hand coming to rest on the glass.

Glitch jerked, inhaling sharply, head tipping back and then straightening, look out with calm, collected clarity.

"Gli-" DG stopped herself. "Ambrose?"

"Yes, Princess," he asked mildly.

"Do you remember your time as Glitch," she asked.

Ambrose smiled ever so slightly and bitterly. "Enough. But not more than I do at any other point. The memories are misformed in the brain." He shakes his head. "Enough, Raw, please."

"Ambrose? Glitch?" DG was catching his arm even as Raw withdrew. "Are you okay?"

He gave her a tremulous smile. "Yeah, doll face. I'm okay. Just thinkin' a little too clearly for a moment. I think... I need to go and lie down for a bit, 'fore Rennie gets on at me."

"Okay," she murmured, kissing his cheek. "We'll get ourselves settled, say hello to Mister Cain. You go and rest, all right?" She patted his shoulder.

He nodded and headed upstairs to his room with the brief, lasting lucidity of being whole.

Comments

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

He scoots up behind Glitch and lies down, hugging him from behind. He watches the covered tank with solemn blue eyes and rests his head against Glitch's, his hand on Glitch's hand.

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"I understand things too well with him." He hugged it to his chest more, burrowing back against Cain. "I just... I don't want to be messed up and broken but I don't think I want to be him again. I just to be really clever like I was."

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

He presses his lips to Glitch's cheek, following it up with a nuzzle. "Talk to me, Sweetheart. What happened?"

With the tank and Raw, or way back, he could mean either of the two.

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"I don't know... I just saw everything too clearly for a moment. And it made me feel terrible. And then my head hurt. There's too much running around that I can't quite reach and it all came out and was there."

He huffs again.

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

"It's okay to feel frustrated. It's okay to be angry, and to curl up in bed and not want to talk to anyone for a good long while."

He doesn't know what else to say. He doesn't know how to make it better. He wants to understand, but it's either a matter of asking too difficult questions, or making Glitch more frustrated. He isn't too keen on either.

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"I feel sick as well. My head hurts and I don't remember thinking being so hard and I know I'm going to forget and it'll all slip away but right now I remember how much it hurts and how hard thinking is."

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

"It's hurting because you're not done healing yet. Maybe it'll hurt even when you're well again, but it won't be like this."

He'd hate saying 'You'll get used to it', but that's what it boils down to, in his mind. "Thinking won't be as hard."

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"You think it's just the rebrainment making it hurt?" He tips his head back against Cain's shoulder, small pinches of tension showing on his face.

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

"I think it's being forcibly separated for so long that's making it hurt." He isn't trained in medicine, he has no way of knowing why it was physically painful, but he's willing to theorize.

"I don't know. But you've learned to deal with having half your marbles left intact and the other half hundreds of miles away... Of course it's a shock to your system to suddenly have all parts of your brain communicating again."

Softer, less righteously dead-certain. "Look. I don't know what you're going through, but I'm here, Glitch. DG and Raw is here, and Azkadellia, and Jeb. You're surrounded by people who care about you. ...more than I think you know."

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"I probably just forget they do," he says with a touch of sharp hysteria behind his voice. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm being snappier than a starving rock digger." He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I think it's just having them all together after trying to get used to the bit being back."

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

"Shh," he pulls Glitch closer, holding him tight. "You don't need a reason to be upset. It's all right, whatever it is. I'm still here."

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"You're more'n I deserve sometimes..." He keeps cuddling the jar, head back against his shoulder. "Wyatt, can I ask a terrible favour?"

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

He smiles, despite the weight settling around his heart to know Glitch is feeling so low.

"Sure you can. But I reserve the right not to do it if it's much too terrible."

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"Could you fetch Raw, please? I don't feel well. My head hurts." He looks back at Cain. "Your hands are nice, but you just don't have the magic touch of make it all go away like a Viewer."

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

"How could that possibly be a terrible thing to ask?" He kisses Glitch firmly on the lips, and hurries on out of there in search of Raw.


Within ten minutes there's another knock on Glitch's door, but this time he doesn't wait before showing Raw inside. Right on his tail is DG, wide eyed and worried. But it doesn't take much to convince her that the two of them had better wait outside for a little while. Give Raw some space to work.

"Glitch hurting," Raw nods solemnly as he pulls a chair up to the side of the bed. "Raw can feel it."

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

Glitch makes himself more comfortable, trying to ignore the pain until Cain gets back...

With the entire entourage. Of course. But he smiles fondly, catching Raw's hand and laying it against the side of his face. "Yeah, well Glitch can feel it too." He keeps his hand over Raw's as he lets him soothe the pain away.

Raw blinks and looks at Glitch, fingers shifting slightly and then eyes going wide with understanding. "Glitch and Cain..."

"Want Glitch's headache gone."

"Raw understand." He nods sagely and works a bit longer before opening the door to the other two. "Glitch feeling better, but is still keeping jar under blankets."

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

DG slips in, running to the bed and taking Glitch's hand. Cain and Raw follows shortly after exchanging looks.

"Why are you hiding your marbles, Glitch?" She asks him quietly.

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"I dunno. Just feels right. Keep them warm." He rubs the jar with the arm curled around it, squeezing DG's hand. "It sounds silly out loud."

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

"No, it doesn't. Not at all." Determined, she pulls the spare blanket from the foot of the bed, and lifts up the edge of the covers and the comforter, arranging the bundle neatly, the tank at its core. Glitch wants his marbles warm, he gets help. That's just the way it is.

Cain and Raw exchange looks again, and as one, they go in search of something else, something more.

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"I just don't like the tank. I know it's important, but it's always so cold." He tugs for a moment, dragging DG into the big bed with him and cuddling up to her, the jar and blankets between them.

"Where'd the other two go?"

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

She giggles, happily hugging his head and curling up around the tank. "It is cold. But maybe it needs to be, I don't know."

She blinks, scanning the room for her other two favourite people in the world (aside from her family). "No idea.

"How've you been, Glitch? I haven't seen you in quite a while."

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

He stays curled up, head being hugged. "I'm good. Except for the day I got confused and threw Rennie in the lake and went and hid because I forgot who she was. But Wyatt came and got me.

"Jeb doesn't like me much, I don't think."

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

She smiles, petting his hair, glad to see and feel actual curls rather than dreads. But that isn't the best part. Glitch remembers something, and Cain was only marginally important to the memory. "What makes you say that? He seemed real worried about you."

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"That's because apparently we had a really bad morning yesterday, because the night before something happened that I can't quite remember and when I do Ambrose comes out instead, but he likes me well enough but he doesn't really like me outside of being that guy over there."

Something in there might've made sense.

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

"Oookay. Then let's try not to remember, all right?" ... "Hold on, Ambrose comes out? What, like with the tank and Raw?"

~

In another part of the grand mansion, palace, abode, Cain and Raw are making their way back with several blankets each. Plus a surprise or two, on Cain's behalf.