Title: Headcase, Chapter 2
Author: digitalruki
Rating: PG
Characters: Glitch, later Glitch/DG
Summary: Somehow, Glitch went from being brainless to being a half-wit. Somehow.
Author's Note & Disclaimer: I don't own Tin Man. Any feedback on this fic would most welcome.
Word Count: 1,905
She is digging through a trunk of old clothes, shirts and vests her sons don't wear anymore, things she's been using for quilts. A small pile is forming beside her of things he can wear. Things other than that decrepit brown tailcoat, now billowing on the clothesline outside her tent.
"Camilla!" the headcase calls anxiously, sweeping the tent door open. He stumbles in wearing only his pants and white shirt. She can hear him fidget like an impatient child even before she turns to see him.
"What is it, dear?" she asks, shifting to her feet slowly. Her spine cracks a couple of times and she winces.
Arms snake their way under her armpits and she is lifted to her feet before she can protest. "I can pick my own self up, thank you," she grumbles, smacking his hand away. "Now, what's got you in such a fit?"
"My coat," he sputters, bringing his hands to his head. "I've lost it. Have you seen it?" He looks around the small room worriedly.
She's speechless for a few seconds, wondering how he can remember her name, but not when she'd pulled the coat from his shoulders just hours before. Finally, quietly, gently, she says, "You don't remember?"
"Remember what?" he asks, meeting her gaze warily. His hands are back on his forehead, rubbing. "No," he mutters, "I can't remember." And she can see, feel him crawling through the collapsed remains of his synapses, grasping at the dark watery depths and coming up with nothing. No tailcoat, no name, no past. "No," he mutters, "I can't remember."
His confusion tears her right down the middle. Should she just give him the answer or can she help him? What exactly is she trying to do for him? He's just another straggler with no home, and she has little more to offer than shelter and supplies. She can't re-build him.
Her unease must be visible on her face, because the next time she meets his eyes, his confusion evaporates and concern flows into his brow. His hands are on her shoulders. "What is it, Camilla? What's wrong?"
She forces herself to smile. "Not to worry, dear," she says. "I just saw your coat outside." And she hopes she didn't worry him, but he just looks at her, sees her fear, hears the worry in her voice. He squeezes her shoulders, and for a split second he seems perfectly fine, acutely perceptive, and a hundred annuals wiser. And she wonders if that's how he used to be.
And then it's gone. He smiles brightly, bounding out of the tent, and collides with the longcoat standing by the door.
-0-
Lionel Weaver is a former tin-man and current resistance fighter now posing as a longcoat. His mother is Camilla Weaver, who lives on a rebel camp in the eastern forests. He travels to this camp every six months or so, to exchange information and visit his family.
Today, as he approaches the entrance to his mother's tent, he is barreled over by--well, something.
With a clutch purse for a head.
The thing quickly realigns itself, brushing at its shirt as if to smooth out all the wrinkles and tears that cover it. The gesture is bizarrely elegant. The man (and it is a man, isn't it?) inclines his head slightly and stammers, "Oh, I'm terribly-- um, terribly...?" He scratches his head and stares at his feet. All grace has disappeared. Lionel isn't sure whether to think the man noble or just severely disillusioned.
"Terribly?" he repeats. "Terribly sorry?" he guesses.
The man twitches, exclaiming, "I'm terribly sorry!" He's looking at the forest behind them, or perhaps at his triumph, but not at Lionel, whose attention is drawn to the woman who opens the tent flap.
"Lionel!" she beams, throwing her arms wide open. They embrace like two hands sore from many years' labor.
"Mother," replies Lionel, "Who's this?" he adds, indicating the third party.
His mother pauses, because honestly, she doesn't know.
"He's...just passing through, Lionel," she says, smiling at her ward. "I thought I'd at least feed him and wash his clothes, before he leaves, " she adds, nodding to the clothesline.
"But Mother," he presses, "Look at its head. It could be anybody--"
Her mouth purses. "Honestly, boy, I didn't think I'd raised you to be heartless. I trust myself to know who to show mercy towards."
"That's not the issue!" he barks. The headcase's full attention is on him now, its hands are on Lionel's arms, and suddenly his feet are in the air and his back collides with uneven earth.
His mother screams and rushes to his side. The headcase just stands there, still not looking at him, just looking from its hands to Camilla, utter shock in its eyes.
-0-
He tries to look at it as a man, as human, but his eyes keep straying to the bit of silver on it's head. So then he tries to see him as just another convict--another headcase, like the ones who you laugh at as they wander the streets, never really stopping to look at them. But he doesn't think he's ever seen one so...alert. Alive. It just doesn't make sense.
So he's stuck in his mother's makeshift living room, the thing sitting on her bed, its eyes very bright and open for being so sunken in. She tells him about his younger brother, that he's still out scouting, relaying messages, same old. She hands the headcase a cup of coffee.
"Thank you, Camilla," it says, dipping its...his head in the most gentlemanly fashion.
What bothers him is that this guy is familiar. He's pretty sure he's seen him before. He didn't put it together until the thing dragged something brown and decrepit in from outside and pulled it on. Pulled it over his shoulders with practiced ease. A nobleman's tailcoat. Nobody but the archaic royalty wore things like that anymore.
He's seen him before. It was a while ago, back at the princess's funeral, when he was part of the security detail at the memorial service. That was a day full of sunken eyes. Yes, he's sure of it.
"The Queen's advisor," he says, cutting his mother off mid-sentence. She doesn't ask him about it, just stops moving around the tent. He can feel her staring at him, but he's too busy studying this guy's reaction.
He's still sipping his coffee. It takes a few seconds. About how long it takes to really taste good coffee. He watches it soak in.
Then it hits him. He swallows hard and chokes a little. He looks up at Lionel even as he's hunched over his cup. Before he can even breath regularly, he's already trying to get the words out, it's pounding at his lips.
A few drops of coffee dribble down his chin as he sputters, "Yes! T-That's what I was," abandoning his cup on the bedspread and flinging out his hands. He's not beaming at his triumph or gaping at his guilt this time. He's watching Lionel, and those arms are encouraging him, beckoning him to continue.
"I keep trying to remember what it was I was called, it's always on the tip of my tongue, and there it is! I remember now!" And his newfound confidence is enough to make you believe it's true, that he's cured, that it was just some spout of amnesia and he's going to be okay now.
Camilla is gaping in confusion, and Lionel is sitting very still, waiting, watching. And the guy's silly grin begins to fall and eyes cloud over with uncertainty.
"The Queen's advisor?" repeats Camilla, because really, that wasn't what she'd expected at all.
The headcase's hopeful grin turns to her now. Lionel isn't sure at first whether he might have imagined it. He watches it hit him. Like good coffee. Again. Exactly the same. He stutters, throwing his arms up. "Yes! That's what I was," he says. "I keep trying to remember what it was I was called, it's always on the tip of my tongue, and there it is! I remember now!"
And the weirdest part is, suddenly his mother looks almost relieved. She crosses the room and takes its outstretched hands, squeezing. Finally, quietly, gently, she says, "You already said that, love."
It's a very weird moment. She's projecting absolute pity and his former elation is now just a phantom grin on his face. And Lionel can see, in the space between the first expression and the second, the ghost of a great man.
The man raises his hand to rub his terribly unkept hair, laughing nervously. "I did? Oh," he says, shrugging. It's a pitifully helpless gesture. One you never see on a great man. For a second Lionel sees himself. Feels himself trapped in his own mind, knows, in that instant, that he would have given up living if only he could remember he was miserable.
And, well, it's kind of funny to think about, and he can't help chuckling. "That's a hefty weight you got on your head," he says, rubbing his chin. Surprisingly, the headcase smiles back at him.
"He's got a good heart, Lionel," his mother says. "He just...slips up sometimes."
The man blinks. "I...glitch."
Both Lionel and his mother turn their attention to him. He glances nervously at them, muttering, "A minor malfunction, mishap, or technical problem, a slip-up..."
"'Glitch'?" repeats Lionel. "As in, a computer glitch?" The man nods.
"Is that a mechanical term?" asks Camilla, confused.
Her son sighs. "I'm not really familiar with the technology, but I hear about it from the alchemists and hokey engineers that skulk around Azkadehlia's castle."
A shadow crosses the man's face. "Azkadehlia." he repeats. Mother and son watch him patiently, as his thoughts become clearer by the minute. "She did this to me," he breathes, touching the rough metal on his skull.
Lionel nods. "Most likely. Probably pissed her off one-too-many times, so she decided to do the closest thing to killing you.
Camilla looks older with each word. She sits down beside the man. The advisor. This man was next to royalty once. An interesting headcase indeed. She almost can't believe it. But still...
She's seen mutilated dead bodies. Men don't live without their heads in one piece. "How..." she begins, voicing the question that burns brightest in her mind. "How can he still be alive?"
"That's the mystery, isn't it?" shrugs Lionel. "Look, way I figure it, that zipper on his head's just a symbol. It marks him, but they don't actually pull his brain out that way." The man is listening, enraptured, but looking sicker and sicker. "It's got something to do with magic. That's the only way he's still alive. He's got, like, a ghost of his mind still in there, doing all the necessary stuff."
He shrugs again, shaking his head, and overall feeling really uncomfortable with the whole concept. Ripping off an arm is one thing, but ripping out brains was something else entirely.
Mother and son sit, quietly pondering life and death and the grey area in-between, all the while being observed by their peculiar guest. Somewhere in the silent stretch that follows, he comes to the full realization that his brain is missing. The revelation causes him to become dreadfully nauseous and he stumbles outside into the twilight.