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The address Mearc texted is for a small family-owned Thai restaurant. It does most of its business through carryout orders and delivery, and there's only a couple tables inside, which are usually not full. Mearc's sitting at one of those tables, facing the door, chin cupped in his hands, dressed as usual. Well, usual-ish. He's still growing his hair out and it's clipped out of his face with a pair of glittery hairclips. And he's back to, you know, not wearing his leather duster everywhere.
Glitch seems to be changing up his outfits as well. It's 90 degrees in Philly today, and even the Sprite would be uncomfortable swaddled in black from head to toe. He's wearing a pair of sky-blue shorts and a black-and-white checkerboard shirt, with wayfarer shades he removes upon stepping in. His gaze settles on Mearc, pupils drifting up to the hair and glitty clips, but his only reaction is the slightest of smiles before he sits down. "Hey. You look good. Something going on with Lux or Jack...?"
"No, it's a me thing. Well, things are going on with them--that's what life is, a lot of the time. But, uh. I wanted to talk to you about a me thing." He sits up properly, setting his hands palm-down on the table.
Glitch blinks a bit and nods, reaching up to rub at one of his eyes. He squints and lets out a yawn, stifling it halfway through. "Sorry. I slept awful last night." He orders an iced coffee when the wait staff swings by, then turns his attention back to Mearc. "What's up?"
"Weird dreams?" The way he says it sounds both forcedly casual and uncertain at the same time. He orders a thai iced tea and some chicken satay to share.
Glitch nods absently, glancing down at the menu again before pushing it away. "Yeah, the same old shit. Stuff from before. Trying to escape and failing. Not being good enough. Getting killed by fuckin' nightmare panther monsters," he grumbles, the hint of resentment obvious.
Mearc closes his eyes for a moment, almost seeming to steel himself, to brace before speaking. "You clipped out of the forest, out of bounds. And then from there into a stage full of rusted machinery."
His eyes open again, still empty, lacking light, lacking shine. Inky voids, holes into oblivion.
Glitch is still looking away when Mearc says that, and he stops, simply halting in place. His head slowly turns with an expression of...confusion? Doubt? Shock? "...Yeah," he says, finally staring back into Mearc's dark eyes. "Yeah. I did. How did you...?"
"I dreamed last night. I dreamed I was a fucking nightmare panther monster." He enunciates every word of that description crisply, while not raising his volume any.
Glitch is very quiet. He looks calm, managing a good deal of stillness. It's his mien that gives it away, the scrambling and corruption around the edges growing more intense. Tiny fragments and clusters of pixels flit into view on his cheeks and forehead, not unlike Mearc's own colored freckles. He sucks in a strained breath, and then just holds it for a while. "Okay," he says, voice a bit flat. "You were...you saw. Okay. That was... it was you. That's...that's why you called me."
Mearc nods just slightly, his shoulders tensing as he watches Glitch pixellate further. "That's why I called you."
Glitch swallows. There's a somewhat pleading look at Mearc through the pixels. It's not anger or disgust that overtakes him, but fear, mounting in his widening eyes. Growing even as he fights against it, the anxiety activating through his entire body. His fingers curl on the edge of the table. "It's okay," he says. "It's okay. I'm gonna be okay. I'm not...upset," he says. But he's already starting to stand, tensed as if ready to flee. Just like in the dream. Enough to faintly stir primal feelings of hunger and pursuit.
"You're scared of me." Whatever Mearc was going to say next is paused, as the waiter delivers drinks and chicken satay. Because what this conversation really needs right now is the addition of sharp wooden skewers.
Glitch's eyes widen. Being called out like that seems to make it worse. His head turns, his hand on the booth. "I'm sorry," he says...
And then the waiter is there smiling and dishing out food and drink. The sheer simple awkwardness of the timing roots him in place, apparently unwilling to be melodramatic in front of a stranger. It's just enough to stop the spiral. Glitch stares at Mearc after the waiter leaves, sucks in a breath, closes his eyes, and sits down, now looking more ashamed than anything. "...I'm...not...scared of YOU," he manages to say, opening his eyes once again. Meeting Mearc's gaze, as his chest still rises and falls with obvious restrained panic. "I'm just...s-scared."
The thing of it is, Mearc seems almost more uncomfortable with the eye contact than the conversation, moving his head to the side slightly, making it clear he's glancing away after a few seconds. His voice is a low rumble when he speaks. "Your fear makes sense. I killed you. I woke up remembering the taste of your blood."
Glitch wants to run. He wants to escape. Mearc can almost taste the fear, his every terrified mannerism matching the dream. It was more potent then, from the young and uncorrupted Sprite, without the scars of time to blunt its sting, but the fresh present whiff of it brings the feelings flooding back. He swallows. "I got killed...a lot, over there," he says, fingers tensing on the table again. "By lots of different things. That's why I didn't even think about you when..." There's another stare, this one drifting to Mearc's color-dotted cheeks. "Being afraid of you now is...s-stupid. T-there's no reason. You're not..." He blinks, meeting Mearc's gaze again. "You're not a threat to me," Glitch states, not sounding entirely sure. He reaches for the iced coffee and drains about a third of it in one continuous slurp.
"I'm not a threat to you. I'm not going to harm you. And I hope we can still be friends, Glitch." He seems to be analyzing Glitch's reaction, much more than having one of his own, given how green his freckles are turning right now. "But I'm not sure what you're feeling is stupid."
Glitch closes his eyes. "It is stupid," he says, gritting his teeth. "It's a pointless feeling. It just makes me weak and vulnerable. And I refuse...to let it have power over me." His voice falls into harshness and his brows furrow. "I can handle it," he seethes. The scent of ozone and a ripple of heat wafts around Mearc as Glitch's nascent mantle swells. "Anger is stronger than Fear."
"So you're going to be mad at me instead? Hate me for what I did to you?" Mearcstapa's hand closes around his glass, just to have something to hold onto. "Is that where this is going?"
Glitch shakes his head. "No," he says, pushing a hand out across the table. Offering it, hand up, to Mearc. "Because there's no reason to be afraid of you or mad at you. I'm mad at the fear. I'm mad at the dream. I'm mad at the evil son of a bitch that did this to me. To...both of us." Slowly opening his eyes again, breath ragged, he nods with determination. "I'm mad at anything that passes for a God in this fucked up world for letting this happen."
Mearc sets his hand on top of Glitch's lightly. Not grabbing, not squeezing. Nothing aggressive at all in the gesture. "To both of us. You were right, that night in the park. I didn't know it, then. I didn't remember. I'm sorry."
Glitch's hand is the one that squeezes, winding around Mearc's tightly. Not wanting to let go of his newfound friend. Refusing to yield. "You have nothing to be sorry for," he insists. Mearc can still feel his slight tremble. "But...what about the City? How did you get from the Game World to there...?"
The waitstaff passes by again, turning a head to stare at them as they hold hands. Glitch swivels his head and fixes them with his current frustrated anger-face in silence, and they quickly move along.
"I don't know. I don't remember. I know for certain that the City is where I escaped from. And given Polybius, it seems likely that what I'm not remembering is what came early on. Reprogramming." His expression is cloudy, hard to read at a glance. He's learning new things about himself, but they're not all so surprising. It makes sense. It rhymes, as he'd told Jack.
Glitch nods. He loosens his grip on Mearc's hand, giving him space once more. "Maybe you were... Transferred. Those fuckers buy and sell people. Maybe the Master owed something a favor."
"Maybe. Probably. I don't need to know the reason right now, not really. This is enough to process and synthesize right now." There's the faintest smile, as Mearc finally tightens his own grip for a gentle squeeze.
Glitch returns the faint smile. "Yeah. It's a lot. I'm gonna need some time too. " He reaches over to take a satay, taking a bite of the skewered chicken. "But... Thanks. Thanks for telling me. I'm not gonna run away from this. Or from you. I'm done running."
"This talk could have been worse, honestly. Sturm's advice was not to throw a table at you." There's a hint of a laugh behind those words.
The Sprite gives a dark little laugh in return. "Good advice. If you think throwing shit at each other night help, I'm down to try. Honestly... I always feel like I'd rather just get hit with a club than have to deal with my fucking emotions."
"I'm not very good with a club, sorry. Guess I'll just have to keep processing feelings. You don't have to help with that, but it's good to know where you stand."
Mearc takes a skewer as well, dipping it in the peanut sauce. "Throwing things, maybe, though. I've recently picked up and learned how to use throwing knives. Still, no, I'd rather not use them against you."
"Hey, I'll do it, especially when other people are caught up in it. Taking a hit's just easier. Simpler." Glitch stares a moment. "I'm so used to just freaking out over stuff like this that ... Now I kinda don't know what to do."
"...I mean, are you saving the freakout to unpack in private? I did a little of that this morning with Jack. Not a huge breakdown, but definitely...facing the possibilities those dreams presented. And at some point, I'm going to...really examine what it is, to have been programmed like that, and how I feel about how it seems my roles have been mearcstapan all along, in their ways, and that's going to be a bit rough, I think."
Glitch laughs a bit at that. "Nah. I don't really plan it like that. It just happens. I stood and faced this. It's not the end of the world. It's just... another thing we've gotta deal with. Yeah?"
A high tone beeps out, and the Sprite looks down at his phone. "Speaking of. That's my own love. I gotta get going." He stands, fishing around in his pockets. "We should do dinner sometime like you said. Me, you, Lux and Jack. It'd be nice."
“It would be very nice, yeah. Give your family my fondest, please.” Mearc nods, watching Glitch as he goes, shoving down the feeling in the back of his head that tempts him to give chase.
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