Feb. 5th, 2008 02:17 pm
Longest Battle 3/8
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lovely_ambitionThe Longest Battle 3/8
Pairing: Ambrose/Cain, Queen/Ahamo
Disclaimer: I do not own them at all.
Summary: The Witch won't rest until she has the O.Z. in darkness, no matter how she must do it, no matter how long it takes.
Rating: PG-13 to R.
Notes: This acts as an AU to the entire Tin Man series and hinges on just one question: "What if DG hadn't let go?" Fifteen annuals pass and while some things may remain the same, many is different. For this part, the music is Together: The Ranconteurs. EXTREME thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blackletter for being a wonderful & efficient beta.
CHAPTER ONE: In which DG holds on, Zero takes matters into his own hands, Adora Cain is a casualty, Ambrose is given a lifetime of glitches, and Jeb Cain gets into Ambrose's bed before his father does.
CHAPTER TWO: In which the search for the Mystic Man begins, Cain makes failed attempts at bonding, Jeb hides well, and a tentative agreement is made between Ambrose and Cain.
Eventually, the questions came.
They were on their way South again on foot after their transportation had been stolen in the middle of the night, an event that left Cain in a sour mood for days. They had to camp out under the boughs of rocking trees and endure the winds when there were no inns to be found. Ambrose knew that the luxury of a warm bed wasn’t always possible, but it didn’t stop him from wishing for it.
A warm bed wasn’t the only thing he wished for, but he’d learned to keep quiet about that. Cain finally seemed more human and less like a haunted shell of a man who was nothing without his wife and Ambrose didn’t dare go back on all their progress. If the day came when Ambrose could tell Cain about what he felt, then it would. Until then, there was proximity on colder nights and warm looks shared over warmer meals and that was enough for him.
Then, oh, then, the questions.
“So what is it you have against Zero?”
They didn’t talk about how they had discovered the compound in the North and had it tucked under Cain’s large coat carefully or how it had taken seven months to find. Of course, getting back to the palace was a whole other kettle of fish. It could take another three months on foot – what with many of the roads in terrible condition this far north -- and Ambrose wasn’t looking forward to it, especially if it involved questions like these.
He’d ignored Cain for a good week, but Cain didn’t take that as a sign to stop. If anything, it just made him more stubborn, which gave Ambrose keen insight into the man. Stubborn, he checked off in his head. At the same time as being elated at discovering more about Cain’s personality, it was the sort of trait that Ambrose hated. Stubborn men, after all, make very poor significant others.
Not that Cain was Ambrose’s anything.
Nine days later, the questions were still coming from Cain while they sat around the fire and cooked their meagre dinners. “I can’t imagine a man like you would get so vengeful over something like a little smack on the head,” Cain said evenly, hat tipped low over his head, even though the moons were the only light that dared shine down on them. “So why Zero?”
“Do you really need to know?” Ambrose finally snapped irritably, scoffing as he ran a hand through his hair again and again, feeling the grimy texture of each strand.
Cain’s lengthy stare said that, yes, in fact, he wanted to hear every last detail until there was no breath left in Ambrose’s lungs or until his voice had given out.
Stubborn, stubborn men. Ambrose was beginning to remember why he absolutely despised spending all of his time around them. Cain wasn’t about to give up and Ambrose could hold out longer, but eventually, he would probably glitch and let it slip anyway and then what would be the point of fighting stubbornness with stubbornness?
So he sighed and broke a twig to toss into the fire, leaning forward into the warmth while the shadows flickered over his face, creating strange little shadows and shapes.
“Zero and I used to know each other when we were younger,” Ambrose admitted heavily. “Back at the Academy, I was in the higher classes and he happened to be the boy who made my life miserable.” It sounded so petty to cite it aloud, but if it had simply been about a few platinums stolen or an uncomfortable prank here or there, he wouldn’t have minded. It had been the constant and uncanny talent Zero had at making Ambrose suffer and every time he thought he could let his guard down, there he’d been with something worse.
A girlfriend had been stolen here, a nasty rumour there, a project or four sabotaged, deliberate destruction of property, a boyfriend stolen there. Zero’s focus had been admirable for their youth and no matter what Ambrose had set his eyes on, Zero had wanted to take away.
“Why?” Cain asked.
“I don’t know, we were boys,” Ambrose tiredly waved it away. “He was a bully and I was the target, pure and simple. If that sounds…well, infantile to you, then I’m sorry for carrying forward a grudge. No, I don’t like the man.” He also didn’t want him dead, but didn’t mention that to Cain. Bloodshed and justice were hardly ever the same thing and if Cain did something as vigilante-like as murder, then Ambrose would likely have to do something about it. It meant that Cain would no longer be in his life. “Zero always had a particular talent for cruelty that seemed to fester with age. Never did I think he was capable of murder, though.”
“Times change,” Cain said those two words forcefully and Ambrose sighed.
There were times between them that Ambrose had labelled ‘Adora Moments’ and this was another one of them. Cain would grow sullen and quiet at the mention of his wife. He wouldn’t return a sentence of conversation and was poor company all around. In the beginning, the Adora Moments could last for days. Then, it had become hours. Lately, though, the Adora Moments never lasted beyond a five-minute span and Ambrose looked on that as significant progress towards something, though the goal was as-of-yet unnamed.
It still didn’t mean that those minutes didn’t feel as though eternity had stepped in to drag out simple seconds into what felt like forever.
“We’ll find him,” Ambrose said, fingers tapping distractedly as he watched the fire they had been building start to gain more life and flicker higher than before.
And what happened when they did?
Ambrose wasn’t ready to deal in those hypotheticals yet, especially not at the rate his mind produced them for him. If ever there was a time that he wished for his mind to have an episode, now was that time.
Luckily, the stress of the recent journey obliged him with just that as he blanked out and ended up having to ask Cain who he was for the fourth time in two weeks.
*
Over the past three and a half annuals, there had been much afoot since Cain and Ambrose had first met each other and had begun their missions across the O.Z. in order to raise the defences of the castle (to large success) and had spent most of their time out on the road. They were returning from the North to warm greetings from all and the news that though more people seemed to be defecting to Zero’s malice, the defences of the palace and Central City were holding up admirably.
Cain had expected to come home and make a couple of repairs on his house before collecting Jeb in his arms to recount stories of the North to him. Then, he figured he’d listen to the list of royal adventures Jeb had experienced while Cain had been away.
To his complete surprise, he had been tackled with hugs by both the Princesses and his son as he ambled his way up the stairs to the front doors. “Mr. Cain!” DG shrieked happily, hugging tightly while Azkadellia laughed warmly and Jeb nuzzled his way in against Cain’s leg, holding on tight like a fungus.
Behind him, he could hear Ambrose snickering away. He wished he could be more irritated by the whole scene, but it was actually mildly endearing.
“Princesses,” Cain greeted politely. “Is there a reason for the clinging welcome?”
“Jeb’s been telling us stories,” a fourteen-annual-old Azkadellia said, brushing her hair from her cheek as she let go – the first to release him – and peered sheepishly up at Cain. She was growing up beautifully, her features gaining her mother’s beauty and her father’s strength and Cain worried for the poor boys that would fall in love with her, only to have the royal barrier of privilege keeping them away.
Cain was tempted to ask what kind of stories, but they were just kids and fun was fun. He crouched over to pick up DG in one arm, Jeb in the other and gave a heavy ‘oof’ that was only half-playful. The other half of him genuinely was stumbling under the heavy load.
Ambrose made his way to their side, curtsying to each of the Princesses before tweaking Jeb’s nose lightly. “You know, Cain,” Ambrose offered conversationally and politely, “there are other ways to prove your masculinity beyond breaking down doors and slowly breaking your back.”
“What’s breaking your back?” Jeb asked curiously, content to settle in as Cain walked them inside, trying to ignore how DG’s squirming was digging her knee into his ribs.
“It’s something your Daddy is doing to himself by being an overly masculine representation of the species,” Ambrose spoke helpfully, walking beside them at a slow clip. Azkadellia took the other side and Cain almost felt the strangest sense of home as he entered the doors.
“Ambrose, if you don’t want a show of my masculine strength applied to you personally, you should keep it quiet,” Cain warned very patiently.
When Cain looked over to see what effect that had, all he saw was that slow and coy smirk that Ambrose sometimes got.
“Maybe some other time,” Ambrose declined, prying DG out of Cain’s arms – to which Cain sighed gratefully at the load released. The Advisor adjusted the Princess as he set her down on the floor. “I believe the Princesses need to take me to the Queen for a much-needed conversation.” He wandered off with the girls, chatting away and looking the picture of grace in the halls.
Cain, on the other hand, was happy to take Jeb into his arms and study him carefully, giving him a onceover as Jeb preened proudly.
“I brought you something back from the North,” Cain said warmly, grinning broadly. “Someone I ran into told me that it was someone’s birthday in two days.”
Jeb’s eyes had lit up in the process, small fingers clasping desperately at Cain’s shirt. He and Ambrose had actually been behind schedule in getting back, but Cain had been desperate to insist that they get back somehow. He wasn’t going to miss Jeb’s birthday, not this annual. Eventually, they’d stolen a dilapidated truck in one of the bigger villages they’d come across and had used fuel and sheer determination to get back to the palace in time.
And here they were, with days to spare.
Cain had spent every night of their ten months away carving with his razor and stray pieces of strong wood that he found in forests and on shores in their travels. With enough patience and hard work, he had managed to put together something of a set and with borrowed paints, had brought them all to life. “C’mon, on your feet,” he said, setting Jeb down and getting out his bag to slide out the box containing each carefully crafted figure that made up a town of cowboys and horses and even a saloon or two in the style of the old myths.
Jeb took it carefully into his hands, sitting on his knees to run his hands over the wooden crate and stare reverently at it before staring upwards at Cain. “Father, can I open it?” he asked eagerly.
Jeb Cain was going to be seven annuals old in two days and Cain knew that he couldn’t deny him a thing in the world.
“You can open it anytime you want,” Cain promised, taking off his hat as he knelt to the ground to help Jeb open it up and watch the flickering expressions of joy on his face as he took out each wooden figurine and studied them with joy. There were more and more and just when a person might expect to find nothing else, a board lifted to reveal a whole second set.
Ten months had weighed long and heavy in his separation from his son and Cain had looked at the gift as a way to keep connected to him.
“Father, it’s amazing!” Jeb insisted, intent on arranging them in the lobby of the palace. “DG and Az and I are gonna have so much fun with them!” He was madly dashing to push them back into the box and it wouldn’t have taken a Viewer for Cain to know that Jeb was eager to show off his gift. He was running off with a peal of ‘thank you, thank you, thank you!’s back in Cain’s direction and the joy on Jeb’s face put a smile on Cain’s.
It was one of the rare smiles he got when he was genuinely happy, when his cheeks would lift and the smallest of lines appeared around his eyes.
Not that Cain knew it at the time, but someone else had seen that rare smile of his in that hallway.
With Jeb on his way to play with the Princesses – and honestly, sometimes Cain needed to sit back and just laugh at his life and how after four annuals, his son was living with royalty and was the best friend of two girls that would one day take the throne. He himself was travelling around the whole of the O.Z. with the Queen’s letters and her foremost advisor.
It wasn’t such a simple life for Wyatt Cain, any longer.
Now that he was back at the palace, he did what he always strived to do. It had become ritual over many a month and he wasn’t about to abandon it now. He always checked in with Ahamo with a quiet nod and a check that everything was well in Central City. Cain never could give up on his past and so much of it was tied to that shining city on the hill. He heard the voices in the study and only bothered to knock once on the door before he let himself in.
“Queen,” he greeted, “Ahamo,” Cain nodded to them both, hat clasped in his fingers. There were stray security guards amidst the shelves, but no one acknowledged their presence. Ahamo had told him once that while he thought them unnecessary, he wasn’t about to take any risks when it came to his family. Cain understood that to the core. “We just got in.”
“Cain,” Ahamo greeted warmly, clapping him on the back. “The Queen and I were hoping we could run something by you.”
“It is Jeb’s birthday in two days, is it not?” the Queen asked pleasantly, excitement sparkling in her eyes. “I have been planning a fête for him with my Azkadellia’s help. She has been such a dove for me and for Jeb. While DG sleeps, she takes him on walks around the gardens and explains each flower,” she relayed to Cain warmly.
Cain managed a barely-there smile though he swore he was damn near glowing inside to hear that even though the circumstances that led Jeb to the palace had been tragic at best, he was finally getting himself a happy life.
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate the party,” Cain said politely. “He’s never had a very big one in his life, past what Adora and I could give him.”
“The palace parties really are something else,” a fourth voice interrupted their conversation. “My Queen,” Ambrose spoke reverently as he entered, bowing his head. “Ahamo.” He turned to Cain and shared a secretive smile with him before offering a polite, “Cain,” to him as well. “Animals and flowers and on occasion, the Queen’s magic lights up the sky at night with the most brilliant of light shows that not even my fireworks could mimic.”
“You sound like you miss it,” Cain observed evenly. While he wanted Jeb to be happy, that same fear was lurking within him, that constant worry that Jeb was going to grow too accustomed to the fine life and then Cain was going to be the bad guy who took him away from it all. In the end, his desire to see his son happy won out, but just barely.
“Palace life is easy to miss,” Ambrose admitted, but he didn’t sound very torn up about it. “But then, sometimes, people find there’s a whole other life waiting in the wild for them.”
“Now you sound like you’re turning adventurer,” Ahamo noted with a wry grin. The Queen laughed and clasped Ahamo’s hand in her own while they shared their happy times and their smiles.
“Maybe,” Ambrose admitted. “Well, Cain? Are you going to let your son have a party?”
“Why not?” he sighed. “I have the feeling that he’ll get one, no matter what I say.”
*
The party was, to Ambrose’s smug delight, everything he had promised it would be and more. Cain had never seen so much of a crowd in all his life and he wasn’t even certain how many people in attendance knew Jeb. For all he knew, his boy had met the lot of them in his time at the palace and Cain would be none the wiser. More than that, the crowd filled him with a general sense of unease and eventually, he informed Azkadellia that he was going to go inside and to keep an eye out on Jeb for him.
She had dutifully agreed and had shown him her gift for Jeb before Cain had a chance to escape. She had made him a small windmill for his town, powered by her magic so that it would always move, even when there was no wind to be had.
Cain had to admit that Azkadellia and DG were both good girls and it was likely that they were good for Jeb, who needed a feminine presence in his life. Still, they were a different class than Jeb Cain (or his father) could ever hope to be.
He’d absconded to the quiet and darkened halls of the palace to pace up and down, enjoying the silence. He’d gotten used to it being good and quiet, except for one exception…
“Cain?”
Ah, there it was. His exception. Cain smiled wryly and turned to find Ambrose leaning out of one of the rooms, the light spilling out onto the floor.
“What are you doing out here? I swear, you’re like a bull with your pacing,” he muttered.
“Shouldn’t you be at that party of yours?” In fact, if he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Ambrose at the party since Jeb had dove face-first into the large cake, much to Cain and the Queen’s mutual chagrin. “In fact, why aren’t you out there? The Queen and the Princesses are about to dazzle the sky, or so I hear.”
“I put together the plans for the design,” Ambrose waved it off with a distracted mumble, retreating into the room and arousing enough curiosity in Cain to follow him. He’d left the door open, after all, and that was just a subtle signal to Cain that Ambrose wanted him to ask questions. Cain turned the corner to find himself face-first with a seemingly endless room filled with bubbling creations, lights, and things that made strange noises.
This looked to be Ambrose’s mad laboratory.
It took Cain more than a minute to pass the shock that came with seeing a room like that for the first time and by the time he’d found a question, Ambrose was already off with a pair of goggles on his face, tinkering with something that was foaming over with thick fog. “The Queen say where she needs us to be next?”
“I’m sure she’ll mention it,” Ambrose said, sounding worlds away. “At breakfast or at lunch or…huh, you think there could be a meal between the two?”
“People call it brunch, Ambrose,” Cain said patiently. After more than three annuals, he could see an episode (or a glitch, whatever they were calling it) coming a mile off. There was a whole body change to Ambrose, a loosening of the synapses or whatever you wanted to call it. They never lasted very long and it was actually almost endearing when Ambrose had the moments.
If anyone ever tortured him, he’d never admit he thought they were ‘endearing’. That was between his brain and his still-cold heart.
“Huh. Well, I bet it’s a great meal,” he mumbled, picking up a pair of tongs and extracting something from the container. “This is liquid nitrogen,” he said, whispering, as if the presence of the container deserved awe. Ambrose was wearing a thick pair of gloves as he took a crystalline form out of the vat. “When combined with some of the Ozian elements, it creates an unbreakable crystal with the density of diamonds, but the beauty of eternal ice.”
He twirled the large chunk for Cain to see before setting it down. “The Queen built aspects of the Northern Palace out of this combination of chemicals. It’s why it stands up against so many intruders.”
“So what’s that one for?”
“You.”
Cain gave Ambrose a wary look, not accustomed to accepting gifts. “Me.”
“Well, not yet. Obviously it’s not done,” Ambrose said, overly critical of his own work as always. If Cain had learned anything about the man, it was that he was never content with something until he had gone over it again and again, perfecting every last little detail. “I’d like to have it finished before we leave. I know your birthday is coming up. Two weeks after Jeb’s, right?” Ambrose verified, though Cain couldn’t even manage an answer.
He’d never told him that.
“Anyway, it should be done before we leave,” Ambrose was repeating himself, waving Cain off distractedly. “Go, spend time with Jeb. And bring him this.” He offered a large box out to Cain, who took it and offered it a suspicious look. “It’s not explosive, Cain,” Ambrose sighed. “It’s a sort of projector. With the magic of the Princesses, they and Jeb can create their own little adventures and watch them play out on that. It’s got Moratanium lined into it to let magic flow through it with ease.”
Cain was still hesitant to go, but when Ambrose started forcibly shooing him out the door with a hand pushed to his back, then his behind, and then his arm while Cain laughed in protest. “Okay! I’m going,” he assured, lingering in the door to look over Ambrose and give the gift a considerate look. “Thanks, Ambrose. For everything.”
“I just hope Jeb likes it.”
Cain knew that he would and that meant almost everything to him.
With a deep breath and renewed spirits, Cain took the gift and made his way into the fray of Jeb’s party once more. This time, the sound of loud music and playful conversation around him actually made him feel welcome rather than a stranger.
*
During breakfast, there were remarkably fewer faces than usual, which Cain attributed to the eager imbibing of spiked punch the night before, after all the children had been put to bed and the party continued on in the garden until the early hours of the morn when the moons were in the sky. Though the city was still at unrest and there were whispers of a growing army in the distance, the citizens had been thirsty for a night without worry. Now, the morning after showed that their carefree joys were not without consequence.
DG was half-atop the table to grasp for the warm biscuits and she plucked one while still standing on the thick oak, babbling away to Ahamo about all the creatures they had seen and how she hadn’t been afraid of a single one of them.
“DG, my angel, please,” the Queen pleaded simply and with no more words, DG made her way down. Cain had been sitting at the end of the table with a weather-eye on the door for Ambrose’s entrance, but he never did join them.
Azkadellia and Jeb kept him company while he watched the door, recounting the list of gifts that Jeb had received the night before.
“You’re going to thank everyone for them, right?” Cain said, making sure to instill lessons of manners while he was still around, lest Adora’s ghost slap him around for being a neglectful father.
“I’ll write proper letters, even if it’ll make my hands hurt,” he agreed. “Tutor’s been teaching me how to write.”
There was another pang at Cain’s heart, this time at the thought of other people teaching his son how to live. He kept it inside with a grit of his teeth and refused to say anything aloud. So he returned his gaze to the door and continued to wait for Ambrose until he felt a hand tugging at the sleeve of his pale-blue button down.
“Mr. Cain?” Azkadellia said politely. “Sometimes, Ambrose skips meals because he loses track of time in his laboratory while working on his inventions,” she said helpfully. “I used to bring him food and he would teach me things about the elements and the history of the O.Z.”
Cain gave Azkadellia a curious look tempered with gratitude as he started to bundle up a couple of fruits on a plate with some meat, grasping cutlery in his hand and pressing something of a fatherly kiss atop her hair. “Thanks, kid,” he said, ruffling Jeb’s hair (seeing as he was so preoccupied with playing with the wooden horse to even look up at the conversation) and making his way down the now-familiar halls to the room he had only discovered the night before.
He got lost twice on his way down, having to ask various guards along the way where he was going exactly. He probably looked like an idiot, wandering his way uselessly down the halls with a plate of fruit and meat in front of him.
Eventually, it was Ambrose’s loud cursing that led him to the laboratory.
Cain smiled to himself as he wandered into the lab and set the plate down without any fanfare, jabbing at it with his thumb and making sure Ambrose didn’t just ignore his entrance. “Sit,” Cain ordered. “Eat.”
“Yes, sir,” Ambrose mumbled, sliding off a pair of spectacles as he studied the plate and began to slowly pick off pieces of tropical fruit from the Papay Fields. Cain arched a curious eyebrow and didn’t bother to ask if his charity wasn’t enough. “I’m allergic,” he explained with a weary smile. “It’s why I prefer apples.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Eventually, the plate was deigned adequate to eat and Ambrose finally abandoned his work to sit with his fork and knife and eat in that Royal Manner that everyone around the place seemed to have. Cain wouldn’t say it aloud, but he’d been damned glad that Jeb still ate like simple folk at breakfast, without that much daintiness in his hands. Cain watched Ambrose without flinching, bearing the brunt of a long gaze under the rim of his hat.
This was what he liked about Ambrose; he never faltered under a stare like that and occasionally got it in him to look back. There were depths to him that served them well on the road and were even better sitting in quiet rooms without needing to converse.
“The Queen wants to meet with us,” Ambrose finally spoke, when he had demolished nearly half the food on his plate. “But she says she doesn’t want to see either of us for a week or else we’re in great big trouble. Something like that. Apparently, you’re supposed to be playing with your son and I’m supposed to tinker around with my toys in here.” Ambrose didn’t sound very put out by that and truth told, Cain was glad for the reprieve. As much as he still wanted to hunt Zero down and make him pay for what he did, he missed spending quiet moments with Jeb and just being a father.
“A whole week, huh?” Cain said with a broad grin.
“And I doubt she’ll send us off immediately, given that I’ve informed her of the nature of the date thirteen days from now,” Ambrose noted, turning back to his machines, as if sensing that Cain was about to rain down an irritated glare on him. “Don’t be so put out, Cain,” Ambrose protested lightly. “Not everyone gets an event put together for them by the Queen of the O.Z.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate her undying kindness,” Cain replied evenly, forcing himself to slow down and not say something he’d regret, “but I don’t need a Royal Party.”
“Good. Because you’re not getting one,” Ambrose said, sounding annoyed himself. “Geez, Cain, have a little faith, why don’t you?” came the glitchy response that Cain barely saw coming. “I think it’s a dinner. Or is it coffee? Maybe it’s a dance. I don’t even know anymore.”
Cain forced himself to take a deep breath and appreciate the fact that someone around there at least cared enough to do something.
“Really, Cain,” Ambrose sounded more himself as he looked at the Tin Man over the frothing mist of the liquid nitrogen. In fact, he sounded almost soft, like there was something more to all this. “It’s not my fault, not the Queen’s, and no one’s fault but yours.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“You raised your son to be a good boy, a caring child, a loving progeny,” Ambrose said simply, turning his back to Cain to return to his work. “He told the Queen and myself that your birthday was coming up. He didn’t want you to do what you always do, in which you ignore the date and pretend as if no one in the realm gives a damn about you.”
Cain was struck speechless by the turn of events and was left thinking that maybe he should shut up a lot sooner in conversations.
“Jeb,” Cain echoed.
“Yes, your boy,” Ambrose concurred. “You should go spend time with him. Queen’s orders, after all.”
On the surface, it didn’t sound like much. To Cain’s practiced ear though, he could hear the subtle message within those words: I’d like to work on something now, so would you please go before you distract me for the rest of the day with inane chatter?
Cain didn’t need to be prodded twice and he tipped his hat to Ambrose on his way out, mumbling a polite ‘see you around, sunshine’ to him as he went, smiling to himself.
*
Even though Ambrose didn’t seem entirely sure on what the Queen had up her sleeve, Jeb had been bursting at the seams while he and Cain traversed the palace grounds in a ‘hunt’ for small field mice. “We’re having a big dinner! And the Queen wanted to add dancing,” Jeb added with a scowl. “She said I’d dance with DG and Az, but I don’t like dancing.”
He and his son were aligned in that.
Cain had used to love dancing. He had danced with Adora on their wedding night and hadn’t seemed to stop, even dancing to the sound of simple music from the radio while she was pregnant with Jeb. He equated dancing to peace, joy, and Adora Cain. Now, with her gone, he wasn’t sure what to think of it besides the fact that he’d probably be happy to go his whole life without hearing music ever again. Maybe that was too rash, but he was still a widower and some things took longer to heal than others.
He hoped that whole bit about dancing was just exaggeration. The part about the dinner was good though; Cain had long ago learned to appreciate a good, heavy warm meal in his stomach. When he and Ambrose were on the road, they’d never known when the next safe shelter was going to come along and it meant having to ration and be constantly grateful for whatever fell their way.
He’d put Jeb’s words out of mind until the date of his birth came up hard and fast and Cain couldn’t ignore it anymore, especially when Azkadellia was sent as an emissary to knock on his door. “Mr. Cain?” It was later than most dinners and he’d experienced a flicker of disappointment as he considered the possibility of there not being any dinner at all and it just being the imagination of Jeb and Ambrose’s undying optimism.
He’d made a concerted effort to not look like a mess, which translated to taking his hat and his vest off and tucking his shirt into a pair of fairly new black pants. It wasn’t much, but it took away from the image of him as a ruffian with no respect for a Queen who had done so much for him.
Azkadellia was, for lack of any other words, glowing. She was wearing an emerald green dress and her hair was pinned up, falling down over her sleek neck in curls. Now that she was fifteen, she should have been going through the awkward annuals of being a young woman, but there wasn’t an inch of it to her. Cain liked to think that the prettiest part about her was that she honestly didn’t know how beautiful she was becoming. It was a little thing, but it made the world to Cain. The Queen and Ahamo might have come to love Jeb like a child, but Cain was hard-pressed not to do the same with the Princesses.
“Everyone’s waiting for you,” Azkadellia spoke, not even bothering to hide her broad grin. “Ambrose said I should kick you if you need to move faster.”
“He would,” Cain said wryly.
Cain didn’t need any kicking that evening because he was more than happy to follow Azkadellia’s lead down the marble halls, the sound of soft music playing in the distance growing louder and louder with every step. Cain set his jaw, hearing the click of it as they walked and he came to the conclusion that there was going to be dancing. He’d do what he always did. He would stand there and make sure not to glower too heavily and drag Ambrose aside to keep his mind off of other matters, like always.
Azkadellia pushed open the heavy doors to reveal a small assembled crowd. DG and Jeb sat at a high table, flanked by the Queen and Ahamo and several of the Tin Men that Cain had worked with in his time.
While the Mystic Man was back in the palace, they hadn’t been able to get him off the vapours, not permanently. Every time they seemed to be close to an answer, something would happen overnight and he would be worse than ever. The Queen had quietly murmured that he was being poisoned with dark dreams and darker magic, but Cain wasn’t sure he was buying that.
“Happy birthday,” Ambrose offered, standing in front of the assembled group. The music was coming from a small radio in the corner of the room and no one looked to be dancing, to Cain’s relief. Azkadellia slipped away to rejoin Jeb and her sister while Cain turned his attention from the lavish meal on everyone’s plates to what was in Ambrose’s hands.
“What’s this?”
“Which of us has the memory issue?” Ambrose remarked with heavy sarcasm in his voice. “Two weeks ago, I told you I was making something for you.” But the thing Cain was more fixated on was the fact that it was being presented to him in a long jewellery box, the kind that husbands bought their wives in Central City to stop them from being angry about something or other. “Go on, it won’t bite.”
Cain reached out and took the box into his own hands, lifting the lid and staring at the contents for a long time.
It was long enough that the other guests started to make comments, started to wonder why Cain was hesitating so much. It was long enough that when Cain looked up at Ambrose, he caught a look of deep trepidation, as if the gift was poorly received.
“Well?”
It was a heart. It was a small heart that looked like crystal, but was no doubt made of Ambrose’s chemical compounds that he’d been rambling about. It glistened in the chandelier-provided light of the room and felt cool under Cain’s thumb.
Ambrose took a step closer to seal their words between the two of them. “It was something that you were always saying on the road that gave me the idea,” he said, words hushed.
Cain looked up in the narrow space between them, catching sight of the way Ambrose’s eyes seemed to glisten just like the crystal did, sparkling in the light. When they were in a perilous spot and Cain had to draw his gun, he’d always said the same six words to Ambrose before going forward.
Have courage. Have confidence. Have conviction.
“Have heart, Cain,” Ambrose offered quietly, retreating to the table and the waiting guests while Cain studied the small trinket.
It took him a good five minutes to be ready to join the din and when he did, the gift was tucked safely in his breast pocket in its new home.
tbc
Pairing: Ambrose/Cain, Queen/Ahamo
Disclaimer: I do not own them at all.
Summary: The Witch won't rest until she has the O.Z. in darkness, no matter how she must do it, no matter how long it takes.
Rating: PG-13 to R.
Notes: This acts as an AU to the entire Tin Man series and hinges on just one question: "What if DG hadn't let go?" Fifteen annuals pass and while some things may remain the same, many is different. For this part, the music is Together: The Ranconteurs. EXTREME thanks to
blackletter for being a wonderful & efficient beta.CHAPTER ONE: In which DG holds on, Zero takes matters into his own hands, Adora Cain is a casualty, Ambrose is given a lifetime of glitches, and Jeb Cain gets into Ambrose's bed before his father does.
CHAPTER TWO: In which the search for the Mystic Man begins, Cain makes failed attempts at bonding, Jeb hides well, and a tentative agreement is made between Ambrose and Cain.
Eventually, the questions came.
They were on their way South again on foot after their transportation had been stolen in the middle of the night, an event that left Cain in a sour mood for days. They had to camp out under the boughs of rocking trees and endure the winds when there were no inns to be found. Ambrose knew that the luxury of a warm bed wasn’t always possible, but it didn’t stop him from wishing for it.
A warm bed wasn’t the only thing he wished for, but he’d learned to keep quiet about that. Cain finally seemed more human and less like a haunted shell of a man who was nothing without his wife and Ambrose didn’t dare go back on all their progress. If the day came when Ambrose could tell Cain about what he felt, then it would. Until then, there was proximity on colder nights and warm looks shared over warmer meals and that was enough for him.
Then, oh, then, the questions.
“So what is it you have against Zero?”
They didn’t talk about how they had discovered the compound in the North and had it tucked under Cain’s large coat carefully or how it had taken seven months to find. Of course, getting back to the palace was a whole other kettle of fish. It could take another three months on foot – what with many of the roads in terrible condition this far north -- and Ambrose wasn’t looking forward to it, especially if it involved questions like these.
He’d ignored Cain for a good week, but Cain didn’t take that as a sign to stop. If anything, it just made him more stubborn, which gave Ambrose keen insight into the man. Stubborn, he checked off in his head. At the same time as being elated at discovering more about Cain’s personality, it was the sort of trait that Ambrose hated. Stubborn men, after all, make very poor significant others.
Not that Cain was Ambrose’s anything.
Nine days later, the questions were still coming from Cain while they sat around the fire and cooked their meagre dinners. “I can’t imagine a man like you would get so vengeful over something like a little smack on the head,” Cain said evenly, hat tipped low over his head, even though the moons were the only light that dared shine down on them. “So why Zero?”
“Do you really need to know?” Ambrose finally snapped irritably, scoffing as he ran a hand through his hair again and again, feeling the grimy texture of each strand.
Cain’s lengthy stare said that, yes, in fact, he wanted to hear every last detail until there was no breath left in Ambrose’s lungs or until his voice had given out.
Stubborn, stubborn men. Ambrose was beginning to remember why he absolutely despised spending all of his time around them. Cain wasn’t about to give up and Ambrose could hold out longer, but eventually, he would probably glitch and let it slip anyway and then what would be the point of fighting stubbornness with stubbornness?
So he sighed and broke a twig to toss into the fire, leaning forward into the warmth while the shadows flickered over his face, creating strange little shadows and shapes.
“Zero and I used to know each other when we were younger,” Ambrose admitted heavily. “Back at the Academy, I was in the higher classes and he happened to be the boy who made my life miserable.” It sounded so petty to cite it aloud, but if it had simply been about a few platinums stolen or an uncomfortable prank here or there, he wouldn’t have minded. It had been the constant and uncanny talent Zero had at making Ambrose suffer and every time he thought he could let his guard down, there he’d been with something worse.
A girlfriend had been stolen here, a nasty rumour there, a project or four sabotaged, deliberate destruction of property, a boyfriend stolen there. Zero’s focus had been admirable for their youth and no matter what Ambrose had set his eyes on, Zero had wanted to take away.
“Why?” Cain asked.
“I don’t know, we were boys,” Ambrose tiredly waved it away. “He was a bully and I was the target, pure and simple. If that sounds…well, infantile to you, then I’m sorry for carrying forward a grudge. No, I don’t like the man.” He also didn’t want him dead, but didn’t mention that to Cain. Bloodshed and justice were hardly ever the same thing and if Cain did something as vigilante-like as murder, then Ambrose would likely have to do something about it. It meant that Cain would no longer be in his life. “Zero always had a particular talent for cruelty that seemed to fester with age. Never did I think he was capable of murder, though.”
“Times change,” Cain said those two words forcefully and Ambrose sighed.
There were times between them that Ambrose had labelled ‘Adora Moments’ and this was another one of them. Cain would grow sullen and quiet at the mention of his wife. He wouldn’t return a sentence of conversation and was poor company all around. In the beginning, the Adora Moments could last for days. Then, it had become hours. Lately, though, the Adora Moments never lasted beyond a five-minute span and Ambrose looked on that as significant progress towards something, though the goal was as-of-yet unnamed.
It still didn’t mean that those minutes didn’t feel as though eternity had stepped in to drag out simple seconds into what felt like forever.
“We’ll find him,” Ambrose said, fingers tapping distractedly as he watched the fire they had been building start to gain more life and flicker higher than before.
And what happened when they did?
Ambrose wasn’t ready to deal in those hypotheticals yet, especially not at the rate his mind produced them for him. If ever there was a time that he wished for his mind to have an episode, now was that time.
Luckily, the stress of the recent journey obliged him with just that as he blanked out and ended up having to ask Cain who he was for the fourth time in two weeks.
*
Over the past three and a half annuals, there had been much afoot since Cain and Ambrose had first met each other and had begun their missions across the O.Z. in order to raise the defences of the castle (to large success) and had spent most of their time out on the road. They were returning from the North to warm greetings from all and the news that though more people seemed to be defecting to Zero’s malice, the defences of the palace and Central City were holding up admirably.
Cain had expected to come home and make a couple of repairs on his house before collecting Jeb in his arms to recount stories of the North to him. Then, he figured he’d listen to the list of royal adventures Jeb had experienced while Cain had been away.
To his complete surprise, he had been tackled with hugs by both the Princesses and his son as he ambled his way up the stairs to the front doors. “Mr. Cain!” DG shrieked happily, hugging tightly while Azkadellia laughed warmly and Jeb nuzzled his way in against Cain’s leg, holding on tight like a fungus.
Behind him, he could hear Ambrose snickering away. He wished he could be more irritated by the whole scene, but it was actually mildly endearing.
“Princesses,” Cain greeted politely. “Is there a reason for the clinging welcome?”
“Jeb’s been telling us stories,” a fourteen-annual-old Azkadellia said, brushing her hair from her cheek as she let go – the first to release him – and peered sheepishly up at Cain. She was growing up beautifully, her features gaining her mother’s beauty and her father’s strength and Cain worried for the poor boys that would fall in love with her, only to have the royal barrier of privilege keeping them away.
Cain was tempted to ask what kind of stories, but they were just kids and fun was fun. He crouched over to pick up DG in one arm, Jeb in the other and gave a heavy ‘oof’ that was only half-playful. The other half of him genuinely was stumbling under the heavy load.
Ambrose made his way to their side, curtsying to each of the Princesses before tweaking Jeb’s nose lightly. “You know, Cain,” Ambrose offered conversationally and politely, “there are other ways to prove your masculinity beyond breaking down doors and slowly breaking your back.”
“What’s breaking your back?” Jeb asked curiously, content to settle in as Cain walked them inside, trying to ignore how DG’s squirming was digging her knee into his ribs.
“It’s something your Daddy is doing to himself by being an overly masculine representation of the species,” Ambrose spoke helpfully, walking beside them at a slow clip. Azkadellia took the other side and Cain almost felt the strangest sense of home as he entered the doors.
“Ambrose, if you don’t want a show of my masculine strength applied to you personally, you should keep it quiet,” Cain warned very patiently.
When Cain looked over to see what effect that had, all he saw was that slow and coy smirk that Ambrose sometimes got.
“Maybe some other time,” Ambrose declined, prying DG out of Cain’s arms – to which Cain sighed gratefully at the load released. The Advisor adjusted the Princess as he set her down on the floor. “I believe the Princesses need to take me to the Queen for a much-needed conversation.” He wandered off with the girls, chatting away and looking the picture of grace in the halls.
Cain, on the other hand, was happy to take Jeb into his arms and study him carefully, giving him a onceover as Jeb preened proudly.
“I brought you something back from the North,” Cain said warmly, grinning broadly. “Someone I ran into told me that it was someone’s birthday in two days.”
Jeb’s eyes had lit up in the process, small fingers clasping desperately at Cain’s shirt. He and Ambrose had actually been behind schedule in getting back, but Cain had been desperate to insist that they get back somehow. He wasn’t going to miss Jeb’s birthday, not this annual. Eventually, they’d stolen a dilapidated truck in one of the bigger villages they’d come across and had used fuel and sheer determination to get back to the palace in time.
And here they were, with days to spare.
Cain had spent every night of their ten months away carving with his razor and stray pieces of strong wood that he found in forests and on shores in their travels. With enough patience and hard work, he had managed to put together something of a set and with borrowed paints, had brought them all to life. “C’mon, on your feet,” he said, setting Jeb down and getting out his bag to slide out the box containing each carefully crafted figure that made up a town of cowboys and horses and even a saloon or two in the style of the old myths.
Jeb took it carefully into his hands, sitting on his knees to run his hands over the wooden crate and stare reverently at it before staring upwards at Cain. “Father, can I open it?” he asked eagerly.
Jeb Cain was going to be seven annuals old in two days and Cain knew that he couldn’t deny him a thing in the world.
“You can open it anytime you want,” Cain promised, taking off his hat as he knelt to the ground to help Jeb open it up and watch the flickering expressions of joy on his face as he took out each wooden figurine and studied them with joy. There were more and more and just when a person might expect to find nothing else, a board lifted to reveal a whole second set.
Ten months had weighed long and heavy in his separation from his son and Cain had looked at the gift as a way to keep connected to him.
“Father, it’s amazing!” Jeb insisted, intent on arranging them in the lobby of the palace. “DG and Az and I are gonna have so much fun with them!” He was madly dashing to push them back into the box and it wouldn’t have taken a Viewer for Cain to know that Jeb was eager to show off his gift. He was running off with a peal of ‘thank you, thank you, thank you!’s back in Cain’s direction and the joy on Jeb’s face put a smile on Cain’s.
It was one of the rare smiles he got when he was genuinely happy, when his cheeks would lift and the smallest of lines appeared around his eyes.
Not that Cain knew it at the time, but someone else had seen that rare smile of his in that hallway.
With Jeb on his way to play with the Princesses – and honestly, sometimes Cain needed to sit back and just laugh at his life and how after four annuals, his son was living with royalty and was the best friend of two girls that would one day take the throne. He himself was travelling around the whole of the O.Z. with the Queen’s letters and her foremost advisor.
It wasn’t such a simple life for Wyatt Cain, any longer.
Now that he was back at the palace, he did what he always strived to do. It had become ritual over many a month and he wasn’t about to abandon it now. He always checked in with Ahamo with a quiet nod and a check that everything was well in Central City. Cain never could give up on his past and so much of it was tied to that shining city on the hill. He heard the voices in the study and only bothered to knock once on the door before he let himself in.
“Queen,” he greeted, “Ahamo,” Cain nodded to them both, hat clasped in his fingers. There were stray security guards amidst the shelves, but no one acknowledged their presence. Ahamo had told him once that while he thought them unnecessary, he wasn’t about to take any risks when it came to his family. Cain understood that to the core. “We just got in.”
“Cain,” Ahamo greeted warmly, clapping him on the back. “The Queen and I were hoping we could run something by you.”
“It is Jeb’s birthday in two days, is it not?” the Queen asked pleasantly, excitement sparkling in her eyes. “I have been planning a fête for him with my Azkadellia’s help. She has been such a dove for me and for Jeb. While DG sleeps, she takes him on walks around the gardens and explains each flower,” she relayed to Cain warmly.
Cain managed a barely-there smile though he swore he was damn near glowing inside to hear that even though the circumstances that led Jeb to the palace had been tragic at best, he was finally getting himself a happy life.
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate the party,” Cain said politely. “He’s never had a very big one in his life, past what Adora and I could give him.”
“The palace parties really are something else,” a fourth voice interrupted their conversation. “My Queen,” Ambrose spoke reverently as he entered, bowing his head. “Ahamo.” He turned to Cain and shared a secretive smile with him before offering a polite, “Cain,” to him as well. “Animals and flowers and on occasion, the Queen’s magic lights up the sky at night with the most brilliant of light shows that not even my fireworks could mimic.”
“You sound like you miss it,” Cain observed evenly. While he wanted Jeb to be happy, that same fear was lurking within him, that constant worry that Jeb was going to grow too accustomed to the fine life and then Cain was going to be the bad guy who took him away from it all. In the end, his desire to see his son happy won out, but just barely.
“Palace life is easy to miss,” Ambrose admitted, but he didn’t sound very torn up about it. “But then, sometimes, people find there’s a whole other life waiting in the wild for them.”
“Now you sound like you’re turning adventurer,” Ahamo noted with a wry grin. The Queen laughed and clasped Ahamo’s hand in her own while they shared their happy times and their smiles.
“Maybe,” Ambrose admitted. “Well, Cain? Are you going to let your son have a party?”
“Why not?” he sighed. “I have the feeling that he’ll get one, no matter what I say.”
*
The party was, to Ambrose’s smug delight, everything he had promised it would be and more. Cain had never seen so much of a crowd in all his life and he wasn’t even certain how many people in attendance knew Jeb. For all he knew, his boy had met the lot of them in his time at the palace and Cain would be none the wiser. More than that, the crowd filled him with a general sense of unease and eventually, he informed Azkadellia that he was going to go inside and to keep an eye out on Jeb for him.
She had dutifully agreed and had shown him her gift for Jeb before Cain had a chance to escape. She had made him a small windmill for his town, powered by her magic so that it would always move, even when there was no wind to be had.
Cain had to admit that Azkadellia and DG were both good girls and it was likely that they were good for Jeb, who needed a feminine presence in his life. Still, they were a different class than Jeb Cain (or his father) could ever hope to be.
He’d absconded to the quiet and darkened halls of the palace to pace up and down, enjoying the silence. He’d gotten used to it being good and quiet, except for one exception…
“Cain?”
Ah, there it was. His exception. Cain smiled wryly and turned to find Ambrose leaning out of one of the rooms, the light spilling out onto the floor.
“What are you doing out here? I swear, you’re like a bull with your pacing,” he muttered.
“Shouldn’t you be at that party of yours?” In fact, if he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Ambrose at the party since Jeb had dove face-first into the large cake, much to Cain and the Queen’s mutual chagrin. “In fact, why aren’t you out there? The Queen and the Princesses are about to dazzle the sky, or so I hear.”
“I put together the plans for the design,” Ambrose waved it off with a distracted mumble, retreating into the room and arousing enough curiosity in Cain to follow him. He’d left the door open, after all, and that was just a subtle signal to Cain that Ambrose wanted him to ask questions. Cain turned the corner to find himself face-first with a seemingly endless room filled with bubbling creations, lights, and things that made strange noises.
This looked to be Ambrose’s mad laboratory.
It took Cain more than a minute to pass the shock that came with seeing a room like that for the first time and by the time he’d found a question, Ambrose was already off with a pair of goggles on his face, tinkering with something that was foaming over with thick fog. “The Queen say where she needs us to be next?”
“I’m sure she’ll mention it,” Ambrose said, sounding worlds away. “At breakfast or at lunch or…huh, you think there could be a meal between the two?”
“People call it brunch, Ambrose,” Cain said patiently. After more than three annuals, he could see an episode (or a glitch, whatever they were calling it) coming a mile off. There was a whole body change to Ambrose, a loosening of the synapses or whatever you wanted to call it. They never lasted very long and it was actually almost endearing when Ambrose had the moments.
If anyone ever tortured him, he’d never admit he thought they were ‘endearing’. That was between his brain and his still-cold heart.
“Huh. Well, I bet it’s a great meal,” he mumbled, picking up a pair of tongs and extracting something from the container. “This is liquid nitrogen,” he said, whispering, as if the presence of the container deserved awe. Ambrose was wearing a thick pair of gloves as he took a crystalline form out of the vat. “When combined with some of the Ozian elements, it creates an unbreakable crystal with the density of diamonds, but the beauty of eternal ice.”
He twirled the large chunk for Cain to see before setting it down. “The Queen built aspects of the Northern Palace out of this combination of chemicals. It’s why it stands up against so many intruders.”
“So what’s that one for?”
“You.”
Cain gave Ambrose a wary look, not accustomed to accepting gifts. “Me.”
“Well, not yet. Obviously it’s not done,” Ambrose said, overly critical of his own work as always. If Cain had learned anything about the man, it was that he was never content with something until he had gone over it again and again, perfecting every last little detail. “I’d like to have it finished before we leave. I know your birthday is coming up. Two weeks after Jeb’s, right?” Ambrose verified, though Cain couldn’t even manage an answer.
He’d never told him that.
“Anyway, it should be done before we leave,” Ambrose was repeating himself, waving Cain off distractedly. “Go, spend time with Jeb. And bring him this.” He offered a large box out to Cain, who took it and offered it a suspicious look. “It’s not explosive, Cain,” Ambrose sighed. “It’s a sort of projector. With the magic of the Princesses, they and Jeb can create their own little adventures and watch them play out on that. It’s got Moratanium lined into it to let magic flow through it with ease.”
Cain was still hesitant to go, but when Ambrose started forcibly shooing him out the door with a hand pushed to his back, then his behind, and then his arm while Cain laughed in protest. “Okay! I’m going,” he assured, lingering in the door to look over Ambrose and give the gift a considerate look. “Thanks, Ambrose. For everything.”
“I just hope Jeb likes it.”
Cain knew that he would and that meant almost everything to him.
With a deep breath and renewed spirits, Cain took the gift and made his way into the fray of Jeb’s party once more. This time, the sound of loud music and playful conversation around him actually made him feel welcome rather than a stranger.
*
During breakfast, there were remarkably fewer faces than usual, which Cain attributed to the eager imbibing of spiked punch the night before, after all the children had been put to bed and the party continued on in the garden until the early hours of the morn when the moons were in the sky. Though the city was still at unrest and there were whispers of a growing army in the distance, the citizens had been thirsty for a night without worry. Now, the morning after showed that their carefree joys were not without consequence.
DG was half-atop the table to grasp for the warm biscuits and she plucked one while still standing on the thick oak, babbling away to Ahamo about all the creatures they had seen and how she hadn’t been afraid of a single one of them.
“DG, my angel, please,” the Queen pleaded simply and with no more words, DG made her way down. Cain had been sitting at the end of the table with a weather-eye on the door for Ambrose’s entrance, but he never did join them.
Azkadellia and Jeb kept him company while he watched the door, recounting the list of gifts that Jeb had received the night before.
“You’re going to thank everyone for them, right?” Cain said, making sure to instill lessons of manners while he was still around, lest Adora’s ghost slap him around for being a neglectful father.
“I’ll write proper letters, even if it’ll make my hands hurt,” he agreed. “Tutor’s been teaching me how to write.”
There was another pang at Cain’s heart, this time at the thought of other people teaching his son how to live. He kept it inside with a grit of his teeth and refused to say anything aloud. So he returned his gaze to the door and continued to wait for Ambrose until he felt a hand tugging at the sleeve of his pale-blue button down.
“Mr. Cain?” Azkadellia said politely. “Sometimes, Ambrose skips meals because he loses track of time in his laboratory while working on his inventions,” she said helpfully. “I used to bring him food and he would teach me things about the elements and the history of the O.Z.”
Cain gave Azkadellia a curious look tempered with gratitude as he started to bundle up a couple of fruits on a plate with some meat, grasping cutlery in his hand and pressing something of a fatherly kiss atop her hair. “Thanks, kid,” he said, ruffling Jeb’s hair (seeing as he was so preoccupied with playing with the wooden horse to even look up at the conversation) and making his way down the now-familiar halls to the room he had only discovered the night before.
He got lost twice on his way down, having to ask various guards along the way where he was going exactly. He probably looked like an idiot, wandering his way uselessly down the halls with a plate of fruit and meat in front of him.
Eventually, it was Ambrose’s loud cursing that led him to the laboratory.
Cain smiled to himself as he wandered into the lab and set the plate down without any fanfare, jabbing at it with his thumb and making sure Ambrose didn’t just ignore his entrance. “Sit,” Cain ordered. “Eat.”
“Yes, sir,” Ambrose mumbled, sliding off a pair of spectacles as he studied the plate and began to slowly pick off pieces of tropical fruit from the Papay Fields. Cain arched a curious eyebrow and didn’t bother to ask if his charity wasn’t enough. “I’m allergic,” he explained with a weary smile. “It’s why I prefer apples.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Eventually, the plate was deigned adequate to eat and Ambrose finally abandoned his work to sit with his fork and knife and eat in that Royal Manner that everyone around the place seemed to have. Cain wouldn’t say it aloud, but he’d been damned glad that Jeb still ate like simple folk at breakfast, without that much daintiness in his hands. Cain watched Ambrose without flinching, bearing the brunt of a long gaze under the rim of his hat.
This was what he liked about Ambrose; he never faltered under a stare like that and occasionally got it in him to look back. There were depths to him that served them well on the road and were even better sitting in quiet rooms without needing to converse.
“The Queen wants to meet with us,” Ambrose finally spoke, when he had demolished nearly half the food on his plate. “But she says she doesn’t want to see either of us for a week or else we’re in great big trouble. Something like that. Apparently, you’re supposed to be playing with your son and I’m supposed to tinker around with my toys in here.” Ambrose didn’t sound very put out by that and truth told, Cain was glad for the reprieve. As much as he still wanted to hunt Zero down and make him pay for what he did, he missed spending quiet moments with Jeb and just being a father.
“A whole week, huh?” Cain said with a broad grin.
“And I doubt she’ll send us off immediately, given that I’ve informed her of the nature of the date thirteen days from now,” Ambrose noted, turning back to his machines, as if sensing that Cain was about to rain down an irritated glare on him. “Don’t be so put out, Cain,” Ambrose protested lightly. “Not everyone gets an event put together for them by the Queen of the O.Z.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate her undying kindness,” Cain replied evenly, forcing himself to slow down and not say something he’d regret, “but I don’t need a Royal Party.”
“Good. Because you’re not getting one,” Ambrose said, sounding annoyed himself. “Geez, Cain, have a little faith, why don’t you?” came the glitchy response that Cain barely saw coming. “I think it’s a dinner. Or is it coffee? Maybe it’s a dance. I don’t even know anymore.”
Cain forced himself to take a deep breath and appreciate the fact that someone around there at least cared enough to do something.
“Really, Cain,” Ambrose sounded more himself as he looked at the Tin Man over the frothing mist of the liquid nitrogen. In fact, he sounded almost soft, like there was something more to all this. “It’s not my fault, not the Queen’s, and no one’s fault but yours.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“You raised your son to be a good boy, a caring child, a loving progeny,” Ambrose said simply, turning his back to Cain to return to his work. “He told the Queen and myself that your birthday was coming up. He didn’t want you to do what you always do, in which you ignore the date and pretend as if no one in the realm gives a damn about you.”
Cain was struck speechless by the turn of events and was left thinking that maybe he should shut up a lot sooner in conversations.
“Jeb,” Cain echoed.
“Yes, your boy,” Ambrose concurred. “You should go spend time with him. Queen’s orders, after all.”
On the surface, it didn’t sound like much. To Cain’s practiced ear though, he could hear the subtle message within those words: I’d like to work on something now, so would you please go before you distract me for the rest of the day with inane chatter?
Cain didn’t need to be prodded twice and he tipped his hat to Ambrose on his way out, mumbling a polite ‘see you around, sunshine’ to him as he went, smiling to himself.
*
Even though Ambrose didn’t seem entirely sure on what the Queen had up her sleeve, Jeb had been bursting at the seams while he and Cain traversed the palace grounds in a ‘hunt’ for small field mice. “We’re having a big dinner! And the Queen wanted to add dancing,” Jeb added with a scowl. “She said I’d dance with DG and Az, but I don’t like dancing.”
He and his son were aligned in that.
Cain had used to love dancing. He had danced with Adora on their wedding night and hadn’t seemed to stop, even dancing to the sound of simple music from the radio while she was pregnant with Jeb. He equated dancing to peace, joy, and Adora Cain. Now, with her gone, he wasn’t sure what to think of it besides the fact that he’d probably be happy to go his whole life without hearing music ever again. Maybe that was too rash, but he was still a widower and some things took longer to heal than others.
He hoped that whole bit about dancing was just exaggeration. The part about the dinner was good though; Cain had long ago learned to appreciate a good, heavy warm meal in his stomach. When he and Ambrose were on the road, they’d never known when the next safe shelter was going to come along and it meant having to ration and be constantly grateful for whatever fell their way.
He’d put Jeb’s words out of mind until the date of his birth came up hard and fast and Cain couldn’t ignore it anymore, especially when Azkadellia was sent as an emissary to knock on his door. “Mr. Cain?” It was later than most dinners and he’d experienced a flicker of disappointment as he considered the possibility of there not being any dinner at all and it just being the imagination of Jeb and Ambrose’s undying optimism.
He’d made a concerted effort to not look like a mess, which translated to taking his hat and his vest off and tucking his shirt into a pair of fairly new black pants. It wasn’t much, but it took away from the image of him as a ruffian with no respect for a Queen who had done so much for him.
Azkadellia was, for lack of any other words, glowing. She was wearing an emerald green dress and her hair was pinned up, falling down over her sleek neck in curls. Now that she was fifteen, she should have been going through the awkward annuals of being a young woman, but there wasn’t an inch of it to her. Cain liked to think that the prettiest part about her was that she honestly didn’t know how beautiful she was becoming. It was a little thing, but it made the world to Cain. The Queen and Ahamo might have come to love Jeb like a child, but Cain was hard-pressed not to do the same with the Princesses.
“Everyone’s waiting for you,” Azkadellia spoke, not even bothering to hide her broad grin. “Ambrose said I should kick you if you need to move faster.”
“He would,” Cain said wryly.
Cain didn’t need any kicking that evening because he was more than happy to follow Azkadellia’s lead down the marble halls, the sound of soft music playing in the distance growing louder and louder with every step. Cain set his jaw, hearing the click of it as they walked and he came to the conclusion that there was going to be dancing. He’d do what he always did. He would stand there and make sure not to glower too heavily and drag Ambrose aside to keep his mind off of other matters, like always.
Azkadellia pushed open the heavy doors to reveal a small assembled crowd. DG and Jeb sat at a high table, flanked by the Queen and Ahamo and several of the Tin Men that Cain had worked with in his time.
While the Mystic Man was back in the palace, they hadn’t been able to get him off the vapours, not permanently. Every time they seemed to be close to an answer, something would happen overnight and he would be worse than ever. The Queen had quietly murmured that he was being poisoned with dark dreams and darker magic, but Cain wasn’t sure he was buying that.
“Happy birthday,” Ambrose offered, standing in front of the assembled group. The music was coming from a small radio in the corner of the room and no one looked to be dancing, to Cain’s relief. Azkadellia slipped away to rejoin Jeb and her sister while Cain turned his attention from the lavish meal on everyone’s plates to what was in Ambrose’s hands.
“What’s this?”
“Which of us has the memory issue?” Ambrose remarked with heavy sarcasm in his voice. “Two weeks ago, I told you I was making something for you.” But the thing Cain was more fixated on was the fact that it was being presented to him in a long jewellery box, the kind that husbands bought their wives in Central City to stop them from being angry about something or other. “Go on, it won’t bite.”
Cain reached out and took the box into his own hands, lifting the lid and staring at the contents for a long time.
It was long enough that the other guests started to make comments, started to wonder why Cain was hesitating so much. It was long enough that when Cain looked up at Ambrose, he caught a look of deep trepidation, as if the gift was poorly received.
“Well?”
It was a heart. It was a small heart that looked like crystal, but was no doubt made of Ambrose’s chemical compounds that he’d been rambling about. It glistened in the chandelier-provided light of the room and felt cool under Cain’s thumb.
Ambrose took a step closer to seal their words between the two of them. “It was something that you were always saying on the road that gave me the idea,” he said, words hushed.
Cain looked up in the narrow space between them, catching sight of the way Ambrose’s eyes seemed to glisten just like the crystal did, sparkling in the light. When they were in a perilous spot and Cain had to draw his gun, he’d always said the same six words to Ambrose before going forward.
Have courage. Have confidence. Have conviction.
“Have heart, Cain,” Ambrose offered quietly, retreating to the table and the waiting guests while Cain studied the small trinket.
It took him a good five minutes to be ready to join the din and when he did, the gift was tucked safely in his breast pocket in its new home.
tbc
Tags:
no subject
Wouldn't Ambrose bow? Just curious.
That gift sounds aboslutely lovely. If I knew anything about chemicals I think I would try to make one.
no subject
And thank you for reading!
no subject
no subject
This part made me laugh:
“Ambrose, if you don’t want a show of my masculine strength applied to you personally, you should keep it quiet,”
as did Ambrose's reply of "Maybe some other time."
MUAH!
Much enjoyed. :)
no subject
And this is how geekish I am. I bought earrings that represent the cut that the heart would be.no subject
This is charming, and I understand entirely, as personally I tend to express my geekish love in knitted items. ^^
no subject
The childern are my favorites, actually. You write them just so adorably. Jeb is definitely Wyatt's little boy. With his toy horses and cowboys now.
=] Keep up the amazing job.
no subject
Thank you for reading!
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Thank you for reading!
no subject
no subject
BUT thank you for reading!
no subject
:sniff:
I am loving this look at Cain. The O.Z.
The change in its history.
I am hooked of thought of the Az and DJ growing up.
Az not under the influence of the witch.
Cain being forced in many ways to change some of his outlooks on life.
I'm looking forward to the rest.
no subject
no subject
no subject