Feb. 8th, 2008 09:12 am
Longest Battle 4/8
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lovely_ambitionThe Longest Battle 4/8
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 Last Goodbye: Monsters Are Waiting. EXTREME thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
blackletter for being a wonderful & efficient beta. This part is about 2,000 words longer than the others, so enjoy!
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.
CHAPTER THREE: In which Ambrose reveals why he hates Zero so much, it's Jeb's and then Wyatt's birthday, and Cain finds out that you can never have too much heart.
“What do you know of Viewers, Cain?” the Queen asked, two days after Cain’s birthday. Things had gone back to normal with alarming speed. Reports trickled in about murders in towns, cities, and villages, voyagers sent missives back to the palace to describe the state of decay that fell on farms and forests both and the general air of paranoia had settled into the O.Z. with a firm attitude that it wasn’t going anywhere at all.
Cain had opted to avoid breakfast for a walk with the Queen around the gardens, having to slow his pace every once in a while, so he didn’t get ahead of her. The Queen liked to walk slowly and he got the feeling that it was because it gave an air of calm, made people think twice about what they did and said.
“Nothing that myths haven’t taught me,” Cain admitted. “I’ve met one or two in my time, but they were either prisoners or witnesses.”
“They have an uncanny ability that may help us to discover exactly the locations in the realm this darkness is being brought from,” the Queen murmured, clasping her hands before her as she sashayed along with slow grace. “Perhaps even to know what will solve this battle best.”
It didn’t take a genius of Ambrose’s proportions to get just what the Queen was asking of them.
“You want us to find a Viewer,” Cain interpreted, thumbs hooked into the loops of his pants as he ambled along, always forcing himself to have to slow down so he didn’t outpace the Queen by two steps for her every one. “Any idea where they live?”
“West of the Papay Fields, I have heard.”
Which wasn’t exactly an address, but it also wasn’t a ‘somewhere in the O.Z.’ It was like an answer between a glimmer of hope and a complete lack of it. A needle in a small haystack, but it was still a haystack.
“We’ll leave soon as possible,” Cain said.
“Not yet.”
Normally, the Queen was relaxed and quiet, a picture of grace. Now, with two simple words, Cain understood just how much power was running beneath the surface. He looked at her, trying to will himself not to flinch in the face of her icy-stare.
“I have one more idea,” she spoke, her tone soft again as though she had never spoken up with such power, with a voice that could bring on a storm. “One additional thought in order to flush out the perpetrator of such cruel acts against our realm, though it is not a happy idea in the least.”
“I can deal with unhappy ideas.”
“I am going to exile you and Ambrose for a period of three annuals, long enough for anyone to believe that this is not merely a frivolous act of strategy,” the Queen said (though it was nothing but a plot), standing as still as a statue before her gardenias and her roses. Cain stared her down, wondering if she were joking or not. The longest Cain had been away from his boy had still been only a period of months and Cain wasn’t sure he wanted to test how long he could be away from him. The only small relief was knowing he wouldn’t be out there alone, but Ambrose’s company only went so far.
Clearly, his displeasure with the whole idea was evident on his face.
“I am sorry,” the Queen offered gently. “The Advisors recommended it and I agree and Ambrose does as well that it is the best chance to bring Zero into the open and to bring an end to such senseless destruction of our land and to stop the harm to my people. It is our best chance to end this,” she pleaded. “If Zero believes you to be exiled and without any avenue of safe haven, he may seek you out. Both of you. I cannot profess to understand him, but exile drives you to the places where Zero dwells, leaves you with nothing in the eyes of thieves. It is a chance.”
“Ambrose agreed to this,” Cain said, voice thick with irritation and the whole of him swamped with the desire to shoot something.
“Yes.”
Cain took a deep breath and rubbed at his eyes. It was a chance to find Zero. That was all he had to keep reminding himself. “On one condition. I spend the next week explaining to Jeb why I won’t be seeing him until his tenth birthday,” he said, the words angry, but in agreement to the Queen’s plan.
“He will be well-cared for.”
Yeah, but not by Cain. And that was the part he still couldn’t get over.
*
There were a dozen places to look for a Viewer when it came to ‘west of the Papay fields’ and Cain didn’t have the first guess as to where they’d find one. The truth was that he was hoping they’d find Zero in this little fake-exile and Cain could finally do something about all the hatred and the resentment that had been building in him for so long. They’d only been out of the palace for two months and already, Cain missed Jeb. His boy had understood why Cain and Ambrose had to leave, but that didn’t mean that either of the Cains had to like it one bit.
Jeb had promised to remember him and always honour Cain. Cain had promised to keep Jeb close to his heart, placed right beside the physical representation that Ambrose had concocted for him; though, the crystal was a lot more romantic than the real thing, cut in the shape of hearts in fairy tales and myths, where no one died and everyone got a happy ending.
“Well, what do you think?” Ambrose asked tiredly as they came to a stop to set up camp for the night. They had been through four towns already and while some of them had been helpful in narrowing down the span of their search, no one had given them a definitive answer about a Viewer.
That needle was still lost in that damn haystack.
“Due West, probably,” Cain remarked, staring out to the horizon. He was glancing at a scribble of a map he had been eking out on their trip. “We’ve hit just about every town there is to the North and the South’s just Lake-folk,” Cain spoke, folding up his little representation and eyeing the small fire that Ambrose had managed to get together. He had to give a quiet sound of approval when he saw the fire built up a lot better than it had been some time ago. Ambrose was a fast learner – thanks to that big brain of his – and Cain was starting to wonder just how long it’d be before Ambrose was better than everything Cain could do, too. He wasn’t looking forward to that day so much.
“We could split up?” Ambrose suggested.
Even if it would get things done faster, Cain didn’t like the sound of that one bit. “No,” he decided firmly. “We stick together. Who knows what we’ll come across and there’s strength in numbers.” He gave a nod. “We stick together.”
“That will take longer,” Ambrose countered, prying at a loose thread on his coat.
“That’s just too bad.”
They spent the next several days in quiet search of a Viewer, Cain’s displeasure with the whole trek still evident enough to prevent anything like civil conversation and Ambrose never once complained about it, not like he would have annuals ago. Cain liked to think it was because they had finally begun to adjust to one another’s tendencies, like a well-timed dance around a main objective, like an effective battalion’s strike. Eventually, Cain let some of his foul mood slip away by asking curiously and in few words about Viewers.
Ambrose’s lengthy and passionate explanation of their abilities and habits was well worth the asking.
The days drew on a lot faster than Cain had thought they would and with a mission to pursue, he could almost feel time slipping away. He had everything figured out in his head. They’d find this Viewer and see what was really behind all this – whether it really was a witch like the girls kept insisting – or whether it was something more rooted in human evil. They’d get the parts to Ambrose’s little pet-project, this ‘machine’ that would apparently protect the palace and maybe Central City if he could figure it out (Cain didn’t doubt that he could figure out any problem, given some of the equations he’d watched Ambrose go through over the annuals they’d known each other). Then they’d go home after rooting out Zero and giving him exactly what he’d earned.
Cain liked having a plan. It meant that the chances of something unexpected happening were severely reduced, if only on the basis that there was a way to deal with every possible chance of something going awry.
*
Eventually, they accidentally met a Viewer.
Ambrose had been going through the woods to search for something to conduct fire better than the damp sticks and logs they had been throwing on the fire and a dry patch of woods had caught his eye. In the process of bending over to bundle some up in his arms, he realized that he was being watched. He righted himself, clothes shifting in the sudden movement, and then Ambrose watched right back.
He was currently in the middle of a staring contest with a very surprised-looking Viewer.
“Oh, hello,” Ambrose said, his mind choosing the worst possible time to glitch out and go fuzzy. Why was he in the forest again? And why were the sticks poking his arms? “You’re a Viewer, aren’t you? We’ve been looking for you.”
It was, Ambrose reasoned later, simple chance that he hadn’t run off at Ambrose’s greeting.
*
In all his annuals, Ambrose had never personally had a conversation with a Viewer. He had been audience to many who chose to take tea with the Queen, but he had always been called away before he could ask all the questions that brewed in his brain about just how their gift worked and whether their abilities of healing were universal or simply a learned technique.
Now in the decaying orchards and fields of the West, Ambrose had finally met a Viewer for himself.
“Raw,” he said his name was with a lilting and haunted tone. Cain was doing his best to ignore both Ambrose and Raw as he set up the perimeter and though usually Ambrose’s gaze was drawn to his travelling companion, he was too fascinated by meeting Raw to allow himself to be so easily distracted by Cain. Ambrose asked why he was so upset, why he could be so sad. They had met him after Raw had been on the run from terrible creatures in the sky that Ambrose thought only existed in myth -- mobats. “O.Z. hurts,” Raw explained slowly. “Raw feel its pain.”
Cain started to pay attention at that, taking long strides towards them.
“You can feel the O.Z.?”
“People suffer,” Raw confirmed, glancing up at Cain and slowly reaching a hand out to rest on Cain’s arm. Though the Tin Man flinched, he held bravely where he stood, and Ambrose was deathly curious as to just what Raw was seeing. In fact, his curiosity seemed to eat at him, desperate and loud and ever-present in Ambrose’s mind.
And it wasn’t just curiosity.
He felt the hot flash of something like envy that Raw could close his eyes and see inside Cain when Ambrose had spent annuals travelling with him and barely knew more than the man’s name, his son’s habits, and his previous job. The searing jealousy cut through Ambrose and nearly made him sick to the stomach, but he was calm and patient and he could quell the feelings. Eventually, Raw let go of Cain and Ambrose forced himself to plaster an amiable smile on his face.
“Good man,” Raw opined softly. “Brave man.”
“How can you feel if the entire O.Z. is hurting?” Cain demanded, never willing to do anything but make headway in their seemingly hopeless journey forward. Ambrose rubbed at his eyes and tried to align some sort of comforting word to place into this conversation, to act like the good cop when Cain was so bitterly determined to do them ill by being so aggressive. “What else can you feel? Who’s behind all this? Is it Zero?”
“Plans are darker, deeper, worse than Zero,” Raw said gravely, gaze flickering between Cain – who was bearing in ever closer – and Ambrose, who had yet to take his gaze off of Cain, caught between what he wanted to do and what he knew he ought to do. He knew he ought to settle Raw down, but he wanted to take Cain aside and tell him to calm down, already.
In the end, Ambrose always did what he had to.
“Raw, why don’t we get some air, I’m still curious about your people,” Ambrose offered.
“Yes,” Raw concurred and after a sharp look of warning was shot in Cain’s direction, Ambrose began to wander amongst the half-rotting trees in the orchard, stepping on pieces of once-fresh fruits every now and again. “Ambrose is good man too.”
He paused in his step to give Raw a wary look, laughing nervously as his mind blanked out and he found himself in one of his episodes. “I didn’t tell you my name,” he blurted. “It’s Glitch.”
“Not to Cain.”
Cain, Ambrose cursed under his breath as his mind slowly came back to him. Raw had reached into Cain’s mind and had pulled out all manner of ideas and notions and in the process, he had managed to discover Ambrose’s name as well. Ambrose knew that protesting at this point in time would make him look like a fool and he muttered a quick word to himself to bring this up with Cain later. Even if they were taunting Zero out from under his grimy rock, they couldn’t go around letting every Viewer, Wizard, or Peasant know that the Queen’s Advisor was stumbling around, fake exile or not.
“Not Cain’s fault,” Raw spoke deeply.
Ambrose scoffed, aiming to retort something sarcastic in the vein that it was indeed very much his fault, but before he could do that he noticed that Raw had lightly clasped Ambrose’s forearm with his hand. There were only two things he could possibly do; twitch and pull away desperately or give in and let Raw see everything.
Out of some morbid desire to know, Ambrose didn’t move an inch.
Raw seemed to be overwhelmed by everything he was seeing and he closed his eyes simply to process it. At first, Ambrose had been proud of himself for having the capacity to have so many thoughts, so many ideas, that he could garner such a reaction. Soon, though, he began to be wary and worried, concerned that it was too many feelings that were pushing Raw over the edge to this reaction.
Eventually, Raw pulled away.
“Well?” Ambrose asked, sounding breathless, as if he had just been chased through the whole of the O.Z. Though there was no cause for it, no rhyme, no reason, it was all he could do not to shake Raw and demand to know what it was he saw, demand to know why he wasn’t telling him immediately. Every second that went by only served to make Ambrose more and more nervous. “What did you see? Feel? What…?”
Raw opened his eyes and looked at Ambrose with something like pity in his eyes.
“You care for Cain,” Raw assessed, too many emotions flickering over Raw’s face for Ambrose to be truly comfortable. He had seen something deep down in Ambrose’s psyche and though he wasn’t sure just what it was yet, he also had the feeling that he didn’t want it on show for the world. “Love.”
Ambrose twitched, one shaky hand fixing stray tendrils of unruly hair as the other hand smoothed over his coat in a fluid motion. “Pardon?”
“Love,” Raw echoed his previous assessment. “Ambrose has love for Cain.”
While it wasn’t the strangest diagnosis in the world, it certainly hadn’t been the one that Ambrose had been expecting, not in a thousand annuals. Of course he noticed Cain’s physical assets; he had noticed those within the first few hours of meeting the man. Ambrose had a keen eye for beautiful things, after all, proved by his trailing list of former liaisons within his bedroom walls. But love? Ambrose curled up around that searing feel of hot jealousy against his stomach, wondering if that could possibly be indicative of anything.
When he thought about it though, it was too easy to pin down. Raw had said it himself.
Brave man. Good man.
“Yes,” Ambrose finally confirmed shakily, clearing his throat and willing his voice to do anything but sound so out of sorts. “Yes, I do. He doesn’t know.” He met Raw’s gaze, leaning in to keep the quiet words between them. “I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
“Cain yearns for love too,” Raw’s words caught Ambrose slightly off-guard because of their absolute vagueness. Ambrose wasn’t a complete idiot when it came to love. He wasn’t an idiot at all, but for the occasions when his brain would falter and give out on him. He knew that only four and a half annuals had passed since Wyatt Cain had lost his wife and the man was so wholly devoted that Ambrose fathomed it could be thirteen annuals more before Cain even looked at the world with the eyes of a man ready to move on. Raw’s words gave Ambrose that blissful, yet stupid emotion of hope and he wondered if they weren’t carefully crafted that way to keep Ambrose’s optimism up in such a dark time.
He was probably thinking too much again.
“Thank you, Raw,” Ambrose finally offered, with genuine gratitude brimming in his voice. “Will you stay with us and help us make our way to find the pieces of the machine we need?”
It seemed to be the right thing to say in return because that was the first time since he had met the Viewer that Ambrose saw genuine delight flicker across his face. Everyone wanted to be needed, Ambrose supposed, just in a variety of different ways.
*
“You really think that Zero’s going to buy this exile crap?” Cain asked, crouched over on one knee and trying to light a fire using only twigs. Ambrose was completely distracted, seeing as he had set himself up several feet behind the blond and was watching his behind through the very tight pants he always wore.
It only vaguely occurred to him that Cain was asking a question.
“There’s no harm done either way,” Ambrose supposed aloud, wandering to Cain’s side to pluck one of the twigs from him. “Honestly, let me hold this,” he muttered. “At the worst, we come back with all the parts needed to create the shield, the Queen exerts her royal forgiveness and we’re allowed back into civilization.”
This close to Cain and especially in the cold and damp weather, Ambrose could feel the warmth coming from his body. It was intoxicating at the same time as it drove him mad, wanting to do more than just stand there.
“How about the part where I haven’t seen my son in over an annual?” Cain’s response made Ambrose wince and freeze up. It wasn’t that Ambrose had forgotten about that part, it was just that he had taken to avoiding bringing it up, like the topic of Adora.
Soon enough, they were able to get a small fire kindled between their combined efforts. In the woods behind them, Raw had gone off to find something to eat for the night, promising that his skills would find them something fresh and lean.
“Isn’t finding Zero worth it?” Ambrose questioned. “And what about finding the pieces for the machine?”
The machine had been Ambrose’s reason for agreeing to this ‘exile’. While in Milltown, he had spoken to Father Vue regarding a defense system for the palace that combined the Queen’s magic, basic mechanics, and the various angles and architecture of the palace to create a type of shield that could be temporarily brought up to defend against invaders, whether tangible or not. They had roughly a fourth of all the parts that they would need, which lay in various villages and in the homes of specialists all around the O.Z.
Cain’s glare was answer enough to Ambrose’s question and he sighed and took several steps back to sit across from Cain and try and pretend that the hate in his glare wasn’t actually directed at Ambrose.
Eventually, Cain’s annoyed glance relented and he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Headache?” Ambrose asked quietly.
“Yeah.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to offer help, to lay hands on him and take all the troubles and pains away. It was a selfish thought, a need to indulge himself, but Ambrose was growing tired of nothing. They sat in silence, the fire crackling between them with deep intensity and eventually, Ambrose gave in after watching Cain rub his temples again and again, staring right into the fire like the stubborn idiot he was.
“Take your hat off,” Ambrose said with a slight sigh as he rose to his feet and pried it off before Cain could say a word. “And lie down in my lap.” He had arranged himself on one of the logs, giving Cain more than enough room to do so.
Of course, that was if the hateful glare would go away again.
“Nothing personal, but the last person I did that with was my wife and…”
Ambrose had seconds before it became an Adora Moment and he decided that there was nothing to lose. If he made a mess of things, Cain was still bound to his side until they found all the parts for the machine. “Lie down and stop complaining,” he interrupted. “Cain, honestly, I’m trying to help you.”
It didn’t occur to him until much later that help was not something that Cain had much experience with accepting in his life.
Eventually, though, he relented. It gave Ambrose a glimmer of hope that maybe the stubbornness in Cain wasn’t so deeply engrained that logic and reason couldn’t get it out of him with time. Ambrose was more than willing to devote as much time as necessary to Cain, especially now that Raw had shown him just how deeply his feelings went. Slowly, Cain relinquished control and let Ambrose tug him into his lap, cool fingertips resting against the flash of intense heat that radiated from Cain’s body.
Ambrose was going to drive himself mad at this rate.
He knew the way of the mind, the many corridors and connections that controlled the body. Carefully, he tried to let his fingers settle on Cain’s temples, memorizing the texture of his skin as he slowly pinpointed the places that might cause pain and could bring a man to his knees. Slowly, very slowly, Ambrose massaged and moved his fingers with great care. It seemed to work, seeing as Cain visibly relaxed and sank into Ambrose’s lap, easing into his fingers. With Cain there, Ambrose could study his face in the flickering firelight and watch as he relaxed, as worries seemed to melt from that stoic expression he carried around like a suit of armour.
It was a position that hadn’t come easily, but now that they were in it, Ambrose found it to be oddly comfortable.
“Better?” Ambrose whispered teasingly.
“Shut it, brainiac,” was Cain’s retort, but there was a shadow of a smile around his lips. Ambrose ducked his head down, stray and unruly strands of hair falling into his eyes as he focused on calming Cain down and bringing him away from unpleasant thoughts of being so far from his son for nearly two annuals more. Soothing Cain like this allowed Ambrose to take his mind off of what would happen when they finally ran into Zero.
It was a bubble of a moment that preserved them from reality, if only for a short period of time.
Ambrose wanted it to drag on for eternity.
The second best option was what did happen. When Raw came back with a skinned rabbit, he found Cain asleep in Ambrose’s lap with the Advisor’s hand resting lightly on Cain’s cheek.
Though the Viewer saw everything he needed in order to understand the situation, nothing needed to be said and so he kept quiet as he set to preparing food for whenever the two men roused.
*
There was less than one annual left in their ‘exile’ and they only had one part left to find to complete Ambrose’s drawings for the machine. Cain had grown somewhat more irritable as the days passed and Zero was still nowhere to be found. Ambrose put up with the fits and Raw seemed to feed off of Cain’s distaste and had grown slightly touchy in recent weeks, which made Ambrose mutter a curse under his breath about Cain ruining their days for all of them.
They had stopped in a small village with only one inn to catch up on rest and meals while they asked around regarding the last cog of a machine they had been seeking to finish for all too long.
“We only have one room,” the woman at the inn’s desk said when she saw Cain and Ambrose. Raw had left them to speak to his people, telling them nothing more than ‘rumours of darkness’ before he went off. Cain had been too exhausted to do anything but agree to send him off and hope that he’d actually come back. If not, at least they had Raw’s opinion on the subject.
It had taken a great deal of time, but eventually, Raw had been able to push through the pain and the haze and pick out exactly what it seemed to be. ‘Dark magic,’ was all he said.
Cain was too tired to argue with the woman at the desk and snatched up the key before trudging up the stairs, his mud-coated boots hitting the rise of each step and leaving a trail behind him. He could hear Ambrose conversing with the woman at the desk; maybe it was about a meal or something like getting them a second room, but all Cain could think about was sleeping for a day, or maybe a week. Hell, a month of sleep wouldn’t hurt any.
The room was sparse and populated by a single bed, a dresser, and a table by a boarded-up window. To Cain, it looked like a sliver of paradise. They’d been living off the land for so long that he’d almost forgotten what a mattress felt like and he nearly made an embarrassing dash to the bed, as much as his long strides could be considered a dash.
His bag hit the ground with a heavy ‘thump’ as he collapsed on the mattress.
This was blissful.
He pried off his dirty boots – not that his socks and the ends of his pants weren’t just as messy – and shifted to lie on his back, resting his arms behind his head. He couldn’t even help the groan of pleasure that ghosted past his lips as he closed his eyes and did his best to slip off into sleep.
“You look like a baby in his crib,” a soft voice interrupted his desperate dash for rest.
Cain barely opened one eye to look over at the doorway, seeing a fuzzy version of Ambrose standing there in his ragged coat and equally-messy pants (Ambrose’s were in worse shape than Cain’s, the knees having given out completely).
“I gave the woman my name. I told her I was Glitch. I told her you were my protection,” he kept talking, locking up the door and fiddling around with the drawer. Cain knew that Ambrose had a habit of talking and talking and as good as the talk had been on the road, it was annoying as a bear’s roar right then when Cain just wanted to sleep. “…and that bed is for both of us, so shove over, Tin Man,” came the bitter tone, louder than the rest of his words, as if he knew Cain had stopped listening.
Cain sighed and tugged his hat down over his face to keep the light from the window from filtering into his vision while he grumbled and shoved over on the bed to make room for Ambrose.
For a while, nothing happened. He could hear the sounds of Ambrose shuffling around the room and clothes shifting and items being set out, but the bed didn’t dip with the additional weight for a good twenty minutes and Cain was perilously close to that half-sleep where the world felt thick and hazy all around him.
It was a good feeling to have.
Cain set his thoughts to good things, to Jeb at the palace, who would be just over nine annuals and three months now. He wondered about his education and how good Tutor was at teaching about the history of the O.Z. and the Tin Men’s contribution to the efforts. He wondered if Jeb would learn about the battles that Cain had fought in when he was still new to the force, when there had been small wars to be waged. He wondered if he was growing up with Adora’s features or if his boy was going to have his father’s face as he grew older.
He thought of DG and Azkadellia and how they were growing up, smiling sleepily at the fondness he’d developed for the young princesses and he couldn’t even remember the time in his life when he had been so against the idea of the Royalty on the whole.
At a soft snuffle beside him, Cain’s thoughts turned to Ambrose.
Sleep came on pleasantly as Cain drifted off to the thoughts of what the Advisor had become to him -- his best friend, his own advisor in difficult times. Dreams slowly began to filter into Cain’s consciousness while one last thought played around in his mind, a thought that would get lost between waking and dreams:
He makes you feel like Adora used to.
Cain woke first in the morning to discover that Ambrose hadn’t shifted at all in the course of the night. Though the morning light was spilling into the room, Ambrose lay stick-straight on his stomach, arms clasping the pillow for his head. He hadn’t even stolen Cain’s blanket in the middle of the night. It was almost considerate. They were wasting daylight, though, and considering the good night of sleep, Cain almost felt like a new man.
Funny how many wonders a good bed could do for you.
When he was fully dressed again and tugging on his holster, he leaned over to shake Ambrose’s shoulder. “Hey there, sunshine, time to get a move on,” Cain spoke lowly, still shaking the shoulder again and again. After nearly seven annuals, he was good at waking Ambrose from even the deepest sleep. It was almost playful by this time, that Cain would keep Ambrose awake for company during the early hours of the morning, even if he paid for it in spades the next day when he caught attitude from Ambrose the whole of the time.
Ambrose groaned, giving Cain a sleep-addled, bleary look. “It’s early,” he protested.
“You can tell me all about it while we walk. On your feet,” he ordered to the sounds of Ambrose’s continuous complaints. Cain couldn’t help but smile though them all, the familiarity soothing to him.
It didn’t take much more than a half hour to get back on the streets. Thanks to the innkeeper, they even had warm food in their stomachs and several provisions for the road. She couldn’t offer them a place to wash their clothes, but she did direct them to a local chemist who had been treating most of the villagers from this town and one over, for ‘poisonous dreams’.
It was the first lead in a very long time.
Cain adjusted his hat as they made their way onto the dusty street and the occasional passer-by would look at them, as if recognizing them from somewhere, but would always continue on, without fail. If Cain were easily given to paranoia, he might think that something was afoot, but the more logical explanation was just that people were used to strangers wandering about their towns.
“I could get used to sleeping in bed with you,” Ambrose remarked distractedly, rambling on as his fingers pulled at a string on his jacket. Cain followed behind him carefully, noting that he was glitching out from the way he was pulling apart the jacket and the way he didn’t seem fully aware of what he was saying. “I mean, there’s something remarkable to the notion of a person to share your bed with. I think there’s something engrained in us as people to feel protected and warmer. There’s also the benefit of body heat, of course…”
And on it went, all about how Cain was a good bedwarmer. Cain almost took it as a compliment if he didn’t know with certainty that Ambrose wasn’t meaning to say any of this.
Eventually, Ambrose stopped fidgeting with the string and plucked it right out, giving Cain a signal that he had come back to his senses.
“You done?” Cain checked verbally, just to give Ambrose a sign that he had been out of it.
“I think so, yes. She said Marietta worked out of number sixty-seven,” Ambrose murmured, checking the slip of paper that the innkeeper had given them in the way of directions. The town was as small as they came with small homes made of sturdy wood and Cain kept one hand on his gun in case they ran into trouble.
Eventually, the numbers started to creep towards the one they wanted.
“Sixty-seven,” Cain said, gesturing to the door. “You want to announce our presence or should I do it?”
“No more knocked-down doors, Cain, please,” Ambrose pleaded, almost jumping to take the lead and knock at the door politely.
They stood there waiting for longer than Cain liked and he took three strides towards the door to do it his way when the thick door was pulled open by a tired-looking woman who appeared to be somewhere between thirty-five and fifty, though Cain couldn’t narrow it down past that and had the feeling Marietta would mind somewhat if he asked. She had trinkets woven into her light and long brown hair and stood lower than either Cain or Ambrose did, but she made up for it with presence, something Cain’s mother had possessed in spades. Her clothes went on for endless layers and her home smelled…it smelled of spices and sweetness and reminded Cain of pies being baked in warm ovens.
“Who’re you?” she demanded immediately, her tone curt and her accent rough around the edges.
Cain might not have been the most effortless man when it came to charming women, but he knew how to offer respect. “We’re travellers, Ma’am, in search of advice and help,” he explained slowly and carefully, making sure to move his hands away from his gun to avoid any sudden movements and mistakes being made. “My name is Wyatt Cain and this is my friend, Glitch,” he explained effortlessly. “We heard tale that villagers were coming to you for help about dreams.” He took a moment to let the information sink in before he pressed forward. “We’d like to talk to you about that.”
“Might as well come in, boys,” Marietta accepted, opening the door to them. “Don’t think I should refuse an armed man,” she noted, nodding to Cain’s gun.
They made their way inside to settle within the warmth of the small home. Cain could make out markings on the wall, protection figures in the language of the Ancients, by what he could tell. Ambrose probably already had it translated and memorized for later. There were herbs and bones cast around and a brewing pot between them.
“What is it, exactly, that people have been seeing?” Cain asked, getting right to the point.
“Cain!” Ambrose hissed.
Cain didn’t even look anywhere but directly at Marietta, who glared right back at him. “That information’s between me and mine clients,” she pointed out archly. “Y’think you can just wander in here freely and use that pretty face o’ yours to ask for anything you’d like?” Cain was still trying to determine how serious she was with the act and was beginning to think that he actually had a shot of getting information.
“For the good of the O.Z.?” Cain asked patiently. “Yes, Ma’am, I do think you’ll tell us. And if you don’t feel obliged to tell us now, we have a Viewer who could tell us what we need to know, but I’d like to think we’re more civilized than that.”
There was a tense moment in the home and Cain just settled his coat back over his chair, settling in for a long stay, if need be.
“You aren’t even thinking ‘bout leaving t’il I tell you?” Marietta guessed.
“He’s an incredibly stubborn man,” Ambrose pitched in helpfully, having been standing behind Cain, one hand twitchily resting on his shoulder as if in support. “I’m sure he could do this for days and days.”
Marietta and Cain entered into a long staring contest and though Cain heard Ambrose’s sigh of impatience behind him, he didn’t break away once.
“It’s for the O.Z.,” Cain patiently spoke, digging out the papers he’d rarely had to use and set them out on the table: these were the papers initialled by the Queen, Ahamo, and the current head of the Tin Men. “Please,” he finally added to his pleas.
“Took you long enough to add that bit,” Marietta noted with wry amusement. “Sit,” she directed the word at Ambrose. “I’ll make a cup of tea for the both of you. Y’look like you could use simple comforts.”
It didn’t take very long for Ambrose to sit down beside Cain and the tea seemed to come as quickly as Marietta’s words did as she began to talk easily and quietly about the nightmares that plagued the villagers. She’d prescribed sleeping aids as much as she could, but the same face haunted the villagers night by night without respite.
“What is it they’re seeing?” Cain asked, expecting to hear the name ‘Zero’ mentioned or maybe something about whoever was really behind this; maybe someone with magic to equal that of the Queen.
“A wicked witch.”
*
“Witches don’t exist,” Ambrose had been complaining for days on end, ever since they had been to the small town that spoke of actually seeing the witch in their dreams and in their water supply. With Zero’s allegiance to an unseen ‘Sorceress’ implied by every last account and the dark magic that they seemed to be encountering in chilly waves, it had grown more and more impossible for Ambrose to do anything but accept it as truth.
The paranoia of the O.Z. and the climate of hurt and slowly-encroaching darkness were at the hands of an unseen dark witch, hiding in some cave. Raw had confirmed what Marietta had told them when he rejoined the group after speaking with members of his own tribe.
“Did you not believe the Princesses that day?” Cain asked patiently as they picked their way through the woods with Raw carrying up the rear behind them. All three of them had begun to look much worse for the wear in the middle of their ‘exile’. Ambrose’s coat had begun to wear down and fray and Cain’s clothes had taken on a grey tarnish that couldn’t be washed out with soap. “They don’t strike me as the lying type.”
“Lying, no, but little girls exaggerate,” Ambrose protested huffily. He could even see Cain and Raw exchanging an annoyed look and it did nothing to help his mood at all. “Witches,” he muttered, letting Cain take the lead while he happily complained away. “The next thing you know, you’ll be telling me that unicorns will carry us off to a land of gold and faeries.”
“You gonna complain the whole trip, sweetheart, or am I going to get something resembling peace and quiet?” Cain asked over his shoulder. Even if his tone was clipped, it included the use of a new nickname that Cain had added to his lexicon only recently and it made Ambrose smile to himself every time he used it.
“We’ll see.”
“Great. Just what I need.”
In the midst of all of Ambrose’s complaining, he hadn’t heard the piercing cry from above as it plummeted towards the earth like a meteorite bent on crashing into the ground. To his credit, neither Cain nor Raw heard it either, which was good for the sake of Ambrose’s pride, but had been very, very bad in general.
It was a mobat and it was set on interrupting their trip back to the palace.
“Dangerous!” Raw cried out as he cowered and tried to hide himself from the teeth and the claws of the treacherous animal, rumoured to be in the Witch’s employ; no, not in her employ, it was far more sinister than that. They were in her control. Cain had his gun drawn in two seconds flat, cocking the hammer back and aiming it skywards, pumping out two bullets, but the damned mobat dodged them both and fixated on Cain as its target, as if the gunpowder had drawn him closer.
Before Ambrose could shout or stop it, it was digging its claws and teeth into Cain’s neck, spattering blood on nearby trees, the forest floor and Ambrose himself as he darted forward to do whatever he could, anything to stop the mobat.
Anything had wound up being a fierce, desperate punch before he’d pried Cain’s gun from his hands and shot a bullet straight through the recovering mobat’s chest, right through where its heart should be, if it even had one.
It seemed to quiver and seize up, not moving a single inch and certainly not breathing.
Ambrose exhaled, feeling like he could breathe for the first time since that war cry from the sky. In that tiny window of relief, he almost forgot why he had become so desperate to rid them of the mobat and why he was holding the gun in his hand. “Raw?” Ambrose shouted, knowing they needed the healing powers of a Viewer and soon.
Raw was staring at them both with trepidation.
Ambrose cursed to himself as he wrapped his lithe arms around Cain, but even with all the strength he had in him, he couldn’t keep the other man vertical and he buckled to his knees, gently lying Cain out on the path with Ambrose’s arm still wrapped around Cain’s back. There was so little space between them, but all Ambrose could see was the blood seeping from the wound, the large wound.
“Raw!” Ambrose snapped again.
“Raw not able to heal on own,” he said slowly. “Raw needs herbs to help bite.” Of course, of course, Ambrose knew it from his lessons, that mobats contained a venom in their teeth and a Viewer couldn’t simply heal them, not without aid of certain herbs commonly found in forests in the O.Z. Calculating the rate of blood loss compared to how long it would take Raw, Ambrose knew that they would have time. They had to have time.
“Go,” Ambrose instructed lowly.
“All this panicking,” Cain muttered, his eyes drifting to the bite as his hat toppled off his head. “It’s just a scratch, Glitch.”
“Ambrose,” he corrected lightly.
“Must be having one of your episodes,” Cain laughed weakly. “Can’t remember up from down and left from right.” Ambrose closed his eyes tightly to ignore the way his heart was aching and how it hurt to look at Cain beneath him, so pale. There was a sheen of sweat coating his face and the blood was slowly covering Ambrose’s hands, as he refused to let go of Cain and brought him closer, nearly dragging him into his lap as they sat in the middle of the path to wait for Raw to return. To take his mind off of the panic, Ambrose had taken to cleaning up the wound and it had done him well. The wound was much smaller than he had originally thought and with Raw’s inevitable return with the various herbs, Cain would be just fine.
That still meant that Ambrose had experienced a good minute’s worth of blind panic in which he had imagined an existence without Cain in his life. It didn’t matter how he was in his life anymore, just that he was there and the thought of losing him to a witch’s servant made his stomach churn and his heart turn to ice.
“Don’t you go passing out on me,” Ambrose warned.
“Getting even with me after all this time?” Cain laughed, more of a pained scoff than anything else. Ambrose smiled nostalgically as he remembered the first few annuals of voyages, when Cain refused to let Ambrose sleep while he had to stay awake and how it had brought on many an irritable night between the two of them. He had continued to do so, but Ambrose had started to expect the frequency of Cain’s wakings. He’d come to hope for them. They meant more time talking, more time getting to know him. He liked them, even if it brought on many a moody night.
Ambrose knew it was strange to enjoy those nights, but he did. He liked all the nights, from the good ones, to the bad ones, to the irritable ones, to the ‘Adora Moment’ ones. He refused to let it end on a night that was coated with the heavy sheen of blood and the thick taste of disgust under his tongue, a curse lashed out against the Witch for this.
“Cain,” Ambrose said, shaking the man in his arms. “Wyatt, come on, now, don’t sleep on me.”
“I am on you.”
“How very literal of you.” For all his sarcasm, Ambrose was still having trouble delivering anything past a shaky breath and he closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead to Cain’s and tried to ignore anything resembling fear in his system in favour of emotions like hope and optimism. “Cain, I mean it.”
“Don’t worry, Ambrose,” Cain was speaking as patient as ever, as if nothing was the matter except maybe that their blankets were too damp. “Sleeping with you would be the best thing that’s happened to me in annuals.”
“You mean on me,” Ambrose patiently corrected the slip.
“No, I don’t.”
Ambrose froze, though this time it was hardly in anything like panic. He searched Cain’s face quickly for anything resembling a joke and when he couldn’t find anything in Cain’s warm blue eyes – how could he ever have thought them icy? – he swallowed hard and leaned his forehead down against Cain’s as a nervous laugh bubbled out from his throat and an episode came on hard and fast.
“Gee, Cain, could have told a guy earlier,” he spat out anxiously before he got a hold of himself. “So, you’ve given in to my fine charms?”
“It was just a matter of time.”
This, Ambrose could do. They could joke around and be light about the subject matter and Ambrose could forget that he was pressing down a cloth on Cain’s neck to stop the flow of the bleeding. If they kept in good demeanours and avoided the dark turns of pessimism and cynicism, then they could make it through the next few hours easily.
Nearly seven annuals they had been travelling together through dark paths and darker days.
“I’m glad you feel that way, Cain,” Ambrose finally admitted when a lull of silence overtook them and Cain seemed to be slipping off to sleep. It was a simple admission and barely skimmed the surface of everything he wanted to say, but it was a place to start. Everyone needed to start their journey somewhere.
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 Last Goodbye: Monsters Are Waiting. EXTREME thanks to
blackletter for being a wonderful & efficient beta. This part is about 2,000 words longer than the others, so enjoy!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.
CHAPTER THREE: In which Ambrose reveals why he hates Zero so much, it's Jeb's and then Wyatt's birthday, and Cain finds out that you can never have too much heart.
“What do you know of Viewers, Cain?” the Queen asked, two days after Cain’s birthday. Things had gone back to normal with alarming speed. Reports trickled in about murders in towns, cities, and villages, voyagers sent missives back to the palace to describe the state of decay that fell on farms and forests both and the general air of paranoia had settled into the O.Z. with a firm attitude that it wasn’t going anywhere at all.
Cain had opted to avoid breakfast for a walk with the Queen around the gardens, having to slow his pace every once in a while, so he didn’t get ahead of her. The Queen liked to walk slowly and he got the feeling that it was because it gave an air of calm, made people think twice about what they did and said.
“Nothing that myths haven’t taught me,” Cain admitted. “I’ve met one or two in my time, but they were either prisoners or witnesses.”
“They have an uncanny ability that may help us to discover exactly the locations in the realm this darkness is being brought from,” the Queen murmured, clasping her hands before her as she sashayed along with slow grace. “Perhaps even to know what will solve this battle best.”
It didn’t take a genius of Ambrose’s proportions to get just what the Queen was asking of them.
“You want us to find a Viewer,” Cain interpreted, thumbs hooked into the loops of his pants as he ambled along, always forcing himself to have to slow down so he didn’t outpace the Queen by two steps for her every one. “Any idea where they live?”
“West of the Papay Fields, I have heard.”
Which wasn’t exactly an address, but it also wasn’t a ‘somewhere in the O.Z.’ It was like an answer between a glimmer of hope and a complete lack of it. A needle in a small haystack, but it was still a haystack.
“We’ll leave soon as possible,” Cain said.
“Not yet.”
Normally, the Queen was relaxed and quiet, a picture of grace. Now, with two simple words, Cain understood just how much power was running beneath the surface. He looked at her, trying to will himself not to flinch in the face of her icy-stare.
“I have one more idea,” she spoke, her tone soft again as though she had never spoken up with such power, with a voice that could bring on a storm. “One additional thought in order to flush out the perpetrator of such cruel acts against our realm, though it is not a happy idea in the least.”
“I can deal with unhappy ideas.”
“I am going to exile you and Ambrose for a period of three annuals, long enough for anyone to believe that this is not merely a frivolous act of strategy,” the Queen said (though it was nothing but a plot), standing as still as a statue before her gardenias and her roses. Cain stared her down, wondering if she were joking or not. The longest Cain had been away from his boy had still been only a period of months and Cain wasn’t sure he wanted to test how long he could be away from him. The only small relief was knowing he wouldn’t be out there alone, but Ambrose’s company only went so far.
Clearly, his displeasure with the whole idea was evident on his face.
“I am sorry,” the Queen offered gently. “The Advisors recommended it and I agree and Ambrose does as well that it is the best chance to bring Zero into the open and to bring an end to such senseless destruction of our land and to stop the harm to my people. It is our best chance to end this,” she pleaded. “If Zero believes you to be exiled and without any avenue of safe haven, he may seek you out. Both of you. I cannot profess to understand him, but exile drives you to the places where Zero dwells, leaves you with nothing in the eyes of thieves. It is a chance.”
“Ambrose agreed to this,” Cain said, voice thick with irritation and the whole of him swamped with the desire to shoot something.
“Yes.”
Cain took a deep breath and rubbed at his eyes. It was a chance to find Zero. That was all he had to keep reminding himself. “On one condition. I spend the next week explaining to Jeb why I won’t be seeing him until his tenth birthday,” he said, the words angry, but in agreement to the Queen’s plan.
“He will be well-cared for.”
Yeah, but not by Cain. And that was the part he still couldn’t get over.
*
There were a dozen places to look for a Viewer when it came to ‘west of the Papay fields’ and Cain didn’t have the first guess as to where they’d find one. The truth was that he was hoping they’d find Zero in this little fake-exile and Cain could finally do something about all the hatred and the resentment that had been building in him for so long. They’d only been out of the palace for two months and already, Cain missed Jeb. His boy had understood why Cain and Ambrose had to leave, but that didn’t mean that either of the Cains had to like it one bit.
Jeb had promised to remember him and always honour Cain. Cain had promised to keep Jeb close to his heart, placed right beside the physical representation that Ambrose had concocted for him; though, the crystal was a lot more romantic than the real thing, cut in the shape of hearts in fairy tales and myths, where no one died and everyone got a happy ending.
“Well, what do you think?” Ambrose asked tiredly as they came to a stop to set up camp for the night. They had been through four towns already and while some of them had been helpful in narrowing down the span of their search, no one had given them a definitive answer about a Viewer.
That needle was still lost in that damn haystack.
“Due West, probably,” Cain remarked, staring out to the horizon. He was glancing at a scribble of a map he had been eking out on their trip. “We’ve hit just about every town there is to the North and the South’s just Lake-folk,” Cain spoke, folding up his little representation and eyeing the small fire that Ambrose had managed to get together. He had to give a quiet sound of approval when he saw the fire built up a lot better than it had been some time ago. Ambrose was a fast learner – thanks to that big brain of his – and Cain was starting to wonder just how long it’d be before Ambrose was better than everything Cain could do, too. He wasn’t looking forward to that day so much.
“We could split up?” Ambrose suggested.
Even if it would get things done faster, Cain didn’t like the sound of that one bit. “No,” he decided firmly. “We stick together. Who knows what we’ll come across and there’s strength in numbers.” He gave a nod. “We stick together.”
“That will take longer,” Ambrose countered, prying at a loose thread on his coat.
“That’s just too bad.”
They spent the next several days in quiet search of a Viewer, Cain’s displeasure with the whole trek still evident enough to prevent anything like civil conversation and Ambrose never once complained about it, not like he would have annuals ago. Cain liked to think it was because they had finally begun to adjust to one another’s tendencies, like a well-timed dance around a main objective, like an effective battalion’s strike. Eventually, Cain let some of his foul mood slip away by asking curiously and in few words about Viewers.
Ambrose’s lengthy and passionate explanation of their abilities and habits was well worth the asking.
The days drew on a lot faster than Cain had thought they would and with a mission to pursue, he could almost feel time slipping away. He had everything figured out in his head. They’d find this Viewer and see what was really behind all this – whether it really was a witch like the girls kept insisting – or whether it was something more rooted in human evil. They’d get the parts to Ambrose’s little pet-project, this ‘machine’ that would apparently protect the palace and maybe Central City if he could figure it out (Cain didn’t doubt that he could figure out any problem, given some of the equations he’d watched Ambrose go through over the annuals they’d known each other). Then they’d go home after rooting out Zero and giving him exactly what he’d earned.
Cain liked having a plan. It meant that the chances of something unexpected happening were severely reduced, if only on the basis that there was a way to deal with every possible chance of something going awry.
*
Eventually, they accidentally met a Viewer.
Ambrose had been going through the woods to search for something to conduct fire better than the damp sticks and logs they had been throwing on the fire and a dry patch of woods had caught his eye. In the process of bending over to bundle some up in his arms, he realized that he was being watched. He righted himself, clothes shifting in the sudden movement, and then Ambrose watched right back.
He was currently in the middle of a staring contest with a very surprised-looking Viewer.
“Oh, hello,” Ambrose said, his mind choosing the worst possible time to glitch out and go fuzzy. Why was he in the forest again? And why were the sticks poking his arms? “You’re a Viewer, aren’t you? We’ve been looking for you.”
It was, Ambrose reasoned later, simple chance that he hadn’t run off at Ambrose’s greeting.
*
In all his annuals, Ambrose had never personally had a conversation with a Viewer. He had been audience to many who chose to take tea with the Queen, but he had always been called away before he could ask all the questions that brewed in his brain about just how their gift worked and whether their abilities of healing were universal or simply a learned technique.
Now in the decaying orchards and fields of the West, Ambrose had finally met a Viewer for himself.
“Raw,” he said his name was with a lilting and haunted tone. Cain was doing his best to ignore both Ambrose and Raw as he set up the perimeter and though usually Ambrose’s gaze was drawn to his travelling companion, he was too fascinated by meeting Raw to allow himself to be so easily distracted by Cain. Ambrose asked why he was so upset, why he could be so sad. They had met him after Raw had been on the run from terrible creatures in the sky that Ambrose thought only existed in myth -- mobats. “O.Z. hurts,” Raw explained slowly. “Raw feel its pain.”
Cain started to pay attention at that, taking long strides towards them.
“You can feel the O.Z.?”
“People suffer,” Raw confirmed, glancing up at Cain and slowly reaching a hand out to rest on Cain’s arm. Though the Tin Man flinched, he held bravely where he stood, and Ambrose was deathly curious as to just what Raw was seeing. In fact, his curiosity seemed to eat at him, desperate and loud and ever-present in Ambrose’s mind.
And it wasn’t just curiosity.
He felt the hot flash of something like envy that Raw could close his eyes and see inside Cain when Ambrose had spent annuals travelling with him and barely knew more than the man’s name, his son’s habits, and his previous job. The searing jealousy cut through Ambrose and nearly made him sick to the stomach, but he was calm and patient and he could quell the feelings. Eventually, Raw let go of Cain and Ambrose forced himself to plaster an amiable smile on his face.
“Good man,” Raw opined softly. “Brave man.”
“How can you feel if the entire O.Z. is hurting?” Cain demanded, never willing to do anything but make headway in their seemingly hopeless journey forward. Ambrose rubbed at his eyes and tried to align some sort of comforting word to place into this conversation, to act like the good cop when Cain was so bitterly determined to do them ill by being so aggressive. “What else can you feel? Who’s behind all this? Is it Zero?”
“Plans are darker, deeper, worse than Zero,” Raw said gravely, gaze flickering between Cain – who was bearing in ever closer – and Ambrose, who had yet to take his gaze off of Cain, caught between what he wanted to do and what he knew he ought to do. He knew he ought to settle Raw down, but he wanted to take Cain aside and tell him to calm down, already.
In the end, Ambrose always did what he had to.
“Raw, why don’t we get some air, I’m still curious about your people,” Ambrose offered.
“Yes,” Raw concurred and after a sharp look of warning was shot in Cain’s direction, Ambrose began to wander amongst the half-rotting trees in the orchard, stepping on pieces of once-fresh fruits every now and again. “Ambrose is good man too.”
He paused in his step to give Raw a wary look, laughing nervously as his mind blanked out and he found himself in one of his episodes. “I didn’t tell you my name,” he blurted. “It’s Glitch.”
“Not to Cain.”
Cain, Ambrose cursed under his breath as his mind slowly came back to him. Raw had reached into Cain’s mind and had pulled out all manner of ideas and notions and in the process, he had managed to discover Ambrose’s name as well. Ambrose knew that protesting at this point in time would make him look like a fool and he muttered a quick word to himself to bring this up with Cain later. Even if they were taunting Zero out from under his grimy rock, they couldn’t go around letting every Viewer, Wizard, or Peasant know that the Queen’s Advisor was stumbling around, fake exile or not.
“Not Cain’s fault,” Raw spoke deeply.
Ambrose scoffed, aiming to retort something sarcastic in the vein that it was indeed very much his fault, but before he could do that he noticed that Raw had lightly clasped Ambrose’s forearm with his hand. There were only two things he could possibly do; twitch and pull away desperately or give in and let Raw see everything.
Out of some morbid desire to know, Ambrose didn’t move an inch.
Raw seemed to be overwhelmed by everything he was seeing and he closed his eyes simply to process it. At first, Ambrose had been proud of himself for having the capacity to have so many thoughts, so many ideas, that he could garner such a reaction. Soon, though, he began to be wary and worried, concerned that it was too many feelings that were pushing Raw over the edge to this reaction.
Eventually, Raw pulled away.
“Well?” Ambrose asked, sounding breathless, as if he had just been chased through the whole of the O.Z. Though there was no cause for it, no rhyme, no reason, it was all he could do not to shake Raw and demand to know what it was he saw, demand to know why he wasn’t telling him immediately. Every second that went by only served to make Ambrose more and more nervous. “What did you see? Feel? What…?”
Raw opened his eyes and looked at Ambrose with something like pity in his eyes.
“You care for Cain,” Raw assessed, too many emotions flickering over Raw’s face for Ambrose to be truly comfortable. He had seen something deep down in Ambrose’s psyche and though he wasn’t sure just what it was yet, he also had the feeling that he didn’t want it on show for the world. “Love.”
Ambrose twitched, one shaky hand fixing stray tendrils of unruly hair as the other hand smoothed over his coat in a fluid motion. “Pardon?”
“Love,” Raw echoed his previous assessment. “Ambrose has love for Cain.”
While it wasn’t the strangest diagnosis in the world, it certainly hadn’t been the one that Ambrose had been expecting, not in a thousand annuals. Of course he noticed Cain’s physical assets; he had noticed those within the first few hours of meeting the man. Ambrose had a keen eye for beautiful things, after all, proved by his trailing list of former liaisons within his bedroom walls. But love? Ambrose curled up around that searing feel of hot jealousy against his stomach, wondering if that could possibly be indicative of anything.
When he thought about it though, it was too easy to pin down. Raw had said it himself.
Brave man. Good man.
“Yes,” Ambrose finally confirmed shakily, clearing his throat and willing his voice to do anything but sound so out of sorts. “Yes, I do. He doesn’t know.” He met Raw’s gaze, leaning in to keep the quiet words between them. “I’d prefer to keep it that way.”
“Cain yearns for love too,” Raw’s words caught Ambrose slightly off-guard because of their absolute vagueness. Ambrose wasn’t a complete idiot when it came to love. He wasn’t an idiot at all, but for the occasions when his brain would falter and give out on him. He knew that only four and a half annuals had passed since Wyatt Cain had lost his wife and the man was so wholly devoted that Ambrose fathomed it could be thirteen annuals more before Cain even looked at the world with the eyes of a man ready to move on. Raw’s words gave Ambrose that blissful, yet stupid emotion of hope and he wondered if they weren’t carefully crafted that way to keep Ambrose’s optimism up in such a dark time.
He was probably thinking too much again.
“Thank you, Raw,” Ambrose finally offered, with genuine gratitude brimming in his voice. “Will you stay with us and help us make our way to find the pieces of the machine we need?”
It seemed to be the right thing to say in return because that was the first time since he had met the Viewer that Ambrose saw genuine delight flicker across his face. Everyone wanted to be needed, Ambrose supposed, just in a variety of different ways.
*
“You really think that Zero’s going to buy this exile crap?” Cain asked, crouched over on one knee and trying to light a fire using only twigs. Ambrose was completely distracted, seeing as he had set himself up several feet behind the blond and was watching his behind through the very tight pants he always wore.
It only vaguely occurred to him that Cain was asking a question.
“There’s no harm done either way,” Ambrose supposed aloud, wandering to Cain’s side to pluck one of the twigs from him. “Honestly, let me hold this,” he muttered. “At the worst, we come back with all the parts needed to create the shield, the Queen exerts her royal forgiveness and we’re allowed back into civilization.”
This close to Cain and especially in the cold and damp weather, Ambrose could feel the warmth coming from his body. It was intoxicating at the same time as it drove him mad, wanting to do more than just stand there.
“How about the part where I haven’t seen my son in over an annual?” Cain’s response made Ambrose wince and freeze up. It wasn’t that Ambrose had forgotten about that part, it was just that he had taken to avoiding bringing it up, like the topic of Adora.
Soon enough, they were able to get a small fire kindled between their combined efforts. In the woods behind them, Raw had gone off to find something to eat for the night, promising that his skills would find them something fresh and lean.
“Isn’t finding Zero worth it?” Ambrose questioned. “And what about finding the pieces for the machine?”
The machine had been Ambrose’s reason for agreeing to this ‘exile’. While in Milltown, he had spoken to Father Vue regarding a defense system for the palace that combined the Queen’s magic, basic mechanics, and the various angles and architecture of the palace to create a type of shield that could be temporarily brought up to defend against invaders, whether tangible or not. They had roughly a fourth of all the parts that they would need, which lay in various villages and in the homes of specialists all around the O.Z.
Cain’s glare was answer enough to Ambrose’s question and he sighed and took several steps back to sit across from Cain and try and pretend that the hate in his glare wasn’t actually directed at Ambrose.
Eventually, Cain’s annoyed glance relented and he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Headache?” Ambrose asked quietly.
“Yeah.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to offer help, to lay hands on him and take all the troubles and pains away. It was a selfish thought, a need to indulge himself, but Ambrose was growing tired of nothing. They sat in silence, the fire crackling between them with deep intensity and eventually, Ambrose gave in after watching Cain rub his temples again and again, staring right into the fire like the stubborn idiot he was.
“Take your hat off,” Ambrose said with a slight sigh as he rose to his feet and pried it off before Cain could say a word. “And lie down in my lap.” He had arranged himself on one of the logs, giving Cain more than enough room to do so.
Of course, that was if the hateful glare would go away again.
“Nothing personal, but the last person I did that with was my wife and…”
Ambrose had seconds before it became an Adora Moment and he decided that there was nothing to lose. If he made a mess of things, Cain was still bound to his side until they found all the parts for the machine. “Lie down and stop complaining,” he interrupted. “Cain, honestly, I’m trying to help you.”
It didn’t occur to him until much later that help was not something that Cain had much experience with accepting in his life.
Eventually, though, he relented. It gave Ambrose a glimmer of hope that maybe the stubbornness in Cain wasn’t so deeply engrained that logic and reason couldn’t get it out of him with time. Ambrose was more than willing to devote as much time as necessary to Cain, especially now that Raw had shown him just how deeply his feelings went. Slowly, Cain relinquished control and let Ambrose tug him into his lap, cool fingertips resting against the flash of intense heat that radiated from Cain’s body.
Ambrose was going to drive himself mad at this rate.
He knew the way of the mind, the many corridors and connections that controlled the body. Carefully, he tried to let his fingers settle on Cain’s temples, memorizing the texture of his skin as he slowly pinpointed the places that might cause pain and could bring a man to his knees. Slowly, very slowly, Ambrose massaged and moved his fingers with great care. It seemed to work, seeing as Cain visibly relaxed and sank into Ambrose’s lap, easing into his fingers. With Cain there, Ambrose could study his face in the flickering firelight and watch as he relaxed, as worries seemed to melt from that stoic expression he carried around like a suit of armour.
It was a position that hadn’t come easily, but now that they were in it, Ambrose found it to be oddly comfortable.
“Better?” Ambrose whispered teasingly.
“Shut it, brainiac,” was Cain’s retort, but there was a shadow of a smile around his lips. Ambrose ducked his head down, stray and unruly strands of hair falling into his eyes as he focused on calming Cain down and bringing him away from unpleasant thoughts of being so far from his son for nearly two annuals more. Soothing Cain like this allowed Ambrose to take his mind off of what would happen when they finally ran into Zero.
It was a bubble of a moment that preserved them from reality, if only for a short period of time.
Ambrose wanted it to drag on for eternity.
The second best option was what did happen. When Raw came back with a skinned rabbit, he found Cain asleep in Ambrose’s lap with the Advisor’s hand resting lightly on Cain’s cheek.
Though the Viewer saw everything he needed in order to understand the situation, nothing needed to be said and so he kept quiet as he set to preparing food for whenever the two men roused.
*
There was less than one annual left in their ‘exile’ and they only had one part left to find to complete Ambrose’s drawings for the machine. Cain had grown somewhat more irritable as the days passed and Zero was still nowhere to be found. Ambrose put up with the fits and Raw seemed to feed off of Cain’s distaste and had grown slightly touchy in recent weeks, which made Ambrose mutter a curse under his breath about Cain ruining their days for all of them.
They had stopped in a small village with only one inn to catch up on rest and meals while they asked around regarding the last cog of a machine they had been seeking to finish for all too long.
“We only have one room,” the woman at the inn’s desk said when she saw Cain and Ambrose. Raw had left them to speak to his people, telling them nothing more than ‘rumours of darkness’ before he went off. Cain had been too exhausted to do anything but agree to send him off and hope that he’d actually come back. If not, at least they had Raw’s opinion on the subject.
It had taken a great deal of time, but eventually, Raw had been able to push through the pain and the haze and pick out exactly what it seemed to be. ‘Dark magic,’ was all he said.
Cain was too tired to argue with the woman at the desk and snatched up the key before trudging up the stairs, his mud-coated boots hitting the rise of each step and leaving a trail behind him. He could hear Ambrose conversing with the woman at the desk; maybe it was about a meal or something like getting them a second room, but all Cain could think about was sleeping for a day, or maybe a week. Hell, a month of sleep wouldn’t hurt any.
The room was sparse and populated by a single bed, a dresser, and a table by a boarded-up window. To Cain, it looked like a sliver of paradise. They’d been living off the land for so long that he’d almost forgotten what a mattress felt like and he nearly made an embarrassing dash to the bed, as much as his long strides could be considered a dash.
His bag hit the ground with a heavy ‘thump’ as he collapsed on the mattress.
This was blissful.
He pried off his dirty boots – not that his socks and the ends of his pants weren’t just as messy – and shifted to lie on his back, resting his arms behind his head. He couldn’t even help the groan of pleasure that ghosted past his lips as he closed his eyes and did his best to slip off into sleep.
“You look like a baby in his crib,” a soft voice interrupted his desperate dash for rest.
Cain barely opened one eye to look over at the doorway, seeing a fuzzy version of Ambrose standing there in his ragged coat and equally-messy pants (Ambrose’s were in worse shape than Cain’s, the knees having given out completely).
“I gave the woman my name. I told her I was Glitch. I told her you were my protection,” he kept talking, locking up the door and fiddling around with the drawer. Cain knew that Ambrose had a habit of talking and talking and as good as the talk had been on the road, it was annoying as a bear’s roar right then when Cain just wanted to sleep. “…and that bed is for both of us, so shove over, Tin Man,” came the bitter tone, louder than the rest of his words, as if he knew Cain had stopped listening.
Cain sighed and tugged his hat down over his face to keep the light from the window from filtering into his vision while he grumbled and shoved over on the bed to make room for Ambrose.
For a while, nothing happened. He could hear the sounds of Ambrose shuffling around the room and clothes shifting and items being set out, but the bed didn’t dip with the additional weight for a good twenty minutes and Cain was perilously close to that half-sleep where the world felt thick and hazy all around him.
It was a good feeling to have.
Cain set his thoughts to good things, to Jeb at the palace, who would be just over nine annuals and three months now. He wondered about his education and how good Tutor was at teaching about the history of the O.Z. and the Tin Men’s contribution to the efforts. He wondered if Jeb would learn about the battles that Cain had fought in when he was still new to the force, when there had been small wars to be waged. He wondered if he was growing up with Adora’s features or if his boy was going to have his father’s face as he grew older.
He thought of DG and Azkadellia and how they were growing up, smiling sleepily at the fondness he’d developed for the young princesses and he couldn’t even remember the time in his life when he had been so against the idea of the Royalty on the whole.
At a soft snuffle beside him, Cain’s thoughts turned to Ambrose.
Sleep came on pleasantly as Cain drifted off to the thoughts of what the Advisor had become to him -- his best friend, his own advisor in difficult times. Dreams slowly began to filter into Cain’s consciousness while one last thought played around in his mind, a thought that would get lost between waking and dreams:
He makes you feel like Adora used to.
Cain woke first in the morning to discover that Ambrose hadn’t shifted at all in the course of the night. Though the morning light was spilling into the room, Ambrose lay stick-straight on his stomach, arms clasping the pillow for his head. He hadn’t even stolen Cain’s blanket in the middle of the night. It was almost considerate. They were wasting daylight, though, and considering the good night of sleep, Cain almost felt like a new man.
Funny how many wonders a good bed could do for you.
When he was fully dressed again and tugging on his holster, he leaned over to shake Ambrose’s shoulder. “Hey there, sunshine, time to get a move on,” Cain spoke lowly, still shaking the shoulder again and again. After nearly seven annuals, he was good at waking Ambrose from even the deepest sleep. It was almost playful by this time, that Cain would keep Ambrose awake for company during the early hours of the morning, even if he paid for it in spades the next day when he caught attitude from Ambrose the whole of the time.
Ambrose groaned, giving Cain a sleep-addled, bleary look. “It’s early,” he protested.
“You can tell me all about it while we walk. On your feet,” he ordered to the sounds of Ambrose’s continuous complaints. Cain couldn’t help but smile though them all, the familiarity soothing to him.
It didn’t take much more than a half hour to get back on the streets. Thanks to the innkeeper, they even had warm food in their stomachs and several provisions for the road. She couldn’t offer them a place to wash their clothes, but she did direct them to a local chemist who had been treating most of the villagers from this town and one over, for ‘poisonous dreams’.
It was the first lead in a very long time.
Cain adjusted his hat as they made their way onto the dusty street and the occasional passer-by would look at them, as if recognizing them from somewhere, but would always continue on, without fail. If Cain were easily given to paranoia, he might think that something was afoot, but the more logical explanation was just that people were used to strangers wandering about their towns.
“I could get used to sleeping in bed with you,” Ambrose remarked distractedly, rambling on as his fingers pulled at a string on his jacket. Cain followed behind him carefully, noting that he was glitching out from the way he was pulling apart the jacket and the way he didn’t seem fully aware of what he was saying. “I mean, there’s something remarkable to the notion of a person to share your bed with. I think there’s something engrained in us as people to feel protected and warmer. There’s also the benefit of body heat, of course…”
And on it went, all about how Cain was a good bedwarmer. Cain almost took it as a compliment if he didn’t know with certainty that Ambrose wasn’t meaning to say any of this.
Eventually, Ambrose stopped fidgeting with the string and plucked it right out, giving Cain a signal that he had come back to his senses.
“You done?” Cain checked verbally, just to give Ambrose a sign that he had been out of it.
“I think so, yes. She said Marietta worked out of number sixty-seven,” Ambrose murmured, checking the slip of paper that the innkeeper had given them in the way of directions. The town was as small as they came with small homes made of sturdy wood and Cain kept one hand on his gun in case they ran into trouble.
Eventually, the numbers started to creep towards the one they wanted.
“Sixty-seven,” Cain said, gesturing to the door. “You want to announce our presence or should I do it?”
“No more knocked-down doors, Cain, please,” Ambrose pleaded, almost jumping to take the lead and knock at the door politely.
They stood there waiting for longer than Cain liked and he took three strides towards the door to do it his way when the thick door was pulled open by a tired-looking woman who appeared to be somewhere between thirty-five and fifty, though Cain couldn’t narrow it down past that and had the feeling Marietta would mind somewhat if he asked. She had trinkets woven into her light and long brown hair and stood lower than either Cain or Ambrose did, but she made up for it with presence, something Cain’s mother had possessed in spades. Her clothes went on for endless layers and her home smelled…it smelled of spices and sweetness and reminded Cain of pies being baked in warm ovens.
“Who’re you?” she demanded immediately, her tone curt and her accent rough around the edges.
Cain might not have been the most effortless man when it came to charming women, but he knew how to offer respect. “We’re travellers, Ma’am, in search of advice and help,” he explained slowly and carefully, making sure to move his hands away from his gun to avoid any sudden movements and mistakes being made. “My name is Wyatt Cain and this is my friend, Glitch,” he explained effortlessly. “We heard tale that villagers were coming to you for help about dreams.” He took a moment to let the information sink in before he pressed forward. “We’d like to talk to you about that.”
“Might as well come in, boys,” Marietta accepted, opening the door to them. “Don’t think I should refuse an armed man,” she noted, nodding to Cain’s gun.
They made their way inside to settle within the warmth of the small home. Cain could make out markings on the wall, protection figures in the language of the Ancients, by what he could tell. Ambrose probably already had it translated and memorized for later. There were herbs and bones cast around and a brewing pot between them.
“What is it, exactly, that people have been seeing?” Cain asked, getting right to the point.
“Cain!” Ambrose hissed.
Cain didn’t even look anywhere but directly at Marietta, who glared right back at him. “That information’s between me and mine clients,” she pointed out archly. “Y’think you can just wander in here freely and use that pretty face o’ yours to ask for anything you’d like?” Cain was still trying to determine how serious she was with the act and was beginning to think that he actually had a shot of getting information.
“For the good of the O.Z.?” Cain asked patiently. “Yes, Ma’am, I do think you’ll tell us. And if you don’t feel obliged to tell us now, we have a Viewer who could tell us what we need to know, but I’d like to think we’re more civilized than that.”
There was a tense moment in the home and Cain just settled his coat back over his chair, settling in for a long stay, if need be.
“You aren’t even thinking ‘bout leaving t’il I tell you?” Marietta guessed.
“He’s an incredibly stubborn man,” Ambrose pitched in helpfully, having been standing behind Cain, one hand twitchily resting on his shoulder as if in support. “I’m sure he could do this for days and days.”
Marietta and Cain entered into a long staring contest and though Cain heard Ambrose’s sigh of impatience behind him, he didn’t break away once.
“It’s for the O.Z.,” Cain patiently spoke, digging out the papers he’d rarely had to use and set them out on the table: these were the papers initialled by the Queen, Ahamo, and the current head of the Tin Men. “Please,” he finally added to his pleas.
“Took you long enough to add that bit,” Marietta noted with wry amusement. “Sit,” she directed the word at Ambrose. “I’ll make a cup of tea for the both of you. Y’look like you could use simple comforts.”
It didn’t take very long for Ambrose to sit down beside Cain and the tea seemed to come as quickly as Marietta’s words did as she began to talk easily and quietly about the nightmares that plagued the villagers. She’d prescribed sleeping aids as much as she could, but the same face haunted the villagers night by night without respite.
“What is it they’re seeing?” Cain asked, expecting to hear the name ‘Zero’ mentioned or maybe something about whoever was really behind this; maybe someone with magic to equal that of the Queen.
“A wicked witch.”
*
“Witches don’t exist,” Ambrose had been complaining for days on end, ever since they had been to the small town that spoke of actually seeing the witch in their dreams and in their water supply. With Zero’s allegiance to an unseen ‘Sorceress’ implied by every last account and the dark magic that they seemed to be encountering in chilly waves, it had grown more and more impossible for Ambrose to do anything but accept it as truth.
The paranoia of the O.Z. and the climate of hurt and slowly-encroaching darkness were at the hands of an unseen dark witch, hiding in some cave. Raw had confirmed what Marietta had told them when he rejoined the group after speaking with members of his own tribe.
“Did you not believe the Princesses that day?” Cain asked patiently as they picked their way through the woods with Raw carrying up the rear behind them. All three of them had begun to look much worse for the wear in the middle of their ‘exile’. Ambrose’s coat had begun to wear down and fray and Cain’s clothes had taken on a grey tarnish that couldn’t be washed out with soap. “They don’t strike me as the lying type.”
“Lying, no, but little girls exaggerate,” Ambrose protested huffily. He could even see Cain and Raw exchanging an annoyed look and it did nothing to help his mood at all. “Witches,” he muttered, letting Cain take the lead while he happily complained away. “The next thing you know, you’ll be telling me that unicorns will carry us off to a land of gold and faeries.”
“You gonna complain the whole trip, sweetheart, or am I going to get something resembling peace and quiet?” Cain asked over his shoulder. Even if his tone was clipped, it included the use of a new nickname that Cain had added to his lexicon only recently and it made Ambrose smile to himself every time he used it.
“We’ll see.”
“Great. Just what I need.”
In the midst of all of Ambrose’s complaining, he hadn’t heard the piercing cry from above as it plummeted towards the earth like a meteorite bent on crashing into the ground. To his credit, neither Cain nor Raw heard it either, which was good for the sake of Ambrose’s pride, but had been very, very bad in general.
It was a mobat and it was set on interrupting their trip back to the palace.
“Dangerous!” Raw cried out as he cowered and tried to hide himself from the teeth and the claws of the treacherous animal, rumoured to be in the Witch’s employ; no, not in her employ, it was far more sinister than that. They were in her control. Cain had his gun drawn in two seconds flat, cocking the hammer back and aiming it skywards, pumping out two bullets, but the damned mobat dodged them both and fixated on Cain as its target, as if the gunpowder had drawn him closer.
Before Ambrose could shout or stop it, it was digging its claws and teeth into Cain’s neck, spattering blood on nearby trees, the forest floor and Ambrose himself as he darted forward to do whatever he could, anything to stop the mobat.
Anything had wound up being a fierce, desperate punch before he’d pried Cain’s gun from his hands and shot a bullet straight through the recovering mobat’s chest, right through where its heart should be, if it even had one.
It seemed to quiver and seize up, not moving a single inch and certainly not breathing.
Ambrose exhaled, feeling like he could breathe for the first time since that war cry from the sky. In that tiny window of relief, he almost forgot why he had become so desperate to rid them of the mobat and why he was holding the gun in his hand. “Raw?” Ambrose shouted, knowing they needed the healing powers of a Viewer and soon.
Raw was staring at them both with trepidation.
Ambrose cursed to himself as he wrapped his lithe arms around Cain, but even with all the strength he had in him, he couldn’t keep the other man vertical and he buckled to his knees, gently lying Cain out on the path with Ambrose’s arm still wrapped around Cain’s back. There was so little space between them, but all Ambrose could see was the blood seeping from the wound, the large wound.
“Raw!” Ambrose snapped again.
“Raw not able to heal on own,” he said slowly. “Raw needs herbs to help bite.” Of course, of course, Ambrose knew it from his lessons, that mobats contained a venom in their teeth and a Viewer couldn’t simply heal them, not without aid of certain herbs commonly found in forests in the O.Z. Calculating the rate of blood loss compared to how long it would take Raw, Ambrose knew that they would have time. They had to have time.
“Go,” Ambrose instructed lowly.
“All this panicking,” Cain muttered, his eyes drifting to the bite as his hat toppled off his head. “It’s just a scratch, Glitch.”
“Ambrose,” he corrected lightly.
“Must be having one of your episodes,” Cain laughed weakly. “Can’t remember up from down and left from right.” Ambrose closed his eyes tightly to ignore the way his heart was aching and how it hurt to look at Cain beneath him, so pale. There was a sheen of sweat coating his face and the blood was slowly covering Ambrose’s hands, as he refused to let go of Cain and brought him closer, nearly dragging him into his lap as they sat in the middle of the path to wait for Raw to return. To take his mind off of the panic, Ambrose had taken to cleaning up the wound and it had done him well. The wound was much smaller than he had originally thought and with Raw’s inevitable return with the various herbs, Cain would be just fine.
That still meant that Ambrose had experienced a good minute’s worth of blind panic in which he had imagined an existence without Cain in his life. It didn’t matter how he was in his life anymore, just that he was there and the thought of losing him to a witch’s servant made his stomach churn and his heart turn to ice.
“Don’t you go passing out on me,” Ambrose warned.
“Getting even with me after all this time?” Cain laughed, more of a pained scoff than anything else. Ambrose smiled nostalgically as he remembered the first few annuals of voyages, when Cain refused to let Ambrose sleep while he had to stay awake and how it had brought on many an irritable night between the two of them. He had continued to do so, but Ambrose had started to expect the frequency of Cain’s wakings. He’d come to hope for them. They meant more time talking, more time getting to know him. He liked them, even if it brought on many a moody night.
Ambrose knew it was strange to enjoy those nights, but he did. He liked all the nights, from the good ones, to the bad ones, to the irritable ones, to the ‘Adora Moment’ ones. He refused to let it end on a night that was coated with the heavy sheen of blood and the thick taste of disgust under his tongue, a curse lashed out against the Witch for this.
“Cain,” Ambrose said, shaking the man in his arms. “Wyatt, come on, now, don’t sleep on me.”
“I am on you.”
“How very literal of you.” For all his sarcasm, Ambrose was still having trouble delivering anything past a shaky breath and he closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead to Cain’s and tried to ignore anything resembling fear in his system in favour of emotions like hope and optimism. “Cain, I mean it.”
“Don’t worry, Ambrose,” Cain was speaking as patient as ever, as if nothing was the matter except maybe that their blankets were too damp. “Sleeping with you would be the best thing that’s happened to me in annuals.”
“You mean on me,” Ambrose patiently corrected the slip.
“No, I don’t.”
Ambrose froze, though this time it was hardly in anything like panic. He searched Cain’s face quickly for anything resembling a joke and when he couldn’t find anything in Cain’s warm blue eyes – how could he ever have thought them icy? – he swallowed hard and leaned his forehead down against Cain’s as a nervous laugh bubbled out from his throat and an episode came on hard and fast.
“Gee, Cain, could have told a guy earlier,” he spat out anxiously before he got a hold of himself. “So, you’ve given in to my fine charms?”
“It was just a matter of time.”
This, Ambrose could do. They could joke around and be light about the subject matter and Ambrose could forget that he was pressing down a cloth on Cain’s neck to stop the flow of the bleeding. If they kept in good demeanours and avoided the dark turns of pessimism and cynicism, then they could make it through the next few hours easily.
Nearly seven annuals they had been travelling together through dark paths and darker days.
“I’m glad you feel that way, Cain,” Ambrose finally admitted when a lull of silence overtook them and Cain seemed to be slipping off to sleep. It was a simple admission and barely skimmed the surface of everything he wanted to say, but it was a place to start. Everyone needed to start their journey somewhere.
tbc
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And this is making a very boring, slow day at work much better. :)
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Thank you for reading!
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In this chapter. Not that he'll die in any of them. Maybe.no subject
Your story's are always so awesome. Can't wait for the next part.
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This is my fave line because it reminds me of when Raw shows them Glitch's memories in the series and it sounds like he says "Dark day".
I am loving this story. LOVE LOVE LOVE!
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Thank you for reading!
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I absolutely love the way you're working that in! Both in larger events, like meeting up with Raw, and little details, like Glitch's coat being torn. This is an immensely satisfying read!
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In the process of bending over to bundle some up in his arms, he realized that he was being watched. He righted himself, clothes shifting in the sudden movement, and then Ambrose watched right back.
Also loved Cain and Ambrose's increasingly intimate moments with each other, and how like Cain to finally decide to make his declaration right at that particular moment! Although I daresay it was good distraction for Ambrose.
And this:
“So, you’ve given in to my fine charms?”
"It was just a matter of time.”
Indeed it was. ♥
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Thank you so much for reading and Ambrose really did just need something for his GIGANTIC brain to focus on.
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I love this fic. It is such a fun read.
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Well it's something.
I can't wait to read the rest.
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Thanks for reading!
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