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lovely_ambitionTitle: And Then Months Later, Ambrose Retaliates 1/2
Pairing: Ambrose/Cain
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If I did own them, they'd be pretty angry I did this, huh?
Summary: Cain's one mistake was never letting Ambrose live it down.
Notes: Yes, it's genderswitch, so if that's not your thing, you might want to shy away. This is a sequel to The first story, in which Ambrose was a woman and no one really noticed anything was different.
It had been a small favour to ask of two princesses who utterly adored him and owed him one for That Time (as they had all taken to calling it) and Ambrose had insisted that he would handle the situation as best as he could. Both DG and Azkadellia hadn’t been sure, exactly, if he’d been serious when he came to ask them, but a single nod insisted so.
“He’s been making comments,” Ambrose said evenly. “A few days is all. Just so he understands.” DG had expressed concern over Cain coming after them with a gun, to which Ambrose had replied, “…ah, no. I warned him I would do this. He just grunted and said I should try and then added a sweetheart as if that would smooth it over.” He turned his attention to Azkadellia. “Three days. Four. He knows it’s coming. Or at least, he thinks I’m going to chicken out and not ask this of you.”
And though neither Ambrose nor Cain ever said so, a large part of their relationship factored into the one-upping of each other and winning.
DG just gave Ambrose a wary look. “Are you sure you guys have a healthy relationship?”
“This is very odd,” Azkadellia gave her own opinion of the matter. “But then, I suppose if there’s no official business to be tended to, we can control the effect?” she had turned her attention to DG as she spoke and Ambrose lit up (very well nearly glowed as he could see he was about to get his way).
“I guess not,” DG admitted. “But if we get yelled at, this is your fault.”
“Come on, DG, you do owe me one,” Ambrose reminded her, playing that all-too-dusty guilt card.
“I never thought this would be how I repaid you.”
“Life is full of surprises, little sis.”
Ambrose was nearly bouncing at this point, watching the sisters join hands together and close their eyes in concentration. He didn’t dare say a word and disrupt whatever magic they were weaving – as the two most powerful beings in the whole O.Z., who knew what chaos they could wreak if thrown out of their groove?
Then, like they’d just been meditating, they disjoined hands and DG gave Ambrose a bright smile. “All done,” she reported.
“And you can guarantee he’s not a bird?”
“Well, we hope not,” Azkadellia spoke in mock-concern.
“He’s really not,” DG laughed. “Go. Back to bed. And you have exactly five days.”
Ambrose had only asked for three to four and when he thought to what five meant, he gave DG and Azkadellia a curious look. The fourth-night was the celebration of the changing of the seasons, in which there was a very private dinner and mingling arranged for many a noble who was coming to the Northern Island to celebrate the reinstated monarchy.
And if this was to last that long…
Well, Cain was certainly going to kill Ambrose, that was for sure. He bowed and nodded to each Princess, murmuring his thanks before turning and began a very brisk walk (but never a run, oh no) back to his room, where he had last seen Cain in bed, after a long bicker about just how Ambrose had been such a dear little effeminate creature and how Cain had her in the palm of his hand all those months ago.
He broke into a run somewhere around the fourth floor and sprinted the rest of the way to their shared room, wherein he composed himself just outside the door, tugging on the lapels of his coat before wandering inside to find a very different Wyatt Cain than the one he’d left.
Being that very normally, Cain wasn’t so lithe – yet well-rounded – wasn’t so pretty, wasn’t so bedecked with shoulder-length blonde hair, and wasn’t so female.
Cain barely glanced up from under the covers, where she’d taken to curling up with a folder the size of a tome detailing the latest procedures of patrolling in the South. “I borrowed your shorts,” Cain informed Ambrose, very matter-of-factly and even her voice had very deep tones to it, almost sultry. “Mine got too big.”
“Aren’t mine too tight?” Ambrose asked, gaping in Cain’s direction as he shed his embroidered coat and hung it up on the nearest hook.
“A little.”
“Huh.”
Ambrose swallowed and crawled into bed on the other side of Cain, trying to assess her from where he was lying. Cain was definitely of a smaller frame, but it was a couple of inches lost and not so burly in the chest. Not that the chest was anything to complain about. Because Cain most definitely wasn’t thin. Not big, but definitely not thin. Curves in all the right places with wide hips and a wide…
Ambrose gulped and began to rethink the part where this would be a walk in the park for him to get even.
“Turn off the lights,” Cain instructed.
Ambrose obeyed, murmuring a quick prayer to the gods for patience as he slid in under the covers and tried not to let his hands stray anywhere, especially when the two of them resumed their usual sleeping positions – Cain spooning Ambrose from behind, legs all tangled together and Cain’s mouth pressed right up against Ambrose’s neck.
Oh…dear gods…
Ambrose wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep, at this rate.
*
When he woke up, Cain was already out of bed and tying her longer hair back into a messy, low-hanging ponytail as she put on the usual hat. She was wearing a pair of cowboy boots, denims, and a button-down that was three sizes too big and sliding into a new-looking vest.
Ambrose shifted underneath the covers, groaning as the morning light spilled into the room and over the bed. “Where are you going?”
“Morning ride, as usual. You coming, sweetheart?”
“You’re supposed to be shocked,” Ambrose muttered, his words sticking together in a fit of laziness. “You’re supposed to be reeling and trying to accustom to this. Not…going off to ride something that isn’t me,” he added, his tone grumpy.
Ambrose found, though, that Cain’s laugh was absolutely beautiful like this and it almost made things worth it. Cain didn’t say anything else before she left and Ambrose stifled his silly grin into a pillow as he turned and tried to fall back to sleep. He just had to completely ignore how his plan wasn’t going according to any plan he’d made.
By the time Ambrose made it outside, hours had passed and the surrounding area was bustling with activity. People went about their tasks while the trees that surrounded the forests near the Island bloomed wonderfully and boats carried people from the shore to the palace standing in the middle of the Island. The temperature had become wonderful with the coming of summer and Ambrose knew exactly where Cain would be at around this time.
He supposed an apology was in order. Or at least an explanation.
He found Cain by the reeds at the West-end of the lake. She was brushing the horse with a very firm hand, half her clothing sitting in a pile beside them, leaving Cain only in the trousers and the too-loose button down.
“Good ride?” Ambrose offered, feeling as if small talk would somehow protect him. Maybe small talk was the miraculous cure to make Ambrose stop staring at Cain’s newfound breasts. Or maybe that one was a lost cause, seeing as Cain wasn’t exactly wearing any underwear designed to sup…oh gods, Ambrose needed more small talk, immediately. “You look like you enjoyed it!” he spat out in a hurry. “That is. I mean, you always look like you do, but today’s no different,” he said, laughing anxiously. “So uh…now it’s time for the swim?”
“As usual,” Cain agreed, loosening her hair from the knot it was in and tossing her hat atop the pile of clothes. Cain never once took her eyes off of Ambrose, as if waiting for something more. Nothing came, so she just shrugged and slowly waded into the water, basking in the temperature of the water – which most people found too brisk and cool, but Cain swore it felt just like ‘home’, whatever that meant.
Ambrose closed his eyes resolutely, determined not to be swayed by clothes sticking to skin or droplets of water cascading down new angles that fascinated him from a purely geometrical standpoint.
“I asked the girls to do this,” he blurted out quickly.
“And here I thought I’d put something strange in my coffee the night before,” Cain noted with sarcasm. “Why’d you go through with it?”
“You kept making disparaging comments about how I handled it!” Ambrose retorted. “I thought you deserved a taste of medicine that came in the form of dresses and peeing while sitting down.”
When there was no response, Ambrose figured that Cain was just too far away to reply. But then there was a drawn out silence and Ambrose began to worry that maybe Cain was drowning, but then he peeked one eye open and came face to face with a dripping wet (and shorter) Wyatt Cain, staring right up at him.
“So um…take that?”
“I’m handling it,” Cain began, incredibly calmly, “far, far better than you did.”
The worst part of that sentence was the part where it was inherently true, gods damn it. Ambrose winced and let his gaze descend down from Cain’s face and blatantly took in the fact that Cain’s too-big shirt was now clinging to her figure and making a very nice hourglass shape with all those wide proportions. Cain wasn’t as narrow as DG or even as shapely as Azkadellia. It was very ‘working-farm-woman’ and for some reason, Ambrose found he was enjoying the notion that Cain, had he been born a woman, would have been blessed with wide childbearing hips and strong arms to carry anything. Of course, if he said it aloud, he might have the barrel of a gun pointed in his direction, so he kept his mouth shut and slowly pried his coat off, stepping around Cain to slide her into it in order to keep her covered up.
“You look nice,” Ambrose finally offered quietly.
“I know,” was the cool and confident response before Cain tugged the coat tighter around her frame. She picked up her clothes and gave Ambrose a brisk nod. “Should be taking a shower. You coming?”
“To … t-to join?”
“No, just watch, I think,” Cain said thoughtfully. Ambrose recited a quiet chant of Cain is horrible, terrible, torturous, mean, horrible, terrible tor… until it got too reminiscent of Glitch, what with the repetition and when he swallowed so hard that it made an audible sound, Cain lifted herself onto her tiptoes and pressed a very chaste kiss to Ambrose’s lips. “I haven’t seen myself naked yet,” she informed him, very matter-of-factly. “I don’t want you in there when that happens.”
Ambrose exhaled a curse and stared at Cain with a very petulant ‘lost little boy look’. “Cain?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?” she asked, collecting her pile of things.
“You’re being so incredibly cruel.”
“And handling it well,” Cain agreed.
tbc
Pairing: Ambrose/Cain
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If I did own them, they'd be pretty angry I did this, huh?
Summary: Cain's one mistake was never letting Ambrose live it down.
Notes: Yes, it's genderswitch, so if that's not your thing, you might want to shy away. This is a sequel to The first story, in which Ambrose was a woman and no one really noticed anything was different.
It had been a small favour to ask of two princesses who utterly adored him and owed him one for That Time (as they had all taken to calling it) and Ambrose had insisted that he would handle the situation as best as he could. Both DG and Azkadellia hadn’t been sure, exactly, if he’d been serious when he came to ask them, but a single nod insisted so.
“He’s been making comments,” Ambrose said evenly. “A few days is all. Just so he understands.” DG had expressed concern over Cain coming after them with a gun, to which Ambrose had replied, “…ah, no. I warned him I would do this. He just grunted and said I should try and then added a sweetheart as if that would smooth it over.” He turned his attention to Azkadellia. “Three days. Four. He knows it’s coming. Or at least, he thinks I’m going to chicken out and not ask this of you.”
And though neither Ambrose nor Cain ever said so, a large part of their relationship factored into the one-upping of each other and winning.
DG just gave Ambrose a wary look. “Are you sure you guys have a healthy relationship?”
“This is very odd,” Azkadellia gave her own opinion of the matter. “But then, I suppose if there’s no official business to be tended to, we can control the effect?” she had turned her attention to DG as she spoke and Ambrose lit up (very well nearly glowed as he could see he was about to get his way).
“I guess not,” DG admitted. “But if we get yelled at, this is your fault.”
“Come on, DG, you do owe me one,” Ambrose reminded her, playing that all-too-dusty guilt card.
“I never thought this would be how I repaid you.”
“Life is full of surprises, little sis.”
Ambrose was nearly bouncing at this point, watching the sisters join hands together and close their eyes in concentration. He didn’t dare say a word and disrupt whatever magic they were weaving – as the two most powerful beings in the whole O.Z., who knew what chaos they could wreak if thrown out of their groove?
Then, like they’d just been meditating, they disjoined hands and DG gave Ambrose a bright smile. “All done,” she reported.
“And you can guarantee he’s not a bird?”
“Well, we hope not,” Azkadellia spoke in mock-concern.
“He’s really not,” DG laughed. “Go. Back to bed. And you have exactly five days.”
Ambrose had only asked for three to four and when he thought to what five meant, he gave DG and Azkadellia a curious look. The fourth-night was the celebration of the changing of the seasons, in which there was a very private dinner and mingling arranged for many a noble who was coming to the Northern Island to celebrate the reinstated monarchy.
And if this was to last that long…
Well, Cain was certainly going to kill Ambrose, that was for sure. He bowed and nodded to each Princess, murmuring his thanks before turning and began a very brisk walk (but never a run, oh no) back to his room, where he had last seen Cain in bed, after a long bicker about just how Ambrose had been such a dear little effeminate creature and how Cain had her in the palm of his hand all those months ago.
He broke into a run somewhere around the fourth floor and sprinted the rest of the way to their shared room, wherein he composed himself just outside the door, tugging on the lapels of his coat before wandering inside to find a very different Wyatt Cain than the one he’d left.
Being that very normally, Cain wasn’t so lithe – yet well-rounded – wasn’t so pretty, wasn’t so bedecked with shoulder-length blonde hair, and wasn’t so female.
Cain barely glanced up from under the covers, where she’d taken to curling up with a folder the size of a tome detailing the latest procedures of patrolling in the South. “I borrowed your shorts,” Cain informed Ambrose, very matter-of-factly and even her voice had very deep tones to it, almost sultry. “Mine got too big.”
“Aren’t mine too tight?” Ambrose asked, gaping in Cain’s direction as he shed his embroidered coat and hung it up on the nearest hook.
“A little.”
“Huh.”
Ambrose swallowed and crawled into bed on the other side of Cain, trying to assess her from where he was lying. Cain was definitely of a smaller frame, but it was a couple of inches lost and not so burly in the chest. Not that the chest was anything to complain about. Because Cain most definitely wasn’t thin. Not big, but definitely not thin. Curves in all the right places with wide hips and a wide…
Ambrose gulped and began to rethink the part where this would be a walk in the park for him to get even.
“Turn off the lights,” Cain instructed.
Ambrose obeyed, murmuring a quick prayer to the gods for patience as he slid in under the covers and tried not to let his hands stray anywhere, especially when the two of them resumed their usual sleeping positions – Cain spooning Ambrose from behind, legs all tangled together and Cain’s mouth pressed right up against Ambrose’s neck.
Oh…dear gods…
Ambrose wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep, at this rate.
*
When he woke up, Cain was already out of bed and tying her longer hair back into a messy, low-hanging ponytail as she put on the usual hat. She was wearing a pair of cowboy boots, denims, and a button-down that was three sizes too big and sliding into a new-looking vest.
Ambrose shifted underneath the covers, groaning as the morning light spilled into the room and over the bed. “Where are you going?”
“Morning ride, as usual. You coming, sweetheart?”
“You’re supposed to be shocked,” Ambrose muttered, his words sticking together in a fit of laziness. “You’re supposed to be reeling and trying to accustom to this. Not…going off to ride something that isn’t me,” he added, his tone grumpy.
Ambrose found, though, that Cain’s laugh was absolutely beautiful like this and it almost made things worth it. Cain didn’t say anything else before she left and Ambrose stifled his silly grin into a pillow as he turned and tried to fall back to sleep. He just had to completely ignore how his plan wasn’t going according to any plan he’d made.
By the time Ambrose made it outside, hours had passed and the surrounding area was bustling with activity. People went about their tasks while the trees that surrounded the forests near the Island bloomed wonderfully and boats carried people from the shore to the palace standing in the middle of the Island. The temperature had become wonderful with the coming of summer and Ambrose knew exactly where Cain would be at around this time.
He supposed an apology was in order. Or at least an explanation.
He found Cain by the reeds at the West-end of the lake. She was brushing the horse with a very firm hand, half her clothing sitting in a pile beside them, leaving Cain only in the trousers and the too-loose button down.
“Good ride?” Ambrose offered, feeling as if small talk would somehow protect him. Maybe small talk was the miraculous cure to make Ambrose stop staring at Cain’s newfound breasts. Or maybe that one was a lost cause, seeing as Cain wasn’t exactly wearing any underwear designed to sup…oh gods, Ambrose needed more small talk, immediately. “You look like you enjoyed it!” he spat out in a hurry. “That is. I mean, you always look like you do, but today’s no different,” he said, laughing anxiously. “So uh…now it’s time for the swim?”
“As usual,” Cain agreed, loosening her hair from the knot it was in and tossing her hat atop the pile of clothes. Cain never once took her eyes off of Ambrose, as if waiting for something more. Nothing came, so she just shrugged and slowly waded into the water, basking in the temperature of the water – which most people found too brisk and cool, but Cain swore it felt just like ‘home’, whatever that meant.
Ambrose closed his eyes resolutely, determined not to be swayed by clothes sticking to skin or droplets of water cascading down new angles that fascinated him from a purely geometrical standpoint.
“I asked the girls to do this,” he blurted out quickly.
“And here I thought I’d put something strange in my coffee the night before,” Cain noted with sarcasm. “Why’d you go through with it?”
“You kept making disparaging comments about how I handled it!” Ambrose retorted. “I thought you deserved a taste of medicine that came in the form of dresses and peeing while sitting down.”
When there was no response, Ambrose figured that Cain was just too far away to reply. But then there was a drawn out silence and Ambrose began to worry that maybe Cain was drowning, but then he peeked one eye open and came face to face with a dripping wet (and shorter) Wyatt Cain, staring right up at him.
“So um…take that?”
“I’m handling it,” Cain began, incredibly calmly, “far, far better than you did.”
The worst part of that sentence was the part where it was inherently true, gods damn it. Ambrose winced and let his gaze descend down from Cain’s face and blatantly took in the fact that Cain’s too-big shirt was now clinging to her figure and making a very nice hourglass shape with all those wide proportions. Cain wasn’t as narrow as DG or even as shapely as Azkadellia. It was very ‘working-farm-woman’ and for some reason, Ambrose found he was enjoying the notion that Cain, had he been born a woman, would have been blessed with wide childbearing hips and strong arms to carry anything. Of course, if he said it aloud, he might have the barrel of a gun pointed in his direction, so he kept his mouth shut and slowly pried his coat off, stepping around Cain to slide her into it in order to keep her covered up.
“You look nice,” Ambrose finally offered quietly.
“I know,” was the cool and confident response before Cain tugged the coat tighter around her frame. She picked up her clothes and gave Ambrose a brisk nod. “Should be taking a shower. You coming?”
“To … t-to join?”
“No, just watch, I think,” Cain said thoughtfully. Ambrose recited a quiet chant of Cain is horrible, terrible, torturous, mean, horrible, terrible tor… until it got too reminiscent of Glitch, what with the repetition and when he swallowed so hard that it made an audible sound, Cain lifted herself onto her tiptoes and pressed a very chaste kiss to Ambrose’s lips. “I haven’t seen myself naked yet,” she informed him, very matter-of-factly. “I don’t want you in there when that happens.”
Ambrose exhaled a curse and stared at Cain with a very petulant ‘lost little boy look’. “Cain?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?” she asked, collecting her pile of things.
“You’re being so incredibly cruel.”
“And handling it well,” Cain agreed.
tbc
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