Massive Drabble Request Post
So here are all the drabbles that were all written for the requests in... Gods, was it January? that I've already posted.
The two spankin' new ones can be seen above.
Glitch and/or Ambrose/Cain (duh!). Cain finds Glitch (or Ambrose) in a hallway of the palace, dying (injured, sick, etc). Other characters are welcome - Raw and DG to help, others to find out what happened. Preferences: Slash, no death fic. Have fun!
surranndie
Cain paused when a muffled whump echoed through his walls. He blinked for a second, standing in the middle of his bedroom in the palace, before the book he was holding hit the floor and he was scrambling to yank his shoes on. What in the Gray Gale was that? It sounded like it came from the Eastern hall and that was a bad, bad sign.
“Cain!” DG's yelling, also a bad sign.
He felt his heart skip a beat when he spotted the crumpled figure in the hall. DG was running up from the other way and there was a trickle of white smoke from Ambrose's lab clouding up the hall. Cain reached him first, his knees hitting the carpet as he frantically checked Ambrose over, there were burns on the inventor's hands and on the left side of his face. As if he turned. Had he been trying to shield himself?
“Cain! Is he alright?” DG asked, her hands covering her face as her eyes watered from the smoke.
“He's breathing, he just needs a healer,” Cain coughed and frowned, “we should open a window or something.”
DG nodded as she pushed into Ambrose's study, letting out only a little bit more smoke.
“Don't touch anything but the window!” Cain called as he gently hefted Ambrose into his arms. He should have known something was up. Ambrose had been quiet about anything he'd been working on the last few days or so, and this was coming from a man who talked about science in bed. Whether he was awake or not. One Sunday Cain had spent nearly twenty minutes staring at the sunsrise and listening to his lover mutter about epicyclic gearing in his sleep.
“..don't...”
Cain paused as he tilted his head, “Ambrose? Come on, talk to me.”
“Don't... window... It 'ill corrode...”
Brown eyes fluttered open and were followed by a pout when Cain seemed unconcerned as to whatever the hell happened to his lover's experiment.
“If you don't preserve the results... I'll... just have to do it again.”
“Deeg! Get out of there! Leave the window alone!”
How about a drabble from Cain's point of view about the hours (days?) of Glitch saving his life in Demilo's truck. What does he remember? How does he feel about it?
candacestls
He's watching Glitch putter around the edge of the firelight picking up stones and poking at bits of grass with a long stick he'd found. DG was gone! They had to... Cain sighed. It would be a losing battle trying to get Glitch to continue on to the witches tower in the dark. It was probably a good idea to rest. They'd made it off of the Northern Island. At least it was warm here. A memory shivers through him and he stares into the fire. He knew what cold was, he didn't know that cold could get so cold it turned into nothing.
My families alive and then nothing.
He can only remember snippets, the shock and pain, the rush of air and water that was so cold it felt warm. Struggling in his suddenly too heavy jacket. Adora had taught him to swim. She had laughed at him for ages when they first met that he didn't know how. They had courted in the water. Patient words and fleeting touches until he moved like a fish to her water nymph. It was her voice in his head that got him moving, finally digging his fingers into snow that his brain was telling him should be cold but it wasn't, it was nothing.
A gasp of air and then nothing.
He didn't know if he stood, he knew he stumbled and he knew he crawled. He crawled until he was ice, immovable and still. He had to get to DG. There was no telling what would happen if she was taken. He was in no condition to do anything even if he found her. He thought he saw the door to the Winter Palace. Ice man... Tin man...
Blurred vision and then nothing.
He was aware of tutting at first. A frantic voice talking to him and to itself. Something was pulling at his skin, no it was his clothes. Wet. Frantic. Panic. Gods. A trail of feeling had flittered over his lips. Fingertips. Skin. Friction. Rubbing. Don't. Just don't. Don't what? Soft. Blanket? Something... Ah! Fire. No. Not fire. Felt like fire. Limbs. He had limbs and he had a body and it was pissed at him. There was a gasp that wasn't his when he began to shiver. Thankyouthankyouthankyou... You're welcome?
The warm sensation of a hand on his chest and then nothing.
Then he had a hangover and his hand on his gun and Glitch was talking. DG had been taken. Who knew what had happened to Raw. Glitch had saved him. Glitch had saved him? Cain looked up at the headcase who had settled on the other side of the fire, frowning to himself and keeping his stick as a prize. He didn't think the man would have had it in him. Not to have dragged Cain half a mile. Not to have remembered where the truck was. Not to have known what to do. But he had remembered and all Cain remembered were hands on him and that whispery voice making its own prayer.
Cain reached into his pocket and squeezed. Jeb's toy horse. Adora's lessons. Glitch's warm hands. Someone somewhere would have said it was love that saved him.
Cain/Glitch - Glitch shows some rookie Tin Men/soldiers that he can hold his own in battle
yo_mawari
In retrospect he should have been paying attention. Well, he had been paying attention, he'd just been paying more attention to what he was going to do later than what had been going on in the present. Now he was sitting on a log with two other tin men with their hands manacled behind their backs. He didn't know what had happened to the third man they had been traveling with. Cain was going to grumble at him, but at least now he knew where the insurgents camp was. Oh! Insurgents. That was nice word. Sounded important.
A hand yanked him up his lapel and he smiled blankly, as a question was growled at him, ah, he hadn't been paying attention again. Cain had told him to play dumb which had kind of chafed at him but was a bit fun. There were six men, only six? Must be scouts then or this whole little 'rebellion' against the Queen was going to end hard and fast. This man smelled awful, really, at least when they were the resistance they bathed...
“Unhand the Advisor!”
Glitch hissed as one of the tin men tried to stand up and got knocked down in the dirt for his troubles.
“Told you we had him,” one of the men said, “That tin man don't go nowhere without him.”
The part of Glitch that was Ambrose cringed when the man spoke and Glitch shook his head as the other five came and took a good look at him before nodding. Apparently he was what they wanted to ransom. Perfect!
“Take him down the ravine, kill these other two.”
Uh oh, not perfect. Glitch frowned as the younger of the tin men's eyes widened. He had a girl, didn't he? The other had a mother to take care of. Glitch better step up and do his job then. It's a split second before the one dragging him around by the collar is screaming on the ground clutching his nose just before a sound kick sends him into unconsciousness. Two more men start at him and Glitch hits the ground of his own violation, long legs taking one man down with him as hard as he could.
Rhythm, they had no rhythm, just a roiling gaggle of limbs and the second one is out cold just as the third gets close enough to get a boot where the sun doesn't shine and another in his gut. The fourth is barely on the edge of his range, hesitating in a cringe as the last one falls and then Glitch twists, his hands are in front of him now, giving him just enough leverage to push up and tumble into the gawking one, cracking him over the head with his chains. In the same heartbeat he'd spun and caught the fifth one with a head butt that had the insurgent toppling to the ground and then he simply grinned at the last one.
Which was enough to make the man bolt, straight into the trees, only to get dragged out a second later by Cain who was frowning, “Did you have to knock all of them out? That's a lot to carry.”
Glitch shrugged as he fiddled with the cuffs around his wrists, “Sorry, I went on instinct. Did you hear that idiot talk? Don't go nowhere indeed...”
Cain turned to the two tin men who where still wide eyed and staring at Glitch who was off muttering again, dumping the cuffs on the ground as he stepped over a groaning man. Cain only smiled and inclined his head, urging them to get up,
“Come on, you didn't really think you were here to protect him?”
Pairing: Ambrose/Glitch/Cain Prompt: Ambrose and Cain have met before, not that Cain really remembers (*ahem*drunksex*ahem*). But Ambrose never forgot anything, and once Glitch gets his brain returned to him it's an awkward situation.
darlingbluewind
Ambrose was hiding. Really consciously hiding. He'd shut his workshop door under the pretense that he was cleaning but instead had just sat down at his desk and was leaning back in his chair staring at the ceiling.
Of all the men Glitch had to have run into it had to have been that one.
They hadn't exchanged names. Ambrose had been eighteen and looking for a way to completely piss off his mother and he'd found it in a blue eyed, blond haired stuttering rookie tin man. The man was gorgeous. Glitch had said 'cute' and almost the first thing Ambrose had corrected him on was, 'No. Gorgeous.' Trying to explain to his other half the fumbling evening of kisses and all out sex in an abandoned house was embarrassing enough without that little Glitch smile and, 'I like him too.'
Then of course came actually speaking to the tin man. They'd changed so much from that night. But whenever Ambrose looked at Wyatt Cain all he saw were wide blue eyes, tasted cheap gin, and felt that glorious gasp run through him. Ambrose closed his eyes and groaned. He shouldn't think about it. He had to think about it. It had been almost a month since he'd gotten his brain back and the two weeks he'd spent out of bed and sentient he'd been blushing like an idiot as well as out and out running from the tin man. He didn't want the man to think he didn't like him. He just... he was a strong memory, that was all. It had been the first time he'd... Well, let's not think about that.
Of course Ambrose hadn't known he was a tin man at the time. Not until later, with the suns rising, half tangled in a sweet smelling jacket that wasn't his and staring at the badge that was freshly minted and still shone that he realized the mess he was in. Was soliciting a tin man illegal? He'd stared down at blond hair and closed eyes and perfect lips. He hadn't put up much of a fuss. Anyway Ambrose had panicked and left with nary a kiss but since it had been a wildly memorable night he'd taken the badge with him.
Ambrose leaned forward and reached underneath his desk, pulling at a catch and hearing a thunk. He felt around deftly in the hidden drawer, pushing aside rolled up notes and other trinkets until his fingers slid across smooth metal. The inventor leaned back in his chair, fiddling with the badge in his hand. He'd felt guilty at first, the tin man was sure to catch shit for losing it. Well, probably as much shit as Ambrose caught when he'd finally made his way back home and stood in front of his mother with his hair mussed, smelling of sex, and missing half his buttons. She had looked up from the clockwork bird she'd been working on, shaking her head, and told him to go bathe.
The guilt had faded over the years but not the memory. Not the lust. All other partners had been measured against this nameless tin man and now... Now the tin man had a name. Ambrose frowned and held the badge up, over his head in the light.
Maybe it was time to return what he'd stolen.
Cain/Glitch prompt: ancient languages
blackletter
The suns had risen and Glitch frowned at the book he was looking at. He was a bit of an early rise compared to Cain, who still slept with his arms tight around Glitch's waist. But, well, Cain did work at night and usually Glitch was in bed by the time that his lover came home, not that he didn't get absolutely elated when he was woken up. If he got kisses at three in the morning then sleep could wait.
But that usually meant that Glitch woke up pinned by a gloriously mussed and sleeping tin man with no way to actually get out of bed without waking up said tin man, and to wake Cain up when he was like that, well, it would be like kicking a puppy.
So he'd taken to leaving a stack of books on the night stand. It really was the only time he got any reading done, being still rather distracted by everything and realizing that even as Ambrose, he was still scatterbrained in some areas. Currently he was flipping through something that was half a dictionary for the old picture language of the ancients and half a stuffy lecture about it. They had seven different words that meant 'Light'? That was kind of neat.
Glitch mused and idly traced the symbol for 'Light in the darkness' on Cain's right shoulder with his fingertips. That was a useful one, he'd give it to Cain. He flipped through more pages, more skimming than seriously thinking about anything.
'Thinker of new' was traced on his own thigh followed by 'Whole'. Glitch smiled and gave 'Whole' to Cain too. It was an important word. He flipped pages looking for words now. Cain got 'Protector' and 'Loyal' while he took 'Wanderer' for himself. Glitch muttered quietly to himself as he flipped page after page until he found what he was looking for. "...not a widely known symbol for 'Love' exists. Instead in writings and carvings the phrase 'my soul' would be used when referring to..." Glitch blinked and looked down at Cain. My soul? Slowly he traced the symbol in the short hair behind Cain's ear, right over that spot that made the man gasp when he kissed it.
Then blinked as his lover stretched against him and Glitch smiled down at blue eyes that cracked open and peered at him. "What are you doin' sweetheart?"
Glitch grinned, "Just reading."
"Learn anything new?"
"Nothing I didn't already know."
GLITCH/Cain. Yes, you read that right. Changing stuff up is good for writer's block. PROMPT: Rain. Looots of space with rain, there, what with water and puddles and all sorts of fun rain-related things
luchia13
Cain tried futilely to pay attention to anything. The sound of the rain. The texture of the brick. What he was going to tell the Queen about the situation in the Realm of the Unwanted. Anything but the hands curled around his right thigh and ass. Anything but the dawning realization that he hadn't even gotten a word out before Glitch was on his knees tugging at fabric with that salacious look in his eyes.
His hat was on the floor, forgotten when his lover suddenly attacked him right by the kitchen door. Cain panted trying desperately to not consider the sucking wet heat and instead try and... Someone could walk in... He was still dripping from the rain that pounded down outside and he tried, oh he tried, to focus on that, the kitchen door was still open. He hadn't even gotten the door closed before...
“Ah...” Cain arched against the wall as Glitch's tongue did something... indescribably fabulous... His left hand was in a fist braced hard against the brick while his right hand was tangled in sweet brown curls. How did... All he remembered was opening the kitchen door in a right foul mood. He was soaked through to his skin and...
“...Glitch!”
He shouldn't have said anything out loud, because the second he did Glitch purred. He purred with Cain still in his mouth and it sent a rolling vibration right up the tin man's spine and then his left fist was in his mouth so half the palace didn't come running when he came.
It was a while before his mind caught back up to him through the winding haze of pleasure and he felt a small flicker of pride that he was still standing, though he'd drawn blood on his knuckle. Only then did he look down at Glitch who was still kneeling before him, licking his lips and grinning.
“You taste like rain!”
Try Cain/Glitch with fluffy cotton candy an Glitch sugar high.
xxbamf_glitchxx
“Cain, I don't feel good.”
That was the last thing the tin man had wanted to hear but it was probably the least surprising thing that could have come out of the headcase's mouth. His mouth that was still tinged pink. Cain sighed and continued scrubbing the pink sticky mess off of Glitch's hands behind a small cement building. DG was going to kill them, well, maybe not because the second they had fallen out of the time storm she had been up and running. Cain knew what a fair was, he didn't know what a 'slipper' fair was. There seemed to be more food and clanking metal deathtraps that DG called 'rides' than the farm equipment and animals Cain remembered.
It had been a horror enough chasing DG who was dragging Az around at an amazing speed along as well as having to go off and fetch Glitch back every ten steps. But what the princess wanted the princess got and when big brown eyes had begged to go along he couldn't have said no. He thought that maybe as long as he kept an eye on Glitch and tried to convince DG that anything called a 'coaster' couldn't be any kinds of good it would be okay, besides that whole 'ride ticket' thing sounded like a scam anyway.
Then DG had come back with that nauseous pink fluff and it had all gone to hell. It had taken almost an hour and a half for Glitch to calm down. He'd eaten half the bag which had taken Cain a bit to figure out that it was nothing but sugar. Which meant that ten wandering steps turned into thirty running ones and he'd lost the princesses somewhere in a swirl of lights while he was trying to convince Glitch that, no they would not let him see how the carousel worked and please, anything called 'The Zipper' was bad, remember? Zippers are no good... Wait, no you can't have a bear. I am not shooting anything for a damn... Leave the cows alone... I know that's a horse, yes, it's pretty...
And then all of a sudden the handful was gone and Glitch was staring rather distressed at his sticky hands, which he held out towards Cain imploringly like a six year old and Cain had felt more like a mother for a moment than a lover. Which had led them to this.
“You shouldn't have had so much. We are finding the princesses and leaving immediately.”
“But DG said there'd be fireworks.”
He shouldn't have looked up. If he hadn't have looked up he wouldn't have seen those eyes and he could have stood by his words. Instead he threaded his fingers through damp ones and sighed. He got a sticky kiss for his trouble and realized that if they held hands Glitch didn't wander away.
How Jeb became a Glitch/Cain fanboy.
prongs_padfoot
It had been almost four months of them giving each other sheep eyes over the soup tureen before his father had asked the advisor out and Jeb didn't know how dates went between two men, the idea terrified him so he promptly forgot all about it, but then Glitch had somehow gotten his father to dance during the solstice ball and for the first time but not the last he had found himself torn between out and out mortification or joy because the look on his father's face was one that Jeb had chalked up to his childhood memory being fuzzy.
He thought he had come to terms with the fact that his father simply did not smile like that anymore.
Of course the smiling was just the beginning, after that came laughter.
Laughter that Jeb had also thought he'd made up. Something to comfort himself in the dark after the image of his father in his mind had turned into that hollow metal thing.
But a month later there it was, Wyatt Cain laughing in the gardens with Glitch on top of him. They were under a tree that Jeb assumed Glitch had tried to climb before tumbling out and landing on his father.
Jeb had paused while walking with the princesses. He'd stood there blinking while DG joined them in laughing and went to check on them. Even Az had been chuckling softly behind her hand but he had just stood there like a deer.
He never though he'd hear that noise again.
He'd been simultaneously overjoyed and terror-stricken.
Jeb already knew that he didn't do too well with change, and this was a real change. He wasn't stupid and if he thought about it he couldn't put blame on anyone because there wasn't any. If he thought about it like an adult, his father wasn't trying to replace his mother and Glitch wasn't as empty headed as to break his father's heart.
But then there was that silly question which might have been asked from the eight year old still in him. The 'where do I fit in' question. The relationship he was redeveloping with his father was slow going, but it was pretty much the most important thing in Jeb's life.
Was Glitch going to change that?
He brooded for maybe another month. He brooded through DG's coronation, he brooded through training the other tin men, he brooded through a muddled conversation his father tried to have with him about Glitch.
Then his nineteenth birthday had rolled around and he'd planned to spend the day in Central going over last minute details of the new justice offices, mostly to hide from the fuss that could potentially erupt. He knew he'd never hear the end of it if DG found out.
He was halfway to the stables when he heard running behind him and when he turned he almost collided with the advisor.
“Hey Jeb! There you are, I was hoping to catch you before you left!”
The man was grinning and breathless but he fished around in his jacket pocket before pulling out a small package wrapped in brown paper.
“Here! Cain said it was your birthday but that I wasn't supposed to make a big deal out of it. Which I thought was kind of silly, but you know, you two are like that. So happy birthday! Oh and your father wants you home for dinner tonight. Ha! I remembered.”
With that the advisor was off and tutting towards the kitchen doors and Jeb was left blinking again. Glitch did have a tendency to hit and run people with conversation. Jeb looked down at the plainly wrapped gift. Something for him? From Glitch?
He turned the parcel over in his hands like some sort of precious jewel. He hadn't been expecting... He frowned as he made his way into the stable and leaned against the door his fingers already tearing through paper.
It was a compass.
It was silver and fit into the palm of his hand perfectly. It had a cover that snapped open and closed and looked like his father's tin badge. The face was round and pale, it didn't have the directions written on it, instead to the south was 'adventure' with west being for 'work' and east being for 'secrets'. North was 'home'.
Jeb found himself grinning as he ran his fingers through his hair in the stables. It had taken a while for him to remember how to smile like that, and he knew laughter was soon to follow.
Cain/Glitch, Cain hints at a time him and Glitch had met before the Az fiasco. I'm thinking at a dance or festival.
oddball_witch
Cain watched his lover sleep and closed his own eyes. He had thought it was him when he'd first fallen out of the tin suit, but the unlikeliness of the whole situation had sidelined that train of thought.
Now he was sure of it.
Glitch had been the headcase that had found his way to the Springtime dance. Just a few days before complete and utter hell had broken out across the land. Back then it was still all right, back then they still believed that the Queen was in control, that she still had some tricks up her sleeve. Her daughter would not win this fight. Cain had been recently taken off the Magic Man's detail and had been watching the unrest in the city grow with a feeling of concern. In two days he'd be one of the first to watch the longcoats march into Central. In three days he'd run into Zero for the first time in four years. In six days he would be one of only seventeen tin men left in the city.
It would all go downhill from there.
But just then it had been the Springtime dance and he'd been looking for his wife when he'd spotted his son making off with a little too much cake.
“Are you gonna eat all that by yourself?”
Father and son grinned at each other before Jeb answered, “It's not for me. Mom found a man with a zipper in his head! She said you should come look.”
Cain's grin had faded as he followed Jeb down garden paths to behind the Johnstone's barn where he could hear Adora's laughter.
It was a strange picture when he turned the corner. They were sitting underneath a large cherry tree that was blossoming, thousands of tiny white petals scattered everywhere. Adora was grinning, in her new blue dress with a shawl around her shoulders, a large purple dahlia was in her hair and across from her was a pale man in a red coat with messy brown hair and a garish zipper down the middle of his head.
The headcase was grinning too, in the middle of a story, his hands making fluttering signs in the air as Adora laughed. There were empty plates scattered the grass around them. Though the scene had been idyllic, Cain was a tin man and he'd been on his guard. There shouldn't have been any headcase's out there. They all got taken down from Central to the Eastern prison to work in the fields where a stationed group of caretakers could look after them. Even if the man had managed to escape he was still too far north and Cain could see the painful looking redness around the metal that wasn't even healed yet. The coat also told a strange story. He'd only seen those colors on noblemen in the city. The one's affiliated with the palace and the Queen.
It didn't add up but Adora had already seen him and beckoned him over as Jeb presented the man with a slice of lemon cake...
Cain blinked and looked down as Glitch shifted against him grumbling something in his sleep. He hadn't even been called Glitch back then. He was just a headcase, without a name and silly nattering stories about places he really couldn't quite remember. Cain had been on guard, suspicious, and he'd still been suspicious when he tumbled out of the tin suit. Headcases were criminals. They were criminals unless something horrible had been done to them.
The tin man gently ran his fingers through Glitch's hair, feeling the smooth raised scar hidden under brown curls. The bits of Glitch had jumbled against the bits of Ambrose after they had returned his brain and a year later they were still being sorted out. He'd begun to remember his time as Glitch a few months ago. The running and fear. Cain didn't like to make him talk about it. Glitch stirred against him, stretching and blinking brown eyes opened looking curiously up at blue.
“Hey sweetheart.”
Glitch grinned, “Morning... what are you doing?”
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Springtime dances.”
“Oh! You know I love dances. I hope the Queen has one this year.”
“She probably will.”
“Dances are wonderful. There's always music... and cake! Lemon's my favorite, but I can't remember why. Something to do with dahlia's...” Cain kept his expression still as his hands moved down, unconsciously stroking skin as Glitch babbled, “though I remember it was a very good memory.”
Cain smiled as he recalled the Springtime dance and the headcase that had told stories until Cain had finally laughed, then danced with his wife, slept in their barn and been gone the next morning, “It 'ill come to you.”
“Hmm, I hope so.”
Cain/Glitch at the restored Papay Fields...with fruit...and a picnic- just them, though.
xonextheoryx
“Glitch, you are going to fall straight out of that tree...”
“I am not! I happen to be an excellent tree climber.”
Cain sighed and tilted his hat back so that he could peer, sunblinded, into the copse of trees to his right. He could just make out Glitch lounging across a branch with the setting sun glinting behind his brown curls like a flaming halo. His pockets were full of pears and he was peering down at Cain who was quite content to lay stretched out on the blanket they had brought out with them for lunch on his first day off in over a month.
“How can anyone be an excellent tree climber?”
“It's easy, one just has to take the right classes at the university.”
“Right. I suppose you majored in tree climbing?”
“Oh no,” Glitch answered quite seriously, “It's only a minor. I majored in jiggery-pokery.”
Cain just pushed his hat back down with a smirk, “Right.”
“Cain, come climb trees with me.”
Cain almost shivered at the near petulant tone that accompanied that statement. It meant the Glitch was bored. Bored and in control of all his faculties.
“Sweetheart, with all apologies, I am not an excellent tree climber.”
Glitch was quiet for a long moment before Cain heard the creaking of branches and a soft 'thump' followed by footsteps in the grass.
“Slept right through those classes, huh? You know tin man, I don't think I can keep a man who can't climb trees,” Glitch's voice was somewhere to the left of him now, and Cain tilted his hat back up as he felt the slender man settle himself over his torso like some kind of languid house cat.
Blue eyes met brown with identical smirks as Glitch rested his chin on his fists, his elbows on either side of Cain's chest.
“I think I can make it up to you.”
“Really tin man? I dunno what skills you could possibly have to compare to tree climbing.”
With that said Cain lifted his head just a bit, and kissed Glitch. It was slow and savored. The brunet tasted like pears and smelled like sunshine, the sensation of it all made Cain growl low in his throat, possessively.
Glitch was blinking like he glitched when Cain broke the kiss and leaned back again.
“Oh. Wow.”
“Still wanna go climb trees?”
“I think I'll stay here, thank you.”
Cain smiled as Glitch curled against him, tucking his nose in the crook of Cain's neck as the sun faded around them.
Cain/Glitch-Ambrose Prompt: Cain disturbing/messing up Ambrose's labwork.
pendra92
“Cain!”
The tin man in question blinked twice and looked up from the book he was reading as Ambrose stuck his head in the room. He hadn't seen Ambrose in a week, he was so intent on finishing whatever he was working on. Cain had slept alone the last few nights so it was a bit of a surprise to see his lover. The man's cheeks were pink and his hair was full of dust.
“Having problems, sweetheart?”
“Um, I can't find the gyrocyclic converter I need to finish the Lorekeeper and I was wondering if you'd um... seen it?”
Cain's look was the rather blank neutral he always kept it at when Ambrose was going on about his inventions, “I don't think I have. What does it look like?”
He stood, setting his book on the end table, and followed his fretting lover back to his lab all the while listening patiently to a description of, 'it's a rather small bit. It has four places for screws and looks kind of like three gears in one. But it's sort of rolly, so I thought, maybe it fell on the floor but...'
An hour later he was as dusty as Ambrose and the inventor looked like he was either going to punch something or start crying.
“I don't know where it could have gone! We looked everywhere!”
Cain shook his head in sympathy and went over and sat next to the inventor on the floor, “Look, how hard would it be to get a new one?”
Ambrose sighed, “Well, I could make one... But that would take days...”
“Can you find it in Central?”
Ambrose frowned before he nodded, “There's a few shops I could check. I'm pretty sure that Seisei will have one the right size.”
Cain brightened, “So, how about this? We go to Central, we look for your part, and we stop to get a bite to eat at that noodle house you love so much. Maybe we can check out the street markets, find something nice for DG's birthday. Well?”
Ambrose tried his best to still look upset but finally he grinned, “Oh, okay. But only for the noodles.”
Cain grinned as he helped his lover up and they made their way back to their rooms. He waited until Ambrose was in the shower before he walked over to his nightstand and opened the bottom drawer while digging around in his pocket.
He pulled the gyrowhatever, that he'd made off with that morning while Ambrose had been talking to the Queen, out and looked at it before nodding to himself and hiding it in the back of the drawer somewhere behind his socks.
It was kind of rolly.
The two spankin' new ones can be seen above.
Glitch and/or Ambrose/Cain (duh!). Cain finds Glitch (or Ambrose) in a hallway of the palace, dying (injured, sick, etc). Other characters are welcome - Raw and DG to help, others to find out what happened. Preferences: Slash, no death fic. Have fun!
surranndie
Cain paused when a muffled whump echoed through his walls. He blinked for a second, standing in the middle of his bedroom in the palace, before the book he was holding hit the floor and he was scrambling to yank his shoes on. What in the Gray Gale was that? It sounded like it came from the Eastern hall and that was a bad, bad sign.
“Cain!” DG's yelling, also a bad sign.
He felt his heart skip a beat when he spotted the crumpled figure in the hall. DG was running up from the other way and there was a trickle of white smoke from Ambrose's lab clouding up the hall. Cain reached him first, his knees hitting the carpet as he frantically checked Ambrose over, there were burns on the inventor's hands and on the left side of his face. As if he turned. Had he been trying to shield himself?
“Cain! Is he alright?” DG asked, her hands covering her face as her eyes watered from the smoke.
“He's breathing, he just needs a healer,” Cain coughed and frowned, “we should open a window or something.”
DG nodded as she pushed into Ambrose's study, letting out only a little bit more smoke.
“Don't touch anything but the window!” Cain called as he gently hefted Ambrose into his arms. He should have known something was up. Ambrose had been quiet about anything he'd been working on the last few days or so, and this was coming from a man who talked about science in bed. Whether he was awake or not. One Sunday Cain had spent nearly twenty minutes staring at the sunsrise and listening to his lover mutter about epicyclic gearing in his sleep.
“..don't...”
Cain paused as he tilted his head, “Ambrose? Come on, talk to me.”
“Don't... window... It 'ill corrode...”
Brown eyes fluttered open and were followed by a pout when Cain seemed unconcerned as to whatever the hell happened to his lover's experiment.
“If you don't preserve the results... I'll... just have to do it again.”
“Deeg! Get out of there! Leave the window alone!”
How about a drabble from Cain's point of view about the hours (days?) of Glitch saving his life in Demilo's truck. What does he remember? How does he feel about it?
candacestls
He's watching Glitch putter around the edge of the firelight picking up stones and poking at bits of grass with a long stick he'd found. DG was gone! They had to... Cain sighed. It would be a losing battle trying to get Glitch to continue on to the witches tower in the dark. It was probably a good idea to rest. They'd made it off of the Northern Island. At least it was warm here. A memory shivers through him and he stares into the fire. He knew what cold was, he didn't know that cold could get so cold it turned into nothing.
My families alive and then nothing.
He can only remember snippets, the shock and pain, the rush of air and water that was so cold it felt warm. Struggling in his suddenly too heavy jacket. Adora had taught him to swim. She had laughed at him for ages when they first met that he didn't know how. They had courted in the water. Patient words and fleeting touches until he moved like a fish to her water nymph. It was her voice in his head that got him moving, finally digging his fingers into snow that his brain was telling him should be cold but it wasn't, it was nothing.
A gasp of air and then nothing.
He didn't know if he stood, he knew he stumbled and he knew he crawled. He crawled until he was ice, immovable and still. He had to get to DG. There was no telling what would happen if she was taken. He was in no condition to do anything even if he found her. He thought he saw the door to the Winter Palace. Ice man... Tin man...
Blurred vision and then nothing.
He was aware of tutting at first. A frantic voice talking to him and to itself. Something was pulling at his skin, no it was his clothes. Wet. Frantic. Panic. Gods. A trail of feeling had flittered over his lips. Fingertips. Skin. Friction. Rubbing. Don't. Just don't. Don't what? Soft. Blanket? Something... Ah! Fire. No. Not fire. Felt like fire. Limbs. He had limbs and he had a body and it was pissed at him. There was a gasp that wasn't his when he began to shiver. Thankyouthankyouthankyou... You're welcome?
The warm sensation of a hand on his chest and then nothing.
Then he had a hangover and his hand on his gun and Glitch was talking. DG had been taken. Who knew what had happened to Raw. Glitch had saved him. Glitch had saved him? Cain looked up at the headcase who had settled on the other side of the fire, frowning to himself and keeping his stick as a prize. He didn't think the man would have had it in him. Not to have dragged Cain half a mile. Not to have remembered where the truck was. Not to have known what to do. But he had remembered and all Cain remembered were hands on him and that whispery voice making its own prayer.
Cain reached into his pocket and squeezed. Jeb's toy horse. Adora's lessons. Glitch's warm hands. Someone somewhere would have said it was love that saved him.
Cain/Glitch - Glitch shows some rookie Tin Men/soldiers that he can hold his own in battle
yo_mawari
In retrospect he should have been paying attention. Well, he had been paying attention, he'd just been paying more attention to what he was going to do later than what had been going on in the present. Now he was sitting on a log with two other tin men with their hands manacled behind their backs. He didn't know what had happened to the third man they had been traveling with. Cain was going to grumble at him, but at least now he knew where the insurgents camp was. Oh! Insurgents. That was nice word. Sounded important.
A hand yanked him up his lapel and he smiled blankly, as a question was growled at him, ah, he hadn't been paying attention again. Cain had told him to play dumb which had kind of chafed at him but was a bit fun. There were six men, only six? Must be scouts then or this whole little 'rebellion' against the Queen was going to end hard and fast. This man smelled awful, really, at least when they were the resistance they bathed...
“Unhand the Advisor!”
Glitch hissed as one of the tin men tried to stand up and got knocked down in the dirt for his troubles.
“Told you we had him,” one of the men said, “That tin man don't go nowhere without him.”
The part of Glitch that was Ambrose cringed when the man spoke and Glitch shook his head as the other five came and took a good look at him before nodding. Apparently he was what they wanted to ransom. Perfect!
“Take him down the ravine, kill these other two.”
Uh oh, not perfect. Glitch frowned as the younger of the tin men's eyes widened. He had a girl, didn't he? The other had a mother to take care of. Glitch better step up and do his job then. It's a split second before the one dragging him around by the collar is screaming on the ground clutching his nose just before a sound kick sends him into unconsciousness. Two more men start at him and Glitch hits the ground of his own violation, long legs taking one man down with him as hard as he could.
Rhythm, they had no rhythm, just a roiling gaggle of limbs and the second one is out cold just as the third gets close enough to get a boot where the sun doesn't shine and another in his gut. The fourth is barely on the edge of his range, hesitating in a cringe as the last one falls and then Glitch twists, his hands are in front of him now, giving him just enough leverage to push up and tumble into the gawking one, cracking him over the head with his chains. In the same heartbeat he'd spun and caught the fifth one with a head butt that had the insurgent toppling to the ground and then he simply grinned at the last one.
Which was enough to make the man bolt, straight into the trees, only to get dragged out a second later by Cain who was frowning, “Did you have to knock all of them out? That's a lot to carry.”
Glitch shrugged as he fiddled with the cuffs around his wrists, “Sorry, I went on instinct. Did you hear that idiot talk? Don't go nowhere indeed...”
Cain turned to the two tin men who where still wide eyed and staring at Glitch who was off muttering again, dumping the cuffs on the ground as he stepped over a groaning man. Cain only smiled and inclined his head, urging them to get up,
“Come on, you didn't really think you were here to protect him?”
Pairing: Ambrose/Glitch/Cain Prompt: Ambrose and Cain have met before, not that Cain really remembers (*ahem*drunksex*ahem*). But Ambrose never forgot anything, and once Glitch gets his brain returned to him it's an awkward situation.
darlingbluewind
Ambrose was hiding. Really consciously hiding. He'd shut his workshop door under the pretense that he was cleaning but instead had just sat down at his desk and was leaning back in his chair staring at the ceiling.
Of all the men Glitch had to have run into it had to have been that one.
They hadn't exchanged names. Ambrose had been eighteen and looking for a way to completely piss off his mother and he'd found it in a blue eyed, blond haired stuttering rookie tin man. The man was gorgeous. Glitch had said 'cute' and almost the first thing Ambrose had corrected him on was, 'No. Gorgeous.' Trying to explain to his other half the fumbling evening of kisses and all out sex in an abandoned house was embarrassing enough without that little Glitch smile and, 'I like him too.'
Then of course came actually speaking to the tin man. They'd changed so much from that night. But whenever Ambrose looked at Wyatt Cain all he saw were wide blue eyes, tasted cheap gin, and felt that glorious gasp run through him. Ambrose closed his eyes and groaned. He shouldn't think about it. He had to think about it. It had been almost a month since he'd gotten his brain back and the two weeks he'd spent out of bed and sentient he'd been blushing like an idiot as well as out and out running from the tin man. He didn't want the man to think he didn't like him. He just... he was a strong memory, that was all. It had been the first time he'd... Well, let's not think about that.
Of course Ambrose hadn't known he was a tin man at the time. Not until later, with the suns rising, half tangled in a sweet smelling jacket that wasn't his and staring at the badge that was freshly minted and still shone that he realized the mess he was in. Was soliciting a tin man illegal? He'd stared down at blond hair and closed eyes and perfect lips. He hadn't put up much of a fuss. Anyway Ambrose had panicked and left with nary a kiss but since it had been a wildly memorable night he'd taken the badge with him.
Ambrose leaned forward and reached underneath his desk, pulling at a catch and hearing a thunk. He felt around deftly in the hidden drawer, pushing aside rolled up notes and other trinkets until his fingers slid across smooth metal. The inventor leaned back in his chair, fiddling with the badge in his hand. He'd felt guilty at first, the tin man was sure to catch shit for losing it. Well, probably as much shit as Ambrose caught when he'd finally made his way back home and stood in front of his mother with his hair mussed, smelling of sex, and missing half his buttons. She had looked up from the clockwork bird she'd been working on, shaking her head, and told him to go bathe.
The guilt had faded over the years but not the memory. Not the lust. All other partners had been measured against this nameless tin man and now... Now the tin man had a name. Ambrose frowned and held the badge up, over his head in the light.
Maybe it was time to return what he'd stolen.
Cain/Glitch prompt: ancient languages
blackletter
The suns had risen and Glitch frowned at the book he was looking at. He was a bit of an early rise compared to Cain, who still slept with his arms tight around Glitch's waist. But, well, Cain did work at night and usually Glitch was in bed by the time that his lover came home, not that he didn't get absolutely elated when he was woken up. If he got kisses at three in the morning then sleep could wait.
But that usually meant that Glitch woke up pinned by a gloriously mussed and sleeping tin man with no way to actually get out of bed without waking up said tin man, and to wake Cain up when he was like that, well, it would be like kicking a puppy.
So he'd taken to leaving a stack of books on the night stand. It really was the only time he got any reading done, being still rather distracted by everything and realizing that even as Ambrose, he was still scatterbrained in some areas. Currently he was flipping through something that was half a dictionary for the old picture language of the ancients and half a stuffy lecture about it. They had seven different words that meant 'Light'? That was kind of neat.
Glitch mused and idly traced the symbol for 'Light in the darkness' on Cain's right shoulder with his fingertips. That was a useful one, he'd give it to Cain. He flipped through more pages, more skimming than seriously thinking about anything.
'Thinker of new' was traced on his own thigh followed by 'Whole'. Glitch smiled and gave 'Whole' to Cain too. It was an important word. He flipped pages looking for words now. Cain got 'Protector' and 'Loyal' while he took 'Wanderer' for himself. Glitch muttered quietly to himself as he flipped page after page until he found what he was looking for. "...not a widely known symbol for 'Love' exists. Instead in writings and carvings the phrase 'my soul' would be used when referring to..." Glitch blinked and looked down at Cain. My soul? Slowly he traced the symbol in the short hair behind Cain's ear, right over that spot that made the man gasp when he kissed it.
Then blinked as his lover stretched against him and Glitch smiled down at blue eyes that cracked open and peered at him. "What are you doin' sweetheart?"
Glitch grinned, "Just reading."
"Learn anything new?"
"Nothing I didn't already know."
GLITCH/Cain. Yes, you read that right. Changing stuff up is good for writer's block. PROMPT: Rain. Looots of space with rain, there, what with water and puddles and all sorts of fun rain-related things
luchia13
Cain tried futilely to pay attention to anything. The sound of the rain. The texture of the brick. What he was going to tell the Queen about the situation in the Realm of the Unwanted. Anything but the hands curled around his right thigh and ass. Anything but the dawning realization that he hadn't even gotten a word out before Glitch was on his knees tugging at fabric with that salacious look in his eyes.
His hat was on the floor, forgotten when his lover suddenly attacked him right by the kitchen door. Cain panted trying desperately to not consider the sucking wet heat and instead try and... Someone could walk in... He was still dripping from the rain that pounded down outside and he tried, oh he tried, to focus on that, the kitchen door was still open. He hadn't even gotten the door closed before...
“Ah...” Cain arched against the wall as Glitch's tongue did something... indescribably fabulous... His left hand was in a fist braced hard against the brick while his right hand was tangled in sweet brown curls. How did... All he remembered was opening the kitchen door in a right foul mood. He was soaked through to his skin and...
“...Glitch!”
He shouldn't have said anything out loud, because the second he did Glitch purred. He purred with Cain still in his mouth and it sent a rolling vibration right up the tin man's spine and then his left fist was in his mouth so half the palace didn't come running when he came.
It was a while before his mind caught back up to him through the winding haze of pleasure and he felt a small flicker of pride that he was still standing, though he'd drawn blood on his knuckle. Only then did he look down at Glitch who was still kneeling before him, licking his lips and grinning.
“You taste like rain!”
Try Cain/Glitch with fluffy cotton candy an Glitch sugar high.
xxbamf_glitchxx
“Cain, I don't feel good.”
That was the last thing the tin man had wanted to hear but it was probably the least surprising thing that could have come out of the headcase's mouth. His mouth that was still tinged pink. Cain sighed and continued scrubbing the pink sticky mess off of Glitch's hands behind a small cement building. DG was going to kill them, well, maybe not because the second they had fallen out of the time storm she had been up and running. Cain knew what a fair was, he didn't know what a 'slipper' fair was. There seemed to be more food and clanking metal deathtraps that DG called 'rides' than the farm equipment and animals Cain remembered.
It had been a horror enough chasing DG who was dragging Az around at an amazing speed along as well as having to go off and fetch Glitch back every ten steps. But what the princess wanted the princess got and when big brown eyes had begged to go along he couldn't have said no. He thought that maybe as long as he kept an eye on Glitch and tried to convince DG that anything called a 'coaster' couldn't be any kinds of good it would be okay, besides that whole 'ride ticket' thing sounded like a scam anyway.
Then DG had come back with that nauseous pink fluff and it had all gone to hell. It had taken almost an hour and a half for Glitch to calm down. He'd eaten half the bag which had taken Cain a bit to figure out that it was nothing but sugar. Which meant that ten wandering steps turned into thirty running ones and he'd lost the princesses somewhere in a swirl of lights while he was trying to convince Glitch that, no they would not let him see how the carousel worked and please, anything called 'The Zipper' was bad, remember? Zippers are no good... Wait, no you can't have a bear. I am not shooting anything for a damn... Leave the cows alone... I know that's a horse, yes, it's pretty...
And then all of a sudden the handful was gone and Glitch was staring rather distressed at his sticky hands, which he held out towards Cain imploringly like a six year old and Cain had felt more like a mother for a moment than a lover. Which had led them to this.
“You shouldn't have had so much. We are finding the princesses and leaving immediately.”
“But DG said there'd be fireworks.”
He shouldn't have looked up. If he hadn't have looked up he wouldn't have seen those eyes and he could have stood by his words. Instead he threaded his fingers through damp ones and sighed. He got a sticky kiss for his trouble and realized that if they held hands Glitch didn't wander away.
How Jeb became a Glitch/Cain fanboy.
prongs_padfoot
It had been almost four months of them giving each other sheep eyes over the soup tureen before his father had asked the advisor out and Jeb didn't know how dates went between two men, the idea terrified him so he promptly forgot all about it, but then Glitch had somehow gotten his father to dance during the solstice ball and for the first time but not the last he had found himself torn between out and out mortification or joy because the look on his father's face was one that Jeb had chalked up to his childhood memory being fuzzy.
He thought he had come to terms with the fact that his father simply did not smile like that anymore.
Of course the smiling was just the beginning, after that came laughter.
Laughter that Jeb had also thought he'd made up. Something to comfort himself in the dark after the image of his father in his mind had turned into that hollow metal thing.
But a month later there it was, Wyatt Cain laughing in the gardens with Glitch on top of him. They were under a tree that Jeb assumed Glitch had tried to climb before tumbling out and landing on his father.
Jeb had paused while walking with the princesses. He'd stood there blinking while DG joined them in laughing and went to check on them. Even Az had been chuckling softly behind her hand but he had just stood there like a deer.
He never though he'd hear that noise again.
He'd been simultaneously overjoyed and terror-stricken.
Jeb already knew that he didn't do too well with change, and this was a real change. He wasn't stupid and if he thought about it he couldn't put blame on anyone because there wasn't any. If he thought about it like an adult, his father wasn't trying to replace his mother and Glitch wasn't as empty headed as to break his father's heart.
But then there was that silly question which might have been asked from the eight year old still in him. The 'where do I fit in' question. The relationship he was redeveloping with his father was slow going, but it was pretty much the most important thing in Jeb's life.
Was Glitch going to change that?
He brooded for maybe another month. He brooded through DG's coronation, he brooded through training the other tin men, he brooded through a muddled conversation his father tried to have with him about Glitch.
Then his nineteenth birthday had rolled around and he'd planned to spend the day in Central going over last minute details of the new justice offices, mostly to hide from the fuss that could potentially erupt. He knew he'd never hear the end of it if DG found out.
He was halfway to the stables when he heard running behind him and when he turned he almost collided with the advisor.
“Hey Jeb! There you are, I was hoping to catch you before you left!”
The man was grinning and breathless but he fished around in his jacket pocket before pulling out a small package wrapped in brown paper.
“Here! Cain said it was your birthday but that I wasn't supposed to make a big deal out of it. Which I thought was kind of silly, but you know, you two are like that. So happy birthday! Oh and your father wants you home for dinner tonight. Ha! I remembered.”
With that the advisor was off and tutting towards the kitchen doors and Jeb was left blinking again. Glitch did have a tendency to hit and run people with conversation. Jeb looked down at the plainly wrapped gift. Something for him? From Glitch?
He turned the parcel over in his hands like some sort of precious jewel. He hadn't been expecting... He frowned as he made his way into the stable and leaned against the door his fingers already tearing through paper.
It was a compass.
It was silver and fit into the palm of his hand perfectly. It had a cover that snapped open and closed and looked like his father's tin badge. The face was round and pale, it didn't have the directions written on it, instead to the south was 'adventure' with west being for 'work' and east being for 'secrets'. North was 'home'.
Jeb found himself grinning as he ran his fingers through his hair in the stables. It had taken a while for him to remember how to smile like that, and he knew laughter was soon to follow.
Cain/Glitch, Cain hints at a time him and Glitch had met before the Az fiasco. I'm thinking at a dance or festival.
oddball_witch
Cain watched his lover sleep and closed his own eyes. He had thought it was him when he'd first fallen out of the tin suit, but the unlikeliness of the whole situation had sidelined that train of thought.
Now he was sure of it.
Glitch had been the headcase that had found his way to the Springtime dance. Just a few days before complete and utter hell had broken out across the land. Back then it was still all right, back then they still believed that the Queen was in control, that she still had some tricks up her sleeve. Her daughter would not win this fight. Cain had been recently taken off the Magic Man's detail and had been watching the unrest in the city grow with a feeling of concern. In two days he'd be one of the first to watch the longcoats march into Central. In three days he'd run into Zero for the first time in four years. In six days he would be one of only seventeen tin men left in the city.
It would all go downhill from there.
But just then it had been the Springtime dance and he'd been looking for his wife when he'd spotted his son making off with a little too much cake.
“Are you gonna eat all that by yourself?”
Father and son grinned at each other before Jeb answered, “It's not for me. Mom found a man with a zipper in his head! She said you should come look.”
Cain's grin had faded as he followed Jeb down garden paths to behind the Johnstone's barn where he could hear Adora's laughter.
It was a strange picture when he turned the corner. They were sitting underneath a large cherry tree that was blossoming, thousands of tiny white petals scattered everywhere. Adora was grinning, in her new blue dress with a shawl around her shoulders, a large purple dahlia was in her hair and across from her was a pale man in a red coat with messy brown hair and a garish zipper down the middle of his head.
The headcase was grinning too, in the middle of a story, his hands making fluttering signs in the air as Adora laughed. There were empty plates scattered the grass around them. Though the scene had been idyllic, Cain was a tin man and he'd been on his guard. There shouldn't have been any headcase's out there. They all got taken down from Central to the Eastern prison to work in the fields where a stationed group of caretakers could look after them. Even if the man had managed to escape he was still too far north and Cain could see the painful looking redness around the metal that wasn't even healed yet. The coat also told a strange story. He'd only seen those colors on noblemen in the city. The one's affiliated with the palace and the Queen.
It didn't add up but Adora had already seen him and beckoned him over as Jeb presented the man with a slice of lemon cake...
Cain blinked and looked down as Glitch shifted against him grumbling something in his sleep. He hadn't even been called Glitch back then. He was just a headcase, without a name and silly nattering stories about places he really couldn't quite remember. Cain had been on guard, suspicious, and he'd still been suspicious when he tumbled out of the tin suit. Headcases were criminals. They were criminals unless something horrible had been done to them.
The tin man gently ran his fingers through Glitch's hair, feeling the smooth raised scar hidden under brown curls. The bits of Glitch had jumbled against the bits of Ambrose after they had returned his brain and a year later they were still being sorted out. He'd begun to remember his time as Glitch a few months ago. The running and fear. Cain didn't like to make him talk about it. Glitch stirred against him, stretching and blinking brown eyes opened looking curiously up at blue.
“Hey sweetheart.”
Glitch grinned, “Morning... what are you doing?”
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Springtime dances.”
“Oh! You know I love dances. I hope the Queen has one this year.”
“She probably will.”
“Dances are wonderful. There's always music... and cake! Lemon's my favorite, but I can't remember why. Something to do with dahlia's...” Cain kept his expression still as his hands moved down, unconsciously stroking skin as Glitch babbled, “though I remember it was a very good memory.”
Cain smiled as he recalled the Springtime dance and the headcase that had told stories until Cain had finally laughed, then danced with his wife, slept in their barn and been gone the next morning, “It 'ill come to you.”
“Hmm, I hope so.”
Cain/Glitch at the restored Papay Fields...with fruit...and a picnic- just them, though.
xonextheoryx
“Glitch, you are going to fall straight out of that tree...”
“I am not! I happen to be an excellent tree climber.”
Cain sighed and tilted his hat back so that he could peer, sunblinded, into the copse of trees to his right. He could just make out Glitch lounging across a branch with the setting sun glinting behind his brown curls like a flaming halo. His pockets were full of pears and he was peering down at Cain who was quite content to lay stretched out on the blanket they had brought out with them for lunch on his first day off in over a month.
“How can anyone be an excellent tree climber?”
“It's easy, one just has to take the right classes at the university.”
“Right. I suppose you majored in tree climbing?”
“Oh no,” Glitch answered quite seriously, “It's only a minor. I majored in jiggery-pokery.”
Cain just pushed his hat back down with a smirk, “Right.”
“Cain, come climb trees with me.”
Cain almost shivered at the near petulant tone that accompanied that statement. It meant the Glitch was bored. Bored and in control of all his faculties.
“Sweetheart, with all apologies, I am not an excellent tree climber.”
Glitch was quiet for a long moment before Cain heard the creaking of branches and a soft 'thump' followed by footsteps in the grass.
“Slept right through those classes, huh? You know tin man, I don't think I can keep a man who can't climb trees,” Glitch's voice was somewhere to the left of him now, and Cain tilted his hat back up as he felt the slender man settle himself over his torso like some kind of languid house cat.
Blue eyes met brown with identical smirks as Glitch rested his chin on his fists, his elbows on either side of Cain's chest.
“I think I can make it up to you.”
“Really tin man? I dunno what skills you could possibly have to compare to tree climbing.”
With that said Cain lifted his head just a bit, and kissed Glitch. It was slow and savored. The brunet tasted like pears and smelled like sunshine, the sensation of it all made Cain growl low in his throat, possessively.
Glitch was blinking like he glitched when Cain broke the kiss and leaned back again.
“Oh. Wow.”
“Still wanna go climb trees?”
“I think I'll stay here, thank you.”
Cain smiled as Glitch curled against him, tucking his nose in the crook of Cain's neck as the sun faded around them.
Cain/Glitch-Ambrose Prompt: Cain disturbing/messing up Ambrose's labwork.
pendra92
“Cain!”
The tin man in question blinked twice and looked up from the book he was reading as Ambrose stuck his head in the room. He hadn't seen Ambrose in a week, he was so intent on finishing whatever he was working on. Cain had slept alone the last few nights so it was a bit of a surprise to see his lover. The man's cheeks were pink and his hair was full of dust.
“Having problems, sweetheart?”
“Um, I can't find the gyrocyclic converter I need to finish the Lorekeeper and I was wondering if you'd um... seen it?”
Cain's look was the rather blank neutral he always kept it at when Ambrose was going on about his inventions, “I don't think I have. What does it look like?”
He stood, setting his book on the end table, and followed his fretting lover back to his lab all the while listening patiently to a description of, 'it's a rather small bit. It has four places for screws and looks kind of like three gears in one. But it's sort of rolly, so I thought, maybe it fell on the floor but...'
An hour later he was as dusty as Ambrose and the inventor looked like he was either going to punch something or start crying.
“I don't know where it could have gone! We looked everywhere!”
Cain shook his head in sympathy and went over and sat next to the inventor on the floor, “Look, how hard would it be to get a new one?”
Ambrose sighed, “Well, I could make one... But that would take days...”
“Can you find it in Central?”
Ambrose frowned before he nodded, “There's a few shops I could check. I'm pretty sure that Seisei will have one the right size.”
Cain brightened, “So, how about this? We go to Central, we look for your part, and we stop to get a bite to eat at that noodle house you love so much. Maybe we can check out the street markets, find something nice for DG's birthday. Well?”
Ambrose tried his best to still look upset but finally he grinned, “Oh, okay. But only for the noodles.”
Cain grinned as he helped his lover up and they made their way back to their rooms. He waited until Ambrose was in the shower before he walked over to his nightstand and opened the bottom drawer while digging around in his pocket.
He pulled the gyrowhatever, that he'd made off with that morning while Ambrose had been talking to the Queen, out and looked at it before nodding to himself and hiding it in the back of the drawer somewhere behind his socks.
It was kind of rolly.