Fic: "Unintended Consequences" - PG - Cain/Zero
Title: Unintended Consequences
Author: drovar
Fandom: Tin Man
Summary: When two enemies have all the time in the world and nothing else.
Characters/Pairings: Cain/Zero
Warnings: Slash
Rating: PG for theme
Disclaimer: This story is not a challenge to the copyright holders, and no money is being made.
Word Count: 746
Author's Note: My first Tin Man story. It's a snippet of something that might grow up to be a real story some day.
It took him a while to find it this morning, though he knew exactly where to look, and had for ages. There, in the tree's uppermost reaches where the leaves became just a little thinner, and the branches were still a little wispy, he could see the tip of the tower. It was the last bit of the Central City not swallowed up by time and the O.Z's wild and fecund version of nature. Another year, two at the most, and the pinnacle would be gone as well.
Zero sipped his coffee, and settled into his chair on the cabin's porch. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd sat here savoring the first wink of morning, forgotten how many different chairs they'd made and sat in, and how many different porches they'd built onto the cabin. As the years piled up to make decades, and the decades added up to form centuries before falling away into the past, it became easy to lose track of things and objects.
Now, people, that was different. People these days were impossible to lose track of, or forget -- seeing as how there were only two of them. Zero hardly even thought of them as separate any longer. It was Cain and Zero, or Zero and Cain, always, and forever. All through the vast stretches of the world, and in all the reaches of time, just past a millennium now, they were the only thinking creatures alive. The woods and lakes abounded with life, both mundane and mystical, but none of it capable of knowing and remembering where all the people had gone.
Zero grimaced; he was feeling damn poetic these days -- these years.
A floorboard creaked in the cabin behind him. It was familiar and reassuring. He'd heard that same sound for better than a dozen years. He didn't even need to look to see Cain standing there with sleep tousled hair, dressed in simple cotton bedclothes. He was leaning against the doorframe, and watching.
"Come back to bed," Cain said.
Zero stood and stepped up to the railing. The bots had just arrived in the field below and quickly set to tending the crops. Zero couldn't recall what they had planted this year, corn, tomatoes and cabbage or something else leafy and green, he was sure. The clockwork's silvered skin glinted dully in the early morning sun. They had been the girl's parents at one time. What had her name been? He couldn't remember any longer. G something? Cain would know. Cain recalled the old days more fondly than he, and clung to their memory more fiercely.
For Zero there were no good old days, save the ones they made themselves.
He heard Cain step closer, and felt his strong arms wrap around him. The other man pressed close. Zero could smell him now, leather, gun oil, and that sweet soap he liked so much.
"Come back to bed," Cain repeated. His lips grazed the back of Zero's neck, and his hands drifted up and down to lightly fondle and tweak.
"Don't you ever get tired old man?" Zero asked.
"Never," Cain replied. The lips were back, and more insistent.
"I'll be in as soon as I finish my coffee."
"Bed. Now," Cain said. His words were a flutter of breath on the back of Zero's neck.
"And if I spill coffee all over the sheets?"
"I'll beat your ass."
"Promises, promises," Zero said and pulled one of Cain's rough hands to his lips. The Tin Man's hands were as familiar as his own. Zero thought he could trace ever finger, muscle and callus with his eyes closed. With a final squeeze Cain withdrew and padded back inside.
Zero listened as he retreated to the back of the cabin. He'd join him there soon enough. There was no hurry, not when you literally had all the time in the world. Smiling slightly to himself Zero dumped out his coffee and watched as a small cloud of steam rose and dissipated in the cool morning air.