"...You Don't Forget" (WIP) Ch. 14/?
Title: ...You Don't Forget, Ch. 14/?
Author: blindswandive
Characters/Pairing: Ambrose/Cain; feat. Azkadellia, and a to-be-revealed-later.
Rating: PG13 - PG16
Summary: This is a very long story that has been going on for a very long time. There are broken people and awkward relationships. There are unhappy pasts, a complicated present, and an uncertain future. There are intrigues and secrets and implications and uncertainties. There is alien hand syndrome, post traumatic stress disorder, sexual hangups, and more petty injuries than are probably fair. There is, above all, love. And it all started with brain surgery, one time or another. I recommend starting from the beginning, or from the other beginning, depending on your tastes in beginnings (or in brain surgery).
This chapter contains medical danger, backalley dealings, vague giddiness, a wheelbarrow, crpytic sniping, and bookends.
Warnings: Obfuscation of identities, delayed resolution, surgery, and a kilt. And excessive Cain POV.
Disclaimer: Characters and Oz and O.Z. belong to Baum, SciFi, etc. Storyline/writing are mine, and I'm not turning a profit from it.
Word Count: 2620 (this chapter); 54,200 (to date)
Cross posted to tinman_fic.
Feedback is always, always love.
Previous chapters/series:
Thirteen • Twelve • Eleven • Ten • Nine • Eight • Seven • Six • Five • Four • Three • Two • One • Evil Like That (1-5)
"Will you quiet down?" Cain snapped low. "'Can't hardly think as it is."
Azkadellia choked off her wheezing moan, if barely. "Hurry, Mr. Cain," she hissed urgently.
"I'm hurrying," he growled.
And he was. Cain was moving the wheelbarrow and its dangerously unhappy contents through the edge of the woods, toward the outskirts of the little town on the other side, as fast as his bum knee could carry him. It was just not entirely clear to him where he was hurrying to.
Cain and Ambrose had spent their share of time roaming the town beyond the bridge, taking in the shops and drinking in the bar and even occasionally just making civil with their second-nearest neighbors, but he'd been too out of practice as they had done; the catalogue of suspicious fronts, useful people, and backalleys that he had automatically mapped onto cities since longer ago than he could recall--that he'd mapped even onto little boroughs like this--was incomplete, here, imperfect. And if he'd been pressed to tell the truth, he'd have to admit he just hadn't cared enough, at the time.
He'd had Ambrose to worry over. Anything but the necessary observations to keep him safe in the immediate had fallen by the wayside.
He felt a fool, and shortsighted. This would have kept Ambrose safe. He'd gotten lazy; he knew where to find food, healers, arms, and confidants, at the palace, hadn't anticipated needing an alternate venue, hadn't prepared accordingly.
But he should have.
He could have kicked himself, if he wasn't half sure he'd have knocked his own feet out from under himself, if he did.
Any anyway, he didn't have time to wait on a stunt like that. The wet whistling in Azkadellia's lungs wouldn't.
********
Cain--reluctantly, briefly--left Azkadellia in the woods, so he could scour through the little alleys between houses and storefronts unencumbered. He knocked on likely doors, paid a few stray strangers until he got an uneasy tip, and grinding his teeth, he limped for the weak hope.
The urgency almost made him go back for Azkadellia. But the old rules told him he had to find the chop shop on his own first, that he'd have a better chance at assessing their vulnerability to blackmail, attack, or worse. You never brought a civilian into unsecured territory. And no one would be wondering why he was looking for a healer on his own, hobbling like this.
Besides, if they seemed like they could keep their mouths shut, maybe they could help him drag her ass in.
The little town was situated around one main drag, cleverly called "Main," and a few dirt roads over was a way called "Third Off." Cain didn't have the time or the energy to reflect on the vivid local naming conventions as he counted doors away from this edge of Third Off until he found the dusty blue one, with the little etched symbol in the corner you wouldn't have noticed if you weren't looking for it. He dragged up the low steps of the wood porch--the familiar, wholesome wood porch--and gave a rigid, three-tapped knock, leaning close to the jamb and shielding his face from the road.
There was a reluctant muttering and rustling inside, but after a few interminable moments, the door cracked open, and a face appeared before Cain's, lifted and stared and stopped him in place.
"You?"
***
Cain limped back to the barrow like a wolf was on his tail, almost turned it around and took Azkadellia home, pierced lung or not.
But once he caught his breath and steeled his nerves, he put it away and pushed off, back for the smoky blue door, while the Princess pleaded for her life and her death by turns.
"One or the other right soon," Cain muttered darkly, and went on on faith.
*****************************
"...What's she doing here...?"
"...thought you didn't ask questions..."
"...lay her down here..."
"...can you help her...?"
"...here, hold her still--put that on the fire, and get me the--"
"--this?"
"--thanks, now the--right, there--sorry, usually I have help, you just..."
"...caught you at a bad time..."
"...Right. I think I can manage, but..."
"...Right."
***
Blurs of hands, of hair, of kerchiefs and kilts... There was too much of it, Azkadellia thought muzzily, too much earnest woodsy-earthiness here.
And too much pain.
She felt soaked through with it, saturated to every fiber.
She wondered if she had miscalculated her ploy, if she had undone too much, let too much go. She felt stretched too thin, now, and the warm magic she'd used to sew her side back together before seemed as insubstantial now as smoke between her fingers, unwieldy and unreliable. She might not be able to fix it again, if these village idiots couldn't put her back together in time.
If he'd just taken her to the palace, or run for DG like she'd hoped... If he'd just wheeled himself into the town with her broken in his cart...
Damn cursed, cautious Tin Men.
Azkadellia closed her eyes, and felt cold. She felt like she was draining, like she was slipping--
When she realized with a start that she'd blacked out, that she was coming back, she bit the inside of her mouth, focused on the little sting, and laid what little of herself she could spare into radiating, into glowing just faintly. She desperately fixed her sister in her mind, and her little tamed lion, too. If Cain wasn't as predictable as she'd hoped, DG was an open book.
And then she felt too winded to go on, and let the little flash die.
...Azkadellia didn't want to die. Not much, anyway.
"Please," she murmured, or thought she did, "help me." And she meant it, but she was too full of bile and resignation to care as much as she thought she ought to.
***
Cain tried to keep out of the way, once the second chop doc turned up and relieved him. It was too cramped in the little room as it was without him hovering or stumbling around.
There was nothing but waiting, then.
He clasped his hands awkwardly, laid his forehead on their uneasy mass. They felt so large, thick and clumsy as paws, next to the thin ones at work. Fine, nimble hands, so unlike his!
Cain tried not to watch them, tried not to look too long at the needles dipping into places they shouldn't be able to, tried not to stare at the blood.
Tried not to lose hope.
He closed his eyes tightly and hoped desperately. Just please don't die on him, he prayed silently. Not here, not now. Don't you dare.
**************************
The sun was almost gone when the wheelbarrow wended its way back towards the woods, pushed by an unsteady two, now, instead of one.
When they reached the path, they shook hands silently in the dark, and Cain almost stopped, almost stayed. But there was nothing for it, so he went on pushing his burden alone, full of ghosts and lingering.
A heavy, quiet stillness seemed to lie over all, but Cain was content with the calm, the loss of urgency, the peace, for once in a long time. As he pushed on, the breaks in the leaves above showed him glimpses of the distant darkening sky and the faint shimmer of new stars as the evening grew longer. He picked his way deliberately and slowly over roots and took care to not to jar the barrow (or himself) over much.
By the time he hit the strange blot of openness he had created with his axe, it was so dark that he almost didn't see the huddled shadow in the path.
But he did at last.
Ambrose. He sank in the middle, his peace wilting. The gears in his heart seemed to slow, too, to protest and groan a little in the face of it.
Wordlessly, he went around the wagon, and gingerly bundled the half-sleeping Ambrose up into the barrow beside the Princess, one-armed, tucked the shovel in between them. And slower now, groaning and stiff as metal after the rain, he rolled them all home.
*******************
Cain sat, alone, on the sofa. Partly for the sake of his knee, but partly because no one else seemed willing to sit there.
Azkadellia, ashen and teetering, was too proud of the fragile integrity of her rib cage to lie down, or too unsure of it, and Cain had compromised to let her sit upright--if she was careful--in the guard chair by the bedroom door. And Ambrose, for his part, was too sullen to sit nearer either of them than the door, where he'd dragged a dining chair as far as it would go before sinking down into it.
Cain wanted to laugh, had to bury it in his feet. His two dark, brooding bookends, his sullen, speechless gargoyles, perched at odd angles.
He supposed he was giddy with relief. And the concussion. And the painkillers.
He didn't mind, much.
Ambrose hadn't spoken since they'd gotten home, except to excuse himself jostling Azkadellia on his way into the bathroom. Azkadellia had sighed loudly (too proud of her lungs to do less) and said cryptically, "That was much closer than it needed to be," and "Lucky we found your little friend when we did," and Ambrose had stared at her, and shushed Cain when he tried to explain.
So Cain hadn't said much either, since.
When almost half an hour had passed in increasingly grudging silence, he said, "Should I put on some tea?" but other than a pair of incredulous glares, he had no takers. He palmed out in surrender, and settled back into the cushions with a stifled smile, and much to his surprise, fell soundly and peacefully asleep.
***
When Cain woke, the lamp was out, and the guard chair was empty. A blurry glance told him enough to quell any worry on that; Azkadellia was in the bed beyond the door, still enough (but not too still).
Ambrose was perched on the arm of the sofa farther from him, all shadows and pale angles in the dark.
"Gargoyle," Cain thought again, dimly, and tried to rub his eyes clear. "Guarding me?" he mumbled aloud, instead, a little hoarsely.
Ambrose didn't say anything, just rubbed his own eyes in what looked like unconscious mimicry. Cain optimistically patted the sofa beside him, but was more than a little surprised when Ambrose actually slipped down from his perch, feet first, into the cushions, laid up against Cain's side gingerly.
Not quite gingerly enough; the weight against his shoulder was just more than it wanted to bear, and Cain bit down on a short gasp too late. But when Ambrose started to bolt, Cain reached across with his good arm, caught him up short. Willing Ambrose calm, willing him to stay, he pulled him back carefully against his body, squeezed him near. Kissed the back of his head and nosed his hair. Breathed slow and steady.
Ambrose unwound by fine degrees, slow as a good watch.
Cain's tight gears seemed to ease a little with him. And they sat there for a long while, quiet and still.
When he thought it might finally be safe, Cain did speak. Rueful smile in Ambrose's shoulder, he tried, "So, sweetheart... how was your day?"
***
There were too many details for Cain to keep track of, in his state. Ambrose was a flood of information, of obscure details and tangents, of nervous laughter and frustration, and there was still too much sap into his synapses for him to quite keep up.
Cain tried his damnedest, though. He repeated things back, asked questions. Hoped he'd managed to memorize the most important details of the interview, at least, or well enough that he'd keep them reasonably straight in his own 'interview' the next day.
And he tried to do more; he gentled Ambrose like a foal, all fragile tenderness, tried to soothe down his agitations and stroke his hair, tried to laugh and wince at the right places. It was weak--they were tired, and worn thin, the both of them--but it seemed to be enough; by the end of his thread, Ambrose was curled down next to him, head in Cain's lap, looking up at the ceiling and at Cain by turns.
It had been almost an hour, when Ambrose finished thinly, "And then, the tree."
Cain swallowed, sobered.
"Yeah."
"Yeah," agreed Ambrose.
Cain closed his eyes, pet back over Ambrose's skull, zipper and curls.
Only a little wryly, Ambrose asked, "So how was your day?"
***
Cain's explanation contained considerably less detail and running commentary, and omitted many key elements, coming down in the end to this: Azkadellia had kept screaming a while after Ambrose left, but then she had stopped, and when Cain had gone in to check on her, it looked like something had gone very wrong. There wasn't any choice but to find a healer. He piled her into the wheelbarrow, took the axe in case he had to cut any splints or debris along the way, and found the nearest person with a reputation of keeping below-board and quiet when needed.
It had worked. It had been awful, and very touch and go, but they'd put her back together a little better, and checked out Cain when they'd finished ("They said you'd done a good job," Cain added, loyally). They'd been loaded up with painkillers, squeezed for money, and sent back home.
"Lucky thing she decided to crack her ribs before I could get home with Bernhaben, I guess," Ambrose laughed, tiredly, but Cain could see the haunted shadow over his eyes.
"Lucky thing," he agreed, anyway.
***
Awkwardly, Cain and Ambrose tried to make up a bed for two on the sofa, though it mostly consisted of spooning into a corner and propping Cain's leg up on the opposite armrest. Ambrose managed to get them covered with a blanket, and Cain managed to get himself settled enough that he didn't rattle his shoulder or his knee too much when he breathed.
Ambrose was asleep in moments.
Cain, still peaceful from his earlier nap, lingered in the world of the waking a little longer, listening to Ambrose's breathing as it changed and settled, watching one of the moons setting through the window.
As it sank, it shed a little light in across the boards, and Cain followed it mildly as it caught the debris on the floor below the little end table by his head, the little scattering of broken and tumbled knickknacks Azkadellia had cleared when they'd deposited her on the sofa. He craned his chin to get a better look, tucking it over the armrest.
Half the little things on the floor he sleepily realized he couldn't identify: a few unfamiliar bits of porcelain were in shattered pieces on the floor, probably figurines left by the old inhabitants; a pair of little wooden mice he thought Ambrose might have picked up in the village had tumbled down, too, and one their tails had chipped in the fall, but no matter--he could glue that back together.
But knocked half under the sofa was the little lead horse Jeb had made as a boy, the melted ripple of the bullet still melded into its side. That, he recognized.
Cain reminded himself to pocket it, in the morning, when he could move again without waking Ambrose. Decided to paint over the bullet, one of these days. Decided against it just as soon. Stared at it a long time.
And still trying to keep it in his eyes, and full of whispers and the strangeness of the day, Cain drifted off into uneasy sleep and dreams of half-remembered dreams.
****
(Onto Chapter Fifteen)
)
Author: blindswandive
Characters/Pairing: Ambrose/Cain; feat. Azkadellia, and a to-be-revealed-later.
Rating: PG13 - PG16
Summary: This is a very long story that has been going on for a very long time. There are broken people and awkward relationships. There are unhappy pasts, a complicated present, and an uncertain future. There are intrigues and secrets and implications and uncertainties. There is alien hand syndrome, post traumatic stress disorder, sexual hangups, and more petty injuries than are probably fair. There is, above all, love. And it all started with brain surgery, one time or another. I recommend starting from the beginning, or from the other beginning, depending on your tastes in beginnings (or in brain surgery).
This chapter contains medical danger, backalley dealings, vague giddiness, a wheelbarrow, crpytic sniping, and bookends.
Warnings: Obfuscation of identities, delayed resolution, surgery, and a kilt. And excessive Cain POV.
Disclaimer: Characters and Oz and O.Z. belong to Baum, SciFi, etc. Storyline/writing are mine, and I'm not turning a profit from it.
Word Count: 2620 (this chapter); 54,200 (to date)
Cross posted to tinman_fic.
Feedback is always, always love.
Previous chapters/series:
Thirteen • Twelve • Eleven • Ten • Nine • Eight • Seven • Six • Five • Four • Three • Two • One • Evil Like That (1-5)
"Will you quiet down?" Cain snapped low. "'Can't hardly think as it is."
Azkadellia choked off her wheezing moan, if barely. "Hurry, Mr. Cain," she hissed urgently.
"I'm hurrying," he growled.
And he was. Cain was moving the wheelbarrow and its dangerously unhappy contents through the edge of the woods, toward the outskirts of the little town on the other side, as fast as his bum knee could carry him. It was just not entirely clear to him where he was hurrying to.
Cain and Ambrose had spent their share of time roaming the town beyond the bridge, taking in the shops and drinking in the bar and even occasionally just making civil with their second-nearest neighbors, but he'd been too out of practice as they had done; the catalogue of suspicious fronts, useful people, and backalleys that he had automatically mapped onto cities since longer ago than he could recall--that he'd mapped even onto little boroughs like this--was incomplete, here, imperfect. And if he'd been pressed to tell the truth, he'd have to admit he just hadn't cared enough, at the time.
He'd had Ambrose to worry over. Anything but the necessary observations to keep him safe in the immediate had fallen by the wayside.
He felt a fool, and shortsighted. This would have kept Ambrose safe. He'd gotten lazy; he knew where to find food, healers, arms, and confidants, at the palace, hadn't anticipated needing an alternate venue, hadn't prepared accordingly.
But he should have.
He could have kicked himself, if he wasn't half sure he'd have knocked his own feet out from under himself, if he did.
Any anyway, he didn't have time to wait on a stunt like that. The wet whistling in Azkadellia's lungs wouldn't.
********
Cain--reluctantly, briefly--left Azkadellia in the woods, so he could scour through the little alleys between houses and storefronts unencumbered. He knocked on likely doors, paid a few stray strangers until he got an uneasy tip, and grinding his teeth, he limped for the weak hope.
The urgency almost made him go back for Azkadellia. But the old rules told him he had to find the chop shop on his own first, that he'd have a better chance at assessing their vulnerability to blackmail, attack, or worse. You never brought a civilian into unsecured territory. And no one would be wondering why he was looking for a healer on his own, hobbling like this.
Besides, if they seemed like they could keep their mouths shut, maybe they could help him drag her ass in.
The little town was situated around one main drag, cleverly called "Main," and a few dirt roads over was a way called "Third Off." Cain didn't have the time or the energy to reflect on the vivid local naming conventions as he counted doors away from this edge of Third Off until he found the dusty blue one, with the little etched symbol in the corner you wouldn't have noticed if you weren't looking for it. He dragged up the low steps of the wood porch--the familiar, wholesome wood porch--and gave a rigid, three-tapped knock, leaning close to the jamb and shielding his face from the road.
There was a reluctant muttering and rustling inside, but after a few interminable moments, the door cracked open, and a face appeared before Cain's, lifted and stared and stopped him in place.
"You?"
***
Cain limped back to the barrow like a wolf was on his tail, almost turned it around and took Azkadellia home, pierced lung or not.
But once he caught his breath and steeled his nerves, he put it away and pushed off, back for the smoky blue door, while the Princess pleaded for her life and her death by turns.
"One or the other right soon," Cain muttered darkly, and went on on faith.
*****************************
"...What's she doing here...?"
"...thought you didn't ask questions..."
"...lay her down here..."
"...can you help her...?"
"...here, hold her still--put that on the fire, and get me the--"
"--this?"
"--thanks, now the--right, there--sorry, usually I have help, you just..."
"...caught you at a bad time..."
"...Right. I think I can manage, but..."
"...Right."
***
Blurs of hands, of hair, of kerchiefs and kilts... There was too much of it, Azkadellia thought muzzily, too much earnest woodsy-earthiness here.
And too much pain.
She felt soaked through with it, saturated to every fiber.
She wondered if she had miscalculated her ploy, if she had undone too much, let too much go. She felt stretched too thin, now, and the warm magic she'd used to sew her side back together before seemed as insubstantial now as smoke between her fingers, unwieldy and unreliable. She might not be able to fix it again, if these village idiots couldn't put her back together in time.
If he'd just taken her to the palace, or run for DG like she'd hoped... If he'd just wheeled himself into the town with her broken in his cart...
Damn cursed, cautious Tin Men.
Azkadellia closed her eyes, and felt cold. She felt like she was draining, like she was slipping--
When she realized with a start that she'd blacked out, that she was coming back, she bit the inside of her mouth, focused on the little sting, and laid what little of herself she could spare into radiating, into glowing just faintly. She desperately fixed her sister in her mind, and her little tamed lion, too. If Cain wasn't as predictable as she'd hoped, DG was an open book.
And then she felt too winded to go on, and let the little flash die.
...Azkadellia didn't want to die. Not much, anyway.
"Please," she murmured, or thought she did, "help me." And she meant it, but she was too full of bile and resignation to care as much as she thought she ought to.
***
Cain tried to keep out of the way, once the second chop doc turned up and relieved him. It was too cramped in the little room as it was without him hovering or stumbling around.
There was nothing but waiting, then.
He clasped his hands awkwardly, laid his forehead on their uneasy mass. They felt so large, thick and clumsy as paws, next to the thin ones at work. Fine, nimble hands, so unlike his!
Cain tried not to watch them, tried not to look too long at the needles dipping into places they shouldn't be able to, tried not to stare at the blood.
Tried not to lose hope.
He closed his eyes tightly and hoped desperately. Just please don't die on him, he prayed silently. Not here, not now. Don't you dare.
**************************
The sun was almost gone when the wheelbarrow wended its way back towards the woods, pushed by an unsteady two, now, instead of one.
When they reached the path, they shook hands silently in the dark, and Cain almost stopped, almost stayed. But there was nothing for it, so he went on pushing his burden alone, full of ghosts and lingering.
A heavy, quiet stillness seemed to lie over all, but Cain was content with the calm, the loss of urgency, the peace, for once in a long time. As he pushed on, the breaks in the leaves above showed him glimpses of the distant darkening sky and the faint shimmer of new stars as the evening grew longer. He picked his way deliberately and slowly over roots and took care to not to jar the barrow (or himself) over much.
By the time he hit the strange blot of openness he had created with his axe, it was so dark that he almost didn't see the huddled shadow in the path.
But he did at last.
Ambrose. He sank in the middle, his peace wilting. The gears in his heart seemed to slow, too, to protest and groan a little in the face of it.
Wordlessly, he went around the wagon, and gingerly bundled the half-sleeping Ambrose up into the barrow beside the Princess, one-armed, tucked the shovel in between them. And slower now, groaning and stiff as metal after the rain, he rolled them all home.
*******************
Cain sat, alone, on the sofa. Partly for the sake of his knee, but partly because no one else seemed willing to sit there.
Azkadellia, ashen and teetering, was too proud of the fragile integrity of her rib cage to lie down, or too unsure of it, and Cain had compromised to let her sit upright--if she was careful--in the guard chair by the bedroom door. And Ambrose, for his part, was too sullen to sit nearer either of them than the door, where he'd dragged a dining chair as far as it would go before sinking down into it.
Cain wanted to laugh, had to bury it in his feet. His two dark, brooding bookends, his sullen, speechless gargoyles, perched at odd angles.
He supposed he was giddy with relief. And the concussion. And the painkillers.
He didn't mind, much.
Ambrose hadn't spoken since they'd gotten home, except to excuse himself jostling Azkadellia on his way into the bathroom. Azkadellia had sighed loudly (too proud of her lungs to do less) and said cryptically, "That was much closer than it needed to be," and "Lucky we found your little friend when we did," and Ambrose had stared at her, and shushed Cain when he tried to explain.
So Cain hadn't said much either, since.
When almost half an hour had passed in increasingly grudging silence, he said, "Should I put on some tea?" but other than a pair of incredulous glares, he had no takers. He palmed out in surrender, and settled back into the cushions with a stifled smile, and much to his surprise, fell soundly and peacefully asleep.
***
When Cain woke, the lamp was out, and the guard chair was empty. A blurry glance told him enough to quell any worry on that; Azkadellia was in the bed beyond the door, still enough (but not too still).
Ambrose was perched on the arm of the sofa farther from him, all shadows and pale angles in the dark.
"Gargoyle," Cain thought again, dimly, and tried to rub his eyes clear. "Guarding me?" he mumbled aloud, instead, a little hoarsely.
Ambrose didn't say anything, just rubbed his own eyes in what looked like unconscious mimicry. Cain optimistically patted the sofa beside him, but was more than a little surprised when Ambrose actually slipped down from his perch, feet first, into the cushions, laid up against Cain's side gingerly.
Not quite gingerly enough; the weight against his shoulder was just more than it wanted to bear, and Cain bit down on a short gasp too late. But when Ambrose started to bolt, Cain reached across with his good arm, caught him up short. Willing Ambrose calm, willing him to stay, he pulled him back carefully against his body, squeezed him near. Kissed the back of his head and nosed his hair. Breathed slow and steady.
Ambrose unwound by fine degrees, slow as a good watch.
Cain's tight gears seemed to ease a little with him. And they sat there for a long while, quiet and still.
When he thought it might finally be safe, Cain did speak. Rueful smile in Ambrose's shoulder, he tried, "So, sweetheart... how was your day?"
***
There were too many details for Cain to keep track of, in his state. Ambrose was a flood of information, of obscure details and tangents, of nervous laughter and frustration, and there was still too much sap into his synapses for him to quite keep up.
Cain tried his damnedest, though. He repeated things back, asked questions. Hoped he'd managed to memorize the most important details of the interview, at least, or well enough that he'd keep them reasonably straight in his own 'interview' the next day.
And he tried to do more; he gentled Ambrose like a foal, all fragile tenderness, tried to soothe down his agitations and stroke his hair, tried to laugh and wince at the right places. It was weak--they were tired, and worn thin, the both of them--but it seemed to be enough; by the end of his thread, Ambrose was curled down next to him, head in Cain's lap, looking up at the ceiling and at Cain by turns.
It had been almost an hour, when Ambrose finished thinly, "And then, the tree."
Cain swallowed, sobered.
"Yeah."
"Yeah," agreed Ambrose.
Cain closed his eyes, pet back over Ambrose's skull, zipper and curls.
Only a little wryly, Ambrose asked, "So how was your day?"
***
Cain's explanation contained considerably less detail and running commentary, and omitted many key elements, coming down in the end to this: Azkadellia had kept screaming a while after Ambrose left, but then she had stopped, and when Cain had gone in to check on her, it looked like something had gone very wrong. There wasn't any choice but to find a healer. He piled her into the wheelbarrow, took the axe in case he had to cut any splints or debris along the way, and found the nearest person with a reputation of keeping below-board and quiet when needed.
It had worked. It had been awful, and very touch and go, but they'd put her back together a little better, and checked out Cain when they'd finished ("They said you'd done a good job," Cain added, loyally). They'd been loaded up with painkillers, squeezed for money, and sent back home.
"Lucky thing she decided to crack her ribs before I could get home with Bernhaben, I guess," Ambrose laughed, tiredly, but Cain could see the haunted shadow over his eyes.
"Lucky thing," he agreed, anyway.
***
Awkwardly, Cain and Ambrose tried to make up a bed for two on the sofa, though it mostly consisted of spooning into a corner and propping Cain's leg up on the opposite armrest. Ambrose managed to get them covered with a blanket, and Cain managed to get himself settled enough that he didn't rattle his shoulder or his knee too much when he breathed.
Ambrose was asleep in moments.
Cain, still peaceful from his earlier nap, lingered in the world of the waking a little longer, listening to Ambrose's breathing as it changed and settled, watching one of the moons setting through the window.
As it sank, it shed a little light in across the boards, and Cain followed it mildly as it caught the debris on the floor below the little end table by his head, the little scattering of broken and tumbled knickknacks Azkadellia had cleared when they'd deposited her on the sofa. He craned his chin to get a better look, tucking it over the armrest.
Half the little things on the floor he sleepily realized he couldn't identify: a few unfamiliar bits of porcelain were in shattered pieces on the floor, probably figurines left by the old inhabitants; a pair of little wooden mice he thought Ambrose might have picked up in the village had tumbled down, too, and one their tails had chipped in the fall, but no matter--he could glue that back together.
But knocked half under the sofa was the little lead horse Jeb had made as a boy, the melted ripple of the bullet still melded into its side. That, he recognized.
Cain reminded himself to pocket it, in the morning, when he could move again without waking Ambrose. Decided to paint over the bullet, one of these days. Decided against it just as soon. Stared at it a long time.
And still trying to keep it in his eyes, and full of whispers and the strangeness of the day, Cain drifted off into uneasy sleep and dreams of half-remembered dreams.
****
(Onto Chapter Fifteen)
)