The Wicked West: 1/4
Title: The Wicked West
Author: Guinevere
Characters/Pairing: Cain/DG, of course, with a smidgeon of unrequited Glitch/Azkadellia
Rating: R - not so much for the kiddies.
Summary: A saloon girl and a convict in the wild, wild West. Sorta AU.
Warning: CRACK FIC. Again, sorta AU. Also, if you are offended by the idea of DG as a saloon girl, don't read it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Cain's incredibly tight pants. Nor am I in possession of his bitchin' hat, more's the pity.
Word Count: 1,786
The day Wyatt Cain arrived at the saloon, life would never be the same. Rumor had it that he was an escaped convict - killed a man, they said, then another when he escaped from Sing-Sing. Miss Dorothea was convinced otherwise - he set up shop down the street from the saloon and it looked legit enough. A smithy. Most times he mended farm equipment and the occasional gun, when the gunsmith hadn’t time, but he would make the most cunning tin contraptions. Miss Dorothea bought a lamp with a punched flower design that he had made.
Delia thought she was insane for inviting the company of a convict and said so - repeatedly. Dorothea merely said that a man who didn’t take much drink and didn’t inquire after her services was a welcome sight.
It wasn’t for lack of trying on her part, it must be admitted. First time Cain had set foot in ol’ Henry’s saloon, Dorothea noticed right off how he drank cool and steady, how his hat came off his head as soon as he got out of the sun, and how his overall appearance was a generally pleasing sight. When she sidled over to proposition him, he stopped her mid-eyelash flutter, saying, “You don’t want nothin’ to do with me, little girl. I advise you to spend your time elsewhere.”
Feeling a trifle piqued, she retreated - but only after replying, “Honey darlin’, you ain’t seen many little girls iff’n you think I’m one.”
He laughed, sounding a little bitter and tossed back his whiskey. “I guess you ain’t a little girl, for all that.”
She flounced off, her satin skirts swishing and Delia laughed at her - she had watched little sister fail. Delia enjoyed doing that. Dorothea took somewhat cruel pride in noticing that Delia - in spite of her earlier contempt of the convict, attempted a seduction, as well. She failed, too. The convict didn’t even respond - just stared straight ahead without a word. Dorothea held out hope for later days.
The saloon’s claim to fame was the Gale Sisters, who danced and sang. The men who occupied the place called them princesses and they drank and played poker like men. Delia wore green and Dorothea wore red and they hated each other like nobody’s business - but not to distraction. There were better things to do.
Dorothea’s friend Ambrose, the schoolteacher at the one-room jobby down the street, would come in to see Delia every so often. She treated him like straw under her feet, but Ambrose was blind to her faults - in spite of the numerous times Dorothea would try to distract him with one of the nicer girls.
Raoul would come infrequently - a hermit with a wild beard and a cultured voice, he wasn’t too friendly towards most people. He and Cain nodded to each other once, then Raoul bought Cain a scotch - they’d been fast friends since.
Dorothea was a decent girl with her own set of high moral standards. None of them standards as was set by the preacher-man, who harangued and screamed verses from the Old Testament at their door when he got bored. No, not those. Them men who was her friends - they paid nothing for her company, and she wouldn’t bed one of them. Though that once when Ambrose got drunk and tried to kiss her, she’d been sore tempted. He was a comely-looking man, though small. He whispered, “Delia” by accident when he was helping her slide into his lap and she had been much nicer than any other girl would have been under the circumstances. Instead of getting some of the men to dunk him in the rain barrel, she took him by the arm and helped him stumble upstairs to sleep it off.
Raoul had never tried - the few times Dorothea caught him seeking female company, he had accosted one of the quieter women. Always the same one, too - a pretty, dark-haired young woman who was so awful timid that she rarely got customers. They would leave the bar for her room and not surface for days. Then Raoul would sneak away in the night, leaving so many platinum bars that the woman needn’t even try for another client for weeks. Dorothea always wondered how Raoul managed to get the money.
The convict - Cain - never sought female company. And, after careful inquiries among certain young men in Henry’s employment, she found that he didn’t pay for male company, either. He had Dorothea plum puzzled. No matter how much of her bosom she bared or how much ankle she flashed at him, he would never take the bait.
Now, Dorothea Gale was not squeamish by any stretch of the word, but when the Sheriff, Zebediah Gulch, started to pay her more attention than was entirely comfortable, she started to stay closer and closer to Mr. Cain. He was powerful-strong looking, and she thought that their proximity might put ol’ Gulch off a trifle. ‘Specially seeing as how Gulch already had Delia all over him and wasn’t that enough for him? Though Dorothea denied it aloud, she knew very well that Delia was a damn sight prettier’n her. She’d lost enough customers to Delia, sure enough.
One night, though, Gulch was drunk and sought Dorothea out while she was catching a breath of fresh air (and a cigarillo, since the girls were only to smoke men’s cigars in the saloon) behind the kitchen. He was forcing her to the ground and she was just about to do what she was expressly forbidden to do by Henry - kick the yeller scoundrel where the sun don’t shine - when the unnaturally loud CLICK of a revolver being cocked made both parties freeze.
“Now, sheriff, I think you’re out of line,” Cain drawled, pressing the cold barrel to the back of Gulch’s neck. “You’re gonna let the girl alone, now. She ain’t done nothin’ to you.”
“I could have you hung for this, Cain,” Gulch hissed between clenched teeth. From her place on the ground, Dorothea could see the sweat on his forehead shining in the dim lamplight.
“And then you can explain why you’re rapin’ young ladies behind saloons, Gulch. ‘Sides which, I could kill you right now and ain’t nobody gonna give a shit.”
“I know everythin’ there is to know about you, Cain, and so does my deputy. I can make life mighty unpleasant for you,” Gulch shot back, standing slowly and turning to face Cain - Cain was slightly taller, so Gulch had to look up.
Cain kept the gun fixed on Gulch’s chest. “I suggest you keep any information you have to yourself, sheriff.” Cain’s expression was flat and unfriendly. “Your evening ends here.”
With a curled lip, Gulch walked away - but not until after he spit on the ground dangerously close to Dorothea’s hand. She snatched it away, grimacing, and scowled at the sheriff’s retreating back.
“You all right, princess?” Cain asked with only a slight, mocking inflection on the ‘princess’. He extended one hand to her to assist her in rising, disarming his revolver and slipping it into his holster with the other.
She grimaced up at him, accepting the hand up and brushing the dust from her garnet-colored skirts. “Thank you kindly, Mr. Cain,” she said, gazing up at him through long lashes. “I wish I knew a way to repay you for your trouble.” Guilelessly, she began to slide her hand further up his arm, feeling the firmness of his muscles and allowing a coy smile to light her face.
His hand firmly grasped her wrist and he treated her to a lopsided smile. “Sweetheart, why don’t you go on inside? Take a night off - I’m sure you’re entitled to a rest.”
Utterly aghast, Dorothea gaped at him. “And lose money?” she gasped.
He threw his head back and let out a loud, long guffaw that did Dorothea’s ears good to listen to. “You’re somethin’ else, princess. Can’t say I ever met anyone quite like you before.”
“That a compliment, Mr. Cain?” She grinned at him.
“To be strictly honest, princess, I don’t know what it was,” he replied, offering her his arm.
She took it, noticing idly that he left his other hand covering the hand she had looped in the crook of his arm - to keep her from doing more mischief, perhaps. He did stay to have a drink with she and Ambrose, though he did not linger long. “Early morning,” was the excuse he gave for his departure.
Dorothea laughed. “None of those in my line of work.”
After that evening, Mr. Cain was friendlier. He teased her, tugging her curls and laughing at her - now almost-joking - attempts at seducing him. One night, he even relaxed enough to have a mite too much to drink.
“Y’know, princess,” he said, extending an arm to her and drawing her to him so that if she wanted to lean a little further, she’d be on his lap, “you’re really not a little girl, are you?”
“I thought we’d covered that line of thought, Mr. Cain,” she replied, curling both arms around his neck and cozying in towards him. His face was level with her bosom now and she was snug between his legs. His eyebrow crooked up and the gleam in his blue-blue eyes was feral - something would happen tonight that would make this convict human, she was right sure of it.
He grinned and his hands had made their way to her waist, to pull her in close. The background noise was only a dull roar in the back of Dorothea’s ears and she was only dimly aware of the fact that it wasn’t just the two of them present. “Mebbe we ought to go over the concept again. Just to be sure I understand.” His hands tightened and she slowly sat on his lap, being fairly cautious of him. He could get antsy sometimes and she didn’t want to spook him off.
“Now, what might you have in mind?” she breathed, letting her lips brush his earlobe and hearing Cain’s breath hitch in his throat at the sensation.
His smile became a little dangerous. “I thought I might let you have your wicked way with me sometime soon. I wouldn’t mind you showin’ me a few examples…” He brushed an errant curl away from her face and his mouth brushed her collarbone.
There was a crash right behind Dorothea’s head and she jumped up reflexively to tell off the damn disruptive bastard - Gulch’s deputy, it turned out, and she sent him back to his card table with burning ears. However, when she turned back around, Cain was out of sight. Dorothea went to bed early that night out of irritation.
Author: Guinevere
Characters/Pairing: Cain/DG, of course, with a smidgeon of unrequited Glitch/Azkadellia
Rating: R - not so much for the kiddies.
Summary: A saloon girl and a convict in the wild, wild West. Sorta AU.
Warning: CRACK FIC. Again, sorta AU. Also, if you are offended by the idea of DG as a saloon girl, don't read it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Cain's incredibly tight pants. Nor am I in possession of his bitchin' hat, more's the pity.
Word Count: 1,786
The day Wyatt Cain arrived at the saloon, life would never be the same. Rumor had it that he was an escaped convict - killed a man, they said, then another when he escaped from Sing-Sing. Miss Dorothea was convinced otherwise - he set up shop down the street from the saloon and it looked legit enough. A smithy. Most times he mended farm equipment and the occasional gun, when the gunsmith hadn’t time, but he would make the most cunning tin contraptions. Miss Dorothea bought a lamp with a punched flower design that he had made.
Delia thought she was insane for inviting the company of a convict and said so - repeatedly. Dorothea merely said that a man who didn’t take much drink and didn’t inquire after her services was a welcome sight.
It wasn’t for lack of trying on her part, it must be admitted. First time Cain had set foot in ol’ Henry’s saloon, Dorothea noticed right off how he drank cool and steady, how his hat came off his head as soon as he got out of the sun, and how his overall appearance was a generally pleasing sight. When she sidled over to proposition him, he stopped her mid-eyelash flutter, saying, “You don’t want nothin’ to do with me, little girl. I advise you to spend your time elsewhere.”
Feeling a trifle piqued, she retreated - but only after replying, “Honey darlin’, you ain’t seen many little girls iff’n you think I’m one.”
He laughed, sounding a little bitter and tossed back his whiskey. “I guess you ain’t a little girl, for all that.”
She flounced off, her satin skirts swishing and Delia laughed at her - she had watched little sister fail. Delia enjoyed doing that. Dorothea took somewhat cruel pride in noticing that Delia - in spite of her earlier contempt of the convict, attempted a seduction, as well. She failed, too. The convict didn’t even respond - just stared straight ahead without a word. Dorothea held out hope for later days.
The saloon’s claim to fame was the Gale Sisters, who danced and sang. The men who occupied the place called them princesses and they drank and played poker like men. Delia wore green and Dorothea wore red and they hated each other like nobody’s business - but not to distraction. There were better things to do.
Dorothea’s friend Ambrose, the schoolteacher at the one-room jobby down the street, would come in to see Delia every so often. She treated him like straw under her feet, but Ambrose was blind to her faults - in spite of the numerous times Dorothea would try to distract him with one of the nicer girls.
Raoul would come infrequently - a hermit with a wild beard and a cultured voice, he wasn’t too friendly towards most people. He and Cain nodded to each other once, then Raoul bought Cain a scotch - they’d been fast friends since.
Dorothea was a decent girl with her own set of high moral standards. None of them standards as was set by the preacher-man, who harangued and screamed verses from the Old Testament at their door when he got bored. No, not those. Them men who was her friends - they paid nothing for her company, and she wouldn’t bed one of them. Though that once when Ambrose got drunk and tried to kiss her, she’d been sore tempted. He was a comely-looking man, though small. He whispered, “Delia” by accident when he was helping her slide into his lap and she had been much nicer than any other girl would have been under the circumstances. Instead of getting some of the men to dunk him in the rain barrel, she took him by the arm and helped him stumble upstairs to sleep it off.
Raoul had never tried - the few times Dorothea caught him seeking female company, he had accosted one of the quieter women. Always the same one, too - a pretty, dark-haired young woman who was so awful timid that she rarely got customers. They would leave the bar for her room and not surface for days. Then Raoul would sneak away in the night, leaving so many platinum bars that the woman needn’t even try for another client for weeks. Dorothea always wondered how Raoul managed to get the money.
The convict - Cain - never sought female company. And, after careful inquiries among certain young men in Henry’s employment, she found that he didn’t pay for male company, either. He had Dorothea plum puzzled. No matter how much of her bosom she bared or how much ankle she flashed at him, he would never take the bait.
Now, Dorothea Gale was not squeamish by any stretch of the word, but when the Sheriff, Zebediah Gulch, started to pay her more attention than was entirely comfortable, she started to stay closer and closer to Mr. Cain. He was powerful-strong looking, and she thought that their proximity might put ol’ Gulch off a trifle. ‘Specially seeing as how Gulch already had Delia all over him and wasn’t that enough for him? Though Dorothea denied it aloud, she knew very well that Delia was a damn sight prettier’n her. She’d lost enough customers to Delia, sure enough.
One night, though, Gulch was drunk and sought Dorothea out while she was catching a breath of fresh air (and a cigarillo, since the girls were only to smoke men’s cigars in the saloon) behind the kitchen. He was forcing her to the ground and she was just about to do what she was expressly forbidden to do by Henry - kick the yeller scoundrel where the sun don’t shine - when the unnaturally loud CLICK of a revolver being cocked made both parties freeze.
“Now, sheriff, I think you’re out of line,” Cain drawled, pressing the cold barrel to the back of Gulch’s neck. “You’re gonna let the girl alone, now. She ain’t done nothin’ to you.”
“I could have you hung for this, Cain,” Gulch hissed between clenched teeth. From her place on the ground, Dorothea could see the sweat on his forehead shining in the dim lamplight.
“And then you can explain why you’re rapin’ young ladies behind saloons, Gulch. ‘Sides which, I could kill you right now and ain’t nobody gonna give a shit.”
“I know everythin’ there is to know about you, Cain, and so does my deputy. I can make life mighty unpleasant for you,” Gulch shot back, standing slowly and turning to face Cain - Cain was slightly taller, so Gulch had to look up.
Cain kept the gun fixed on Gulch’s chest. “I suggest you keep any information you have to yourself, sheriff.” Cain’s expression was flat and unfriendly. “Your evening ends here.”
With a curled lip, Gulch walked away - but not until after he spit on the ground dangerously close to Dorothea’s hand. She snatched it away, grimacing, and scowled at the sheriff’s retreating back.
“You all right, princess?” Cain asked with only a slight, mocking inflection on the ‘princess’. He extended one hand to her to assist her in rising, disarming his revolver and slipping it into his holster with the other.
She grimaced up at him, accepting the hand up and brushing the dust from her garnet-colored skirts. “Thank you kindly, Mr. Cain,” she said, gazing up at him through long lashes. “I wish I knew a way to repay you for your trouble.” Guilelessly, she began to slide her hand further up his arm, feeling the firmness of his muscles and allowing a coy smile to light her face.
His hand firmly grasped her wrist and he treated her to a lopsided smile. “Sweetheart, why don’t you go on inside? Take a night off - I’m sure you’re entitled to a rest.”
Utterly aghast, Dorothea gaped at him. “And lose money?” she gasped.
He threw his head back and let out a loud, long guffaw that did Dorothea’s ears good to listen to. “You’re somethin’ else, princess. Can’t say I ever met anyone quite like you before.”
“That a compliment, Mr. Cain?” She grinned at him.
“To be strictly honest, princess, I don’t know what it was,” he replied, offering her his arm.
She took it, noticing idly that he left his other hand covering the hand she had looped in the crook of his arm - to keep her from doing more mischief, perhaps. He did stay to have a drink with she and Ambrose, though he did not linger long. “Early morning,” was the excuse he gave for his departure.
Dorothea laughed. “None of those in my line of work.”
After that evening, Mr. Cain was friendlier. He teased her, tugging her curls and laughing at her - now almost-joking - attempts at seducing him. One night, he even relaxed enough to have a mite too much to drink.
“Y’know, princess,” he said, extending an arm to her and drawing her to him so that if she wanted to lean a little further, she’d be on his lap, “you’re really not a little girl, are you?”
“I thought we’d covered that line of thought, Mr. Cain,” she replied, curling both arms around his neck and cozying in towards him. His face was level with her bosom now and she was snug between his legs. His eyebrow crooked up and the gleam in his blue-blue eyes was feral - something would happen tonight that would make this convict human, she was right sure of it.
He grinned and his hands had made their way to her waist, to pull her in close. The background noise was only a dull roar in the back of Dorothea’s ears and she was only dimly aware of the fact that it wasn’t just the two of them present. “Mebbe we ought to go over the concept again. Just to be sure I understand.” His hands tightened and she slowly sat on his lap, being fairly cautious of him. He could get antsy sometimes and she didn’t want to spook him off.
“Now, what might you have in mind?” she breathed, letting her lips brush his earlobe and hearing Cain’s breath hitch in his throat at the sensation.
His smile became a little dangerous. “I thought I might let you have your wicked way with me sometime soon. I wouldn’t mind you showin’ me a few examples…” He brushed an errant curl away from her face and his mouth brushed her collarbone.
There was a crash right behind Dorothea’s head and she jumped up reflexively to tell off the damn disruptive bastard - Gulch’s deputy, it turned out, and she sent him back to his card table with burning ears. However, when she turned back around, Cain was out of sight. Dorothea went to bed early that night out of irritation.