Glitch's Dog Is Only Part-Time (But He's Always, Always Glitch's)
This is for a lot of people! I'll single out theempress14 for birthday-ness, even if she doesn't want it. The Usual Suspects are also included. You already know who you are and I am not listing all your names.
Title: Glitch's Dog Is Only Part-Time (But He's Always, Always Glitch's)
Rating: PG-13.
Pairing: Glitch/Cain. Duh.
Warnings: It's not bestiality. Really. Violence, nakedness, and...this is actually pretty tame, all things considered. UTTER CRACK. Also no porn, woe. Wait for the sequel probably.
Summary: Glitch thought his best friend was a dog. And he is! Just...not sometimes.
Glitch’s Dog Is Only Part-Time
(But He’s Always, Always Glitch's)
Cain was still perched on top of him, intelligent blue eyes scanning the room as Glitch stared up at him. He was letting out a very deep growl, so deep it was almost silent.
“I can-” Glitch protested, only for the golden retriever to press down just that bit harder on the spot where the bullet had grazed him. Glitch hissed, and glared at the dog, which glared right back. “Bad. Dog.”
Cain let out a snort at that, the dog’s equivalent of an amused smirk. But before Glitch could get a rebuttal in, there was a creak on the floor nearby. Cain was off him in a moment, running and finally lunging upwards to grab the man by his gun hand, snarling like a very nasty wolf as the man shouted and finally punched the retriever with something that Glitch could tell was definitely more than just knuckles with how the indomitable dog let out a pained whine, paws scurrying against the man before he finally let go, looking like he was in serious pain.
The man was too busy smirking down at the whining and bleeding retriever to even notice Glitch before he’d nearly kicked the man through the wall, furious and looking like he’d just crawled out of hell for the man’s own personal enjoyment for the evening.
It was a well-known fact that getting the man known as Glitch mad was very hard to do. It wasn’t very often that people got to know what happened when he really did get angry.
“Holy shit-” the assassin managed to gasp, gulping air until Glitch let a vicious left hook sail straight for the man’s face. Bone cracked, and it was the man’s turn to be lying on the floor and crying in pain. “Gods, what the fuck-”
Glitch grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and started walking for the window, the man whimpering behind him, Cain eerily quiet, so quiet that Glitch couldn’t even bare to look at the floor or call for him or do anything other than let the fear add onto the flame of anger that had him picking up the man’s gun and turning him to face the window.
“Oh gods, I’ll tell you who sent me, I’ll tell you anything, it was just a job for gods’ sake, you know how it is here in the Realm-”
“And I’ve had understood all that, paid you off, and gotten a new apartment if you hadn’t done the one and only thing that is making me kill you right now,” Glitch said easily, backing the man straight into the glass, reaching around him and opening the window with one hand. “Up on the window ledge, please.”
“Gods, whatever it was, I didn’t mean it!” The man was practically sobbing now, taking a wobbly step up onto the ledge.
Plenty of people had been sent after Glitch. Nobody had killed him yet, but in return, he hadn’t killed them either. It was a strange sort of thank you that Tutor kept telling him was the stupidest thing a genius with a price on his head could do.
“Oh, you didn’t mean to hurt my dog?” Glitch gave him an innocent, slighty crazy smile. “Well that’s believable, with how you punched him with metal spikes on your knuckles.” He pulled back the hammer, and the assassin’s eyes went so wide it looked like they were going to pop out. “Nobody touches Cain.”
“Y-you don’t ha-have a d-d-dog,” the assassin whispered, looking over his head, and Glitch glared.
“That better not mean what I think it means,” Glitch said darkly.
“It doesn’t,” a dry, pained, and unfamiliar male voice said from behind him. Glitch turned around, and gaped at the tall naked blond man lying on the floor right where Cain had been, four bright and already purpling bruises on his side, right where the man had hit Glitch’s dog.
Glitch had just about forgotten the man he had a loaded gun point blank on, just staring. “What?”
The man had his dog’s eyes, and that was really, really creepy. “Ever think I was such a bad dog because I’m not one?”
And then his dog stood up and Glitch realized Cain was a shapeshifting, naked man, and was so surprised he barely noticed when he pulled the trigger and the man was blown out the open window, falling the three stories and dying twice over before Glitch remembered there was an assassin around.
“Do…” Glitch cleared his throat. “Do you want some pants or something?”
His dog’s eyebrows lifted up pretty quickly at that. “How about the gun instead so you don’t accidentally shoot anyone else tonight.”
Glitch gave him the gun. And pants.
---
Glitch had still been going by Ambrose when he first met Cain. It was a rare thing for Tutor to make a house call with a guest, but the man was there as Tutor instead of Toto, having made the trek to the Realm of the Unwanted as a human for the first time Ambrose had been able to remember. Since he was carrying a mud-covered, whimpering and malnourished golden retriever, Ambrose could guess why.
“Come in,” Ambrose said, and Tutor walked in with more grace than Ambrose had ever given him credit for, heading for the bathroom and immediately laying the poor dog down in the tub. Ambrose followed, worry bleaching his face. “What happened to the poor thing?”
“Longcoats,” Tutor said grimly, and with his eyes gone dark and Not Amused, he pulled a bullet out of his vest pocket. “Shot him in the shoulder. I patched him up, but I can’t take care of Cain and play messenger for the Resistance.”
“And you knew I’d do it,” Ambrose nodded, already having to hold his hands together to avoid trying to pet the poor dog. If Ambrose had been through that sort of thing, he doubted being petted would be his big number one on a What I Want Next list. “Plus I’m very conveniently your most stationary contact, so you can check in on him.”
Tutor nodded, not surprised in the slightest at Ambrose’s assessment. It was why he was alive, after all. “Speaking of which,” Tutor added. “You need to get a new apartment and a new name. Be nothing but a face in the crowd, a blip in the recording, okay? If not for yourself, do it for Cain. He’s going to be down for a while, and I hope you can help him out.”
Ambrose frowned. “I know advanced basic first aid.”
Tutor paused, looking over at his old coworker. “That’s an oxymoron.”
“So’s ‘dog man’, and yet here you are,” Ambrose said a bit moodily, but sighed and looked down at the poor dog. “So R&R for Cain?”
“If by R&R you mean heal him up and take care of him,” Tutor said simply, and stood up. “Anyway, latest plans-”
“Second drawer under the mirror, false bottom under the false bottom,” Ambrose called out. The poor dog was still whimpering and looking it’d been hurt in more than physical ways. “Hey Tutor, what type of dog is he?”
“Mostly Golden Retriever, but he’s such a light yellow because he’s got some sort of snow dog or wolf or something in there too, a few generations back,” Tutor said a bit quietly. “Cain’s from a long, long line of protectors. Not like me; I just popped up, genetic anomaly.” If Tutor had looked sad before, he looked near tears now. “He had a pup and a wife.”
That was all Ambrose could take. The fact Tutor/Toto was comparing himself to the dog sailed over his head as he concentrated on the grief, and he crouched next to the tub, hugging the still whimpering and probably drugged dog, mud and all, a hand rubbing Cain’s neck and ears. Flecks of drying mud came off on his hands, and the dog pawed at the side of the tub, leaning just a bit against the man holding him.
“I’ll take care of you, Cain,” Ambrose whispered, and meant every word more than he’d ever imagined he did.
The dog got a bath, and was so out of it that Ambrose had to hold Cain’s head up while Tutor did the actual washing. His tub was coated in mud, dirt, and dried blood when it was over, but the mostly-Golden Retriever looked shiny and clean and smelled a bit fruity - a trick Ambrose had learned from when Toto came in looking just as lousy as poor Cain. For some reason, if Toto looked like a mess, Tutor didn’t, but as soon as he’d shift back the mess was back, so he had experience cleaning up dogs. The fruity smell got rid of the wet dog smell, no matter how much Toto would make displeased lapdog noises at him.
“Ambrose, you need to get an alias,” Tutor said while they set Cain carefully on the couch. “You can’t use your real name - you know how many people are after your head.”
“Or brain,” Ambrose said, sending Tutor a slight smile even if his eyes were full of a deep sadness.
Tutor sighed. “She sent me away to begin the Resistance, Ambrose. She sent you to guide it. To guide troops that won’t break under the Sorceress’ pressure because they’re already risking their lives to simply avoid her rule.”
“I still should have stayed,” Ambrose muttered, keeping his eyes on the poor dog. “She needed me more than the Resistance ever has.”
“She wanted to save you, Ambrose,” Tutor said, crouching in front of where Ambrose sat, forcing the other man to look at him. “She loved you, and that’s why you’re still here. Not because she had someone kidnap you and toss you out of the castle, not because she thought you’d be guiding the Resistance so well, but because she wanted to keep you out of harm’s way. Honor her by doing the same and keeping yourself safe.”
Ambrose was quiet for a long time after that, watching Cain start to kick in his sleep. After five minutes or so, Tutor sighed and stood up, heading for where the newest tactical ‘suggestions’ (Ambrose was practically the general behind the entire Resistance, but wouldn’t even hear of it) and pulling out the newest information, all in the code that even Tutor couldn’t read, just one guy that Ambrose had sent out of the Realm of the Unwanted and himself. Ambrose had called it ‘java knees’ or something once, but that was all Tutor knew of it.
“Look for Glitch next time,” Ambrose finally said, and Tutor blinked. The man had yet to stop watching Cain. “It’s all I am, after all.” He sighed. “New apartment, new everything. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get a doggy door for you and my new puppy.”
Tutor’s eyebrows shot up. “Ambrose, he’s not a puppy. He’s-”
“I know, not a puppy,” he sighed. “But I’m still going to protect him. He’s not exactly up to snuff right now, as far as I can see.”
Tutor nodded. “I’ll be bringing a box along next time. Keep it around for when he’s all better, alright? Help him with that.”
Ambrose simply nodded. “I will.”
Tutor nodded one last time, and walked out the door.
---
As soon as Cain heard about the box, the man was across the room and opening it. Glitch still had no idea what was going on, honestly. His dog was a dog-shifting person. That was okay. But why hadn’t he shifted for two annuals was beyond him.
Glitch had almost forgotten about the box until…well, now. He’d opened it once, seen a hat on the top of some clothes and a few odds and ends, including a gun, and just frowned and closed it up again and gone to torment Cain with a cat toy. Glitch had a box full of cat toys, and now Cain was a man and was in the bathroom putting on what he’d finally realized had been his clothing.
The bit of time was good for Glitch, because he had time to try and wrap his mind around how his pretty dog was now a pretty man, and that probably meant he didn’t have a dog anymore. Which was strange. Having a dog for two annuals had been better than he’d ever imagined. He’d actually taught Cain Japanese one month, which meant there were now three people in the O.Z. that knew the language.
He groaned and put a hand over his eyes. “My dog is a man,” he said, hoping it’d finally snap everything into place and force himself to skip the shock and befuddlement.
“I’m still a dog too,” Cain offered, looking at him with worried eyes that were the same as his dog’s, which was the man. Man-dog. Dog-man. Whatever. Even Tutor didn’t ever give him a specific name aside from ‘shifter’. Apparently there were all kinds of them out there, but Glitch wasn’t really thinking about that.
He was thinking that Cain was incredibly attractive as a man and was slightly horrified by that, since it was his dog.
“If you shifted, would the hat fall off?” Glitch found himself asking, and that seemed to make Cain pause.
“Never did before.”
“Huh.”
Which was when Glitch was back to staring at Cain. His hair was the same color, his eyes were exactly the same, and of course he seemed to have the same personality. Glitch was honestly tempted to go get one of the cat toys and see if it still made Cain twitch and finally go running after the thing just so Glitch would stop annoying him with it, except Glitch always picked the really annoying squeaky impenetrable ones just to watch Cain growl and bounce it around with his too-big paws and bite the thing so hard it would squeak like it wanted to die and finally snap Cain in the nose. With the gun on Cain’s hip and the other one still in his hand (and boy did Glitch feel stupid about accidentally killing a guy), he doubted Cain would play with one.
“This is probably strange for you,” Cain finally said.
“It really, really is,” Glitch nodded, still staring at him. “…So. Since you can talk and stuff now, any questions?”
“What’s your real name?”
“Ambrose.”
“What should I call you?”
“Glitch.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you’re my dog.”
Cain paused. “…that was a stupid question.”
Glitch nodded, and they continued to stare at each other for a while.
“You look different in color.”
“You look a lot different as a human.”
“I could catch your scent from over a mile away.”
“…I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It is. So what do we do now?”
“I have no idea.”
And they stared at each other. Purely out of what seemed like habit, Cain ended up sitting on the floor to stare at him. Also out of habit, when Glitch cooked, he cooked for two and a half, with completely dog-edible food, and barely managed to stop himself from putting the plate on the floor, just like Cain barely stopped himself from expecting it to be there, instead sitting in the constantly empty second seat on the tiny table.
They ate.
Glitch cleared his throat. “We…we’re going to have to move again.” He paused. “If you’re coming, I mean.”
“I know,” Cain said simply. “And I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Well, that was a pleasant way to end dinner, Glitch thought, and went to clean the dishes, trying not to feel like there were so many things wrong with how he didn’t have his dog just sitting on the linoleum and watching him finish scrubbing. He had a man there instead, looking around and looking incredibly uneasy.
It only took one look from Glitch to make Cain blurt out “I feel deaf.”
Glitch blinked. “…well, that’s what happens when you’re human.”
And they were staring at each other again.
“I thought you were taller.”
“I thought you were a dog.”
Silence swallowed the room.
---
When Cain was better, he was like some sort of ghost dog for a long time. He ate, he slept, and he stared at Glitch (who was still getting used to being Glitch, honestly). Cain occasionally paced around the apartment, the nails on his paws clicking just loud enough to be eerie and make Glitch’s hair stand on end. It went on like that for nearly three weeks until finally Glitch went out and bought a collar and leash for Cain.
The dog was in too much shock to avoid the cheap black collar with a simple tag that said “CAIN. IF FOUND, RETURN TO GLITCH” in easy-to-read lettering. When Glitch tried to get the leash onto the collar, he ended up chasing Cain around the apartment, and the dog managed to maneuver Glitch into smacking his head on the bottom of the table during the process.
It knocked him out. When he woke up, it was the first time Cain actually looked like he wasn’t just a ghost or angry. The dog looked genuinely guilty, sitting next to his head and staring straight at him with incredibly intelligent blue eyes.
Glitch groaned when he sat up, and sighed when he realized that Cain had dragged him out from under the table but managed to destroy a shoe in the process. He couldn’t be mad at the dog, though. Cain was…well, giving him puppy eyes. Guilty, tossed-in-the-rain, ‘don’t leave me here’ puppy eyes.
He reached out a hand and scratched the top of Cain’s head, which hunkered down a bit, almost like he was trying to keep himself from flinching. Glitch managed to scratch him on the top of the head for long enough that the dog finally seemed to get used to it.
“I won’t use the leash,” Glitch finally said, not finding it strange in the least that he was compromising with his dog. “But the collar stays, just in case you get lost.” Cain gave him a dog expression that was very icy and clearly stated I don’t get lost, so Glitch rolled his eyes. “Just humor me, okay Cain?”
He took the huffing noise as agreement, and since the collar was still on in the morning, Glitch decided he had the smartest dog ever. Since Cain was curled up on a carpet, clearly enjoying a nap in the sunlight (sometimes he was more cat than dog, really), Glitch found himself grinning at the glint of the tag on his neck. It was a nice moment that, much to his dismay, was suddenly disrupted by someone shooting through the door.
Cain snapped awake growling, and Glitch threw himself to the floor, shut his eyes, and covered his ears just in time for the expected (and so predictable by now) concussion grenade to go off. Sure, it still hit him, but he had about an even amount of effects as the assassin, and luckily Glitch didn’t need to really hear or see that well to beat the slightly wobbling woman into the refrigerator and then knock her unconscious.
He sighed, his hearing finally coming back, and Glitch’s eyes shot wide open as he heard the groaning coming from Cain. The dog was on his feet, ready to fight, and wobbling from side to side like a drunk walking home, repeatedly shaking his head.
“Cain, Cain, come on,” Glitch said, using both hands to steady Cain’s head and make the dog look straight at him. “Hey, it’s okay, we just have to move. This happens a lot. It’s no big deal.” Naturally, it earned him the dog-equivalent of a you’ve got to be kidding stare. “I’m serious, Cain. We move, we leave her here while we do it, and then we just…wait around.”
Cain made a none-too-pleased grumbling noise that echoed out of his chest and backpedaled out of Glitch’s grip, sitting in front of him, tail going back and forth over the floor as the dog thought, blue eyes on Glitch’s brown. Finally Cain got up and trotted over to the unconscious assassin’s form, tilting his head at her before pawing at her belt.
Two things fell out - one more concussion grenade, and a pouch full of Platinums.
Cain turned back to Glitch looking very smug, and decided to settle himself in front of her while Glitch shook his head and packed up what little he’d already unpacked. Honestly it was mostly things out of the food box, and he cleaned the fridge up pretty well before grabbing the four boxes and walking towards the door, not even needing to whistle or call for Cain before the dog was trotting next to him, and then in front of him, and then behind him.
When they got out of the building, Glitch finally realized that Cain was being a very good guard dog and had yet to let Glitch out of his hearing or sight since the attack. So, Glitch dipped smoothly into an alleyway much to Cain’s dismay, and frowned at the dog.
“Cain, I can take care of myself. Try and be happy for once, okay?” Dubious, almost horror. “I’m serious! And what’s so wrong with being happy?” A disbelieving whuff. “Alright fine, you can stay here and find someone else to guard, then.” Sharp intent, straight on him. “Thaaat’s right, Cain. Either partners or we go it alone.” Consideration. “It’s not going to be that bad. I just want to fight with you, alright?” Strong disagreement. “…When it’s humans and not a stray squirrel or something, I mean. You’re an adult; I’m not treating you like a child. I’m just saying that- ”
Cain let out a puff of air, and then gently knocked his head against Glitch’s leg, backing back up with his tail wagging an almost unnoticeable amount. But Glitch had been watching the dog for just about any happy behavior he could find, and it sent him grinning. “Thanks for understanding, Cain.”
The dog actually shook his head, and pulled Glitch back onto the main stretch, staying next to him in a comfortable, close silence.
---
Having someone else to help box things up was strange. Having someone else around in general was strange. Everything about this was strange.
Glitch had slept in bed, and when he was half-asleep he’d muttered for Cain to ‘come to bed already’ and woken up tangled with a fully-dressed blond man making whiny dog noises and pawing a little at the pillows when Glitch scooted away and stared at Cain. Staring at Cain seemed to be his new hobby, all things considered.
When everything was boxed up (five boxes now instead of six, although he could have gone back down to four since the one was all Cain’s - his dog’s, not the man’s) they were doing it again, staring and trying to figure out how to remake such a familiar routine.
After the staring stretched long enough for noon to come around, Glitch finally sighed. “Can you just shift back for a while?”
“I don’t know, and I shouldn’t try,” Cain said simply, and Glitch continued to be freaked out by how attractive his dog was. It was just wrong. He’d shared a bed with Cain for just about a year and a half…hell, he’d done just about everything with Cain around. There were, thankfully, some things that he wouldn’t do even in front of a dog, and it wasn’t fun at all to think of all the things he still had done in front of Cain. “Are you even listening?”
Glitch blinked. “Sorry. I’m still not used to you talking.” Cain was very much his dog with that expression. Head tilted to the side, eyes going a bit squinty, giving him the well-known you have got to be kidding look. Glitch scowled at him. “What do you expect?! I’m practically a hermit aside from you and Tutor-”
“Who hasn’t shown up for four months.”
“- and see, this is another thing that makes me wish you were still a dog!” Glitch snapped, and Cain flinched. “My dog couldn’t talk over me! You could bark all you wanted but you still had to hear it with your…canine super-hearing! And you were shorter and cuter and not human and I am very unused to having my faithful companion and best friend talking to me, okay!?”
“Okay,” Cain said soothingly, and gods, the puppy eyes. Glitch was going to go insane at this rate. “It’s okay, Glitch. I know you’re shocked. I’m a little surprised myself that I could finally shift back.”
“Another thing I was going to ask you.”
“Which I was telling you about before you went double-pulse,” Cain said, and Glitch just looked at him and Cain explained himself. “Increased heart rate. You know those times when you’d get really angry or scared and I’d be on top of you?” He cleared his throat a bit at that, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. “I could feel your pulse.”
Glitch stared at him again. Cain had actually slept on top of him an awful lot. “Okay.”
“…so. Shifting.”
“Yes. That.”
Cain took a deep breath. “I was in the Resistance for a couple annuals after Azkadellia finally took control over everything before…before they found us. Me and my wife and my boy.” He shook his head. “That was when I finally Snapped. The Longcoats were…were beating them, and they were holding me back, and when my son went down, I just.”
Cain stopped talking, and without even thinking about it Glitch walked over and sat next to him, rubbing his back in big circles. It seemed like Cain didn’t think about it either, since he immediately curled up on the couch with his hands and head on Glitch’s lap.
“I wanted to hurt them, I was scared for my son and my wife, and I needed to protect them, and that was when I Snapped. The men couldn’t keep a hold of me while I was shifting, and when I was a dog…well, I was faster. Saw better, heard better. I was armed even without a gun.”
Glitch nodded, still rubbing his back. “Your family?”
“Gone.” Cain sighed, sinking a bit further into Glitch’s lap. “Hunted for them for two annuals before I was desperate enough to sneak into the tower itself.” He shook his head. “I wanted to shoot people, and then I was human again. Right where I’d been slinking around as a dog.”
“I don’t think you have to tell me what happened at that point,” Glitch said simply, and Cain nodded. “Tutor had been helping you, brought you to the only moderately stable place he could think of, you wanted to shoot someone again after two years, and you turned human again.”
“What happened to Tutor?” Cain asked, and Glitch found that he was petting a man that kept going strangely blurry and then back to being a man.
“I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s been four months. He’s not coming to us, so we should go to him.”
Glitch’s eyebrows shot up. “That mean no new apartment?”
Cain looked up at him. Glitch was surprised to notice that it wasn’t his dog’s eyes he was looking into, just Cain’s. “How long has it been since you saw the sky, Glitch?”
That made Glitch pause, finally sighing and leaning down to hug Cain to his chest. “…six annuals.”
Cain flickered again, making Glitch nearly lose his grip, but Cain was giving him the sincerity look and wrapped his arms around Glitch’s shoulders. “Maybe it’s time you went outside and stopped relying on messengers, hmm?”
Glitch had to shut his eyes. He hadn’t seen the sky in a very long time, but it’d been even longer since someone had hugged him back.
---
They became inseparable. Glitch went from being ‘that weird hermit guy’ to ‘that weird guy with the dog who’s kind of a hermit’ in one apartment switch, making it the longest stay in an apartment he’d had since he had started hiding out in the Realm of the Unwanted. It got to the point that even talking to Cain wasn’t really necessary anymore, and it took one look at the mostly-golden-retriever to know what he was thinking and saying.
People thought he was crazy sometimes when they saw him in a debate with a dog, but if they ever said anything about it they usually ended up with a scathing bark from Cain and Glitch having to apologize for behavior they didn’t even realize was rude. Then they thought he was even crazier, but in a nice and lonely way, even if he’d never been less lonely in his life. Even back in his life as Ambrose he hadn’t had anything as wonderful as Cain. Nobody around whenever he needed someone, watching out for him, going on walks with him.
It turned out Cain had three modes of walking - Dog, which was what he stuck to in the apartment, which looked just like a very agile dog trotting around, Hunt, which made the not-golden-retriever part of him shine through and made Cain look like a full wolf, utterly silent and extremely dangerous, and Puppy, which was the best description he could think of. If they were safe, out in a more open area, and not holding boxes, it was like Cain was a five-month-old puppy, bumping up against him and actually running around for fun. Puppy-Cain was also just about the cutest thing he’d ever seen, too, considering his habit of chasing anything.
He nearly chased his tail once. Got through two turns until he stopped, stared, waved his tail, and shook his head in a I can’t believe I’m doing this way that sent Glitch into a fit of laughter. Naturally, Glitch then became the new target for Puppy-Cain. The two could spend a stupid amount of time playing tag and getting filthy in the grime of the Realm, and never got tired of it.
Cain went through four collars just from trying to murder squeaky toys and run cat toys off the property and the occasional little kid with busy fingers (since he’d have bitten an adult). It got to the point where Cain was actually picking them, to the owner’s confusion.
The tag changed, too. “CAIN. LIVES WITH GLITCH UNTIL HE GETS TIRED OF THE IDIOT.”
They both liked it, since Cain thought Glitch was the idiot and Glitch thought Cain was. After all, Cain had been stupid enough to chase his own tail for a little while. If that wasn’t deserving of the title ‘idiot’ he didn’t know what was.
Glitch taught Cain everything he could, and Cain was both a better rat-catcher than any cat he’d heard of (but luckily Cain didn’t eat them) and also the best guard dog he’d ever heard of. Cain could be a block away from Glitch, and if there was a mugger anywhere nearby, would immediately appear and tackle the man. It was downright magical. He’d never even heard of any sort of creature that was capable of sensing malicious intent a block away.
For a while he thought Cain wasn’t a dog. He was too good, despite the fact that sometimes his very un-dog-like behavior got slightly obnoxious. Like when Glitch ended up with a cold and Cain either sat on top of him or was dragging him around.
It was, however, funny to watch Cain try and bark the teakettle into submission.
But there were other times when Cain wasn’t dog-like at all. If the apartment had a balcony, Glitch could often find him out there at night, when the light bulbs dimmed to embers in the ceiling. He would simply stare up. Stare out. Like there was something up there, waiting for him.
But for two annuals, they were inseparable. Glitch and Cain, Cain and Glitch, that was what they were called if anyone asked the neighbors. Assassins started tracking Cain just as closely as Glitch (because really they were only emotionally and spiritually inseparable; Cain liked to go play with children and Glitch had a bad habit of wandering around to black market stores buying interesting books).
The one that made Cain human again had only traced Cain.
But, considering he was inconveniently deceased, neither of them were likely to ever know that, or anyone else to know it either.
---
They’d left the boxes in the apartment, and fresh air nearly knocked Glitch unconscious. It was huge, it was open, and he’d nearly forgotten what the sky looked like. There were clouds and trees and the sun and gods knew what else. “Six annuals,” Glitch murmured while Cain was keeping his very fuzzy head from hitting the meadow’s ground. “Gods. It’s all so…big.”
“We can go back down for a while,” Cain offered, and Glitch shook his head, a grin spreading across his face.
“Hey Cain, you know that story about how a goldfish’s size depends on how much room it has?” Glitch asked, not even waiting for an answer. He knew it. Glitch had told it to him at least three times. “I was stuck in too small a bowl for too long, that’s all it is.”
The other man (and Glitch was finally getting better at thinking of him that way - as a man who happened to be able to turn into his dog, and not just a man who switched out with his dog) shook his head. “Alright. Where was the last Resistance camp?”
Glitch frowned. “That was six years ago, Cain, I don’t think they’ll be in the same place. Let’s go by what you remember.”
“It’d be easier if I was a dog,” Cain mused. “Could probably follow Tutor’s trail. I know his scent well enough.”
“Great, then switch,” Glitch said, sitting up and waiting. Cain glared at him, and Glitch blinked. “Oh, right. You don’t know how.” The glare just deepened, and Glitch glared back. “Alright, fine. How about this, Cain? We’re outside the Realm, and you already told me you feel blind and deaf as a human. How are we going to survive out here, you think?”
Cain crossed his arms, but his form was starting to waver, shifting and fading for moments before returning to human.
“We need to pick up Tutor’s trail. You need to be a dog. You’re faster as a dog, you have better hearing as a dog, and we already know you can take care of me just as well as a dog-”
The other man turned into nothing but blue and yellow in the air. Cain-the-dog was still glaring at him, only to blink a few times, wiggle his tail experimentally, and then look up at Glitch, eyes wide, surprised, and just a bit impressed.
Glitch smirked. “Would you look at that. And all it takes is wanting and accepting it happening.”
Cain-the-dog huffed at him, but bumped his head against Glitch’s leg, earning him a quick scratch around the ears before Cain moved away, sniffing the air and looking generally annoyed, finally walking through the meadow with Glitch close behind as the dog sniffed the air, the ground…just about everything. Finally his tail wagged and there was an excited bark, and Cain was tearing through the meadow, bounding over all the logs and dips that Glitch couldn’t see.
It took a while, but Glitch ended up gaping as he realized that Cain was in Puppy-Mode when the shifter turned around and ran for Glitch, barking and pouncing him hard enough that Glitch barely managed to get a yelp out before he was laying on the ground with a very smug Cain on top of him.
Glitch pouted at him. “See if I ever make you shift again after this.”
Cain seemed to settle down after that, settling himself to the side of Glitch and giving him the puppy-eyes. He groaned, throwing an arm over his own eyes. “Oh don’t start with that, Cain, okay? Yes, you’re sorry, I get that, but don’t start with the puppy eyes.” There was the equivalent of a dog-snicker next to him. “Yes, I do know you’re a dog right now. Don’t you dare start licking me or something to prove it.”
“…um.”
Glitch’s arm immediately dropped to the side, and there was Cain-the-man, looking very, very confused.
“At least you’re not naked,” Glitch said a bit feebly, and Cain actually blushed, smiling slightly. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Cain said, and it was an incredibly obvious lie, but Glitch let it slide.
“Can you turn back?” He thought for a moment. “…do you even need to change back?”
“I don’t know,” Cain said again, this time honestly. “I do know which way we should be going, though.”
Glitch nodded. “You can pick, then,” he said simply, and stood back up, brushing his clothes off, completely oblivious to the look Cain was giving him.
“…I can’t pick, Glitch,” Cain finally said, standing up just a moment after Glitch. “I still don’t know how.”
“Another reason to find Tutor,” Glitch said simply. “I still think it’s mostly about which you need to be. Or want to be. You felt like you needed to be human, so you turned human. You needed to be a dog, so you turned into a dog. Now you just need to figure out how to do that on your own.”
He started walking towards where Cain had motioned, watching his footing more carefully than before, Cain walking silently at his side. It had been rare for them to talk while on the move even before Glitch knew his dog was a shifter (in their dog-human sort of way), so it felt completely natural. Cain was at his side, just…taller and armed. Which really wasn’t that bad. Glitch was getting used to having an actual person to talk to again, and liked it just as much as the constant companionship he’d had with Cain as a dog. It was…it was nice, honestly.
The comfortable silence continued into the woods, where Cain finally ended up shifting again, looking baffled at the change. He kept leading, though, moving through the trees, tracking whatever scent he’d picked up and keeping a wary eye on the woods around them. And after another two hours as a dog, he looked back at Glitch, who smiled, and shifted back to human, looking just as surprised.
“Are you figuring it out?” Glitch smiled, holding out a hand to help Cain get up. He still had a bad habit of falling down when he changed from four legs to two.
“I’m figuring it out,” Cain agreed, looking angry at how confused he was.
Glitch smiled and just rubbed him over the shoulders, rewarded with a sigh that spoke of released tension. “Any guesses on how long we’ll be walking? It’s getting dark already, so if it’s going to be a long journey I’d rather get some rest.”
Cain thought about that for a moment, eyes going distant. “Be there by mid-afternoon tomorrow, I think. If we keep this pace up. We’re moving a lot faster than I expected.”
Glitch grinned at him. “It’s because I’m not carrying five boxes. I walk faster when I’m not trying to keep your doggy toys from falling down.”
He got a bland look for that, Cain shaking his head and moving back along the invisible path that only Cain could follow. For another few hours, they simply walked along, chatting about absolutely nothing, starting with Cain’s loathing of some of the squeaky toys and Glitch saying that’s why he’d kept on buying them and moving all the way into why Glitch wasn’t Ambrose anymore and why Cain wasn’t Wyatt anymore. Time seemed a blur, since this was Cain. Glitch never really needed to worry about anything when Cain was around - both guard dog and best friend. Their relationship hadn’t shifted with the actual shifting. Cain kept staring at him, but then again going from black and white to the rainbow of the world was probably a bit startling.
“I haven’t had sex for four years,” Cain said all of a sudden, which was so surprising that Glitch nearly lost his footing.
“Um. Okay?” Glitch said, and at Cain’s look, the one that said ‘this is not a pointless conversation so answer’ he sighed. “Six. Congratulations, Cain, you’re the only person to get in my bed since…well.” He paused. “But then again you weren’t a person. Well, at the time.”
And finally Glitch got a clue. He stopped walking and tried to wrap his mind around the fact his dog had a crush on him, and finally got out an “Oh.”
“That a yes or a no?” Cain asked, grabbing onto Glitch’s arm and tugging him back into motion, nothing even remotely sexual about it. It was just Cain helping him, like always. Always. The Shifter was the best man Glitch had ever met, really. Despite being a dog for four years, of course, which made ‘man’ arguable. Which was still slightly creepy, but he was a human now, and that meant he didn’t have a clue what to say.
“Heel,” Glitch said quietly, not liking the idea of Cain walking in front of him for some reason, and Cain immediately complied. Glitch had never given a command without a good reason, so the man dropped back to walk right next to Glitch, looking much more wary than before. “Something doesn’t feel right.” And it wasn’t just the fact his dog had a crush on him. There was something strange in the woods here. Something far too still. “Shift.”
And, surprisingly enough, he did, immediately looking around. One sniff in the air, and Dog-mode switched out for Hunt, Cain’s eyes snapping up to Glitch’s, very obviously saying something is out there. Glitch nodded just enough for Cain to see, and starting walking in the same direction they had been, pulling back to their conversation as they moved on, acting like they didn’t know there was something out there.
“It’s probably a yes,” Glitch said, the surprise evident in his voice. “And not because of the paranoid celibacy. I just have to…well. You’re a dog. That takes some adjusting, you know.”
He got a whuff of agreement and slight amusement, although Cain wasn’t taking his eyes off their surroundings. Glitch’s job was to look nonchalant, so he did. Just taking a walk with his dog, that was all-
Cain froze, head swinging around a bit frantically, and he started barking. Cain never barked, so Glitch was just about ready to be killed, but instead another dog slunk out of the trees. Everywhere Cain was too big, this one was just that bit skinnier, looking more like he was golden retriever crossed with fox or coyote than anything else. He was a young dog, too, looked like he was barely out of puppydom, but that didn’t mean the dog wasn’t dangerous. Particularly since dogs didn’t normally hide in bushes and look ready to make an ambush all by themselves. Cain was still barking, tail actually wagging, and after a while, the other dog started barking back. Strangest thing was how their tails were wagging so frantically that they looked ready to fly off. And then they drooped, Cain finally bumping his head against the smaller dog’s and sitting down.
And then Glitch nearly had a heart attack when the younger dog shifted into a young man wearing a big red scarf too big for him, with blond hair, big brown eyes, and a watery half-smile. Cain shifted right after the kid and pulled him into a bear hug that was returned just as fiercely. Men and women started to drift out of the woods, looking a bit wary, all of them armed and dangerous.
“…Cain?” Glitch finally shouted out, and suddenly he was getting a bear hug too. A bear hug followed by a very big, strong, giddy kiss that had Glitch going a bit wobbly in the legs and almost made his eyes hurt from how wide they’d gotten.
“It’s Jeb! He’s my son! I…he’s alive!” Cain looked about ready to cry he was so happy, and then Glitch was getting the life squeezed out of him and was practically carried over to the sad-looking young man. “Jeb, meet Glitch. He’s been taking care of me.”
“I swear I haven’t slept with your father except for cuddling on top of my bed on cold nights because I couldn’t always afford very warm places since I usually ended up moving in less than a month thanks to assassins and stuff,” Glitch blurted out, going bright red, and his mouth just wouldn’t stop as he stared at the kid. “He’s been my dog for two years and only turned back into a human about a week ago and it’s still confusing but hello it’s nice to meet you and we thought you were dead and I’m glad you’re not.”
Jeb blinked. “You’re Glitch? Ambrose?”
“Yes and I-”
“Stop being so nervous,” Cain chuckled, and his breath was right on Glitch’s neck, which was just enough already so Glitch smacked him upside the head and shouted “Bad dog!” before he even thought about it. And when he did think about it, his blush only deepened. Jeb looked like he was the one who’d been smacked, Cain looked pissed off and had lost his smile.
Glitch groaned, head slamming onto Cain’s shoulder. “Sorry.”
“This is Ambrose?” he could hear Jeb asking Cain dubiously, and could feel the nod.
“Goes by Glitch nowadays for safety. So. Part of the Resistance, huh?”
“Part of it,” Jeb agreed. “Why were you his dog for two years?”
“I was trapped as a dog for four. Feral the first two, his guard dog for the other two after Tutor dropped me off at his apartment. We were in the Realm of the Unwanted. Just got out this morning.”
“That means you walked nine miles in one day, Father.”
“We’re in good shape I guess.”
“Do you know where Tutor is?” Glitch finally asked. “I haven’t seen him for four months.”
Jeb frowned at him. “We were told Ambrose was dead. That an assassin had finally beaten him.”
“Someone lied,” Cain said blandly, arms still wrapped around Glitch, but Glitch was getting used to it by now and didn’t feel like smacking him upside the head again, thankfully. He’d nearly knocked the hat off, the first time. “So where’s Tutor?”
“Azkadellia set up an entire headhunt for him after he was seen in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Jeb answered. “They don’t know he’s a Shifter though, so who knows where he is by now.”
Which, really, was about the end of the conversation. The Resistance took them into the camp, where Glitch was immediately hustled into a tent with the grizzled old man currently leading the forces who looked at him like Glitch was a god come down to save him. Plans and maps and just about everything else was set in front of him on a rickety wooden table, and if Cain hadn’t been standing right behind him he might have just stood up and left right when the other man did.
“I’m not as good as they think, Cain,” he sighed, settling into the chair and pulling out a pencil. Habit had him writing the plans in Japanese, which Cain was absently reading over his shoulder. He was still human, but it felt just like those late nights when he’d be sitting at the table with Cain sitting on the floor next to him, just listening to whatever he said. “I lost the military campaign, what makes them really think I’ll be able to do any better with a rebellion?”
“Because you have been,” Cain said simply, eyeing the plans a bit closer. An eyebrow rose into the brim of his hat. “Four months gave you a lot of time to get creative, huh?”
Glitch simply nodded, writing and writing, sifting through the papers like a miner looking for gold. Numbers, ranks, names, tactical positions, it all flooded into his head. He groaned, rubbing his eyes. “Why do I miss the Realm all of a sudden?”
“Because the sun just rose,” Cain said dryly, and Glitch blinked at him, looking at the line of growing sunlight that seeped through the tent flaps. “You haven’t slept. You need to sleep. Come on.” He held out a hand, and Glitch took it, blinking when he realized there was a cot already waiting for him in the tent.
“I guess they want me to stay in here,” Glitch said a bit wryly, and Cain smiled.
“Actually, the cot was for me.”
“You should have slept.”
Cain shrugged, pulling off his hat and coat while Glitch did the same, toeing off his shoes and falling into the cot, his dog not far behind. It was a tight fit - incredibly tight, actually. Glitch thought about asking him to shift just for comfort’s sake, but it felt so nice to have someone’s arms wrapped around him, and Cain smelled like Cain but without the dog part. Less dog, more man, but still Cain. Only person to get in his bed for six years of paranoia and caution.
“Can’t sleep without you anymore,” Cain breathed into his hair, and Glitch found himself curling up against the other man, dropping quickly into sleep. He was half asleep when he nuzzled against Cain’s neck, and fully asleep when Cain whispered something against his skin.
---
Days passed. Cain and Jeb got to know each other better, meaning Cain finally detached himself from Glitch’s hip. They’d come into the tent as humans, smiling and talking with Jeb proving himself to be highly intelligent and close to becoming a friend. They’d also come in as dogs, wrestling with Cain in full Puppy-mode, Jeb apparently more than happy to join in. When they were dogs, it was more like Glitch had gotten yet another mostly-golden retriever to take care of, both occasionally sitting and watching him work, Cain somehow teaching his son ‘Jam-on-knees’ without even barking.
Glitch asked about it, and they both agreed that they had no idea how they could do it. “It’s almost like there’s a trail of thought I can…attach to my father,” Jeb had tried to explain. “It’s not words, but it’s…it’s hard to explain.”
Cain had just shrugged and said “I don’t have a clue, but it’s convenient. I could occasionally do the same thing with Toto, but he never stayed a dog long enough for me to really even think about it.”
Time went on, with people coming and going, the Cains happy despite the loss of Adora, and finally Glitch sat back in his chair with a deep sigh, dropping the pencil to the table.
“What’s the plan?” Cain asked immediately, sitting on the cot. He knew the gesture from two years of watching Glitch, and it wasn’t a surprise to either of them.
Glitch cleared his throat and rolled up the forty sheets of tactical advisement, wrapping them up with a ribbon. “The plan is that we’re leaving and you shouldn’t have taught Jeb Japanese,” he said, circles under his eyes as he stood and pulled on his coat, Cain at his side as ever.
“What do you mean, we’re leaving? We can’t go. We finally found the Resistance-”
Glitch shook his head. “I’m leaving, then. It’s probably better, actually. You have Jeb. Stay.”
Cain glared at him. Stay had always been the command Cain considered an insult. Hell, he’d even rolled over a few times when he’d been feeling pleasant enough to. “Glitch, what’s going on?”
“The Resistance has a chance.” He tapped the papers. “The Resistance has a very, very good chance. The problem is that there’s a spy somewhere around here; counter-intelligence going straight to Azka- to the Sorceress. If Jeb didn’t know how to read this, I could leave it here for when I get word the spy is dealt with. But he does, so I can’t, so I’m leaving and taking the two-year plans with me.”
Cain simply watched him for a long while after that, and Glitch knew he could read every single tell Glitch had. The fidgeting, the slight pacing, the stillness in his eyes.
But Glitch could read Cain too.
“Stay. Care for your son, find the spy, and keep safe. I was fine for four years without you, I’ll be okay for the small amount of time it takes you to find the spy.” He smiled. “Besides, I’ll just be wandering, and you can catch my scent a mile away, after all.”
He knew he’d won, but Cain didn’t like it. His dog hugged him, burying his face in Glitch’s hair. “It’s a big world out there.”
“Do I have to tell you the goldfish story again?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, and I’m awfully fond of your son, so I’m leaving. For now.”
They didn’t kiss. A kiss always meant something more, something that was easier said without words. Hello, goodbye, don’t leave me, I’ll miss you, I love you, please just come back to bed for a little longer - some things were cheapened by words. For some reason, this wasn’t one of them.
It was dark as the Realm on a sleep cycle when Glitch packed up a bag and wandered out of the camp, Cain watching him go. When he was even out of sight to the dog, Cain padded his way into the tent and curled up on the cot, blue eyes open and somber.
He really couldn’t sleep without Glitch.
---
It took two weeks and four days for Glitch to find himself utterly lost while hearing two dogs barking very happily and running at a breakneck speed towards him. They flashed from gold to yellow and back again as the sun crept through the forest canopy, and Glitch grinned, walking towards them.
Toto was sulking next to his feet.
“Aww, come on, Toto,” Glitch teased as the Cains got closer. “You were my first dog, even if you’re not my favorite. That has to count for something, right?”
The tiny dog just growled, biting Glitch’s leg just hard enough to show he was not amused. It didn’t do any good though, since Glitch certainly was.
---
Epilogue:
Cain stared at the huge stallion in front of him as it danced and twirled about frantically, neighing its horror and confusion. The fight was over, everyone was finally safe, nobody was bleeding anymore, but they still had yet to help Glitch find himself inside the enormous dark-brown powerhouse he’d Snapped and turned into.
The horse stared at him for a moment, eyes huge and terrified. Cain put a hand to Glitch’s head, and apparently the feeling was so shocking that the horse fainted, crumpling elegantly as he fell to the brick beneath him.
“…Glitch is a horse,” DG said, clearly almost as shocked as Glitch himself was. She turned to Raw, who flinched at the look in her eyes. “What are you going to turn into, a parrot?!”
Title: Glitch's Dog Is Only Part-Time (But He's Always, Always Glitch's)
Rating: PG-13.
Pairing: Glitch/Cain. Duh.
Warnings: It's not bestiality. Really. Violence, nakedness, and...this is actually pretty tame, all things considered. UTTER CRACK. Also no porn, woe. Wait for the sequel probably.
Summary: Glitch thought his best friend was a dog. And he is! Just...not sometimes.
Glitch’s Dog Is Only Part-Time
(But He’s Always, Always Glitch's)
Cain was still perched on top of him, intelligent blue eyes scanning the room as Glitch stared up at him. He was letting out a very deep growl, so deep it was almost silent.
“I can-” Glitch protested, only for the golden retriever to press down just that bit harder on the spot where the bullet had grazed him. Glitch hissed, and glared at the dog, which glared right back. “Bad. Dog.”
Cain let out a snort at that, the dog’s equivalent of an amused smirk. But before Glitch could get a rebuttal in, there was a creak on the floor nearby. Cain was off him in a moment, running and finally lunging upwards to grab the man by his gun hand, snarling like a very nasty wolf as the man shouted and finally punched the retriever with something that Glitch could tell was definitely more than just knuckles with how the indomitable dog let out a pained whine, paws scurrying against the man before he finally let go, looking like he was in serious pain.
The man was too busy smirking down at the whining and bleeding retriever to even notice Glitch before he’d nearly kicked the man through the wall, furious and looking like he’d just crawled out of hell for the man’s own personal enjoyment for the evening.
It was a well-known fact that getting the man known as Glitch mad was very hard to do. It wasn’t very often that people got to know what happened when he really did get angry.
“Holy shit-” the assassin managed to gasp, gulping air until Glitch let a vicious left hook sail straight for the man’s face. Bone cracked, and it was the man’s turn to be lying on the floor and crying in pain. “Gods, what the fuck-”
Glitch grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and started walking for the window, the man whimpering behind him, Cain eerily quiet, so quiet that Glitch couldn’t even bare to look at the floor or call for him or do anything other than let the fear add onto the flame of anger that had him picking up the man’s gun and turning him to face the window.
“Oh gods, I’ll tell you who sent me, I’ll tell you anything, it was just a job for gods’ sake, you know how it is here in the Realm-”
“And I’ve had understood all that, paid you off, and gotten a new apartment if you hadn’t done the one and only thing that is making me kill you right now,” Glitch said easily, backing the man straight into the glass, reaching around him and opening the window with one hand. “Up on the window ledge, please.”
“Gods, whatever it was, I didn’t mean it!” The man was practically sobbing now, taking a wobbly step up onto the ledge.
Plenty of people had been sent after Glitch. Nobody had killed him yet, but in return, he hadn’t killed them either. It was a strange sort of thank you that Tutor kept telling him was the stupidest thing a genius with a price on his head could do.
“Oh, you didn’t mean to hurt my dog?” Glitch gave him an innocent, slighty crazy smile. “Well that’s believable, with how you punched him with metal spikes on your knuckles.” He pulled back the hammer, and the assassin’s eyes went so wide it looked like they were going to pop out. “Nobody touches Cain.”
“Y-you don’t ha-have a d-d-dog,” the assassin whispered, looking over his head, and Glitch glared.
“That better not mean what I think it means,” Glitch said darkly.
“It doesn’t,” a dry, pained, and unfamiliar male voice said from behind him. Glitch turned around, and gaped at the tall naked blond man lying on the floor right where Cain had been, four bright and already purpling bruises on his side, right where the man had hit Glitch’s dog.
Glitch had just about forgotten the man he had a loaded gun point blank on, just staring. “What?”
The man had his dog’s eyes, and that was really, really creepy. “Ever think I was such a bad dog because I’m not one?”
And then his dog stood up and Glitch realized Cain was a shapeshifting, naked man, and was so surprised he barely noticed when he pulled the trigger and the man was blown out the open window, falling the three stories and dying twice over before Glitch remembered there was an assassin around.
“Do…” Glitch cleared his throat. “Do you want some pants or something?”
His dog’s eyebrows lifted up pretty quickly at that. “How about the gun instead so you don’t accidentally shoot anyone else tonight.”
Glitch gave him the gun. And pants.
---
Glitch had still been going by Ambrose when he first met Cain. It was a rare thing for Tutor to make a house call with a guest, but the man was there as Tutor instead of Toto, having made the trek to the Realm of the Unwanted as a human for the first time Ambrose had been able to remember. Since he was carrying a mud-covered, whimpering and malnourished golden retriever, Ambrose could guess why.
“Come in,” Ambrose said, and Tutor walked in with more grace than Ambrose had ever given him credit for, heading for the bathroom and immediately laying the poor dog down in the tub. Ambrose followed, worry bleaching his face. “What happened to the poor thing?”
“Longcoats,” Tutor said grimly, and with his eyes gone dark and Not Amused, he pulled a bullet out of his vest pocket. “Shot him in the shoulder. I patched him up, but I can’t take care of Cain and play messenger for the Resistance.”
“And you knew I’d do it,” Ambrose nodded, already having to hold his hands together to avoid trying to pet the poor dog. If Ambrose had been through that sort of thing, he doubted being petted would be his big number one on a What I Want Next list. “Plus I’m very conveniently your most stationary contact, so you can check in on him.”
Tutor nodded, not surprised in the slightest at Ambrose’s assessment. It was why he was alive, after all. “Speaking of which,” Tutor added. “You need to get a new apartment and a new name. Be nothing but a face in the crowd, a blip in the recording, okay? If not for yourself, do it for Cain. He’s going to be down for a while, and I hope you can help him out.”
Ambrose frowned. “I know advanced basic first aid.”
Tutor paused, looking over at his old coworker. “That’s an oxymoron.”
“So’s ‘dog man’, and yet here you are,” Ambrose said a bit moodily, but sighed and looked down at the poor dog. “So R&R for Cain?”
“If by R&R you mean heal him up and take care of him,” Tutor said simply, and stood up. “Anyway, latest plans-”
“Second drawer under the mirror, false bottom under the false bottom,” Ambrose called out. The poor dog was still whimpering and looking it’d been hurt in more than physical ways. “Hey Tutor, what type of dog is he?”
“Mostly Golden Retriever, but he’s such a light yellow because he’s got some sort of snow dog or wolf or something in there too, a few generations back,” Tutor said a bit quietly. “Cain’s from a long, long line of protectors. Not like me; I just popped up, genetic anomaly.” If Tutor had looked sad before, he looked near tears now. “He had a pup and a wife.”
That was all Ambrose could take. The fact Tutor/Toto was comparing himself to the dog sailed over his head as he concentrated on the grief, and he crouched next to the tub, hugging the still whimpering and probably drugged dog, mud and all, a hand rubbing Cain’s neck and ears. Flecks of drying mud came off on his hands, and the dog pawed at the side of the tub, leaning just a bit against the man holding him.
“I’ll take care of you, Cain,” Ambrose whispered, and meant every word more than he’d ever imagined he did.
The dog got a bath, and was so out of it that Ambrose had to hold Cain’s head up while Tutor did the actual washing. His tub was coated in mud, dirt, and dried blood when it was over, but the mostly-Golden Retriever looked shiny and clean and smelled a bit fruity - a trick Ambrose had learned from when Toto came in looking just as lousy as poor Cain. For some reason, if Toto looked like a mess, Tutor didn’t, but as soon as he’d shift back the mess was back, so he had experience cleaning up dogs. The fruity smell got rid of the wet dog smell, no matter how much Toto would make displeased lapdog noises at him.
“Ambrose, you need to get an alias,” Tutor said while they set Cain carefully on the couch. “You can’t use your real name - you know how many people are after your head.”
“Or brain,” Ambrose said, sending Tutor a slight smile even if his eyes were full of a deep sadness.
Tutor sighed. “She sent me away to begin the Resistance, Ambrose. She sent you to guide it. To guide troops that won’t break under the Sorceress’ pressure because they’re already risking their lives to simply avoid her rule.”
“I still should have stayed,” Ambrose muttered, keeping his eyes on the poor dog. “She needed me more than the Resistance ever has.”
“She wanted to save you, Ambrose,” Tutor said, crouching in front of where Ambrose sat, forcing the other man to look at him. “She loved you, and that’s why you’re still here. Not because she had someone kidnap you and toss you out of the castle, not because she thought you’d be guiding the Resistance so well, but because she wanted to keep you out of harm’s way. Honor her by doing the same and keeping yourself safe.”
Ambrose was quiet for a long time after that, watching Cain start to kick in his sleep. After five minutes or so, Tutor sighed and stood up, heading for where the newest tactical ‘suggestions’ (Ambrose was practically the general behind the entire Resistance, but wouldn’t even hear of it) and pulling out the newest information, all in the code that even Tutor couldn’t read, just one guy that Ambrose had sent out of the Realm of the Unwanted and himself. Ambrose had called it ‘java knees’ or something once, but that was all Tutor knew of it.
“Look for Glitch next time,” Ambrose finally said, and Tutor blinked. The man had yet to stop watching Cain. “It’s all I am, after all.” He sighed. “New apartment, new everything. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get a doggy door for you and my new puppy.”
Tutor’s eyebrows shot up. “Ambrose, he’s not a puppy. He’s-”
“I know, not a puppy,” he sighed. “But I’m still going to protect him. He’s not exactly up to snuff right now, as far as I can see.”
Tutor nodded. “I’ll be bringing a box along next time. Keep it around for when he’s all better, alright? Help him with that.”
Ambrose simply nodded. “I will.”
Tutor nodded one last time, and walked out the door.
---
As soon as Cain heard about the box, the man was across the room and opening it. Glitch still had no idea what was going on, honestly. His dog was a dog-shifting person. That was okay. But why hadn’t he shifted for two annuals was beyond him.
Glitch had almost forgotten about the box until…well, now. He’d opened it once, seen a hat on the top of some clothes and a few odds and ends, including a gun, and just frowned and closed it up again and gone to torment Cain with a cat toy. Glitch had a box full of cat toys, and now Cain was a man and was in the bathroom putting on what he’d finally realized had been his clothing.
The bit of time was good for Glitch, because he had time to try and wrap his mind around how his pretty dog was now a pretty man, and that probably meant he didn’t have a dog anymore. Which was strange. Having a dog for two annuals had been better than he’d ever imagined. He’d actually taught Cain Japanese one month, which meant there were now three people in the O.Z. that knew the language.
He groaned and put a hand over his eyes. “My dog is a man,” he said, hoping it’d finally snap everything into place and force himself to skip the shock and befuddlement.
“I’m still a dog too,” Cain offered, looking at him with worried eyes that were the same as his dog’s, which was the man. Man-dog. Dog-man. Whatever. Even Tutor didn’t ever give him a specific name aside from ‘shifter’. Apparently there were all kinds of them out there, but Glitch wasn’t really thinking about that.
He was thinking that Cain was incredibly attractive as a man and was slightly horrified by that, since it was his dog.
“If you shifted, would the hat fall off?” Glitch found himself asking, and that seemed to make Cain pause.
“Never did before.”
“Huh.”
Which was when Glitch was back to staring at Cain. His hair was the same color, his eyes were exactly the same, and of course he seemed to have the same personality. Glitch was honestly tempted to go get one of the cat toys and see if it still made Cain twitch and finally go running after the thing just so Glitch would stop annoying him with it, except Glitch always picked the really annoying squeaky impenetrable ones just to watch Cain growl and bounce it around with his too-big paws and bite the thing so hard it would squeak like it wanted to die and finally snap Cain in the nose. With the gun on Cain’s hip and the other one still in his hand (and boy did Glitch feel stupid about accidentally killing a guy), he doubted Cain would play with one.
“This is probably strange for you,” Cain finally said.
“It really, really is,” Glitch nodded, still staring at him. “…So. Since you can talk and stuff now, any questions?”
“What’s your real name?”
“Ambrose.”
“What should I call you?”
“Glitch.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you’re my dog.”
Cain paused. “…that was a stupid question.”
Glitch nodded, and they continued to stare at each other for a while.
“You look different in color.”
“You look a lot different as a human.”
“I could catch your scent from over a mile away.”
“…I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It is. So what do we do now?”
“I have no idea.”
And they stared at each other. Purely out of what seemed like habit, Cain ended up sitting on the floor to stare at him. Also out of habit, when Glitch cooked, he cooked for two and a half, with completely dog-edible food, and barely managed to stop himself from putting the plate on the floor, just like Cain barely stopped himself from expecting it to be there, instead sitting in the constantly empty second seat on the tiny table.
They ate.
Glitch cleared his throat. “We…we’re going to have to move again.” He paused. “If you’re coming, I mean.”
“I know,” Cain said simply. “And I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Well, that was a pleasant way to end dinner, Glitch thought, and went to clean the dishes, trying not to feel like there were so many things wrong with how he didn’t have his dog just sitting on the linoleum and watching him finish scrubbing. He had a man there instead, looking around and looking incredibly uneasy.
It only took one look from Glitch to make Cain blurt out “I feel deaf.”
Glitch blinked. “…well, that’s what happens when you’re human.”
And they were staring at each other again.
“I thought you were taller.”
“I thought you were a dog.”
Silence swallowed the room.
---
When Cain was better, he was like some sort of ghost dog for a long time. He ate, he slept, and he stared at Glitch (who was still getting used to being Glitch, honestly). Cain occasionally paced around the apartment, the nails on his paws clicking just loud enough to be eerie and make Glitch’s hair stand on end. It went on like that for nearly three weeks until finally Glitch went out and bought a collar and leash for Cain.
The dog was in too much shock to avoid the cheap black collar with a simple tag that said “CAIN. IF FOUND, RETURN TO GLITCH” in easy-to-read lettering. When Glitch tried to get the leash onto the collar, he ended up chasing Cain around the apartment, and the dog managed to maneuver Glitch into smacking his head on the bottom of the table during the process.
It knocked him out. When he woke up, it was the first time Cain actually looked like he wasn’t just a ghost or angry. The dog looked genuinely guilty, sitting next to his head and staring straight at him with incredibly intelligent blue eyes.
Glitch groaned when he sat up, and sighed when he realized that Cain had dragged him out from under the table but managed to destroy a shoe in the process. He couldn’t be mad at the dog, though. Cain was…well, giving him puppy eyes. Guilty, tossed-in-the-rain, ‘don’t leave me here’ puppy eyes.
He reached out a hand and scratched the top of Cain’s head, which hunkered down a bit, almost like he was trying to keep himself from flinching. Glitch managed to scratch him on the top of the head for long enough that the dog finally seemed to get used to it.
“I won’t use the leash,” Glitch finally said, not finding it strange in the least that he was compromising with his dog. “But the collar stays, just in case you get lost.” Cain gave him a dog expression that was very icy and clearly stated I don’t get lost, so Glitch rolled his eyes. “Just humor me, okay Cain?”
He took the huffing noise as agreement, and since the collar was still on in the morning, Glitch decided he had the smartest dog ever. Since Cain was curled up on a carpet, clearly enjoying a nap in the sunlight (sometimes he was more cat than dog, really), Glitch found himself grinning at the glint of the tag on his neck. It was a nice moment that, much to his dismay, was suddenly disrupted by someone shooting through the door.
Cain snapped awake growling, and Glitch threw himself to the floor, shut his eyes, and covered his ears just in time for the expected (and so predictable by now) concussion grenade to go off. Sure, it still hit him, but he had about an even amount of effects as the assassin, and luckily Glitch didn’t need to really hear or see that well to beat the slightly wobbling woman into the refrigerator and then knock her unconscious.
He sighed, his hearing finally coming back, and Glitch’s eyes shot wide open as he heard the groaning coming from Cain. The dog was on his feet, ready to fight, and wobbling from side to side like a drunk walking home, repeatedly shaking his head.
“Cain, Cain, come on,” Glitch said, using both hands to steady Cain’s head and make the dog look straight at him. “Hey, it’s okay, we just have to move. This happens a lot. It’s no big deal.” Naturally, it earned him the dog-equivalent of a you’ve got to be kidding stare. “I’m serious, Cain. We move, we leave her here while we do it, and then we just…wait around.”
Cain made a none-too-pleased grumbling noise that echoed out of his chest and backpedaled out of Glitch’s grip, sitting in front of him, tail going back and forth over the floor as the dog thought, blue eyes on Glitch’s brown. Finally Cain got up and trotted over to the unconscious assassin’s form, tilting his head at her before pawing at her belt.
Two things fell out - one more concussion grenade, and a pouch full of Platinums.
Cain turned back to Glitch looking very smug, and decided to settle himself in front of her while Glitch shook his head and packed up what little he’d already unpacked. Honestly it was mostly things out of the food box, and he cleaned the fridge up pretty well before grabbing the four boxes and walking towards the door, not even needing to whistle or call for Cain before the dog was trotting next to him, and then in front of him, and then behind him.
When they got out of the building, Glitch finally realized that Cain was being a very good guard dog and had yet to let Glitch out of his hearing or sight since the attack. So, Glitch dipped smoothly into an alleyway much to Cain’s dismay, and frowned at the dog.
“Cain, I can take care of myself. Try and be happy for once, okay?” Dubious, almost horror. “I’m serious! And what’s so wrong with being happy?” A disbelieving whuff. “Alright fine, you can stay here and find someone else to guard, then.” Sharp intent, straight on him. “Thaaat’s right, Cain. Either partners or we go it alone.” Consideration. “It’s not going to be that bad. I just want to fight with you, alright?” Strong disagreement. “…When it’s humans and not a stray squirrel or something, I mean. You’re an adult; I’m not treating you like a child. I’m just saying that- ”
Cain let out a puff of air, and then gently knocked his head against Glitch’s leg, backing back up with his tail wagging an almost unnoticeable amount. But Glitch had been watching the dog for just about any happy behavior he could find, and it sent him grinning. “Thanks for understanding, Cain.”
The dog actually shook his head, and pulled Glitch back onto the main stretch, staying next to him in a comfortable, close silence.
---
Having someone else to help box things up was strange. Having someone else around in general was strange. Everything about this was strange.
Glitch had slept in bed, and when he was half-asleep he’d muttered for Cain to ‘come to bed already’ and woken up tangled with a fully-dressed blond man making whiny dog noises and pawing a little at the pillows when Glitch scooted away and stared at Cain. Staring at Cain seemed to be his new hobby, all things considered.
When everything was boxed up (five boxes now instead of six, although he could have gone back down to four since the one was all Cain’s - his dog’s, not the man’s) they were doing it again, staring and trying to figure out how to remake such a familiar routine.
After the staring stretched long enough for noon to come around, Glitch finally sighed. “Can you just shift back for a while?”
“I don’t know, and I shouldn’t try,” Cain said simply, and Glitch continued to be freaked out by how attractive his dog was. It was just wrong. He’d shared a bed with Cain for just about a year and a half…hell, he’d done just about everything with Cain around. There were, thankfully, some things that he wouldn’t do even in front of a dog, and it wasn’t fun at all to think of all the things he still had done in front of Cain. “Are you even listening?”
Glitch blinked. “Sorry. I’m still not used to you talking.” Cain was very much his dog with that expression. Head tilted to the side, eyes going a bit squinty, giving him the well-known you have got to be kidding look. Glitch scowled at him. “What do you expect?! I’m practically a hermit aside from you and Tutor-”
“Who hasn’t shown up for four months.”
“- and see, this is another thing that makes me wish you were still a dog!” Glitch snapped, and Cain flinched. “My dog couldn’t talk over me! You could bark all you wanted but you still had to hear it with your…canine super-hearing! And you were shorter and cuter and not human and I am very unused to having my faithful companion and best friend talking to me, okay!?”
“Okay,” Cain said soothingly, and gods, the puppy eyes. Glitch was going to go insane at this rate. “It’s okay, Glitch. I know you’re shocked. I’m a little surprised myself that I could finally shift back.”
“Another thing I was going to ask you.”
“Which I was telling you about before you went double-pulse,” Cain said, and Glitch just looked at him and Cain explained himself. “Increased heart rate. You know those times when you’d get really angry or scared and I’d be on top of you?” He cleared his throat a bit at that, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. “I could feel your pulse.”
Glitch stared at him again. Cain had actually slept on top of him an awful lot. “Okay.”
“…so. Shifting.”
“Yes. That.”
Cain took a deep breath. “I was in the Resistance for a couple annuals after Azkadellia finally took control over everything before…before they found us. Me and my wife and my boy.” He shook his head. “That was when I finally Snapped. The Longcoats were…were beating them, and they were holding me back, and when my son went down, I just.”
Cain stopped talking, and without even thinking about it Glitch walked over and sat next to him, rubbing his back in big circles. It seemed like Cain didn’t think about it either, since he immediately curled up on the couch with his hands and head on Glitch’s lap.
“I wanted to hurt them, I was scared for my son and my wife, and I needed to protect them, and that was when I Snapped. The men couldn’t keep a hold of me while I was shifting, and when I was a dog…well, I was faster. Saw better, heard better. I was armed even without a gun.”
Glitch nodded, still rubbing his back. “Your family?”
“Gone.” Cain sighed, sinking a bit further into Glitch’s lap. “Hunted for them for two annuals before I was desperate enough to sneak into the tower itself.” He shook his head. “I wanted to shoot people, and then I was human again. Right where I’d been slinking around as a dog.”
“I don’t think you have to tell me what happened at that point,” Glitch said simply, and Cain nodded. “Tutor had been helping you, brought you to the only moderately stable place he could think of, you wanted to shoot someone again after two years, and you turned human again.”
“What happened to Tutor?” Cain asked, and Glitch found that he was petting a man that kept going strangely blurry and then back to being a man.
“I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s been four months. He’s not coming to us, so we should go to him.”
Glitch’s eyebrows shot up. “That mean no new apartment?”
Cain looked up at him. Glitch was surprised to notice that it wasn’t his dog’s eyes he was looking into, just Cain’s. “How long has it been since you saw the sky, Glitch?”
That made Glitch pause, finally sighing and leaning down to hug Cain to his chest. “…six annuals.”
Cain flickered again, making Glitch nearly lose his grip, but Cain was giving him the sincerity look and wrapped his arms around Glitch’s shoulders. “Maybe it’s time you went outside and stopped relying on messengers, hmm?”
Glitch had to shut his eyes. He hadn’t seen the sky in a very long time, but it’d been even longer since someone had hugged him back.
---
They became inseparable. Glitch went from being ‘that weird hermit guy’ to ‘that weird guy with the dog who’s kind of a hermit’ in one apartment switch, making it the longest stay in an apartment he’d had since he had started hiding out in the Realm of the Unwanted. It got to the point that even talking to Cain wasn’t really necessary anymore, and it took one look at the mostly-golden-retriever to know what he was thinking and saying.
People thought he was crazy sometimes when they saw him in a debate with a dog, but if they ever said anything about it they usually ended up with a scathing bark from Cain and Glitch having to apologize for behavior they didn’t even realize was rude. Then they thought he was even crazier, but in a nice and lonely way, even if he’d never been less lonely in his life. Even back in his life as Ambrose he hadn’t had anything as wonderful as Cain. Nobody around whenever he needed someone, watching out for him, going on walks with him.
It turned out Cain had three modes of walking - Dog, which was what he stuck to in the apartment, which looked just like a very agile dog trotting around, Hunt, which made the not-golden-retriever part of him shine through and made Cain look like a full wolf, utterly silent and extremely dangerous, and Puppy, which was the best description he could think of. If they were safe, out in a more open area, and not holding boxes, it was like Cain was a five-month-old puppy, bumping up against him and actually running around for fun. Puppy-Cain was also just about the cutest thing he’d ever seen, too, considering his habit of chasing anything.
He nearly chased his tail once. Got through two turns until he stopped, stared, waved his tail, and shook his head in a I can’t believe I’m doing this way that sent Glitch into a fit of laughter. Naturally, Glitch then became the new target for Puppy-Cain. The two could spend a stupid amount of time playing tag and getting filthy in the grime of the Realm, and never got tired of it.
Cain went through four collars just from trying to murder squeaky toys and run cat toys off the property and the occasional little kid with busy fingers (since he’d have bitten an adult). It got to the point where Cain was actually picking them, to the owner’s confusion.
The tag changed, too. “CAIN. LIVES WITH GLITCH UNTIL HE GETS TIRED OF THE IDIOT.”
They both liked it, since Cain thought Glitch was the idiot and Glitch thought Cain was. After all, Cain had been stupid enough to chase his own tail for a little while. If that wasn’t deserving of the title ‘idiot’ he didn’t know what was.
Glitch taught Cain everything he could, and Cain was both a better rat-catcher than any cat he’d heard of (but luckily Cain didn’t eat them) and also the best guard dog he’d ever heard of. Cain could be a block away from Glitch, and if there was a mugger anywhere nearby, would immediately appear and tackle the man. It was downright magical. He’d never even heard of any sort of creature that was capable of sensing malicious intent a block away.
For a while he thought Cain wasn’t a dog. He was too good, despite the fact that sometimes his very un-dog-like behavior got slightly obnoxious. Like when Glitch ended up with a cold and Cain either sat on top of him or was dragging him around.
It was, however, funny to watch Cain try and bark the teakettle into submission.
But there were other times when Cain wasn’t dog-like at all. If the apartment had a balcony, Glitch could often find him out there at night, when the light bulbs dimmed to embers in the ceiling. He would simply stare up. Stare out. Like there was something up there, waiting for him.
But for two annuals, they were inseparable. Glitch and Cain, Cain and Glitch, that was what they were called if anyone asked the neighbors. Assassins started tracking Cain just as closely as Glitch (because really they were only emotionally and spiritually inseparable; Cain liked to go play with children and Glitch had a bad habit of wandering around to black market stores buying interesting books).
The one that made Cain human again had only traced Cain.
But, considering he was inconveniently deceased, neither of them were likely to ever know that, or anyone else to know it either.
---
They’d left the boxes in the apartment, and fresh air nearly knocked Glitch unconscious. It was huge, it was open, and he’d nearly forgotten what the sky looked like. There were clouds and trees and the sun and gods knew what else. “Six annuals,” Glitch murmured while Cain was keeping his very fuzzy head from hitting the meadow’s ground. “Gods. It’s all so…big.”
“We can go back down for a while,” Cain offered, and Glitch shook his head, a grin spreading across his face.
“Hey Cain, you know that story about how a goldfish’s size depends on how much room it has?” Glitch asked, not even waiting for an answer. He knew it. Glitch had told it to him at least three times. “I was stuck in too small a bowl for too long, that’s all it is.”
The other man (and Glitch was finally getting better at thinking of him that way - as a man who happened to be able to turn into his dog, and not just a man who switched out with his dog) shook his head. “Alright. Where was the last Resistance camp?”
Glitch frowned. “That was six years ago, Cain, I don’t think they’ll be in the same place. Let’s go by what you remember.”
“It’d be easier if I was a dog,” Cain mused. “Could probably follow Tutor’s trail. I know his scent well enough.”
“Great, then switch,” Glitch said, sitting up and waiting. Cain glared at him, and Glitch blinked. “Oh, right. You don’t know how.” The glare just deepened, and Glitch glared back. “Alright, fine. How about this, Cain? We’re outside the Realm, and you already told me you feel blind and deaf as a human. How are we going to survive out here, you think?”
Cain crossed his arms, but his form was starting to waver, shifting and fading for moments before returning to human.
“We need to pick up Tutor’s trail. You need to be a dog. You’re faster as a dog, you have better hearing as a dog, and we already know you can take care of me just as well as a dog-”
The other man turned into nothing but blue and yellow in the air. Cain-the-dog was still glaring at him, only to blink a few times, wiggle his tail experimentally, and then look up at Glitch, eyes wide, surprised, and just a bit impressed.
Glitch smirked. “Would you look at that. And all it takes is wanting and accepting it happening.”
Cain-the-dog huffed at him, but bumped his head against Glitch’s leg, earning him a quick scratch around the ears before Cain moved away, sniffing the air and looking generally annoyed, finally walking through the meadow with Glitch close behind as the dog sniffed the air, the ground…just about everything. Finally his tail wagged and there was an excited bark, and Cain was tearing through the meadow, bounding over all the logs and dips that Glitch couldn’t see.
It took a while, but Glitch ended up gaping as he realized that Cain was in Puppy-Mode when the shifter turned around and ran for Glitch, barking and pouncing him hard enough that Glitch barely managed to get a yelp out before he was laying on the ground with a very smug Cain on top of him.
Glitch pouted at him. “See if I ever make you shift again after this.”
Cain seemed to settle down after that, settling himself to the side of Glitch and giving him the puppy-eyes. He groaned, throwing an arm over his own eyes. “Oh don’t start with that, Cain, okay? Yes, you’re sorry, I get that, but don’t start with the puppy eyes.” There was the equivalent of a dog-snicker next to him. “Yes, I do know you’re a dog right now. Don’t you dare start licking me or something to prove it.”
“…um.”
Glitch’s arm immediately dropped to the side, and there was Cain-the-man, looking very, very confused.
“At least you’re not naked,” Glitch said a bit feebly, and Cain actually blushed, smiling slightly. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Cain said, and it was an incredibly obvious lie, but Glitch let it slide.
“Can you turn back?” He thought for a moment. “…do you even need to change back?”
“I don’t know,” Cain said again, this time honestly. “I do know which way we should be going, though.”
Glitch nodded. “You can pick, then,” he said simply, and stood back up, brushing his clothes off, completely oblivious to the look Cain was giving him.
“…I can’t pick, Glitch,” Cain finally said, standing up just a moment after Glitch. “I still don’t know how.”
“Another reason to find Tutor,” Glitch said simply. “I still think it’s mostly about which you need to be. Or want to be. You felt like you needed to be human, so you turned human. You needed to be a dog, so you turned into a dog. Now you just need to figure out how to do that on your own.”
He started walking towards where Cain had motioned, watching his footing more carefully than before, Cain walking silently at his side. It had been rare for them to talk while on the move even before Glitch knew his dog was a shifter (in their dog-human sort of way), so it felt completely natural. Cain was at his side, just…taller and armed. Which really wasn’t that bad. Glitch was getting used to having an actual person to talk to again, and liked it just as much as the constant companionship he’d had with Cain as a dog. It was…it was nice, honestly.
The comfortable silence continued into the woods, where Cain finally ended up shifting again, looking baffled at the change. He kept leading, though, moving through the trees, tracking whatever scent he’d picked up and keeping a wary eye on the woods around them. And after another two hours as a dog, he looked back at Glitch, who smiled, and shifted back to human, looking just as surprised.
“Are you figuring it out?” Glitch smiled, holding out a hand to help Cain get up. He still had a bad habit of falling down when he changed from four legs to two.
“I’m figuring it out,” Cain agreed, looking angry at how confused he was.
Glitch smiled and just rubbed him over the shoulders, rewarded with a sigh that spoke of released tension. “Any guesses on how long we’ll be walking? It’s getting dark already, so if it’s going to be a long journey I’d rather get some rest.”
Cain thought about that for a moment, eyes going distant. “Be there by mid-afternoon tomorrow, I think. If we keep this pace up. We’re moving a lot faster than I expected.”
Glitch grinned at him. “It’s because I’m not carrying five boxes. I walk faster when I’m not trying to keep your doggy toys from falling down.”
He got a bland look for that, Cain shaking his head and moving back along the invisible path that only Cain could follow. For another few hours, they simply walked along, chatting about absolutely nothing, starting with Cain’s loathing of some of the squeaky toys and Glitch saying that’s why he’d kept on buying them and moving all the way into why Glitch wasn’t Ambrose anymore and why Cain wasn’t Wyatt anymore. Time seemed a blur, since this was Cain. Glitch never really needed to worry about anything when Cain was around - both guard dog and best friend. Their relationship hadn’t shifted with the actual shifting. Cain kept staring at him, but then again going from black and white to the rainbow of the world was probably a bit startling.
“I haven’t had sex for four years,” Cain said all of a sudden, which was so surprising that Glitch nearly lost his footing.
“Um. Okay?” Glitch said, and at Cain’s look, the one that said ‘this is not a pointless conversation so answer’ he sighed. “Six. Congratulations, Cain, you’re the only person to get in my bed since…well.” He paused. “But then again you weren’t a person. Well, at the time.”
And finally Glitch got a clue. He stopped walking and tried to wrap his mind around the fact his dog had a crush on him, and finally got out an “Oh.”
“That a yes or a no?” Cain asked, grabbing onto Glitch’s arm and tugging him back into motion, nothing even remotely sexual about it. It was just Cain helping him, like always. Always. The Shifter was the best man Glitch had ever met, really. Despite being a dog for four years, of course, which made ‘man’ arguable. Which was still slightly creepy, but he was a human now, and that meant he didn’t have a clue what to say.
“Heel,” Glitch said quietly, not liking the idea of Cain walking in front of him for some reason, and Cain immediately complied. Glitch had never given a command without a good reason, so the man dropped back to walk right next to Glitch, looking much more wary than before. “Something doesn’t feel right.” And it wasn’t just the fact his dog had a crush on him. There was something strange in the woods here. Something far too still. “Shift.”
And, surprisingly enough, he did, immediately looking around. One sniff in the air, and Dog-mode switched out for Hunt, Cain’s eyes snapping up to Glitch’s, very obviously saying something is out there. Glitch nodded just enough for Cain to see, and starting walking in the same direction they had been, pulling back to their conversation as they moved on, acting like they didn’t know there was something out there.
“It’s probably a yes,” Glitch said, the surprise evident in his voice. “And not because of the paranoid celibacy. I just have to…well. You’re a dog. That takes some adjusting, you know.”
He got a whuff of agreement and slight amusement, although Cain wasn’t taking his eyes off their surroundings. Glitch’s job was to look nonchalant, so he did. Just taking a walk with his dog, that was all-
Cain froze, head swinging around a bit frantically, and he started barking. Cain never barked, so Glitch was just about ready to be killed, but instead another dog slunk out of the trees. Everywhere Cain was too big, this one was just that bit skinnier, looking more like he was golden retriever crossed with fox or coyote than anything else. He was a young dog, too, looked like he was barely out of puppydom, but that didn’t mean the dog wasn’t dangerous. Particularly since dogs didn’t normally hide in bushes and look ready to make an ambush all by themselves. Cain was still barking, tail actually wagging, and after a while, the other dog started barking back. Strangest thing was how their tails were wagging so frantically that they looked ready to fly off. And then they drooped, Cain finally bumping his head against the smaller dog’s and sitting down.
And then Glitch nearly had a heart attack when the younger dog shifted into a young man wearing a big red scarf too big for him, with blond hair, big brown eyes, and a watery half-smile. Cain shifted right after the kid and pulled him into a bear hug that was returned just as fiercely. Men and women started to drift out of the woods, looking a bit wary, all of them armed and dangerous.
“…Cain?” Glitch finally shouted out, and suddenly he was getting a bear hug too. A bear hug followed by a very big, strong, giddy kiss that had Glitch going a bit wobbly in the legs and almost made his eyes hurt from how wide they’d gotten.
“It’s Jeb! He’s my son! I…he’s alive!” Cain looked about ready to cry he was so happy, and then Glitch was getting the life squeezed out of him and was practically carried over to the sad-looking young man. “Jeb, meet Glitch. He’s been taking care of me.”
“I swear I haven’t slept with your father except for cuddling on top of my bed on cold nights because I couldn’t always afford very warm places since I usually ended up moving in less than a month thanks to assassins and stuff,” Glitch blurted out, going bright red, and his mouth just wouldn’t stop as he stared at the kid. “He’s been my dog for two years and only turned back into a human about a week ago and it’s still confusing but hello it’s nice to meet you and we thought you were dead and I’m glad you’re not.”
Jeb blinked. “You’re Glitch? Ambrose?”
“Yes and I-”
“Stop being so nervous,” Cain chuckled, and his breath was right on Glitch’s neck, which was just enough already so Glitch smacked him upside the head and shouted “Bad dog!” before he even thought about it. And when he did think about it, his blush only deepened. Jeb looked like he was the one who’d been smacked, Cain looked pissed off and had lost his smile.
Glitch groaned, head slamming onto Cain’s shoulder. “Sorry.”
“This is Ambrose?” he could hear Jeb asking Cain dubiously, and could feel the nod.
“Goes by Glitch nowadays for safety. So. Part of the Resistance, huh?”
“Part of it,” Jeb agreed. “Why were you his dog for two years?”
“I was trapped as a dog for four. Feral the first two, his guard dog for the other two after Tutor dropped me off at his apartment. We were in the Realm of the Unwanted. Just got out this morning.”
“That means you walked nine miles in one day, Father.”
“We’re in good shape I guess.”
“Do you know where Tutor is?” Glitch finally asked. “I haven’t seen him for four months.”
Jeb frowned at him. “We were told Ambrose was dead. That an assassin had finally beaten him.”
“Someone lied,” Cain said blandly, arms still wrapped around Glitch, but Glitch was getting used to it by now and didn’t feel like smacking him upside the head again, thankfully. He’d nearly knocked the hat off, the first time. “So where’s Tutor?”
“Azkadellia set up an entire headhunt for him after he was seen in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Jeb answered. “They don’t know he’s a Shifter though, so who knows where he is by now.”
Which, really, was about the end of the conversation. The Resistance took them into the camp, where Glitch was immediately hustled into a tent with the grizzled old man currently leading the forces who looked at him like Glitch was a god come down to save him. Plans and maps and just about everything else was set in front of him on a rickety wooden table, and if Cain hadn’t been standing right behind him he might have just stood up and left right when the other man did.
“I’m not as good as they think, Cain,” he sighed, settling into the chair and pulling out a pencil. Habit had him writing the plans in Japanese, which Cain was absently reading over his shoulder. He was still human, but it felt just like those late nights when he’d be sitting at the table with Cain sitting on the floor next to him, just listening to whatever he said. “I lost the military campaign, what makes them really think I’ll be able to do any better with a rebellion?”
“Because you have been,” Cain said simply, eyeing the plans a bit closer. An eyebrow rose into the brim of his hat. “Four months gave you a lot of time to get creative, huh?”
Glitch simply nodded, writing and writing, sifting through the papers like a miner looking for gold. Numbers, ranks, names, tactical positions, it all flooded into his head. He groaned, rubbing his eyes. “Why do I miss the Realm all of a sudden?”
“Because the sun just rose,” Cain said dryly, and Glitch blinked at him, looking at the line of growing sunlight that seeped through the tent flaps. “You haven’t slept. You need to sleep. Come on.” He held out a hand, and Glitch took it, blinking when he realized there was a cot already waiting for him in the tent.
“I guess they want me to stay in here,” Glitch said a bit wryly, and Cain smiled.
“Actually, the cot was for me.”
“You should have slept.”
Cain shrugged, pulling off his hat and coat while Glitch did the same, toeing off his shoes and falling into the cot, his dog not far behind. It was a tight fit - incredibly tight, actually. Glitch thought about asking him to shift just for comfort’s sake, but it felt so nice to have someone’s arms wrapped around him, and Cain smelled like Cain but without the dog part. Less dog, more man, but still Cain. Only person to get in his bed for six years of paranoia and caution.
“Can’t sleep without you anymore,” Cain breathed into his hair, and Glitch found himself curling up against the other man, dropping quickly into sleep. He was half asleep when he nuzzled against Cain’s neck, and fully asleep when Cain whispered something against his skin.
---
Days passed. Cain and Jeb got to know each other better, meaning Cain finally detached himself from Glitch’s hip. They’d come into the tent as humans, smiling and talking with Jeb proving himself to be highly intelligent and close to becoming a friend. They’d also come in as dogs, wrestling with Cain in full Puppy-mode, Jeb apparently more than happy to join in. When they were dogs, it was more like Glitch had gotten yet another mostly-golden retriever to take care of, both occasionally sitting and watching him work, Cain somehow teaching his son ‘Jam-on-knees’ without even barking.
Glitch asked about it, and they both agreed that they had no idea how they could do it. “It’s almost like there’s a trail of thought I can…attach to my father,” Jeb had tried to explain. “It’s not words, but it’s…it’s hard to explain.”
Cain had just shrugged and said “I don’t have a clue, but it’s convenient. I could occasionally do the same thing with Toto, but he never stayed a dog long enough for me to really even think about it.”
Time went on, with people coming and going, the Cains happy despite the loss of Adora, and finally Glitch sat back in his chair with a deep sigh, dropping the pencil to the table.
“What’s the plan?” Cain asked immediately, sitting on the cot. He knew the gesture from two years of watching Glitch, and it wasn’t a surprise to either of them.
Glitch cleared his throat and rolled up the forty sheets of tactical advisement, wrapping them up with a ribbon. “The plan is that we’re leaving and you shouldn’t have taught Jeb Japanese,” he said, circles under his eyes as he stood and pulled on his coat, Cain at his side as ever.
“What do you mean, we’re leaving? We can’t go. We finally found the Resistance-”
Glitch shook his head. “I’m leaving, then. It’s probably better, actually. You have Jeb. Stay.”
Cain glared at him. Stay had always been the command Cain considered an insult. Hell, he’d even rolled over a few times when he’d been feeling pleasant enough to. “Glitch, what’s going on?”
“The Resistance has a chance.” He tapped the papers. “The Resistance has a very, very good chance. The problem is that there’s a spy somewhere around here; counter-intelligence going straight to Azka- to the Sorceress. If Jeb didn’t know how to read this, I could leave it here for when I get word the spy is dealt with. But he does, so I can’t, so I’m leaving and taking the two-year plans with me.”
Cain simply watched him for a long while after that, and Glitch knew he could read every single tell Glitch had. The fidgeting, the slight pacing, the stillness in his eyes.
But Glitch could read Cain too.
“Stay. Care for your son, find the spy, and keep safe. I was fine for four years without you, I’ll be okay for the small amount of time it takes you to find the spy.” He smiled. “Besides, I’ll just be wandering, and you can catch my scent a mile away, after all.”
He knew he’d won, but Cain didn’t like it. His dog hugged him, burying his face in Glitch’s hair. “It’s a big world out there.”
“Do I have to tell you the goldfish story again?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, and I’m awfully fond of your son, so I’m leaving. For now.”
They didn’t kiss. A kiss always meant something more, something that was easier said without words. Hello, goodbye, don’t leave me, I’ll miss you, I love you, please just come back to bed for a little longer - some things were cheapened by words. For some reason, this wasn’t one of them.
It was dark as the Realm on a sleep cycle when Glitch packed up a bag and wandered out of the camp, Cain watching him go. When he was even out of sight to the dog, Cain padded his way into the tent and curled up on the cot, blue eyes open and somber.
He really couldn’t sleep without Glitch.
---
It took two weeks and four days for Glitch to find himself utterly lost while hearing two dogs barking very happily and running at a breakneck speed towards him. They flashed from gold to yellow and back again as the sun crept through the forest canopy, and Glitch grinned, walking towards them.
Toto was sulking next to his feet.
“Aww, come on, Toto,” Glitch teased as the Cains got closer. “You were my first dog, even if you’re not my favorite. That has to count for something, right?”
The tiny dog just growled, biting Glitch’s leg just hard enough to show he was not amused. It didn’t do any good though, since Glitch certainly was.
---
Epilogue:
Cain stared at the huge stallion in front of him as it danced and twirled about frantically, neighing its horror and confusion. The fight was over, everyone was finally safe, nobody was bleeding anymore, but they still had yet to help Glitch find himself inside the enormous dark-brown powerhouse he’d Snapped and turned into.
The horse stared at him for a moment, eyes huge and terrified. Cain put a hand to Glitch’s head, and apparently the feeling was so shocking that the horse fainted, crumpling elegantly as he fell to the brick beneath him.
“…Glitch is a horse,” DG said, clearly almost as shocked as Glitch himself was. She turned to Raw, who flinched at the look in her eyes. “What are you going to turn into, a parrot?!”