So not what I was aiming for here...
Title: Forgiveness
Characters/Pairings: Jeb, Wyatt, OC
Author: transgenic_girl
Rated: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: Immediately post series
Summary: When Jeb saw his father again, after all those years, he absolutely hated the man.
Disclaimer: Tin Man belongs originally to Frank Baum, modified by Sci Fi (as well as just about everyone else). I'm just following their examples and playing in the O.Z.
It was not what he had thought, war. Now it seemed childish and so very naïve. The image he had held of what the war against the Longcoats would be like. There was not quick ending, no righteous fury and predestined amazing luck because they were fighting for the side of the Light. Battles were not fought with even numbers and equal weaponry.
They were outnumbered and outgunned. The Sorceress’s men were ferocious, dangerous and ruthless killers. Longcoats not only did not care that their enemies had families, but they would purposefully hunt them down at every chance and destroy the wives and children of the Resistance forces.
Fights occurred just as often in the dead of night, or in the rain as they did in the day, when the suns were overhead. Fights, not battles. Standard flat land fighting just could not possibly hope to succeed against the Sorceress’s forces. Instead, the Resistance pulled from hidden depths of knowledge, and used guerilla tactics.
Slitting a man’s throat while he slept may have been less honorable than shooting him at twenty paces, by most senses of morality. But you did what you had to do to survive. If you had to clamp one hand over the face of a Longcoat to hold his jaw shut while you cut his jugular, well, that was just what had to be done.
When you had less men, less advanced guns, you used every advantage you could. The old guard, the remnants of the Royal army that had not defected to the coming darkness, those who had not been killed for refusing to swear their fealty to the usurper of the rightful Queen, they came searching for the Resistance. No one had to go looking for them, those who wanted to fight, they came willingly.
Men like Jeb Cain, boys who had lost their fathers to the Longcoats, they were not rare. They did not exactly gather together and offer to swap stories about their dear old dads. Sure, most people knew who they were, the men who had been raised within the ranks. Those of them whose memories of anything other than war were hazy or nonexistent. But they never sought each other out.
Hearing of your own pain from another’s lips did not lessen the ache in your chest.
Seeing his Father again...it hurt. Gods, above, it hurt.
Logic dictated that he should be happy. No, he should be ecstatic. His childhood hero was back from the dead, staring him in the face, without having aged a single day it seemed.
Life, however, was not about logic. Neither was emotion.
Jeb saw his father, and he just absolutely hated him. Wyatt Cain had been the perfect father in Jeb’s eyes when he had been a small child. The man had taught him how to ride, explained how life worked, showed him how to fish, how to shoot. Had grabbed him and hung him upside down, tickling him until five year old Jeb had screamed with laughter. Every step of the way, in every second that could be spared from his job as a Tin Man, Wyatt had doted on his son.
What Jeb had remembered at that moment however, was the fact that he had spent the last eight annuals in mud, blood and rain. Of crouching on the slippery earth of the forest floor, one hand clenched around the hilt of the blade on his hip, his fingers numb from the cold. Waiting for the perfect moment to give the signal to attack, to launch the ambush. Of his first kill, at the tender age of fifteen. How the adrenaline burned away afterwards, leaving only nausea and copper scented blood dripping from the pair of long knives he had been given by the then leader of the Resistance.
Of the day he had been handed the leadership of that particular band. After watching Daniel Ross take multiple bullets, and somehow still surviving for another four hours, despite the fatal wound in his chest. The dark haired man had put a hand on Jeb’s shoulder, told him he would have been proud to have the teen as his son. That he was proud of him. The older soldier had slipped away a few minutes later, leaving his men to follow the young man he had trained himself.
Wyatt Cain had died for Jeb when he was thirteen annuals old. He came back to life eight annuals later, when Jeb was sure that there was no space in his life for another father figure. He had brought with him so many memories and brought to the surface so many emotions his son had tried so hard to bury for so long. And Cain seemed to have no idea what had happened in the intervening annuals, had expected everything to be perfect, for it and his son to be just as they were so long ago.
When Cain locked Zero in the Suit, instead of killing him, Jeb had nearly decided to hate him, hate him for having left him. Yet, he found he could not. Because, he knew what Daniel would have said. That a second chance was rare, and should be treasured, never thrown away.
So, for Daniel Ross, his second father, Jeb Cain decided to try to forgive his first.
Characters/Pairings: Jeb, Wyatt, OC
Author: transgenic_girl
Rated: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: Immediately post series
Summary: When Jeb saw his father again, after all those years, he absolutely hated the man.
Disclaimer: Tin Man belongs originally to Frank Baum, modified by Sci Fi (as well as just about everyone else). I'm just following their examples and playing in the O.Z.
It was not what he had thought, war. Now it seemed childish and so very naïve. The image he had held of what the war against the Longcoats would be like. There was not quick ending, no righteous fury and predestined amazing luck because they were fighting for the side of the Light. Battles were not fought with even numbers and equal weaponry.
They were outnumbered and outgunned. The Sorceress’s men were ferocious, dangerous and ruthless killers. Longcoats not only did not care that their enemies had families, but they would purposefully hunt them down at every chance and destroy the wives and children of the Resistance forces.
Fights occurred just as often in the dead of night, or in the rain as they did in the day, when the suns were overhead. Fights, not battles. Standard flat land fighting just could not possibly hope to succeed against the Sorceress’s forces. Instead, the Resistance pulled from hidden depths of knowledge, and used guerilla tactics.
Slitting a man’s throat while he slept may have been less honorable than shooting him at twenty paces, by most senses of morality. But you did what you had to do to survive. If you had to clamp one hand over the face of a Longcoat to hold his jaw shut while you cut his jugular, well, that was just what had to be done.
When you had less men, less advanced guns, you used every advantage you could. The old guard, the remnants of the Royal army that had not defected to the coming darkness, those who had not been killed for refusing to swear their fealty to the usurper of the rightful Queen, they came searching for the Resistance. No one had to go looking for them, those who wanted to fight, they came willingly.
Men like Jeb Cain, boys who had lost their fathers to the Longcoats, they were not rare. They did not exactly gather together and offer to swap stories about their dear old dads. Sure, most people knew who they were, the men who had been raised within the ranks. Those of them whose memories of anything other than war were hazy or nonexistent. But they never sought each other out.
Hearing of your own pain from another’s lips did not lessen the ache in your chest.
Seeing his Father again...it hurt. Gods, above, it hurt.
Logic dictated that he should be happy. No, he should be ecstatic. His childhood hero was back from the dead, staring him in the face, without having aged a single day it seemed.
Life, however, was not about logic. Neither was emotion.
Jeb saw his father, and he just absolutely hated him. Wyatt Cain had been the perfect father in Jeb’s eyes when he had been a small child. The man had taught him how to ride, explained how life worked, showed him how to fish, how to shoot. Had grabbed him and hung him upside down, tickling him until five year old Jeb had screamed with laughter. Every step of the way, in every second that could be spared from his job as a Tin Man, Wyatt had doted on his son.
What Jeb had remembered at that moment however, was the fact that he had spent the last eight annuals in mud, blood and rain. Of crouching on the slippery earth of the forest floor, one hand clenched around the hilt of the blade on his hip, his fingers numb from the cold. Waiting for the perfect moment to give the signal to attack, to launch the ambush. Of his first kill, at the tender age of fifteen. How the adrenaline burned away afterwards, leaving only nausea and copper scented blood dripping from the pair of long knives he had been given by the then leader of the Resistance.
Of the day he had been handed the leadership of that particular band. After watching Daniel Ross take multiple bullets, and somehow still surviving for another four hours, despite the fatal wound in his chest. The dark haired man had put a hand on Jeb’s shoulder, told him he would have been proud to have the teen as his son. That he was proud of him. The older soldier had slipped away a few minutes later, leaving his men to follow the young man he had trained himself.
Wyatt Cain had died for Jeb when he was thirteen annuals old. He came back to life eight annuals later, when Jeb was sure that there was no space in his life for another father figure. He had brought with him so many memories and brought to the surface so many emotions his son had tried so hard to bury for so long. And Cain seemed to have no idea what had happened in the intervening annuals, had expected everything to be perfect, for it and his son to be just as they were so long ago.
When Cain locked Zero in the Suit, instead of killing him, Jeb had nearly decided to hate him, hate him for having left him. Yet, he found he could not. Because, he knew what Daniel would have said. That a second chance was rare, and should be treasured, never thrown away.
So, for Daniel Ross, his second father, Jeb Cain decided to try to forgive his first.