Fic: No Better Hands

[entangled_now]

Title: No Better Hands
Fandom: Tin Man
Pairing: Cain/Glitch
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: In no way mine or anything to do with me. I own nothing.
Summary: Glitch saves Cain from hypothermia
AN: I felt compelled to write the whole ice palace missing scene, for the
varietypack100 prompt 'white'

When Glitch finds Cain in the snow the first things he does is call his name very quietly.

The second thing he does is clear snow off of him, and the third thing he does is panic because he can't remember how to tell if someone is dead.

Glitch decides that assuming someone is alive is a much more cheerful prospect than assuming they're dead, so he's very sorry but he's going to believe that until someone tells him otherwise thank you very much.

But Wyatt Cain is, one can only assume, at least very close to expiring in the snow. In fact soon Wyatt Cain will cease to be entirely and become just a collection of bones and skin and clothes and nothing so much like alive and real and altogether not dead.

This is really no time to be panicking and forgetting things and wasting time. Unfortunately Glitch doesn't have the first clue what to do, and frozen injured, unconscious people tended to succumb quickly to hypothermia if you languished in indecision.

"So don't think, just do!" Glitch tells himself sternly. Which sounds rather fabulous as aspiring mottos go but still leaves him with one problem. "Do what?"

While what was left of his brain is still confused about exactly what he's supposed to do, and how? His hands decide to just jump straight in. They catch as much of Cain as possible and lever him upright. There's a lot of him, and he's heavy. It take him a few tries to get him up and over his shoulder, and then a few false starts before he can actually straighten up and carry him.

Glitch doesn't think he has much of a history of carrying people, because it's much more complicated than it looks and Cain is solid in all the wrong places. Then, of course, he has to compensate for the added weight, and a new centre of gravity, and the fact that his steps are considerably deeper in the snow.

Which is very interesting but he doesn't have time to think about that right now.

It's snowing, and the set of footprints they left coming in have disappeared under new layers.

The set of footsteps that Azkedellia and the long coats left when they took DG have disappeared too.

Which would, under normal circumstances, have been a cause for quiet but most definite panic. Because Glitch has never had a very good sense of direction.

Mostly he just walks whichever way he's facing at the time.

But luckily he doesn't really have many options it's just, mountainy thing, snow palace, snow walls and flat ground. It seems sensible to think they didn't leave the truck in the mountains, or inside a wall-

Because that would just be silly. Even though Glitch doesn't have one hundred percent faith in his own sensibleness.

But at least carrying Cain somewhere is better than leaving him alone in the snow. It's better than both of them staying in the snow.

It takes him...twenty minutes, or an hour, or possibly two? To find the truck, he's very cold and Cain is very heavy and he can no longer really feel his feet, or his hands, or Cain's arm. The walking had become sort of a repetitive motion after a while. So much so that he's a little confused when he stops.

But the truck looks rather wonderful for all it's snow covered broken-ness. And though it doesn't make much difference to him whether it's been twenty minutes an hour, or two, it probably makes a great deal of difference to Cain.

So Glitch is relieved for them both...probably more for Cain.

Definitely more for Cain.

It's not exactly warm inside the truck but it's a contained cold, and it's not snowing in there and there's no wind shoving icicles of cold into his face.

It's a more pleasant sort of cold, if that's possible.

Glitch lets Cain fall into the pillows, and Cain doesn't protest, or make any noise at all. Which certainly isn't a good sign. He tugs the hat out from under his shirt and the gun out of his pocket and puts them in the corner because Cain will want those later and will probably have been very cross if Glitch had left them in the palace...

...he thinks he remembers thinking that when he picked them up, that Cain would want them? But he can't be absolutely sure. It's so hard to be absolutely sure of things.

He shoves the first thing he can get his hands on into the little grate, some sort of shiny clothing but it burns, it doesn't smell great, and that's probably the sequins, but it burns.

Cain still looks cold, the unhealthy, unhappy sort of cold that has a nasty habit of turning into dead if you didn't pay attention. Which was just awful because Glitch really wasn't the best choice for any 'paying attention' positions.

"Unfortunately there's no one else..." He tells Cain, who's really in no position to argue, or even give him one of those half accusing, half suspicious sort of looks. The fact that Glitch can remember them suggests he does that a lot. But Glitch is mostly talking to himself. No he's entirely talking to himself.

The snow's melted on Cain, leaving the material of his clothes dark where it's wet. And clearly you don't leave cold, unconscious people in wet clothes.  And Cain's not really in any state to complain, or glare at him, or smack his fingers.

Of course if he could do any of those things he'd be able to take his own clothes off.

Glitch has never taken anyone's clothes off before...well except for his own of course.

It turns out to be more complicated than you'd think.

Buttons are different this way round. You'd think buttons would be easy, some sort of  button undoing sense memory that your fingers get so used to you can do it without looking. Or perhaps that's only your own buttons. Or perhaps the task, when reversed, becomes fiendishly complex in ways only people that live in mirrors would know about.

Do people live in mirrors?

No of course they don't that's just silly.

Either way buttons are terribly complicated, especially when they're all different sizes and shapes. Sleeves are complicated too, tight sleeves never seem to want to leave.

Cain's sleeves are entirely too fond of him, they seem to want to cling almost indecently and at one point Glitch gets his hand stuck, which is probably undignified, and definitely unhelpful.

"I'm not very good at this," he admits.

But it does eventually cooperate, with or without verbal urging and his professional weight of sheer frustrated confusion.

Glitch is fairly certain he's gone wrong somewhere when there are clothes on one side of Cain and not the other.

Which would be, frankly, a ridiculous place to stop.

Is he taking them off or putting them on?

Well they're wet, and freezing, and it seems unlikely that anyone would want to wear wet clothes and Cain is clearly not well so he's obviously taking them off.

"Concentrate," he tells himself furiously. Because clearly this is an emergency and in the absence of anyone else it's down to him and what's left of his brain, and clearly he's going to have to push for a little focus and remember more than one thing at once.

Glitch isn't sure he's ever tried that before.

Under pressure may not be the best time for a trial run.

But it's Cain.

The fire is barely a flicker of warmth against his back now. He isn't sure how long cabaret outfits will burn for but it can't be that long, they're altogether too wispy to provide any great source of heat.

He'd find something better if he remembered what you were supposed to burn. This is just more proof that forgetting things in an emergency situation is not only unhelpful and frustrating it's also dangerous.

He finds one blanket...just one, which seems ridiculously unfair. He checks several times to make sure he hasn't missed any, and then checks again just to be sure. Then he berates himself for getting distracted.

The taking off clothes and replacing them with the blanket bit is a task that he can at least finish because he's looking at it, and it's hard to be distracted away from something when you're staring right at it.

Perhaps it starts some sort of infinite loop that can only be broken by looking away.

Glitch doesn't really want to try it though because it would probably-

The belt comes open with a sharp clack, the back of his hand sliding over Cain's abdomen, and his brain attempts to throw up a memory that might be useful to the situation at hand.

"Oh!" Glitch snatches his hand back so quickly he almost smacks himself in the face.

He swallows through a suspiciously dry throat.

"Oh that wasn't helpful at all." He tells his brain.

His brain seems unimpressed by his chastising, which is really nothing new.

He finishes belt, boots and pants while it's still sulking.

Cain's skin is really far too cold, because Glitch's fingers can tell and they're not exactly warm, he's been out in the snow too. He picks up one of Cain's hands and presses it between his own. People aren't supposed to be this cold, certainly not Cain, who for all his pouting and glaring and general spikiness is just born to be warm, hot even, he's certainly someone you should be in no doubt that you were touching. People like Cain don't just flicker out like empty lamps.

Or is that...no Glitch knows what he means...and that's really all that matters.

But no, Cain is definitely not supposed to be still and cold and...just generally less there than he usually is. Because Glitch thinks Cain is supposed to be all carefully restrained tension and purpose. And this stillness, this looseness, it's unnerving.

He has to bring that back.

If Cain dies out here in the cold...Glitch doesn't know what he'll do.

He slides his hands over Cain's fingers, trying to coax them into some sort of life. And he has the feeling that this isn't complicated, it's all friction and heat transfer and convection.

And if his stupid brain would help him just this once he would be very grateful, really.

He'll never ask for anything ever again.

If it just gives him some sort of clue here about how to raise Cain's body temperature.

And then, possibly in response to his frustrated pleading, but also possibly just because he's prodded enough of his stubborn confused neurons into some sort of attention....it does.

Glitch drops Cain's hand.

He makes a very quiet noise which he thinks manages to convey what's he's thinking quite well. And really it's an obvious solution when you come to think of it. The human body produces body heat at a rate of-

"I don't think Cain would approve if I did that," he tells his brain, which has now seemingly retreated into silence, or possibly shut down through sheer exhaustion.

But then Glitch makes the mistake of looking down.

All his thoughts scatter like puppies and he's left with a lapful of damp clothing, wondering vaguely what in the O.Z. is going on?

What was he doing? Why was Cain mostly naked? Who was burning shiny clothing? And was it supposed to be so cold?

More pressingly...how many of those questions were actually important?

Glitch lays a hand on Cain's shoulder, he's sure he's not supposed to be that cold. There are no more blankets, which is ludicrous, who'd come out in the snow with just one blanket?!

"Wood!" He makes himself jump, he wasn't expecting words to just come flying out of his mouth. "What?" which seems silly because asking your own mouth what it's talking about has to be up there with some of the really stupid things he's done.

Whatever they were.

But before he can chastise himself for thinking his mouth would know the answer to something his brain doesn't, he remembers that wood burns.

He's so busy being relieved about this that he almost forgets it again.

"Wood burns," he says out loud. Just in case that will help, a little echo of his intent floating about the room like the ghost of memory.

And wow that's kind of poetic.

Like the ghost of a memory...

"Concentrate!" he tells himself again. "Wood burns."

He slips into the front to try and find something made of wood. But then he forgets why he wants it in the first place and gets distracted by the view out of the windshield. He's not sure if he's ever seen this much snow before but he doubts it. There's a lot of snow, no wonder it's so cold!

He remembers that wood burns about then but can't for the life of him work out why that should be important.

Then he remembers Cain and he nearly knocks himself out in his hurry to search out more wood-flavoured things.

He didn't find any already did he?

He goes back to the front to make sure he didn't find some before and then put them down before he got distracted by...something white?

"Wow, that's a lot of snow!"

He finds a few books, which aren't wood they're paper but for some reason that he can't work out that's ok too, and some sort of wooden cup holder thing, and some curtain rings. He puts them all in the fire and then feels very accomplished, if a little confused, perhaps a lot confused.

When he drops to his knees to check if Cain's still cold he can't decide if he's better or worse than before. He must have done this already but he can't remember it. There must have been a before or the fire wouldn't be necessary.

"I'm really bad at this," he admits, catching Cain's hand between both of his own and trying to encourage some life back into it again. His own aren't really warm enough to transfer any body heat. He doesn't appear to retain heat very well.

Also, he has a headache, or possibly it's more of a skull ache since he's not sure he has enough of a brain to ache,and he's actually, now that he thinks about, more than a little cold himself.

Glitch realises he's still desperately trying to remember things he's already done and isn't quite sure how to stop.

For a head that's mostly empty his is surprisingly noisy right now.

Of course Glitch still has some brain.

He must have the parts that tell you to breathe and sweat and whether you were warm or cold. The bits that told your heart to beat.

Glitch must have those or he would have keeled over dead at the beginning...whenever that was.

Of course it could have been worse, he still has the bits of his brain that know how to talk and move and feel, he's still a person even if that person isn't who he used to be.

He still has memories, not a lot but some and though they're scattered and confusing and they don't so much fit together as ricochet off of each other in random ways, they're still his, they're still him.

It occurs to him that Cain will want his clothes when he wakes up, and at the moment they're quite damp and Glitch has left them in a rather crumpled little pile.

Glitch shakes them out and lays them by the fire, where they look kind of spooky, like Cain's fallen out of them and-

There's a bullet hole in the coat.

Glitch's thoughts crash to a halt, and then he's scrambling across the pillows and dragging the blanket down. He can't have missed something so...so...a bullet wound! He can't have been so stupid!

He prods at Cain's chest with pale fingers but there's nothing...nothing but skin.

He stares for a second in bewilderment, then picks up the coat. A few moments of searching and he finds something in the breast pocket...a little horse.

A little horse with a bullet in it.

"Wow," Glitch says a little shakily. "Someone certainly likes you Cain." He slips the little horse into his own pocket, pats it carefully.

It's getting colder, which just doesn't seem fair all things considered. Glitch shuffles sideways until he can lean over and lay a hand on Cain's neck. He isn't showing any signs of warming up terribly fast, if at all. Glitch exhales loudly.

"Well it looks like we are going to share after all," he tells him apologetically and sheds his coat.

He kicks his boots off, and after a fidgety moment of indecision and a rough exhale he slides underneath the blanket as well.

Cain has very pointed ideas about unexpected hugging. But Glitch could perhaps suggest that these were special circumstances. Though he isn't quite sure how special circumstances change the laws of hugging.

But he'd certainly rather have alive Cain shouting at him than dead Cain doing nothing at all.

He shuffles a bit closer, until they're actually touching, which is sort of the point and if Glitch could roll his eyes at himself then he'd most certainly be doing that right about now. Bits and pieces of sleeve and shirt buttons are poking into Cain's chilly skin and it's a very odd sensation that makes Glitch want to fidget.

"You have no idea how many of these buttons I've lost," he says quietly. "But I just can't seem to throw them away, or at least I haven't done yet."

He shuffles a bit closer and chances a hand on skin.

"Of course the jacket's not as nice as it used to be. That's obvious enough, in fact I'm sure it was once very nice indeed what with all the braiding and brocade. Suggesting I was quite important, not of course that I'm implying unimportant people don't have nice jackets...or that there are unimportant people because that seems just downright unfriendly."

He rubs a hand over Cain's arm in an absentminded sort of way. If there's one thing he's good at it's absentminded repetitive motion.

"Anyone that knew you would think you were stubbornly doing this on purpose you know." Glitch sighs and sways away, drags shirt and undershirt over his head before very carefully shuffling close again.

It's much, much different without clothes on. All slip slide of bare skin, half cold and half warm, and his own protests and twitches, but then presses back into Cain's all the same.

He clears his throat very carefully against Cain's shoulder.

"I'd like to point out that this is purely in the interests of not letting you freeze to death," Glitch tells the edge of Cain's ear, though he's not a hundred percent sure he isn't reminding himself as well.

He thinks it would be very easy to forget. He tugs the blanket up with his other hand.

"It's very cold and there's only one blanket, which is the reason this is necessary. But I promise you this is exactly as strange for me as it is for you." Glitch nods and his nose brushes Cain's cheek. "I mean I know you were in that awful metal contraption for...."

Glitch can't remember how long, but he thinks it was a long time.

"A long time, so I can understand how the hugging is weird for you, and well though I don't mind the hugging so much, the 'not wearing clothes' part is kind of new for me and...well I know about that." Glitch protests, though he doesn't think he should talk about that, or think about that, while there's nudity and hugging because he might get confused.

"Just not in any..." Glitch makes a complicated gesture with his hand and realises that Cain can't see it anyway. "Real sort of sense."

He sighs against Cain's neck and the warmth flares back against his mouth.

"The world is complicated enough when you have a whole brain, not just bits of one. I can't even remember-" He stops, the thread of his sentence has turned into smoke and vanished. "That's very frustrating," he complains.

He very carefully wraps an arm around Cain's waist and it's not so very cold anymore.

"Are you sleeping now? I honestly can't tell the difference between sleeping and unconscious, apart from one of them makes your head really hurt when you wake up."

Though at this point Glitch can't for the life of him remember which.

It's very quiet and the fire is making noises like little bits of wood are tumbling around in the grate. He shifts his hand a bit, so he can sort of hold the other side of Cain's waist.

And if he thinks it's kind of nice, well that's probably alright, he's the one sharing heat after all. He can not mind the sharing and it's ok...he's fairly certain of it.

Glitch thinks it would be nice to sleep with someone else all the time.

He twists his head a little, so he can watch Cain's chest moving, which is very reassuring, because the thought of being asleep and Cain suddenly not breathing while he wasn't looking.

Well that's not very restful at all.

If he puts his hand there he can feel him breathing, a slow upward shift of ribcage and muscle, then a fractionally quicker fall.

A little concentration and he can feel the hidden thud of a heartbeat under his fingers. It's absolutely fascinating.

Glitch thinks he gets lost in it for a little while because it's colder, and the glow from the fire has dimmed to an orange smear in the darkness.

He can still make out the smooth lines of Cain's face though, the way everything is just a little too generous to be so stern. Cain should be sharp-edges and heavy and dark-eyed. But he's not, he's all the wrong shapes and all the wrong shades of blue.

But he works perfectly just the same, which is marvellous.

Glitch lays his head back down, tries to remember other things that are shades of blue, and whether they are the right shades of blue, whether they are Cain-like shades of blue.

He wishes he could dream about that, because he thinks a dream about that would be just about the most perfect thing.

Or perhaps he does dream and just doesn't remember.



***

Glitch wakes up in the dark and he has no idea where he is.

This is not an entirely new sensation.

Though this time is more curious because he seems to be breathing into someone's neck. Which is a sort of familiar that's both shocking and more than a little unnerving. He's almost sure he's never-

He attempts to focus from a few inches away, but it's dark, so this doesn't help at all.

His hand is spread open on skin, shifting ever so slightly with every deep breath.

Cain

Which is absolutely perfectly alright, because it's cold and that makes perfect sense.

He closes his eyes again.

***

Glitch wakes up breathing into someone's hair, and he has no idea where he is.

He rolls his head to the side a little and opens his eyes.

A sickly light fills the truck, revealing a very close-up view of Cain's hair, and the edge of his jaw and then his mouth.

"Oh," Glitch says quietly.

His hand is curled all the way up and over Cain's warm chest, fingertips caught on the wide curve of his shoulder.

Are they? Did they?

No, that's right there was a fall, and a horse and now he was thawing out next to...the fire has very nearly gone out. Which is enough for him to push the blanket back.

And, oh, cold!

He forgot he was wearing...less than usual.

He spends a moment wondering where he put his clothes, but he's cleverly left them within reaching distance so it's not a very long moment. His clothes are cold too, this is briefly unpleasant.

Cain is still sleeping, he's warm under the covers, not so warm out of them, which really is only to be expected Glitch thinks.

His clothes are dry though.

Glitch carefully levers him upright and manages, after a little persuasion and a few moments of limb confusion, to get him back into his shirt.

Cain makes a grumbling, complaining noise into the side of his neck.

Which tickles.

He carefully lowers him back down again.

"I'm going to go and look for some more wood, don't go anywhere ok, because if you disappear out of sight we'll have a pretty pickle on our hands."

Glitch finds his boots and puts them back on.

After a moments thought he moves Cain's gun nearer to his arm.

"In case there are wolves, or snow monsters, or something- you can never be too careful you know."

He slips out of the side of the truck and the cold is...the cold is everywhere, and everything is very bright. It's possibly the brightest, coldest place he's ever been.

But it's not snowing anymore, which is something.

He drags his coat around himself, grumbles something very uncomplimentary about snow in general, and heads off.