Azkadellia's Okay! Part 3: Fight in Classroom; Landslide Victory.
I'm lazy today, so you get the glitch_wyatt links on here, too. I'LL PROBABLY FIX IT BUT OH WELL I'M BUSY? :D
AUTHORS: andrealyn and luchia13
TITLE: Azkadellia's Okay! (With Ambrose and the Cains' help), Part 3: Fight In Classroom; Landslide Victory.
RATING: PG-13 for getting tired of saying PG.
EVENTUAL PAIRING: Ambrose/Cain (or Cain/Ambrose, depends on their moods), VERY FUTURE Az/OC, Jeb/OC/OC
DESCRIPTION: When the Witch picks another target, everything changes. Including switching out the Roboparents for Ambrose and the only Tin Man who knows what's going on (and his kid).
This Part: The Sherriff lives in a little pink house, Jeb thinks tag involves being eaten, Azkadellia learns about puberty, and Ambrose's life gets a bit more strange.
Part 1: Things Explode; Iceland Blamed.
Part 2: Pink House Purchased; Introductions Ensue.
Azkadellia's Okay!
(With Ambrose and the Cains' help)
Part 3: Fight in Classroom; Landslide Victory.
After Azkadellia's visit to the motel, it had taken Cain a good fifteen minutes to make his way over to the campus with Jeb in his arms the whole of the time. Jeb kept asking questions about Azkadellia and whether or not they would get a big yard to play in and 'why don't we have a kitchen, Father? Why?' and more questions in the same vein of things, to the point that he was getting more annoyed with that 'Brown' family.
Baker College was a prestigious school and had some of the best professors in the entire state. At least, now that Ambrose was there. It meant that his classes were well-attended and he was given one of the nicest halls on the whole campus. It almost meant that Cain knew exactly where to find him, given the fact that he had more than something on his mind to say and it didn't even matter that Jeb was in his arms.
He pushed his way through the doors and stormed right over to Ambrose at the front of the class, yanking a piece of chalk from his hand as he set Jeb down on the counter and ignored the hushed whispers of 'Is that the Sheriff?' 'What's he doing?' 'Is this part of the lecture? Should we be writing this down?' 'Dude, wake up. Something's happening'.
Glaring at Ambrose, Cain was at his most dangerous because someone had been intruding on his personal life and his own matters. "Did YOU send her?" he demanded. "Because I sure as hell don't appreciate the fact that I got a visit from your girl in the middle of the day asking questions and taking my life apart just because it doesn't suit her."
Cain kept the chalk just out of reach, barely noticing the full lecture hall of students around them.
For a moment, Ambrose was completely dumbstruck, but he finally got a hold of himself, mind shifting out of ‘teaching mode’, and cleared his throat. Once a tactician, always a tactician, even if he was currently teaching Theoretical Electrical Engineering to a bunch of Otherside college students, most of them juniors or seniors. He pointed straight at Cain. "You, stay here." The statement was punctuated with a firm jab at the floor and a look that said 'I don't care who you are, you will obey'. That look had worked on the Queen herself, and Wyatt Cain was sure as hell obeying him at this. He then looked over at Jeb, and smiled. "Jeb, can you do me a favor and go out in the hall while your father and I talk?" He pointed at the entire class. "They'll be going with you, so you won't get bored."
Which was the point where he looked at his class, knowing he wasn't looking terribly pleasant at the moment, but was a bit too angry to mind that he'd have to apologize to them when he got this idiot out of his classroom. "Class is not dismissed. You get twenty points for taking care of this young man here. His name is Jeb, and consider him your professor for however long this takes. You'll get twenty points if he's happy with you when he leaves." He looked over at Jeb, smiling. "Is that okay with you?"
Jeb nodded, and with one glance at his father, obeyed, walking out the doors, the class practically tripping over themselves to follow the boy considering one test in the class was one hundred points. When the door snapped shut, Ambrose snapped too.
"I don't know what the HELL you're talking about, but if you're insinuating that Azkadellia did anything inappropriate I can guarantee that she did what was best for anyone involved. And nobody can send Azkadellia to do something she doesn't want to do, not even me. I'm not even certain that her Ma...mother could." He glared at Cain. "So whatever it is you decided to interrupt an entire lecture for, I'm on her side, no matter what she did. The girl's wiser than I could ever hope to be. Now I just have to wonder what's got your pants twisted so tight that you couldn't wait half an hour to talk to me!"
Cain was worried first and foremost about Jeb and that just added to the annoyed look that was so evident on his face. Watching him sent out with a group of students he barely knew didn't sit very well with him and it was all-too-clear by the look on his face that he disapproved of Ambrose's method of dealing with it.
"He'll be fine," Ambrose hissed, noticing the look at Jeb's departure. "I know my students, they'll be putting flowers in his hair if we leave them alone long enough."
Cain had stayed in place, hadn't moved, but he had pushed his coat aside just enough so his gun was on display and Ambrose could see just how not-joking-around his mood was. "Your girl came tripping over her little dress and hair to come knocking on my door in the middle of the day, so first of all, why is she wandering off on her own?" he demanded. "I've only got so many hours in the day I can be watching the two of you and if she's off someplace she's not supposed to be, it sort of complicates my job," he insisted tersely. "As for what she did, coming to insinuate that my lifestyle is crooked and I'm somehow depriving Jeb of all the things he deserves is pretty low. Manipulation is one thing, but coming from her," he said, pointing at the door and by his tone, he may as well have said 'the Princess, "It's just beyond reproach. I don't tell you how to live your life on the Otherside, so I'd appreciate if she doesn't tell me how to live mine or how to raise my boy," he finished, the last part the lowest and almost growled.
It was easy to tell which part of Azkadellia’s accusations that Cain had taken the most offense to.
He cleared his throat. "First off, Azkadellia doesn't trip over anything, but I guarantee I'll talk to her about wandering off from school, and I'm sorry for that at least. She's usually smarter than to do that, which means that whatever she came over to insinuate was wrong probably really, really is." Ambrose smirked, lowering his voice. "And be glad she only manipulated you. She still has magic, you know."
Completely ignoring the gun, Ambrose yanked the chalk back out of Cain's grip, glaring and slamming it back onto the board (there was only one for EEN-477). "Now. What are you doing so horribly wrong that Azkadellia herself went to take matters into her own hands and didn't simply ask me to deal with it or bring it up with you? And don't you dare start with the gun or I swear to the gods I will smack you around so hard you'll be bruised, bloody, and blind for a week."
Cain glared at Ambrose still, almost as if it were a sprinkler with a stuck faucet and that was becoming incredibly difficult to turn off due to years of rusting. He let him pluck up the chalk and Cain looked like he was struggling not to remark something about the magic. Of course he would know about the magic. He was Queen-sent, after all. "She seems to think that the environment I've got is toxic or inadequate or something wrong for Jeb," Cain admitted, casting yet another glance to the doors, as if wishing he had some kind of monitor to link him to the hall and find out what was going on. "Maybe it only takes you months to set up, but I've been busy trying to win an election and the fact is I haven't had time to put Jeb in school or find a home," he directed the curt words at Ambrose, hand releasing slowly off the gun. "What it doesn't give her is the right to come questioning that seeing as she's as good as a stranger to us."
She wasn't, not really, but it wasn't as though they were the best of friends either.
"You said your co-workers did all the pamphlets and flyers," Ambrose said darkly. "I know for a fact that some of the professors here are helping you out, too. All you have been doing is the same old job you did back in the O.Z. and apparently amazing people that there is, in fact, a competent law enforcement agent out there in the world." His mouth, however, dropped open at the fact they didn't have a house and Jeb wasn't in school. "You didn't-" he began, only to shake his head and move over to his briefcase, slamming it shut. "We are enrolling Jeb in school now, and then I don't care how much of a fuss you want to put up, you're living in our house until you get a place of your own. Azkadellia was absolutely correct in telling you that Jeb is missing out. He needs to go to school, he needs somewhere stable to live, and I don't care what you think because you are most certainly depriving your own boy of his education. A house, I can understand, but school, Cain? An education? No." Ambrose shook his head. "Jeb is going to school."
The slamming of the briefcase looked to be a sign that not only was Cain losing this fight, but he was perilously close to being walked out on, if only so that the argument couldn't last any longer. It was true that he'd had help in the job, but Cain had been so fixated on doing well that he'd put all his effort into his tasks and the appearances, into being someone the community could not only elect, but want around. Cain raised a single finger in the air as if the restraint was going to keep him from throwing a punch and initiating a losing fight, seeing as he had no intentions of shooting Ambrose -- which was about the only way he could possibly win. "We?" he echoed. "He's MY son," he reminded Ambrose. "Got that, sweetheart? Mine," he added, the words drenched in an acrid bitterness.
"Oh yes, because clearly he has my eyes, Cain," Ambrose shouted back. "Of course he's your son, you idiot! Now you just have to take care of him like a good father would - and who the hell are you calling sweetheart?!"
Ignoring the first insistence (as Cain would say whatever he damn well pleased), he continued with, "Ambrose, I am not living in YOUR house. It's your house," he said, voice still at that low-growl point, the one that he went to in moments of not knowing how else to act. "And I've been teaching him what I can. He knows well enough."
The professor was seething now. If the briefcase's handle was sentient, it would have been screaming in pain from the grip Ambrose had on it. Even now it was squeaking dangerously. "You don't have to live in the house, you can set up a pup tent for all I care, but Jeb needs an actual roof over his head that won't be up and gone in two weeks in exchange for a new one. And does he even know where Kansas is? What country we're in? Do you even know? I should sign you BOTH up for first grade!"
"He and I both knew where Kansas was in the first week, not to mention we knew how to blend in." Cain remained extremely calm as if he weren't going to bother to raise his voice, not for this. "Clothing, behavior, knowledge, we knew," he snapped, irked by these accusations that he wasn't doing well by his son. He was trying to breathe and remain calm, but it was getting progressively harder.
Ambrose took a step forward. "Now. I am going to dismiss my class early, and we will walk over to the elementary school, and I will watch as you enroll your son for his own good. Understand me, Tin Man?" And if there had ever been a dangerous tone out of Ambrose's mouth, it was trumped by that final sentence.
"Fine. We'll stay with you two. But only temporarily," he bit out, not wanting to give more satisfaction than that. As for the school thing...well, half of the problem really did lie in the fact that Cain was too much of a pushover when it came to his son and looking at those eyes when he insisted he didn't want to go. "And don't call me that."
"You don't call me sweetheart then," Ambrose growled. "And there's a difference between blending in and knowing where Kansas is and an actual education. I know I'm not blending in too well, but luckily I can get away with that considering what I picked for my job, just like you can get away with your gun thanks to what you've decided to do." He nodded, relaxing his grip on the briefcase just slightly. "Temporarily is fine. I just don't want you two living in hotels." He paused. "I'll even cook, if you promise not to complain about living in the house in front of Jeb. Azkadellia seems to like my cooking, so hopefully you and Jeb would too."
Ambrose really, really wasn't feeling too kind, but the fact was he was doing all of this for Jeb. He knew how much his father meant to the boy, and Ambrose knew just as well that if Cain did nothing but complain and sulk the whole time, Jeb would more than likely end up feeling the same way.
"Fine, sunshine," Cain agreed calmly, already moving on from the disagreement, resettling his hat back on his head. Rather than arguing about the small points, he just gave a nod and vowed to move on with the rest of things. Without another word, he made his way out of the room and picked up Jeb, who was eagerly telling the entire class a story about Natalia and her evil husband Storm.
Cain gave Jeb a worried look, wondering …no, more than wondering, knowing in that moment that Ambrose had been right all along. It didn’t matter if Cain were right or wrong though, when it came to tightening his hold on Jeb in his grasp.
"Look, I got flowers," Jeb said, holding out a sprig of wildflowers and one shorter girl in the front with blond hair colored mildly, so Cain suspected they came from her. Cain just ruffled his hair lightly, nodding a show of gratitude to the girl. "Where we going now?"
"Out to school. And then to our new home," Cain sighed. "Looks like it's time to settle down."
Jeb just nodded, holding on tightly to Cain's grasp. "Okay. Bye everybody!" Jeb said cheerfully, waving to the scores of students out in the hall and it was a direct contrast to the icy glare on Cain's face that warned anyone of dealing with him right then. He didn't even wait for Ambrose as he made his way out of the hall and back outside. If it was going to be fifteen annuals of this, maybe Cain needed to take up drinking.
Ambrose stepped out of the classroom in time to see a cheerful Jeb waving goodbye, so he immediately nodded to his class. They were all looking at him apprehensively, almost like he was going to start shouting at them, too. He knew they'd at least have heard the shouting, although there was no way they'd have been able to hear what was said.
"I apologize for that," he said quickly. "But, as promised, twenty points to all of you, since he seemed in a pretty good mood." There were relieved sighs throughout, making Ambrose smile slightly. "And class is dismissed, as well. Since I didn't get to cover half of the material, your homework isn't due, either." He sighed slightly. "I'll see you all on Thursday, then."
There were 'Thank you's and 'Good luck, Professor's and 'See you Thursday, Mr. Ambrose's, and he nodded at them all. It wasn't their fault he was in an absolutely vicious mood right now, so he did his best to smile back at them and wish them a good rest of the day as he tailed the Cains.
"I hope you had a good time with the class, Jeb," Ambrose said, half to torment Cain, half actually interested in how both the boy and his class had done while he and Cain were snapping at each other. He'd said he was going to watch over Cain's shoulder while he enrolled Jeb, and he intended to.
Jeb watched Ambrose from over Cain's shoulder, beaming with wide eyes and nodded eagerly. "I'll come by later, too," he agreed, as if he weren't just five but ready to take college-level classes. He tightened his grasp on Cain's neck and leaned in, to which Cain visibly softened and ruffled Jeb's hair, leaning over to press a kiss to the top of his head.
The rest of the walk was done in silence, but Cain went through with it, just as promised. A promise when in the hands of a Cain was never broken.
--
It had only taken an argument fit for an old married couple to be the straw on that proverbial animal’s back, the one that broke it. Nearly two months after they had first been clapped onto the Otherside, Cain and Jeb were finally making their way from the motel with the small amount of possessions they owned (which amounted to three boxes worth of clothing, assorted paraphernalia and more). Jeb was beaming away the whole time and Cain had begun to wonder if this weren’t a tag-team job between the kids
--and he really needed to not think about them in that way. Azkadellia was under Ambrose’s protection. He was just incidental security.
Jeb was humming some commercial jingle as he helped carry the boxes without Cain even needing to ask him and they were taking a cab the distance to their new home. “Az says it’s bright and colorful,” Jeb had remarked off-hand while they climbed into the car and Cain made careful sureness that he was buckled in safely and properly. When that was done, he clapped the headrest of the driver to give them the signal to be off. While Cain wished he could drift off into a myriad of thoughts, he knew it was more important that he watch the route they were taking and the streets required to get there, not to mention the surrounding landmarks.
Jeb kept his face pressed to the window as the small town of Baker passed them by and the cab delivered them to their new home.
It was pink. Apparently, Cain was going to be living in a pink home.
Cain paid the driver and helped Jeb out, along with the boxes. Upon second viewing, third, and fourth, the house was still resoundingly pink and he had the feeling that wasn’t going to change. There was something, though, that drew his attention and that just happened to the area aside, not quite the house, but far enough away for some privacy. He began drifting toward it, nudging Jeb lightly. “Go on,” he encouraged. “Go say hello and pick yourself out a room.”
It didn’t take much more than that to send Jeb hurrying off.
Cain took his time settling the boxes on the drive and lifting up one of the sliding garage doors as he studied the inside of what this area had to hold. It wasn’t exactly big, but compared to what Cain had been living in with his son, it looked like one big opportunity waiting to happen.
He started to unload the boxes inside the car hold, scant belongings littering the dusty area while he began to concoct plans of change inside his mind - and maybe even a slapped coat of paint that wasn’t so glaringly girlish.
Some time later, hours later maybe or maybe just minutes, Jeb came wandering outside, the side door slamming behind him as he sprinted for Cain’s side, wearing a wide grin on his face. He skidded to a halt behind Cain and waited for his father to pick him up into his arms. “You’re getting too heavy for this,” Cain admitted, shifting Jeb in his arms. He was still a skinny child, but was slowly getting some meat on his bones. “You get a room?”
“Yup. It has a bed!” he announced proudly. “And there’s room to run around and a place to eat and lots more.” He rested his arm on Cain’s shoulder. “Where’re you gonna sleep? With Az or Ambrose?”
“Neither, son,” Cain replied, bemused at that and making a note to have a conversation later with Jeb about what was polite to do in company and what wasn’t. “Think I’ll set myself up in here,” he said, looking around the empty space and seeing nothing but possibilities.
“In the little pink house?” Jeb asked.
Well, it’d been perfect until that. “Yeah, Jeb,” Cain agreed, rolling his eyes. “Dad’s going to live in a little pink house.”
“Like a doll,” Jeb said studiously and very seriously.
Well, at least Cain had some influence on what the inside was going to look like.
--
When Wyatt Cain was officially elected Sheriff of the town of Baker - and his victory had been no surprise when it came down to the fact that he’d easily charmed the little town with his simple ways -- there was a barbecue held in his honor down in one of the local parks. He hadn’t asked for it, but that was just one of the reasons that people took to him like ducks took to water. He was modest and did his work without asking for anything and was so bound to duty that he’d make an appearance for even the smallest call put in.
Unfortunately, that had led to a number of fake calls from overzealous young women who happened to like the new Sheriff’s physical attributes. The need for CPR in Baker had gone up about seventy-five percent since Cain took office.
Annie had started weeding out those calls by answering with ‘CPR? I’ll send Smoky straightaway’. Smoky was the twitchy deputy that Cain had managed to get to know during his time as acting sheriff to discover that he’d developed the shakes from a little too much coffee. Through a group effort, they were trying to wean him off the stuff.
Cain was circulating through the party while he kept a wary eye on Jeb, who was playing a game with some of the other local children. The crowd was intimate and didn’t have the kind of size to it that made him begin to worry about his son being snatched by erstwhile kidnappers slipping through from the O.Z.
So he did his best to relax and enjoy the day and the party thrown for him.
“Can I interest you in a burger, Sheriff?” the woman manning the grill asked and he wandered his way over to tip his hat to her. She was a professor at the local college and Cain supposed that Ambrose knew her well enough. Cain actually liked her a fair deal, seeing as she always had a kind word to say to him or about him - rather, about his demeanor and clothes, being that he ‘reminded her of a cowboy’, whatever that meant. Doctor Jane Walker was a fine woman, Cain had already resolved himself to thinking and she hadn’t done anything but improve upon her first impressions.
She also seemed to be taking delight in calling him Sheriff and so Cain assumed she’d put a vote in for him. “It’d be hard to say no, ma’am,” he said politely and took the plate she handed him. He didn’t leave immediately, knowing there were a lot of people to thank and hands to shake, but he had time to do that later. “Thanks for the contributions,” he said, seriously. “Most people don’t understand how much it takes to put a thing like this together.”
“You know, you don’t have to talk about work with me,” Jane pointed out. “You ought to enjoy your victory and not act so serious all the time. How old are you anyway? Can’t be over thirty.”
“Twenty-eight,” Cain agreed, biting back the ‘annuals’ part of that sentence, the same one that’d gotten him found out by Ambrose.
“Young for a Sheriff,” Jane observed with a pointed nod. “Even if you act like you’re going on fifty.”
Cain arched a brow at that beneath the brim of his hat, but Jane just pointed at him with the pair of grease-laden tongs that she was using to flip the meat on the grill. “So, tell me more about this cowboy thing. At least, in terms of these poems you look at. People actually sit down and put a couple rhyming couplets together about men like me?” It was a strange concept to get behind.
And just as always, Jane got that dazed and happy smile on her face when they always got around to the topic of cowboys. She had a habit of acting stupid around him, as if he were right from one of the pages of her poems, even if he kept insisting he was just like the next man over.
She’d disagreed on that fact, saying that being a cowboy had more to do than the clothes and had everything to do with the outlook on life and the way that Cain acted went hand-in-hand with that lifestyle, apparently.
“One day, I’ll get you reading it,” she warned, still waggling those tongs around. “Not just men, you know. There’s some excellent examples of women in Western poetry,” she added, almost sounding like she were lecturing.
“I’m not big on reading,” Cain admitted and then she grinned broadly again. “Let me guess, indicative of the cowboy lifestyle?”
“You got it, partner,” she teased in return. They turned to watch the kids running around, pretending to be birds or some-such by the way their arms were stretched out and they were sprinting around.
In the time Jane was distracted by watching Jeb and his new friends, Cain scanned the crowd to see if Ambrose and Azkadellia would be making an appearance. Not that he expected them to or they had to, but it still would have been somewhat nice to have a little bit of support from people who knew him inside and out for who he really was.
He didn’t see one of Ambrose’s telltale coats or Azkadellia’s unique hair, so he turned his attention back to Jane.
“Jeb seems to be fitting in,” she observed. “How has he enjoyed school?”
He’d lost that argument only days back to Ambrose and Jeb had been enrolled to school and had made it through the first few days. Apparently, he had loved it, or so he said when he’d come trampling home. It had made Cain just slam his palm to his forehead to bite back the frustrated shout about how Jeb had spent months not wanting to set foot even near a school.
And now he seemed to be Mr. Popularity when it came to the first grade subset. Every day, he’d come home with a story about his new friends or what shiny new honor he’d been given for being good at something or other.
“He’s…blending right in,” Cain agreed, an ironic laugh bubbling past his lips, seeing as Jane wouldn’t have a single idea what he was talking about, but he was amusing himself with the double-meaning of those words. “I think we’re finally making a home for ourselves here.”
“As opposed to…”
“Uh, Colorado,” Cain managed, picking out the only place he’d managed to learn about and only via those poems that Jane had pushed in his direction. “After the accident, it was time for a new start.” And that was all he ever said of Adora. There had been an accident. And now Cain wore his wedding ring, but lived alone and the whole community knew as much and whispered a lot about him being a widower.
Well, that was when they weren’t whispering about the fact that he lived in the car hold of Professor Brown’s place.
“Well, we’re happy to have you,” Jane said, her own eyes scanning the crowd for someone and Cain momentarily wondered just who it was she was looking for, but he took it as a sign that he ought to start making his way to the front of the crowd to give the words of thanks he owed.
He shook hands, he kissed cheeks, he smiled and he let himself get carried away in the happy sentiment of the party and when he made it to the front of the group, he lifted a hand to greet everyone. “Well, I guess I’m your new Sheriff,” he started, tipping his hat to the crowd out of respect. “Here’s to as many good annuals as we can have.”
It was probably just the way the good mood had lulled him into a sense of security, but he hadn’t even noticed his slip-up. All Cain could hope (in that moment of realizing what he’d done) was that no one else had picked up on it either.
Instead of correcting himself, he started launching into his prepared speech.
“So let’s talk about Baker and what we’re going to do together…”
--
It was still odd to be living with people was Cain’s view on the subject. Even as removed as he was out in the car-hold - the still pink car-hold as he was glared at every time he brought up the subject of repainting it at breakfast - he still ate meals with these people and held conversation and co-existed in a way he hadn’t expected to do with one of the Princesses of the O.Z. and a royal advisor. Beyond the adjusting to the communal living, Cain found himself making small changes as the months passed in Baker.
One little thing was the descent into ‘normal’ clothing. Cain found that the little pink house tended to keep heat in and so he opted for nothing like what he might have worn back in the O.Z., wearing a black sleeveless shirt instead. He justified the use of it with the fact that no one ever saw him beyond his son and occasionally Ambrose and Azkadellia.
He didn’t read like Ambrose did and he only drew with the crayons when Jeb made him, so most of Cain’s spare time was spent keeping himself in physical shape. One of the first additions to the small room had been a padded floor-space for curl-ups and push-ups and a reinforced bar put in to do chin-ups.
Each time he thought to be lax or to ignore it, he just thought to himself that keeping himself in decent shape could save the kids’ lives one day, so he sucked it up and did his work. He also kept the notion in mind that he wasn’t doing anything else anyway, so why not spend his time training.
He was in the middle of chin-ups when there was a knock on the door, which in itself was strange. Jeb tended to let himself in after announcing himself and Ambrose tended to not ever come out there, which left only one possibility.
Cain was decent in his black ‘tank-top’ (as the locals called it) and cotton trousers and he grasped a towel to dry off his sweat as he pulled open the door and bowed his head to Azkadellia. “Hey, kiddo,” he greeted, a bit out of breath. “Something wrong?”
“I’m bored,” she announced, bringing her backpack into his place.
“Where’s Jeb?”
“Still at school,” she answered sunnily. “He’s playing baseball with a team and I’m going to pick him up when he’s done.” She immediately arranged herself on Cain’s bed, digging out her texts and looking up at Cain with wide eyes. “I thought maybe we could talk about my history homework.”
“Sounds like something Ambrose ought to do,” Cain said honestly, checking the clock he kept in the room. It was half-past-four and he’d been off work only an hour and a half, seeing as he’d gone in early that day. He’d go with Azkadellia to pick up Jeb sooner rather than later, but he was still curious why she’d come to him. “He working late tonight?”
“Yes. But that’s inconsequential,” she said, stubbornly. “It’s your help I’d like.” She flipped open the pages of her textbook and spun it to show Cain pictures of gruesome battles and tiny text. “Our homework is to speak about the strategy of the War of 1812 and I would very much like your opinion on the matter, being a Tin Man.”
Cain approached after tossing the towel in a pile by the corner, pulling up a chair and grasping Azkadellia’s text and craning his neck to read about it. “This seems a lot like me doing your work for you,” he pointed out with a bemused look, handing the text right back.
She shook her head quickly. “Oh, no, no, I don’t mean it like that.”
She proceeded to launch into a twenty minute explanation about the strategies, very serious about the whole thing and sprinkling in references where she could. Cain listened to what she had to say and then offered his own opinion on the subject and what he would have done if he’d been in charge. The whole battle seemed vaguely familiar, but he’d never been one to study Slipper Theories or History, so he only had a passing knowledge of battles fought that weren’t the ones he’d participated in as a Tin Man.
By the end of it, Azkadellia had a page of well-written and concise notes with Cain’s penmanship sprinkled throughout.
She was looking at him differently than she did a while back and Cain tried to ignore it. He wasn’t supposed to be making attachments; his sole purpose in that world was to keep an eye out for both her and Ambrose. He was only important to the plan until they made their way back. He wasn’t supposed to be forging any kind of…well, feelings.
Another check to the clock told Cain that it was long past time to go fetch Jeb.
“You coming along?” It was a question only because he wanted to be polite and let Azkadellia think she had a voice in the process. With Ambrose out of the house, there was no way he was leaving her alone and he extended a hand to her after sliding into a paisley-button-down.
She took his hand, even if hand-holding didn’t seem to be as common when it came to the Otherside. As far as Cain was concerned, it was a method of protection and a way to make sure she didn’t stray too far. It was comforting to have her near and made him think back to many a conversation with Adora about trying for a daughter.
It was too late for that, but he could treat Azkadellia like one and make sure she grew up without a care in the world about the things that went bump in the dark.
He locked up the house, taking along his hat with them and kept a concealed knife in a holster under his jeans - just in case. “Do you really think we’ll need that?” Azkadellia had asked carefully upon seeing it. Cain had replied with a ‘better safe than sorry’. He also made a mental note to start teaching Azkadellia how to use a couple of tangible weapons, if only how to fire a gun. Jeb already was well-trained with the gun and getting there with a stick. When he was old enough, Cain would find a sword for him. Swords might not have their place on the Otherside, these days, but back in the O.Z., they were all the rage depending on where you were.
The walk to the elementary school was a five-minute uphill walk and they could see the young children playing around the baseball diamond before they actually arrived. To Cain’s pleasure, Jeb seemed to be outrunning most of the other kids, even if the part of the game where Jeb had to wield a bat was a bit stilted.
Azkadellia tightened her grip on Cain’s hand and he glanced her way to check if she was okay, not knowing why the sudden need for a tighter grip. She wasn’t readily explaining it either. Cain supposed, really, that it might have been the number of children around DG’s age playing with Jeb, maybe even the resemblance from that one dark-haired one.
So he leaned over and nudged her shoulder. “I’m here,” he reassured her.
They sat by the chain-link fence while they played, not interrupting anything. Cain sat on the dusty bench and Azkadellia stood in front of him, her slender fingers winding through the chains, occasionally clapping and whistling and shouting Jeb’s name in an encouraging way that made Cain smile at her fervor. She was actually smiling and that was the biggest, most marked change Cain had seen in the girl since he had first met her a while back.
The game turned into something else and Jeb bounded over toward them, pushing his dirty hands against Azkadellia’s hip. “Tag!” he announced.
He was met by confused stares from both Azkadellia and Cain - who stood up to greet Jeb properly. “What’s a tag?” Azkadellia asked curiously.
“I don’t know, but you touch a person and say it and then they have to chase you and maybe eat you when they get you,” Jeb rambled the words out rapid-fire. Cain and Azkadellia both tilted their heads to one angle, which only seemed to push Jeb even harder to explain. “And then the winner gets a crown or something is Azkadellia my sister?”
The question was asked without even a breath taken and Azkadellia was in no condition to answer, judging from both her bewildered stare and the sadness that came over her at the sheer mention of ‘sister’, so Cain took hold of the answer.
“No, Jeb,” he explained patiently, enduring all the pushes and ‘tag, tag, tag’s that Jeb was giving him as he explained. “She’d be your step-sister if I was married to one of her parents, but we just live in her house because Ambrose and Azkadellia are nice enough to let us stay.”
That seemed to cause Jeb some confusion. He’d been too young to remember much about royal lineage, so he turned to Azkadellia. “Ambrose isn’t your father?” he asked curiously.
“We say he’s my Uncle,” Azkadellia replied dutifully, hands smoothing out her dress gently, her mouth open as if she were stuck and didn’t know how to answer. “But he treats me like a father should. He does more than an adequate parenting job.”
“See?” Cain said, glancing to Jeb. “So you’re just roommates.”
“Unless you marry Ambrose,” Jeb agreed with a nod of understanding.
Cain nearly launched into a speech why that was still convoluted and how it wasn’t going to happen, but Jeb had already grasped hold of Azkadellia’s hand and was telling her more about this game of ‘Tag’, more about the baseball game, and all about the paintings they were making at school and Cain didn’t have the heart to interrupt that just to harp on a point that Jeb probably wouldn’t properly understand for another annual or so.
Besides, he looked happy. Cain didn’t feel like ruining that mood, so he let him think whatever he wanted as they walked back home - Azkadellia and Jeb hand in hand with Cain protecting the both of them.
--
The tests were graded, the sun was shining, he and the students were stuck in a big lecture hall with no windows, and it was time for Actual Learning. Most everyone had done very well on the test, and Ambrose found himself honestly proud of them. They’d managed to learn an entire semester’s worth of required information in less time than he’d even dared to truly hope. Sure, he’d written it in the syllabus and outlined the entire thing to no end before the class even started, but their achievement still made him proud.
He was almost surprised that his entire class had shown up the day after the test. Almost. Attendance in his class wasn’t exactly optional, since they’d either shown up every day or failed the test. With what was technically the final (since he doubted any of them would be honestly able to succeed in the very end with the project) already done, half of them could have not shown up, but they were all sitting in their seats, looking apprehensively at the fact that Ambrose had not one, not three, but seven chalkboards, all lined up, and Ambrose was beaming at the class.
“The sun’s very nice out, so we’re only going to have half the class indoors, considering these chalkboards are actually for all of you instead of me,” he said cheerfully, and held up a box of chalk. “I’m fairly certain I’ll end up needing more than seven for you all, but it seemed like a good starting point.”
There was shifting, and murmuring, and all-around looks of anxiety. But Ambrose was still smiling, so they didn’t seem too terrified, at least.
“Your assignment…” he paused, and shrugged a bit sheepishly, pulling the first board up and yanking out a piece of chalk, writing the basics as he explained to the class. “It’s my belief that the best way to learn is by doing. And in political science, that’d be rather difficult, but I’m fairly certain this will help you out.
“You will invent a country, one about the size of Kansas, although the geography of it is entirely up to you and your group, if you choose to have one. You can work individually or there can be a group that is nothing but the entire class with one country.” He paused, giving them a dubious look. “I’d suggest you don’t do that though, considering things that will later be happening with your countries.” More murmurs, and he could already see the groups forming, whispering to each other and leaning across desks. “I want the basics of your country in a simple format - any format, really - at the end of the week, and the names of everyone in your group.”
“Wait, Professor,” one student said, having to practically shout from his seat in the back. “What’s the basics of a country? We’ve covered a lot.”
“And that’s why it’s entirely up to you,” Ambrose beamed. “The only suggestion I’ll make is that you pick a system of government. Keep in mind that every decision you make during this first week will be written law for the rest of the project. Whatever the basics of your country, you can’t deviate from them, no matter what else I throw at you during the exercise.” He paused. “And most importantly you can’t change anything the last day of the project, where you will probably have your country completely destroyed.”
There was a resounding exclamation of incredulity, and Ambrose politely ignored the profanity, letting them shout and gape for a few moments before he did the most attention-grabbing thing he could - take off his coat. For some reason that always seemed to snap them back to him, and it was better than throwing chalk at unsuspecting students.
“You’re having us make countries just so they can be destroyed?!”
“That’s pointless!”
“Why not just make a country that’d fail anyway?”
Ambrose grinned at them. “Your country will probably be destroyed, after it’s critiqued and challenged by a very, very special guest.”
They all groaned. “Man, he’s gonna bring in a senator or something I bet.”
“Actually, I’m bringing in my twelve-year-old niece,” Ambrose beamed, and paused. “Well, she’ll probably be thirteen by then, but she’s still my niece.”
The entire class seemed to perk up at that. Ambrose almost felt sorry for them.
He grinned, erasing the board and pulling his coat back on, shutting his briefcase. “Now. The chalkboards and chalk are open for anyone, but I’m going to be outside enjoying the sunny day. If you have any questions or want very, very small bits of advice regarding your country, and I mean very small, you can feel free to come sit around on the grass with me. Class is technically dismissed, and I’ll take this moment to innocently inform you that there’s no class in this room next period, should you want more time with the boards.” He paused. “And my office has changed to that sandstone bench with the dedication on it outside the building for the next hour, too.”
Grinning, he walked out of the classroom as groups swarmed together and quickly grabbed at chalk and boards. Ambrose was glad to see that, but for some reason he was happier to just sit on the warm bench, close his eyes, stretch out, and pretend it was a full two-sun day.
--
“I need a training bra.” Those were the first words out of Azkadellia’s mouth when he picked her up from middle school, and he stared at her. Taking that as a sign of ‘please continue so I can better understand the statement’, she explained about other girls in her gym class and how the teacher had explained that when girls got to a certain age their bodies started to change and so on, until finally Ambrose just put a hand to his forehead and said “I know what puberty is, Azkadellia.”
“Then you can help me find a training bra,” she deduced, only for Ambrose to frown. “You can’t?” The thought was astonishing to her - in Azkadellia’s mind, the only things Ambrose honestly couldn’t do were related to magic or gender.
Ambrose sighed. “Az, I don’t even know why you’d need training for it,” he said. “And the O.Z. usually uses corsets. If you wanted a corset, I could do that since contrary to what just about everyone would have you believe, men can sew-”
“Ambrose.” Her voice was quiet, but sharp enough to break him out of nervous rambling. “What has you so worried? You said you know what puberty is, why the anxiety?”
“You’re growing up. Some day you won’t even need me, and then what will I do? Just sit around and teach Otherside classes that negate years of what I’ve learned and…and bicker with Cain while you grow up?” Ambrose’s voice was honest, just like the tighter grip on her hand. Only Ambrose got to hold her hand tightly like that anymore, only he got to be the one doing the squeezing instead of being the squeezed. “Everyone grows up and everyone needs to, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the idea.”
“It’s just a training bra. I’m not about to move out of the house and marry,” Azkadellia smiled softly.
Ambrose shook his head. “One day you’ll have kids, or at least younger people to look out for, and then you’ll know what it feels like. But anyway. Training bra. I honestly don’t have a clue where to get one.” He paused, and held the front door open for her out of sheer habit, just like she bowed her head in gracious, regal thanks for the act. “Well, I’d assume some sort of clothing store, but there must be some sort of…measurement?”
“Maybe ask one of the neighbors?” Azkadellia suggested, only for Ambrose to shake his head quickly, frowning and beginning to walk around the family room. “…Ambrose, there has to be someone female that you can talk to.”
Ambrose halted, and grinned.
Fifteen minutes later a flushed Professor Jane Walker rang the doorbell of the Browns-and-Cains’ house (politically, at least, considering ‘the Browns’ owned it, but that was one argument Ambrose had too often with Cain to really think about), beaming and dressed in one of her best skirts, short hair styled expertly and…
“Are you wearing perfume?” Ambrose asked, and Jane actually blushed. “I’m sorry if I pulled you away from something, really-”
“Oh, I wasn’t doing a thing, you know what my Tuesday schedule is like,” she said, hitting his arm playfully. “Just about the only thing scheduled on Tuesdays is lunch with you after your Theoretical Something-Or-Other class.”
“It’s Theoretical Electrical Engineering and you know that already,” Ambrose said, purely out of habit. She knew the name, just never seemed to really use it. Sometimes he honestly wondered if she did it just to get him mildly annoyed. “But Azkade-”
Jane gave him a Look. He had no idea what it meant, but he guessed that from the severity of it he should shut up. “Where is she?”
“Her room,” Ambrose said, escorting her up the stairs, dodging one of Jeb’s vividly-colored balls (Cain kept telling him to stop buying Jeb more of those things, but he liked them so much that Ambrose couldn’t resist when he found the ridiculously colored ones) and knocking politely on the door, where the O.Z. was first hinted at via custom paint job done by Azkadellia herself, a pale purple with golden overtones.
“Enter,” her voice said distantly, and Ambrose stepped in first. “Oh, you brought Jane.” She blinked at the older woman, who was busy staring at the completely custom and incredibly ornate (for the Otherside) room. It was the closest either of them could get to home, and it showed. Ambrose’s coat had been immediately hung on the coat rack next to the door for that exact purpose, and Azkadellia was smiling, a textbook on her lap as she read while sitting on her bed. “Good afternoon, Jane. I hadn’t hoped you’d come this soon, but I’m grateful.”
“Dellia, your room is breathtaking,” Jane breathed out.
“Azkadellia,” both Ambrose and Azkadellia corrected immediately. Outside of the house, she didn’t have any nicknames. Princesses didn’t have them, and even though Ambrose was determined to have her live at least some of her life as a normal little girl, she was and always would be the heir to the O.Z.
“Sorry. Azkadellia,” Jane amended, smiling at the both of them. “Is this…is this what it was like back in Iceland?”
“It’s close enough,” Azkadellia said simply, not even shifting when Ambrose sat down on the bed. She handed over the textbook - it was one of his anyway - and stood, walking over to Jane. “Thank you for agreeing to help me find a training bra.”
“Of course I’ll help,” Jane said, sounding both dumbfounded and embarrassed, cheeks reddening one more time. “Poor girl like you trapped in a house with nobody but Ambrose and the Cains around? You must be drowning in testosterone.”
“Hey,” Ambrose called out, voice amused, dark eyes flicking from the textbook up to grin at Jane. “Azkadellia can swim very well, thank you.”
“Smothered, then,” Jane said, voice a bit squeaky, and she stepped out of the door, Azkadellia following with a smile as she closed the door on Ambrose’s chuckling. Jane laughed a bit uneasily. “He really is always like that, isn’t he.”
“No,” Azkadellia replied honestly. “But he’s almost always himself.” She grabbed her coat, a red one that covered her to the shins, and an unfashionably small black purse. Jane chuckled, and when the front door shut behind them, Azkadellia managed to make Jane practically shriek with her question. “So how long have you had a crush on Ambrose?”
“I…” Jane said, uneasy and clutching her own purse, looking at Azkadellia like a guilty convict in front of a judge. “…am I that obvious?”
“Only because he’s so dumb when it comes to the concept,” Azkadellia sighed, climbing into the passenger side of Jane’s car, looking at the interior like it was a new form of art. “Ambrose is exceedingly brilliant, wonderful at reading people, but I’ve never seen him flirt. Or realize someone is flirting with him. I’m not quite sure he knows it even exists.”
Jane was hooked on Azkadellia’s words during the drive. “So he’s not just…not interested or something?” She continuously glanced from the road to her passenger and then back. “Or, you know, playing for the other team?”
“I’m not quite sure what you mean, but I doubt it matters.” Team usually meant groups, and apparently the Otherside had different views on sexuality than the O.Z. considering that honestly, back home, gender never really mattered when it came to relationships anyway. “He’s not in a relationship, and he’s just too dense to realize that he could be in one. I know he cares about you.”
“Really? How?” They were already pulling into a parking spot.
Azkadellia’s smile was a far darker one than Jane was probably used to. Ironically, she’d learned it from Ambrose. “He let you take me out without coming along. That means he trusts you. And he can’t trust someone without caring about them. It’s practically instinct for him.”
Jane smiled back. “And you could maybe help me get through to him somehow?”
“It’d be for his own good,” Azkadellia said honestly. “Most of his adult contact is either at work or bickering with Cain.”
And Jane just laughed and laughed and laughed.
When they returned to the pink house, they could already hear the bickering, and then Cain walking out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, where he was brooding. Again. He greeted them both when they walked through the door, looking very…something at Jane’s presence in the house but still being polite, and they walked into the kitchen.
Since Ambrose was cooking pasta, Azkadellia knew he’d had a stressful enough day already. Puberty had probably hit him much harder than she’d thought, in all honesty, and she nearly regretted what they were about to do. Almost.
“Don’t you ever get tired of cooking for all of us?” Azkadellia asked, putting her little purse and coat back.
“Was your trip successful?” Ambrose asked, completely ignoring the question as he eyed the big white bag Jane set on the countertop. “…or should I ask if it was it on sale.”
Jane laughed, Azkadellia smiled lightly, and she looked straight up in his eyes. “I don’t want you to cook tomorrow. You always end up cooking dinner for us, and Jane wants to take you to dinner. I think it’s a good idea.”
Ambrose blinked, looking like she’d just informed him that she intended to run away and live a life of prostitution, because that was just about how bad he imagined Cain’s cooking was. Not that he’d ever tasted it, but the thought was still unpleasant. “But I always cook-”
“It’s more for my benefit, Ambrose,” Jane smiled at him, and carefully took hold of his left hand. She paused to take the oven mitt off, laughing at that, and then held his hand in both of hers. “Ambrose, I am asking you out on a date with me. To go to dinner with me tomorrow night.” She winked. “Promise you can be home by nine, too.”
Ambrose gaped at her. “I…date…what?”
She cleared her throat, already having been prepared for this single bit of stupidity that Ambrose apparently had. “I like you in that kindergarten kind of way of like-liking someone.”
“Yes, I figured that out-”
“And if you’re willing, I’d like to explore where our relationship could go,” Jane said simply, and then waited.
Ambrose looked at Jane for a long time, glanced at Azkadellia, and then looked back at Jane. “I’d like that,” he smiled, and pulled his hand away as some buzzer or other went off. “Thank you for helping Azkadellia, and I’ll see you tomorrow night, then. I’m assuming we can just work out the details tomorrow at the college.”
Jane looked just about as dumbfounded as Ambrose had a few minutes ago. He’d been acting like a blushing virgin (without the blushing part) moments before, and now it was practically business. But then again, she reminded herself that his niece was in the room and that definitely wasn’t something that would make a man like Ambrose suddenly act like anything other than a gentleman. So she smiled.
“Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said simply, face shining like she’d just won the lottery, and walked herself out the door, an extra bounce in her step even as she got in her sedan, making the car rev happily all the way through Baker as she drove home.
---
Don't kill us. :D
AUTHORS: andrealyn and luchia13
TITLE: Azkadellia's Okay! (With Ambrose and the Cains' help), Part 3: Fight In Classroom; Landslide Victory.
RATING: PG-13 for getting tired of saying PG.
EVENTUAL PAIRING: Ambrose/Cain (or Cain/Ambrose, depends on their moods), VERY FUTURE Az/OC, Jeb/OC/OC
DESCRIPTION: When the Witch picks another target, everything changes. Including switching out the Roboparents for Ambrose and the only Tin Man who knows what's going on (and his kid).
This Part: The Sherriff lives in a little pink house, Jeb thinks tag involves being eaten, Azkadellia learns about puberty, and Ambrose's life gets a bit more strange.
Part 1: Things Explode; Iceland Blamed.
Part 2: Pink House Purchased; Introductions Ensue.
Azkadellia's Okay!
(With Ambrose and the Cains' help)
Part 3: Fight in Classroom; Landslide Victory.
After Azkadellia's visit to the motel, it had taken Cain a good fifteen minutes to make his way over to the campus with Jeb in his arms the whole of the time. Jeb kept asking questions about Azkadellia and whether or not they would get a big yard to play in and 'why don't we have a kitchen, Father? Why?' and more questions in the same vein of things, to the point that he was getting more annoyed with that 'Brown' family.
Baker College was a prestigious school and had some of the best professors in the entire state. At least, now that Ambrose was there. It meant that his classes were well-attended and he was given one of the nicest halls on the whole campus. It almost meant that Cain knew exactly where to find him, given the fact that he had more than something on his mind to say and it didn't even matter that Jeb was in his arms.
He pushed his way through the doors and stormed right over to Ambrose at the front of the class, yanking a piece of chalk from his hand as he set Jeb down on the counter and ignored the hushed whispers of 'Is that the Sheriff?' 'What's he doing?' 'Is this part of the lecture? Should we be writing this down?' 'Dude, wake up. Something's happening'.
Glaring at Ambrose, Cain was at his most dangerous because someone had been intruding on his personal life and his own matters. "Did YOU send her?" he demanded. "Because I sure as hell don't appreciate the fact that I got a visit from your girl in the middle of the day asking questions and taking my life apart just because it doesn't suit her."
Cain kept the chalk just out of reach, barely noticing the full lecture hall of students around them.
For a moment, Ambrose was completely dumbstruck, but he finally got a hold of himself, mind shifting out of ‘teaching mode’, and cleared his throat. Once a tactician, always a tactician, even if he was currently teaching Theoretical Electrical Engineering to a bunch of Otherside college students, most of them juniors or seniors. He pointed straight at Cain. "You, stay here." The statement was punctuated with a firm jab at the floor and a look that said 'I don't care who you are, you will obey'. That look had worked on the Queen herself, and Wyatt Cain was sure as hell obeying him at this. He then looked over at Jeb, and smiled. "Jeb, can you do me a favor and go out in the hall while your father and I talk?" He pointed at the entire class. "They'll be going with you, so you won't get bored."
Which was the point where he looked at his class, knowing he wasn't looking terribly pleasant at the moment, but was a bit too angry to mind that he'd have to apologize to them when he got this idiot out of his classroom. "Class is not dismissed. You get twenty points for taking care of this young man here. His name is Jeb, and consider him your professor for however long this takes. You'll get twenty points if he's happy with you when he leaves." He looked over at Jeb, smiling. "Is that okay with you?"
Jeb nodded, and with one glance at his father, obeyed, walking out the doors, the class practically tripping over themselves to follow the boy considering one test in the class was one hundred points. When the door snapped shut, Ambrose snapped too.
"I don't know what the HELL you're talking about, but if you're insinuating that Azkadellia did anything inappropriate I can guarantee that she did what was best for anyone involved. And nobody can send Azkadellia to do something she doesn't want to do, not even me. I'm not even certain that her Ma...mother could." He glared at Cain. "So whatever it is you decided to interrupt an entire lecture for, I'm on her side, no matter what she did. The girl's wiser than I could ever hope to be. Now I just have to wonder what's got your pants twisted so tight that you couldn't wait half an hour to talk to me!"
Cain was worried first and foremost about Jeb and that just added to the annoyed look that was so evident on his face. Watching him sent out with a group of students he barely knew didn't sit very well with him and it was all-too-clear by the look on his face that he disapproved of Ambrose's method of dealing with it.
"He'll be fine," Ambrose hissed, noticing the look at Jeb's departure. "I know my students, they'll be putting flowers in his hair if we leave them alone long enough."
Cain had stayed in place, hadn't moved, but he had pushed his coat aside just enough so his gun was on display and Ambrose could see just how not-joking-around his mood was. "Your girl came tripping over her little dress and hair to come knocking on my door in the middle of the day, so first of all, why is she wandering off on her own?" he demanded. "I've only got so many hours in the day I can be watching the two of you and if she's off someplace she's not supposed to be, it sort of complicates my job," he insisted tersely. "As for what she did, coming to insinuate that my lifestyle is crooked and I'm somehow depriving Jeb of all the things he deserves is pretty low. Manipulation is one thing, but coming from her," he said, pointing at the door and by his tone, he may as well have said 'the Princess, "It's just beyond reproach. I don't tell you how to live your life on the Otherside, so I'd appreciate if she doesn't tell me how to live mine or how to raise my boy," he finished, the last part the lowest and almost growled.
It was easy to tell which part of Azkadellia’s accusations that Cain had taken the most offense to.
He cleared his throat. "First off, Azkadellia doesn't trip over anything, but I guarantee I'll talk to her about wandering off from school, and I'm sorry for that at least. She's usually smarter than to do that, which means that whatever she came over to insinuate was wrong probably really, really is." Ambrose smirked, lowering his voice. "And be glad she only manipulated you. She still has magic, you know."
Completely ignoring the gun, Ambrose yanked the chalk back out of Cain's grip, glaring and slamming it back onto the board (there was only one for EEN-477). "Now. What are you doing so horribly wrong that Azkadellia herself went to take matters into her own hands and didn't simply ask me to deal with it or bring it up with you? And don't you dare start with the gun or I swear to the gods I will smack you around so hard you'll be bruised, bloody, and blind for a week."
Cain glared at Ambrose still, almost as if it were a sprinkler with a stuck faucet and that was becoming incredibly difficult to turn off due to years of rusting. He let him pluck up the chalk and Cain looked like he was struggling not to remark something about the magic. Of course he would know about the magic. He was Queen-sent, after all. "She seems to think that the environment I've got is toxic or inadequate or something wrong for Jeb," Cain admitted, casting yet another glance to the doors, as if wishing he had some kind of monitor to link him to the hall and find out what was going on. "Maybe it only takes you months to set up, but I've been busy trying to win an election and the fact is I haven't had time to put Jeb in school or find a home," he directed the curt words at Ambrose, hand releasing slowly off the gun. "What it doesn't give her is the right to come questioning that seeing as she's as good as a stranger to us."
She wasn't, not really, but it wasn't as though they were the best of friends either.
"You said your co-workers did all the pamphlets and flyers," Ambrose said darkly. "I know for a fact that some of the professors here are helping you out, too. All you have been doing is the same old job you did back in the O.Z. and apparently amazing people that there is, in fact, a competent law enforcement agent out there in the world." His mouth, however, dropped open at the fact they didn't have a house and Jeb wasn't in school. "You didn't-" he began, only to shake his head and move over to his briefcase, slamming it shut. "We are enrolling Jeb in school now, and then I don't care how much of a fuss you want to put up, you're living in our house until you get a place of your own. Azkadellia was absolutely correct in telling you that Jeb is missing out. He needs to go to school, he needs somewhere stable to live, and I don't care what you think because you are most certainly depriving your own boy of his education. A house, I can understand, but school, Cain? An education? No." Ambrose shook his head. "Jeb is going to school."
The slamming of the briefcase looked to be a sign that not only was Cain losing this fight, but he was perilously close to being walked out on, if only so that the argument couldn't last any longer. It was true that he'd had help in the job, but Cain had been so fixated on doing well that he'd put all his effort into his tasks and the appearances, into being someone the community could not only elect, but want around. Cain raised a single finger in the air as if the restraint was going to keep him from throwing a punch and initiating a losing fight, seeing as he had no intentions of shooting Ambrose -- which was about the only way he could possibly win. "We?" he echoed. "He's MY son," he reminded Ambrose. "Got that, sweetheart? Mine," he added, the words drenched in an acrid bitterness.
"Oh yes, because clearly he has my eyes, Cain," Ambrose shouted back. "Of course he's your son, you idiot! Now you just have to take care of him like a good father would - and who the hell are you calling sweetheart?!"
Ignoring the first insistence (as Cain would say whatever he damn well pleased), he continued with, "Ambrose, I am not living in YOUR house. It's your house," he said, voice still at that low-growl point, the one that he went to in moments of not knowing how else to act. "And I've been teaching him what I can. He knows well enough."
The professor was seething now. If the briefcase's handle was sentient, it would have been screaming in pain from the grip Ambrose had on it. Even now it was squeaking dangerously. "You don't have to live in the house, you can set up a pup tent for all I care, but Jeb needs an actual roof over his head that won't be up and gone in two weeks in exchange for a new one. And does he even know where Kansas is? What country we're in? Do you even know? I should sign you BOTH up for first grade!"
"He and I both knew where Kansas was in the first week, not to mention we knew how to blend in." Cain remained extremely calm as if he weren't going to bother to raise his voice, not for this. "Clothing, behavior, knowledge, we knew," he snapped, irked by these accusations that he wasn't doing well by his son. He was trying to breathe and remain calm, but it was getting progressively harder.
Ambrose took a step forward. "Now. I am going to dismiss my class early, and we will walk over to the elementary school, and I will watch as you enroll your son for his own good. Understand me, Tin Man?" And if there had ever been a dangerous tone out of Ambrose's mouth, it was trumped by that final sentence.
"Fine. We'll stay with you two. But only temporarily," he bit out, not wanting to give more satisfaction than that. As for the school thing...well, half of the problem really did lie in the fact that Cain was too much of a pushover when it came to his son and looking at those eyes when he insisted he didn't want to go. "And don't call me that."
"You don't call me sweetheart then," Ambrose growled. "And there's a difference between blending in and knowing where Kansas is and an actual education. I know I'm not blending in too well, but luckily I can get away with that considering what I picked for my job, just like you can get away with your gun thanks to what you've decided to do." He nodded, relaxing his grip on the briefcase just slightly. "Temporarily is fine. I just don't want you two living in hotels." He paused. "I'll even cook, if you promise not to complain about living in the house in front of Jeb. Azkadellia seems to like my cooking, so hopefully you and Jeb would too."
Ambrose really, really wasn't feeling too kind, but the fact was he was doing all of this for Jeb. He knew how much his father meant to the boy, and Ambrose knew just as well that if Cain did nothing but complain and sulk the whole time, Jeb would more than likely end up feeling the same way.
"Fine, sunshine," Cain agreed calmly, already moving on from the disagreement, resettling his hat back on his head. Rather than arguing about the small points, he just gave a nod and vowed to move on with the rest of things. Without another word, he made his way out of the room and picked up Jeb, who was eagerly telling the entire class a story about Natalia and her evil husband Storm.
Cain gave Jeb a worried look, wondering …no, more than wondering, knowing in that moment that Ambrose had been right all along. It didn’t matter if Cain were right or wrong though, when it came to tightening his hold on Jeb in his grasp.
"Look, I got flowers," Jeb said, holding out a sprig of wildflowers and one shorter girl in the front with blond hair colored mildly, so Cain suspected they came from her. Cain just ruffled his hair lightly, nodding a show of gratitude to the girl. "Where we going now?"
"Out to school. And then to our new home," Cain sighed. "Looks like it's time to settle down."
Jeb just nodded, holding on tightly to Cain's grasp. "Okay. Bye everybody!" Jeb said cheerfully, waving to the scores of students out in the hall and it was a direct contrast to the icy glare on Cain's face that warned anyone of dealing with him right then. He didn't even wait for Ambrose as he made his way out of the hall and back outside. If it was going to be fifteen annuals of this, maybe Cain needed to take up drinking.
Ambrose stepped out of the classroom in time to see a cheerful Jeb waving goodbye, so he immediately nodded to his class. They were all looking at him apprehensively, almost like he was going to start shouting at them, too. He knew they'd at least have heard the shouting, although there was no way they'd have been able to hear what was said.
"I apologize for that," he said quickly. "But, as promised, twenty points to all of you, since he seemed in a pretty good mood." There were relieved sighs throughout, making Ambrose smile slightly. "And class is dismissed, as well. Since I didn't get to cover half of the material, your homework isn't due, either." He sighed slightly. "I'll see you all on Thursday, then."
There were 'Thank you's and 'Good luck, Professor's and 'See you Thursday, Mr. Ambrose's, and he nodded at them all. It wasn't their fault he was in an absolutely vicious mood right now, so he did his best to smile back at them and wish them a good rest of the day as he tailed the Cains.
"I hope you had a good time with the class, Jeb," Ambrose said, half to torment Cain, half actually interested in how both the boy and his class had done while he and Cain were snapping at each other. He'd said he was going to watch over Cain's shoulder while he enrolled Jeb, and he intended to.
Jeb watched Ambrose from over Cain's shoulder, beaming with wide eyes and nodded eagerly. "I'll come by later, too," he agreed, as if he weren't just five but ready to take college-level classes. He tightened his grasp on Cain's neck and leaned in, to which Cain visibly softened and ruffled Jeb's hair, leaning over to press a kiss to the top of his head.
The rest of the walk was done in silence, but Cain went through with it, just as promised. A promise when in the hands of a Cain was never broken.
--
It had only taken an argument fit for an old married couple to be the straw on that proverbial animal’s back, the one that broke it. Nearly two months after they had first been clapped onto the Otherside, Cain and Jeb were finally making their way from the motel with the small amount of possessions they owned (which amounted to three boxes worth of clothing, assorted paraphernalia and more). Jeb was beaming away the whole time and Cain had begun to wonder if this weren’t a tag-team job between the kids
--and he really needed to not think about them in that way. Azkadellia was under Ambrose’s protection. He was just incidental security.
Jeb was humming some commercial jingle as he helped carry the boxes without Cain even needing to ask him and they were taking a cab the distance to their new home. “Az says it’s bright and colorful,” Jeb had remarked off-hand while they climbed into the car and Cain made careful sureness that he was buckled in safely and properly. When that was done, he clapped the headrest of the driver to give them the signal to be off. While Cain wished he could drift off into a myriad of thoughts, he knew it was more important that he watch the route they were taking and the streets required to get there, not to mention the surrounding landmarks.
Jeb kept his face pressed to the window as the small town of Baker passed them by and the cab delivered them to their new home.
It was pink. Apparently, Cain was going to be living in a pink home.
Cain paid the driver and helped Jeb out, along with the boxes. Upon second viewing, third, and fourth, the house was still resoundingly pink and he had the feeling that wasn’t going to change. There was something, though, that drew his attention and that just happened to the area aside, not quite the house, but far enough away for some privacy. He began drifting toward it, nudging Jeb lightly. “Go on,” he encouraged. “Go say hello and pick yourself out a room.”
It didn’t take much more than that to send Jeb hurrying off.
Cain took his time settling the boxes on the drive and lifting up one of the sliding garage doors as he studied the inside of what this area had to hold. It wasn’t exactly big, but compared to what Cain had been living in with his son, it looked like one big opportunity waiting to happen.
He started to unload the boxes inside the car hold, scant belongings littering the dusty area while he began to concoct plans of change inside his mind - and maybe even a slapped coat of paint that wasn’t so glaringly girlish.
Some time later, hours later maybe or maybe just minutes, Jeb came wandering outside, the side door slamming behind him as he sprinted for Cain’s side, wearing a wide grin on his face. He skidded to a halt behind Cain and waited for his father to pick him up into his arms. “You’re getting too heavy for this,” Cain admitted, shifting Jeb in his arms. He was still a skinny child, but was slowly getting some meat on his bones. “You get a room?”
“Yup. It has a bed!” he announced proudly. “And there’s room to run around and a place to eat and lots more.” He rested his arm on Cain’s shoulder. “Where’re you gonna sleep? With Az or Ambrose?”
“Neither, son,” Cain replied, bemused at that and making a note to have a conversation later with Jeb about what was polite to do in company and what wasn’t. “Think I’ll set myself up in here,” he said, looking around the empty space and seeing nothing but possibilities.
“In the little pink house?” Jeb asked.
Well, it’d been perfect until that. “Yeah, Jeb,” Cain agreed, rolling his eyes. “Dad’s going to live in a little pink house.”
“Like a doll,” Jeb said studiously and very seriously.
Well, at least Cain had some influence on what the inside was going to look like.
--
When Wyatt Cain was officially elected Sheriff of the town of Baker - and his victory had been no surprise when it came down to the fact that he’d easily charmed the little town with his simple ways -- there was a barbecue held in his honor down in one of the local parks. He hadn’t asked for it, but that was just one of the reasons that people took to him like ducks took to water. He was modest and did his work without asking for anything and was so bound to duty that he’d make an appearance for even the smallest call put in.
Unfortunately, that had led to a number of fake calls from overzealous young women who happened to like the new Sheriff’s physical attributes. The need for CPR in Baker had gone up about seventy-five percent since Cain took office.
Annie had started weeding out those calls by answering with ‘CPR? I’ll send Smoky straightaway’. Smoky was the twitchy deputy that Cain had managed to get to know during his time as acting sheriff to discover that he’d developed the shakes from a little too much coffee. Through a group effort, they were trying to wean him off the stuff.
Cain was circulating through the party while he kept a wary eye on Jeb, who was playing a game with some of the other local children. The crowd was intimate and didn’t have the kind of size to it that made him begin to worry about his son being snatched by erstwhile kidnappers slipping through from the O.Z.
So he did his best to relax and enjoy the day and the party thrown for him.
“Can I interest you in a burger, Sheriff?” the woman manning the grill asked and he wandered his way over to tip his hat to her. She was a professor at the local college and Cain supposed that Ambrose knew her well enough. Cain actually liked her a fair deal, seeing as she always had a kind word to say to him or about him - rather, about his demeanor and clothes, being that he ‘reminded her of a cowboy’, whatever that meant. Doctor Jane Walker was a fine woman, Cain had already resolved himself to thinking and she hadn’t done anything but improve upon her first impressions.
She also seemed to be taking delight in calling him Sheriff and so Cain assumed she’d put a vote in for him. “It’d be hard to say no, ma’am,” he said politely and took the plate she handed him. He didn’t leave immediately, knowing there were a lot of people to thank and hands to shake, but he had time to do that later. “Thanks for the contributions,” he said, seriously. “Most people don’t understand how much it takes to put a thing like this together.”
“You know, you don’t have to talk about work with me,” Jane pointed out. “You ought to enjoy your victory and not act so serious all the time. How old are you anyway? Can’t be over thirty.”
“Twenty-eight,” Cain agreed, biting back the ‘annuals’ part of that sentence, the same one that’d gotten him found out by Ambrose.
“Young for a Sheriff,” Jane observed with a pointed nod. “Even if you act like you’re going on fifty.”
Cain arched a brow at that beneath the brim of his hat, but Jane just pointed at him with the pair of grease-laden tongs that she was using to flip the meat on the grill. “So, tell me more about this cowboy thing. At least, in terms of these poems you look at. People actually sit down and put a couple rhyming couplets together about men like me?” It was a strange concept to get behind.
And just as always, Jane got that dazed and happy smile on her face when they always got around to the topic of cowboys. She had a habit of acting stupid around him, as if he were right from one of the pages of her poems, even if he kept insisting he was just like the next man over.
She’d disagreed on that fact, saying that being a cowboy had more to do than the clothes and had everything to do with the outlook on life and the way that Cain acted went hand-in-hand with that lifestyle, apparently.
“One day, I’ll get you reading it,” she warned, still waggling those tongs around. “Not just men, you know. There’s some excellent examples of women in Western poetry,” she added, almost sounding like she were lecturing.
“I’m not big on reading,” Cain admitted and then she grinned broadly again. “Let me guess, indicative of the cowboy lifestyle?”
“You got it, partner,” she teased in return. They turned to watch the kids running around, pretending to be birds or some-such by the way their arms were stretched out and they were sprinting around.
In the time Jane was distracted by watching Jeb and his new friends, Cain scanned the crowd to see if Ambrose and Azkadellia would be making an appearance. Not that he expected them to or they had to, but it still would have been somewhat nice to have a little bit of support from people who knew him inside and out for who he really was.
He didn’t see one of Ambrose’s telltale coats or Azkadellia’s unique hair, so he turned his attention back to Jane.
“Jeb seems to be fitting in,” she observed. “How has he enjoyed school?”
He’d lost that argument only days back to Ambrose and Jeb had been enrolled to school and had made it through the first few days. Apparently, he had loved it, or so he said when he’d come trampling home. It had made Cain just slam his palm to his forehead to bite back the frustrated shout about how Jeb had spent months not wanting to set foot even near a school.
And now he seemed to be Mr. Popularity when it came to the first grade subset. Every day, he’d come home with a story about his new friends or what shiny new honor he’d been given for being good at something or other.
“He’s…blending right in,” Cain agreed, an ironic laugh bubbling past his lips, seeing as Jane wouldn’t have a single idea what he was talking about, but he was amusing himself with the double-meaning of those words. “I think we’re finally making a home for ourselves here.”
“As opposed to…”
“Uh, Colorado,” Cain managed, picking out the only place he’d managed to learn about and only via those poems that Jane had pushed in his direction. “After the accident, it was time for a new start.” And that was all he ever said of Adora. There had been an accident. And now Cain wore his wedding ring, but lived alone and the whole community knew as much and whispered a lot about him being a widower.
Well, that was when they weren’t whispering about the fact that he lived in the car hold of Professor Brown’s place.
“Well, we’re happy to have you,” Jane said, her own eyes scanning the crowd for someone and Cain momentarily wondered just who it was she was looking for, but he took it as a sign that he ought to start making his way to the front of the crowd to give the words of thanks he owed.
He shook hands, he kissed cheeks, he smiled and he let himself get carried away in the happy sentiment of the party and when he made it to the front of the group, he lifted a hand to greet everyone. “Well, I guess I’m your new Sheriff,” he started, tipping his hat to the crowd out of respect. “Here’s to as many good annuals as we can have.”
It was probably just the way the good mood had lulled him into a sense of security, but he hadn’t even noticed his slip-up. All Cain could hope (in that moment of realizing what he’d done) was that no one else had picked up on it either.
Instead of correcting himself, he started launching into his prepared speech.
“So let’s talk about Baker and what we’re going to do together…”
--
It was still odd to be living with people was Cain’s view on the subject. Even as removed as he was out in the car-hold - the still pink car-hold as he was glared at every time he brought up the subject of repainting it at breakfast - he still ate meals with these people and held conversation and co-existed in a way he hadn’t expected to do with one of the Princesses of the O.Z. and a royal advisor. Beyond the adjusting to the communal living, Cain found himself making small changes as the months passed in Baker.
One little thing was the descent into ‘normal’ clothing. Cain found that the little pink house tended to keep heat in and so he opted for nothing like what he might have worn back in the O.Z., wearing a black sleeveless shirt instead. He justified the use of it with the fact that no one ever saw him beyond his son and occasionally Ambrose and Azkadellia.
He didn’t read like Ambrose did and he only drew with the crayons when Jeb made him, so most of Cain’s spare time was spent keeping himself in physical shape. One of the first additions to the small room had been a padded floor-space for curl-ups and push-ups and a reinforced bar put in to do chin-ups.
Each time he thought to be lax or to ignore it, he just thought to himself that keeping himself in decent shape could save the kids’ lives one day, so he sucked it up and did his work. He also kept the notion in mind that he wasn’t doing anything else anyway, so why not spend his time training.
He was in the middle of chin-ups when there was a knock on the door, which in itself was strange. Jeb tended to let himself in after announcing himself and Ambrose tended to not ever come out there, which left only one possibility.
Cain was decent in his black ‘tank-top’ (as the locals called it) and cotton trousers and he grasped a towel to dry off his sweat as he pulled open the door and bowed his head to Azkadellia. “Hey, kiddo,” he greeted, a bit out of breath. “Something wrong?”
“I’m bored,” she announced, bringing her backpack into his place.
“Where’s Jeb?”
“Still at school,” she answered sunnily. “He’s playing baseball with a team and I’m going to pick him up when he’s done.” She immediately arranged herself on Cain’s bed, digging out her texts and looking up at Cain with wide eyes. “I thought maybe we could talk about my history homework.”
“Sounds like something Ambrose ought to do,” Cain said honestly, checking the clock he kept in the room. It was half-past-four and he’d been off work only an hour and a half, seeing as he’d gone in early that day. He’d go with Azkadellia to pick up Jeb sooner rather than later, but he was still curious why she’d come to him. “He working late tonight?”
“Yes. But that’s inconsequential,” she said, stubbornly. “It’s your help I’d like.” She flipped open the pages of her textbook and spun it to show Cain pictures of gruesome battles and tiny text. “Our homework is to speak about the strategy of the War of 1812 and I would very much like your opinion on the matter, being a Tin Man.”
Cain approached after tossing the towel in a pile by the corner, pulling up a chair and grasping Azkadellia’s text and craning his neck to read about it. “This seems a lot like me doing your work for you,” he pointed out with a bemused look, handing the text right back.
She shook her head quickly. “Oh, no, no, I don’t mean it like that.”
She proceeded to launch into a twenty minute explanation about the strategies, very serious about the whole thing and sprinkling in references where she could. Cain listened to what she had to say and then offered his own opinion on the subject and what he would have done if he’d been in charge. The whole battle seemed vaguely familiar, but he’d never been one to study Slipper Theories or History, so he only had a passing knowledge of battles fought that weren’t the ones he’d participated in as a Tin Man.
By the end of it, Azkadellia had a page of well-written and concise notes with Cain’s penmanship sprinkled throughout.
She was looking at him differently than she did a while back and Cain tried to ignore it. He wasn’t supposed to be making attachments; his sole purpose in that world was to keep an eye out for both her and Ambrose. He was only important to the plan until they made their way back. He wasn’t supposed to be forging any kind of…well, feelings.
Another check to the clock told Cain that it was long past time to go fetch Jeb.
“You coming along?” It was a question only because he wanted to be polite and let Azkadellia think she had a voice in the process. With Ambrose out of the house, there was no way he was leaving her alone and he extended a hand to her after sliding into a paisley-button-down.
She took his hand, even if hand-holding didn’t seem to be as common when it came to the Otherside. As far as Cain was concerned, it was a method of protection and a way to make sure she didn’t stray too far. It was comforting to have her near and made him think back to many a conversation with Adora about trying for a daughter.
It was too late for that, but he could treat Azkadellia like one and make sure she grew up without a care in the world about the things that went bump in the dark.
He locked up the house, taking along his hat with them and kept a concealed knife in a holster under his jeans - just in case. “Do you really think we’ll need that?” Azkadellia had asked carefully upon seeing it. Cain had replied with a ‘better safe than sorry’. He also made a mental note to start teaching Azkadellia how to use a couple of tangible weapons, if only how to fire a gun. Jeb already was well-trained with the gun and getting there with a stick. When he was old enough, Cain would find a sword for him. Swords might not have their place on the Otherside, these days, but back in the O.Z., they were all the rage depending on where you were.
The walk to the elementary school was a five-minute uphill walk and they could see the young children playing around the baseball diamond before they actually arrived. To Cain’s pleasure, Jeb seemed to be outrunning most of the other kids, even if the part of the game where Jeb had to wield a bat was a bit stilted.
Azkadellia tightened her grip on Cain’s hand and he glanced her way to check if she was okay, not knowing why the sudden need for a tighter grip. She wasn’t readily explaining it either. Cain supposed, really, that it might have been the number of children around DG’s age playing with Jeb, maybe even the resemblance from that one dark-haired one.
So he leaned over and nudged her shoulder. “I’m here,” he reassured her.
They sat by the chain-link fence while they played, not interrupting anything. Cain sat on the dusty bench and Azkadellia stood in front of him, her slender fingers winding through the chains, occasionally clapping and whistling and shouting Jeb’s name in an encouraging way that made Cain smile at her fervor. She was actually smiling and that was the biggest, most marked change Cain had seen in the girl since he had first met her a while back.
The game turned into something else and Jeb bounded over toward them, pushing his dirty hands against Azkadellia’s hip. “Tag!” he announced.
He was met by confused stares from both Azkadellia and Cain - who stood up to greet Jeb properly. “What’s a tag?” Azkadellia asked curiously.
“I don’t know, but you touch a person and say it and then they have to chase you and maybe eat you when they get you,” Jeb rambled the words out rapid-fire. Cain and Azkadellia both tilted their heads to one angle, which only seemed to push Jeb even harder to explain. “And then the winner gets a crown or something is Azkadellia my sister?”
The question was asked without even a breath taken and Azkadellia was in no condition to answer, judging from both her bewildered stare and the sadness that came over her at the sheer mention of ‘sister’, so Cain took hold of the answer.
“No, Jeb,” he explained patiently, enduring all the pushes and ‘tag, tag, tag’s that Jeb was giving him as he explained. “She’d be your step-sister if I was married to one of her parents, but we just live in her house because Ambrose and Azkadellia are nice enough to let us stay.”
That seemed to cause Jeb some confusion. He’d been too young to remember much about royal lineage, so he turned to Azkadellia. “Ambrose isn’t your father?” he asked curiously.
“We say he’s my Uncle,” Azkadellia replied dutifully, hands smoothing out her dress gently, her mouth open as if she were stuck and didn’t know how to answer. “But he treats me like a father should. He does more than an adequate parenting job.”
“See?” Cain said, glancing to Jeb. “So you’re just roommates.”
“Unless you marry Ambrose,” Jeb agreed with a nod of understanding.
Cain nearly launched into a speech why that was still convoluted and how it wasn’t going to happen, but Jeb had already grasped hold of Azkadellia’s hand and was telling her more about this game of ‘Tag’, more about the baseball game, and all about the paintings they were making at school and Cain didn’t have the heart to interrupt that just to harp on a point that Jeb probably wouldn’t properly understand for another annual or so.
Besides, he looked happy. Cain didn’t feel like ruining that mood, so he let him think whatever he wanted as they walked back home - Azkadellia and Jeb hand in hand with Cain protecting the both of them.
--
The tests were graded, the sun was shining, he and the students were stuck in a big lecture hall with no windows, and it was time for Actual Learning. Most everyone had done very well on the test, and Ambrose found himself honestly proud of them. They’d managed to learn an entire semester’s worth of required information in less time than he’d even dared to truly hope. Sure, he’d written it in the syllabus and outlined the entire thing to no end before the class even started, but their achievement still made him proud.
He was almost surprised that his entire class had shown up the day after the test. Almost. Attendance in his class wasn’t exactly optional, since they’d either shown up every day or failed the test. With what was technically the final (since he doubted any of them would be honestly able to succeed in the very end with the project) already done, half of them could have not shown up, but they were all sitting in their seats, looking apprehensively at the fact that Ambrose had not one, not three, but seven chalkboards, all lined up, and Ambrose was beaming at the class.
“The sun’s very nice out, so we’re only going to have half the class indoors, considering these chalkboards are actually for all of you instead of me,” he said cheerfully, and held up a box of chalk. “I’m fairly certain I’ll end up needing more than seven for you all, but it seemed like a good starting point.”
There was shifting, and murmuring, and all-around looks of anxiety. But Ambrose was still smiling, so they didn’t seem too terrified, at least.
“Your assignment…” he paused, and shrugged a bit sheepishly, pulling the first board up and yanking out a piece of chalk, writing the basics as he explained to the class. “It’s my belief that the best way to learn is by doing. And in political science, that’d be rather difficult, but I’m fairly certain this will help you out.
“You will invent a country, one about the size of Kansas, although the geography of it is entirely up to you and your group, if you choose to have one. You can work individually or there can be a group that is nothing but the entire class with one country.” He paused, giving them a dubious look. “I’d suggest you don’t do that though, considering things that will later be happening with your countries.” More murmurs, and he could already see the groups forming, whispering to each other and leaning across desks. “I want the basics of your country in a simple format - any format, really - at the end of the week, and the names of everyone in your group.”
“Wait, Professor,” one student said, having to practically shout from his seat in the back. “What’s the basics of a country? We’ve covered a lot.”
“And that’s why it’s entirely up to you,” Ambrose beamed. “The only suggestion I’ll make is that you pick a system of government. Keep in mind that every decision you make during this first week will be written law for the rest of the project. Whatever the basics of your country, you can’t deviate from them, no matter what else I throw at you during the exercise.” He paused. “And most importantly you can’t change anything the last day of the project, where you will probably have your country completely destroyed.”
There was a resounding exclamation of incredulity, and Ambrose politely ignored the profanity, letting them shout and gape for a few moments before he did the most attention-grabbing thing he could - take off his coat. For some reason that always seemed to snap them back to him, and it was better than throwing chalk at unsuspecting students.
“You’re having us make countries just so they can be destroyed?!”
“That’s pointless!”
“Why not just make a country that’d fail anyway?”
Ambrose grinned at them. “Your country will probably be destroyed, after it’s critiqued and challenged by a very, very special guest.”
They all groaned. “Man, he’s gonna bring in a senator or something I bet.”
“Actually, I’m bringing in my twelve-year-old niece,” Ambrose beamed, and paused. “Well, she’ll probably be thirteen by then, but she’s still my niece.”
The entire class seemed to perk up at that. Ambrose almost felt sorry for them.
He grinned, erasing the board and pulling his coat back on, shutting his briefcase. “Now. The chalkboards and chalk are open for anyone, but I’m going to be outside enjoying the sunny day. If you have any questions or want very, very small bits of advice regarding your country, and I mean very small, you can feel free to come sit around on the grass with me. Class is technically dismissed, and I’ll take this moment to innocently inform you that there’s no class in this room next period, should you want more time with the boards.” He paused. “And my office has changed to that sandstone bench with the dedication on it outside the building for the next hour, too.”
Grinning, he walked out of the classroom as groups swarmed together and quickly grabbed at chalk and boards. Ambrose was glad to see that, but for some reason he was happier to just sit on the warm bench, close his eyes, stretch out, and pretend it was a full two-sun day.
--
“I need a training bra.” Those were the first words out of Azkadellia’s mouth when he picked her up from middle school, and he stared at her. Taking that as a sign of ‘please continue so I can better understand the statement’, she explained about other girls in her gym class and how the teacher had explained that when girls got to a certain age their bodies started to change and so on, until finally Ambrose just put a hand to his forehead and said “I know what puberty is, Azkadellia.”
“Then you can help me find a training bra,” she deduced, only for Ambrose to frown. “You can’t?” The thought was astonishing to her - in Azkadellia’s mind, the only things Ambrose honestly couldn’t do were related to magic or gender.
Ambrose sighed. “Az, I don’t even know why you’d need training for it,” he said. “And the O.Z. usually uses corsets. If you wanted a corset, I could do that since contrary to what just about everyone would have you believe, men can sew-”
“Ambrose.” Her voice was quiet, but sharp enough to break him out of nervous rambling. “What has you so worried? You said you know what puberty is, why the anxiety?”
“You’re growing up. Some day you won’t even need me, and then what will I do? Just sit around and teach Otherside classes that negate years of what I’ve learned and…and bicker with Cain while you grow up?” Ambrose’s voice was honest, just like the tighter grip on her hand. Only Ambrose got to hold her hand tightly like that anymore, only he got to be the one doing the squeezing instead of being the squeezed. “Everyone grows up and everyone needs to, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the idea.”
“It’s just a training bra. I’m not about to move out of the house and marry,” Azkadellia smiled softly.
Ambrose shook his head. “One day you’ll have kids, or at least younger people to look out for, and then you’ll know what it feels like. But anyway. Training bra. I honestly don’t have a clue where to get one.” He paused, and held the front door open for her out of sheer habit, just like she bowed her head in gracious, regal thanks for the act. “Well, I’d assume some sort of clothing store, but there must be some sort of…measurement?”
“Maybe ask one of the neighbors?” Azkadellia suggested, only for Ambrose to shake his head quickly, frowning and beginning to walk around the family room. “…Ambrose, there has to be someone female that you can talk to.”
Ambrose halted, and grinned.
Fifteen minutes later a flushed Professor Jane Walker rang the doorbell of the Browns-and-Cains’ house (politically, at least, considering ‘the Browns’ owned it, but that was one argument Ambrose had too often with Cain to really think about), beaming and dressed in one of her best skirts, short hair styled expertly and…
“Are you wearing perfume?” Ambrose asked, and Jane actually blushed. “I’m sorry if I pulled you away from something, really-”
“Oh, I wasn’t doing a thing, you know what my Tuesday schedule is like,” she said, hitting his arm playfully. “Just about the only thing scheduled on Tuesdays is lunch with you after your Theoretical Something-Or-Other class.”
“It’s Theoretical Electrical Engineering and you know that already,” Ambrose said, purely out of habit. She knew the name, just never seemed to really use it. Sometimes he honestly wondered if she did it just to get him mildly annoyed. “But Azkade-”
Jane gave him a Look. He had no idea what it meant, but he guessed that from the severity of it he should shut up. “Where is she?”
“Her room,” Ambrose said, escorting her up the stairs, dodging one of Jeb’s vividly-colored balls (Cain kept telling him to stop buying Jeb more of those things, but he liked them so much that Ambrose couldn’t resist when he found the ridiculously colored ones) and knocking politely on the door, where the O.Z. was first hinted at via custom paint job done by Azkadellia herself, a pale purple with golden overtones.
“Enter,” her voice said distantly, and Ambrose stepped in first. “Oh, you brought Jane.” She blinked at the older woman, who was busy staring at the completely custom and incredibly ornate (for the Otherside) room. It was the closest either of them could get to home, and it showed. Ambrose’s coat had been immediately hung on the coat rack next to the door for that exact purpose, and Azkadellia was smiling, a textbook on her lap as she read while sitting on her bed. “Good afternoon, Jane. I hadn’t hoped you’d come this soon, but I’m grateful.”
“Dellia, your room is breathtaking,” Jane breathed out.
“Azkadellia,” both Ambrose and Azkadellia corrected immediately. Outside of the house, she didn’t have any nicknames. Princesses didn’t have them, and even though Ambrose was determined to have her live at least some of her life as a normal little girl, she was and always would be the heir to the O.Z.
“Sorry. Azkadellia,” Jane amended, smiling at the both of them. “Is this…is this what it was like back in Iceland?”
“It’s close enough,” Azkadellia said simply, not even shifting when Ambrose sat down on the bed. She handed over the textbook - it was one of his anyway - and stood, walking over to Jane. “Thank you for agreeing to help me find a training bra.”
“Of course I’ll help,” Jane said, sounding both dumbfounded and embarrassed, cheeks reddening one more time. “Poor girl like you trapped in a house with nobody but Ambrose and the Cains around? You must be drowning in testosterone.”
“Hey,” Ambrose called out, voice amused, dark eyes flicking from the textbook up to grin at Jane. “Azkadellia can swim very well, thank you.”
“Smothered, then,” Jane said, voice a bit squeaky, and she stepped out of the door, Azkadellia following with a smile as she closed the door on Ambrose’s chuckling. Jane laughed a bit uneasily. “He really is always like that, isn’t he.”
“No,” Azkadellia replied honestly. “But he’s almost always himself.” She grabbed her coat, a red one that covered her to the shins, and an unfashionably small black purse. Jane chuckled, and when the front door shut behind them, Azkadellia managed to make Jane practically shriek with her question. “So how long have you had a crush on Ambrose?”
“I…” Jane said, uneasy and clutching her own purse, looking at Azkadellia like a guilty convict in front of a judge. “…am I that obvious?”
“Only because he’s so dumb when it comes to the concept,” Azkadellia sighed, climbing into the passenger side of Jane’s car, looking at the interior like it was a new form of art. “Ambrose is exceedingly brilliant, wonderful at reading people, but I’ve never seen him flirt. Or realize someone is flirting with him. I’m not quite sure he knows it even exists.”
Jane was hooked on Azkadellia’s words during the drive. “So he’s not just…not interested or something?” She continuously glanced from the road to her passenger and then back. “Or, you know, playing for the other team?”
“I’m not quite sure what you mean, but I doubt it matters.” Team usually meant groups, and apparently the Otherside had different views on sexuality than the O.Z. considering that honestly, back home, gender never really mattered when it came to relationships anyway. “He’s not in a relationship, and he’s just too dense to realize that he could be in one. I know he cares about you.”
“Really? How?” They were already pulling into a parking spot.
Azkadellia’s smile was a far darker one than Jane was probably used to. Ironically, she’d learned it from Ambrose. “He let you take me out without coming along. That means he trusts you. And he can’t trust someone without caring about them. It’s practically instinct for him.”
Jane smiled back. “And you could maybe help me get through to him somehow?”
“It’d be for his own good,” Azkadellia said honestly. “Most of his adult contact is either at work or bickering with Cain.”
And Jane just laughed and laughed and laughed.
When they returned to the pink house, they could already hear the bickering, and then Cain walking out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, where he was brooding. Again. He greeted them both when they walked through the door, looking very…something at Jane’s presence in the house but still being polite, and they walked into the kitchen.
Since Ambrose was cooking pasta, Azkadellia knew he’d had a stressful enough day already. Puberty had probably hit him much harder than she’d thought, in all honesty, and she nearly regretted what they were about to do. Almost.
“Don’t you ever get tired of cooking for all of us?” Azkadellia asked, putting her little purse and coat back.
“Was your trip successful?” Ambrose asked, completely ignoring the question as he eyed the big white bag Jane set on the countertop. “…or should I ask if it was it on sale.”
Jane laughed, Azkadellia smiled lightly, and she looked straight up in his eyes. “I don’t want you to cook tomorrow. You always end up cooking dinner for us, and Jane wants to take you to dinner. I think it’s a good idea.”
Ambrose blinked, looking like she’d just informed him that she intended to run away and live a life of prostitution, because that was just about how bad he imagined Cain’s cooking was. Not that he’d ever tasted it, but the thought was still unpleasant. “But I always cook-”
“It’s more for my benefit, Ambrose,” Jane smiled at him, and carefully took hold of his left hand. She paused to take the oven mitt off, laughing at that, and then held his hand in both of hers. “Ambrose, I am asking you out on a date with me. To go to dinner with me tomorrow night.” She winked. “Promise you can be home by nine, too.”
Ambrose gaped at her. “I…date…what?”
She cleared her throat, already having been prepared for this single bit of stupidity that Ambrose apparently had. “I like you in that kindergarten kind of way of like-liking someone.”
“Yes, I figured that out-”
“And if you’re willing, I’d like to explore where our relationship could go,” Jane said simply, and then waited.
Ambrose looked at Jane for a long time, glanced at Azkadellia, and then looked back at Jane. “I’d like that,” he smiled, and pulled his hand away as some buzzer or other went off. “Thank you for helping Azkadellia, and I’ll see you tomorrow night, then. I’m assuming we can just work out the details tomorrow at the college.”
Jane looked just about as dumbfounded as Ambrose had a few minutes ago. He’d been acting like a blushing virgin (without the blushing part) moments before, and now it was practically business. But then again, she reminded herself that his niece was in the room and that definitely wasn’t something that would make a man like Ambrose suddenly act like anything other than a gentleman. So she smiled.
“Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said simply, face shining like she’d just won the lottery, and walked herself out the door, an extra bounce in her step even as she got in her sedan, making the car rev happily all the way through Baker as she drove home.
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Don't kill us. :D