"Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run"
Title: Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
Author: Rissy James
Characters: Cain, DG, Glitch, Raw (appearances by: Jeb, Tutor, Lavender, Azkadellia, Ahamo)
Pairing: Cain/DG
Rating: 14+ (subject to change)
Summary: The fade to black was merely the blink of an eye. Respite for only seconds. After all, the road is long.
Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
When Last We Met: Cain arrives in Central City after six months at Glitch's behest to learn that the regency of Lady Lavender is soon to come to an end, and the threat of rebellion to place DG on the throne in her sister's place looms on the horizon. His return to Central City is marred as he tries to ignore the hurt and ruin he left behind, and what now must be done to repair it.
Chapter Three: Shame and Shadow
Some said that Central City never slept. Ten annuals ago, Cain would have agreed, but those nights were long gone and these were not the streets he used to walk.
He'd left Glitch in the conference room, walked right on out after coming to the realization that there would be no going back to his own bed for a good long while. Somewhere along the line, he seemed to have taken a leaf out of DG's book; his only inclination was to run. Too bad he couldn't get far. The room they'd prepared for him was part of the family residence. Easy as breathing, he'd waltzed right into a trap and now he couldn't get out.
He was needed, there was no escaping it. Whether Lavender stepped down or died from her own stubbornness, the situation in the O.Z. was about to change. What happened next would be anyone's guess.
So here he was, part of a contingency plan. If he'd had an optimistic side, it would have been telling him least-ways this time it was all laid out before him, black-and-white, fine print already read; no, he wouldn't be on the tail of a memory-driven princess, dragged to every Gods-forsaken corner of the Zone. However, he didn't have an optimistic side, and he was in a dour mood by the time his boots hit the street and he was able to breathe the free air outside the palace gates.
It didn't take long to get out of the Central district; he chose a direct route and didn't look back. A narrow, winding corridor of stairs took him up to the second level; the grating clanged beneath his feet, but he didn't see a soul around to be bothered by the racket. He came out in the north sector of the Bellicose district, close to the apartment he and Adora - and later on, Jeb - had called home during his annuals working under the Mystic Man.
He recognized these streets, each sign, window, and door-step. The entire block was deserted, and not a light shone from any of the windows above him; the street-lamps cast their harsh light, creating shadows that were all the darker. No life seemed to linger here, and it was this thought that finally helped Cain to begin to calm. With a drawn-out sigh, he leaned his back against the brick wall, eyes closed and ears pricked.
Central City, the only true stronghold of the royal family; her defences had toppled against the treachery of the Sorceress. The last stand of the city had failed almost too easily, as if Azkadellia had breezed in by invitation. The loss of the Tin Men had been nothing in the pale light of morning; news had travelled to Finaqua - and Queen Lavender - of her final defeat. By the following night, before the fires in Central City had burned themselves out, Lavender had fallen to her daughter, and the beast that fed off her.
He'd seen all this in Glitch's memory, Raw's mirror-vision in the dirty looking glass of safe-house. As Ambrose had delivered the grievous news to his doomed queen, Wyatt Cain had been laying low, waiting for his opportunity to smuggle himself out of the city; thoughts of his own failure had been far from his mind, his singular concern was for his wife and son. He hadn't known then that the end would come so soon.
Cain shook his head, his chin almost brushing against his chest as he pushed back the onslaught of his memories, that painful clench in his chest that reminded him always that a heart beat under his fragile flesh, vulnerable and battered, a survivor where all else had perished.
The drone of the city helped to ground him, kept him from falling head-first into the raging flood that was his loss. It was a fight to keep the guilt where it belonged, waiting for the numbness that would eventually return. Old wounds had been torn afresh and did not easily heal a second time.
How long he stayed leaning up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest - for the ease, for the comfort, for the protection of his ever-beating heart - he couldn't say, but soon a distant bell rang out the hour of three, and he was brought out of his meditation only to realize that he was stiff, cold, and still indefinitely stuck in Central City.
The walk back to the palace was a long one. He chose a different path, though what caused him to decide on the particular series of twists and turns, he wasn't sure. Cain knew the city by heart, the people and businesses may have changed, but the streets and walkways never did. By the time he'd wound up back in the Central district, he was thinking about the bed that waited for him. Whatever dreams also loomed inevitable, he was too tired to venture a guess, or even care to.
As luck would have it, sleep was driven completely from his mind as the palace gates came into his view. It was the brightest street he'd been on, so there was no mistaking the darkened shadow that cut across the shafts of light cast by the high lamps that lined the gate. A hazy blackness, there and then gone in the blink of an eye, but Cain wasn't one to blink at the wrong moment. The shadow was on the move. He watched as it ducked into an alley.
He could have ignored it; he could have shut his eyes and shaken his head and told himself that he was getting old, and overdue to hit his own sheets. The long hours on the road that day were finally catching up to him and exhaustion was playing tricks on his mind; it would have made a fine excuse, and no one would have blamed him for it. As it was, he only had time to growl to himself before he was doubling back the way he'd come.
Quick as a runner scout, Cain didn't stop until he reached the alley's far-end. Considering that he was taking a big chance on who - or what - he would find, he was surprisingly calm; there was no race to his pulse or pound to his heart, but for what his sprint had caused. There was only the cool damp of the city air as he breathed it in, the touch of it on his cheeks and hands, the back of his neck. He listened.
For a shadow, it made no attempt to quiet the sound feet made on the pavement. The alley was little more than a walkway cut between two of the towers that crowded the Central district, and the beat of hard-soled shoes echoed loudly; whoever it was, they weren't running, but they were hurrying nonetheless. The sound approached him, and the blurry shadow passed him; close up, he could see the outline of a hooded figure within the unnatural gathering of darkness. The strange figure came to a stop on the street, and the concealing cloud of shadow dissipated, leaving only the person who'd summoned it.
He hadn't been noticed; the street on which they now stood was overshadowed by tall towers, in plain sight of dozens of windows. The few lights that shone were reflected in every bit of brass around them, star-bursts rising up the tower faces into the darkness. There was no second level to impede the eye's climb to the dizzying heights of the spires far above. Beyond that, lost in the blackness, was the sky, the moons, and the true stars.
Cain cleared his throat, raising his head just as the cloaked figure turned; just as he'd expected, he found himself face to face with DG. For the briefest moment, he saw her unguarded; then, she came to full recognition and something in her eyes shifted, and that glimpse of her was lost behind her own well-set defences.
"That shadow magic ain't gonna do you any good if you don't learn to mask your footfalls. I could hear you coming before you were halfway up the alley," he told her.
"I figured I'd be seeing you sooner or later," she said, no reaction in the slightest at his presence. "What are you doing here?" She watched him uneasily, as if he'd learned a little bit of magic of his own and had appeared out of nowhere just to torment her.
"Found myself on the receiving end of a royal summon this morning," he said. "Got here just to find out there's nothing going on yet."
Even at the vaguest mention of the trouble going on within the city walls, something inside of DG stiffened; her shoulders straightened and she lifted her chin. He knew better than to go into the finer details of what Glitch had called him to Central for. First and foremost, he was here to support DG - if and when the time came for DG to need protection instead of friendship, well... there was no use thinking to hard on that one just yet.
"Who-?"
He caught her eyes, and gave her half a smile; it was all he could muster through the chill that was slowly overtaking him. "Glitch seemed to think you could use a few more friends around."
DG nodded. "Raw is coming, too, then?"
"By the look of things, we should see him tomorrow."
That brought a smile to her lips; it was barely what one would consider a smile, but it was enough for him. "Good," she said, and it seemed that at just the thought of the Viewer's presence, all the tension went out of her and she calmed. "Were you following me?" she asked, turning to look down the dark alley. At the far end and across the street, the tall perimeter fence of the palace could be seen, lit up like daylight.
"I was heading back when I saw you jump the fence."
DG smiled a little wider; for the briefest moment, he could have sworn it was an honest one. "I didn't jump the fence, I went through it."
He raised an eyebrow. "What's the mutt been teaching you?" he asked, trying to mask genuine concern. On the one hand, she didn't need an easier way to get into trouble; on the other, it seemed wise to teach her a way of getting herself out of it.
"Horrible, deplorable, unspeakable things," she said; her mastery of deadpan worked against him now. He didn't trust magic, not by a long-shot; while he'd seen DG put it to good use with his own eyes, he'd seen and heard too much of magic's darker nature to put his faith into it. "I should get back. He'd probably be mad if he found out I was practising so late."
"He doesn't know you're out here?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "No one does, that's the point."
"You want to explain what you're doing outside at three in the morning, then?" he asked, frowning at her.
"No. Do you?" She faked a grin at him, trying to be charming and succeeding in all the wrong ways. He'd forgotten how she could move so easily between endearing and irritating.
"Fair enough," he said, long since knowing which battles to choose. "But you're walking back with me. You ain't leaving me out here in the cold."
She looked about to argue - he wouldn't have been surprised if she'd started up - but after a long moment, she gave a resigned sigh and nodded, as if granting his request (if you could call it that) was due penance. When he managed to catch her eyes, just seconds before they both entered the utter dark of the alley, he saw something he didn't like, something that reminded him too much of the wild girl who'd thrown open his tin suit without a single thought to what she might find within. She offered him that broken, weak smile again; he wondered if she knew what he saw.
The gate security barely batted an eyelash at the fact that Cain returned with DG at his side. No one asked questions, no one had a right to, but the expressions of confusion on the faces of the guards wasn't lost on Cain as he followed DG through the gate and up the long drive to the darkened palace.
"This happen often?" he asked her once they'd reached the family entrance, where more guards watched her with interest.
"No," she said. "You're going to get me in trouble, now that they've all seen me come in when they didn't see me leave." She seemed not to care what those who worked around her thought, which was in keeping with what he knew of her, but at the same time, something vital had changed. As he watched her, he realized the difference overtook everything about her, from her eyes to her step to her flighty smile.
In the safety of the elevator, he stood while she sat down on the edge of a cushioned bench. "You all right, Kid?"
She nodded absently, not looking at him. "Fine as can be expected."
"Something you need getting off your chest?"
Her eyes snapped up at him, biting and blue. "No."
No, or just not with me, Princess?
It was no secret - at least not to Cain - how much this girl and the inevitable reunion with her had crossed his mind over the past six months he'd been out of the city. While he'd never expected things to return to the way they'd been - he'd burned that bridge the night he'd said goodbye - he hadn't thought that her anger would stand in the way of friendship. He was here for her, that much was abundantly obvious and he made no attempt to hide it. Whether or not it would ever come down to his assistance being required in a more professional capacity, something was going to have to give between them. He needed to make amends, as much as it pained him. She needed to understand.
"Listen, Deege -"
She shook her head, and the simple gesture stopped whatever words he'd been meaning to say in their tracks - damn it all to hell, what could he say? He didn't need to apologize for leaving, for leaving her after she'd -
"I appreciate that you're here, Mr. Cain, I really do," DG said after a moment. Cain bit the inside of his lip to keep an outburst in check - Ozma's sake, when had they gone back to Mister? "Don't think that I need you here. This wasn't what you wanted, I know that. We can get by just fine on our own, you know, if you'd rather -"
Cain snorted. "If I'd rather what? Wouldn't be right for me to sit by while you and the zipperhead are in need."
"If you hadn't noticed, he isn't a zipperhead any more."
"I did notice. Also noticed that you don't seem yourself."
She glared at him, eyes sparking. He should have known that it would be easier to incense her than to coax her with kindness.
"How should I seem, then?" she asked, almost petulantly. The hurt in her eyes caused something deep inside to stir and ache within him. "Happy to see you? Glad you're here to watch everything fall apart?"
"It won't fall apart, DG."
"How do you - no, never mind. You know, you have some nerve. You show up in the middle of the night after half a year, expecting you can just pick up the pieces where you left them."
He opened his mouth to argue, to put her assumptions back in their place, but the next moment, the lift lurched to a stop and the doors rolled open. DG gave him one last, hard stare before turning and walking away from him, disappearing into the depths of the family residence with no trace of shadow magic involved.
Once upon a time, he would have chased after her, told her she was wrong. Instead, he let her go, and cursed himself for coming back.
Table Of Contents
One - Two - Three - Four - Five
Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten
Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen
Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen - Nineteen - Twenty
Twenty One - Twenty Two - Twenty Three - Twenty Four - Twenty Five
Twenty Six - Twenty Seven - Twenty Eight - Twenty Nine - Thirty
Thirty One - Thirty Two - Thirty Three - Thirty Four - Thirty Five
Thirty Six - Thirty Seven - Thirty Eight - Thirty Nine - Forty