Fic: i could tell you why (the ocean is near the shore) [Tin Man, Glitch/Cain, pg-13]
I was not that interested at first. Heroes was going to shit and SciFi was banging a lot of drums about their new miniseries, so I was like, okay, I'll check it out.
OMGflkkjasdfkjghtnvljksdflkSQUEEE.
Tin Man has got to be the best thing since peanut butter. I mean, Alan Cumming! Snark! Mysticism! Flying tit monkeys! And even though Zooey Deschenael has all the acting skills of white bread (more on this later), los dos compadres Glitch and Cain give it all back. Maybe this is reason they are the flagship pairing of the fandom. Or maybe it's because, you know, they are just made of awesome.
And so, lo! In their honor, there be light fic.
i could tell you why (the ocean is near the shore)
written for the sekrit cabal ficlet battle
tin man; pg-13. glitch / cain
She comes to you in the night, these years still. Always so beautiful: the kind of woman who burns so bright she puts herself in a glass case to illuminate others. You were never sure if those walls were there to keep her in or to keep you out, but you could feel then when you held her. You used to lie in bed, you remember (and isn't that a wonder, after all that happened?). There was a time you could tangle her hands up in yours, kiss her wrists and in those moments you could feel life, love, maybe even happiness throbbing against your lips. You were happy, back then-of course you were. You were happy and never wanted anything more, until you did.
*
"It wasn't your fault," she says. "What happened, I mean. None of it was."
It's sunny today-it always is-the earth is hard and warm underneath your body as you both dry out. Somewhere beyond your boots, the river gurgles like a content baby, or maybe it's a pianist playing something beautiful. She's beside you; you're not sure where the others are. They seem to have a tendency for wandering off.
She's leaning a little, now. You're pretty sure where this is going. Her eyes are blank and flat, slates waiting to be written on, and the distance between you is closing in fractions like a zipper being draw up one tooth at a time. The suns shimmer on the water. You have the absurd notion to ask her for chalk.
"It wasn't your fault," she repeats, and on your lips you can feel the warmth of her breath, which is strange because there's none in her voice. "You have to stop grieving."
And you like DG, you really do, she's like the daughter you never had, but this isn't right. It doesn't stop you from feeling around a little, though. You tell yourself you're looking for rough edges, and when you don't find any, you consider that you might hate yourself a little bit more.
*
You used to be apart from her, even before he came, took her away from you. Just got tired of her sometimes. Got up and left. You had your job, your distractions, but most importantly, you had your excuse, which went like this: I am important, I love you.
And it was true, wasn't it? (Wasn't it?) You kept the peace, held in the palm of your hand, and then you shaped it. Your skin used to buzz with that greedy little feeling of being important. The world seemed to be brighter each time you had a hand in its running. You were a god-the ocean was in your right hand and a twist of metal in your left. Suns rose and fell in your eyes, and you never, ever thought there might be a day when they wouldn't get back up again.
The point is, you used to change things. Now you just change.
*
People say that life ends and begins in white. It doesn't really, though. White isn't grand enough for that. White is the color of transience; it's the color of waiting. An eternity tucked into the space between the strike and the blow.
Central City used to be white. Sun-loving, sun-light; gleaming ivory. In one minute, the sharp turrets a fairy-tale palace made of shells, teeth rising from the land in the next. A hungry sort of white.
It was beautiful. It was cruel. It was a stopped clock, and all of you dancing on its face.
Middles. Endings. Beginnings. They're the all the same, after a while, and when you touch his skin all you can feel is snow.
*
You measure time by emotion. Before him, after him. Not your broken one but the one sharp all the same. He's a dulled blade in your memory, a sword left too long in the armory; there's a reason why the more humane soldiers keep them sharp. Dull edges are slower, but they don't cut clean when they stab you. It's even worse when they stab you in the back.
You were powerless against him: a witch with no emerald, a key with no lock. Tears in the morning and fists beating brass and tin at night. After that man (that man) got ahold of her, you stayed, but it's not like you had a choice in the matter. You were trapped there by something far bigger than yourself.
*
In the South, the colors change. Everything there seems a little bit more sinister, a little brighter, a little faster. Something about the moss on the trees makes you want to find a safe harbor. You're glad to be rid of it when you leave. It's in the South that you realize you've forgotten her face.
*
This is what you tell yourself:
That man came out of nowhere; it's not like you could have done anything. Or maybe you did everything you could. It's not your fault she's gone.
This, you know, is a lie. If you had been a little smarter, a little faster, a little stronger, you could have beat Fate at her own card game. If you had taken the time to read the clouds for the coming storm; if you had been a garter snake instead of an adder and slipped past their heels. You had as many chances as there are stars, and they slipped through your fingers like sand in an hourglass, each fallen grain a reminder of the time that is running out.
"It wasn't my fault," you say, and in the empty space it echoes.
This is a lie, but it doesn't matter. This is what you must believe.
*
"I love you," she says. "I'm sure I do."
"No," you say. "No, you don't."
She frowns, and her voice as bland and clean as the rain that pelts his window the nights you stay in his bed, after. "Why don't you believe me?"
You're as timeless as the moons. You serve the universe in all your humanity, and none of your humility. You want to assure her that you've got the answer written down, somewhere, and you just have to find it.
*
Why do we measure love by loss? Your not-daughter is gone, back to wherever she came from, and you know you care about her because now that she's not yours, you want her back. In the same way you know you loved the woman who came before her. Maybe that woman's name was Adora, maybe you can't remember. Maybe her eyes were lavender and there's a zipper in your head, or her eyes were your little boy's bright blue and there's a hunk of muscle in your chest that someone might have once called a heart. All you know is that what was there, isn't anymore, and you can tell from the pain that's there instead.
*
The thing is, opposites attract, and people of all sorts knock together just to fill the empty spaces. That's all this is, and when you lose him too, it won't hurt, because it won't ever be anything more than what it already is.
Strange bedfellows, isn't that what they say? Two people looking for warmth in a cold place.
He's not perfect, but he'll do. You're both a little bit broken; maybe more in some places, less in others. Not the same, of course, but jagged edges will always lock together, if you jostle them around a little bit.
OMGflkkjasdfkjghtnvljksdflkSQUEEE.
Tin Man has got to be the best thing since peanut butter. I mean, Alan Cumming! Snark! Mysticism! Flying tit monkeys! And even though Zooey Deschenael has all the acting skills of white bread (more on this later), los dos compadres Glitch and Cain give it all back. Maybe this is reason they are the flagship pairing of the fandom. Or maybe it's because, you know, they are just made of awesome.
And so, lo! In their honor, there be light fic.
i could tell you why (the ocean is near the shore)
written for the sekrit cabal ficlet battle
tin man; pg-13. glitch / cain
She comes to you in the night, these years still. Always so beautiful: the kind of woman who burns so bright she puts herself in a glass case to illuminate others. You were never sure if those walls were there to keep her in or to keep you out, but you could feel then when you held her. You used to lie in bed, you remember (and isn't that a wonder, after all that happened?). There was a time you could tangle her hands up in yours, kiss her wrists and in those moments you could feel life, love, maybe even happiness throbbing against your lips. You were happy, back then-of course you were. You were happy and never wanted anything more, until you did.
*
"It wasn't your fault," she says. "What happened, I mean. None of it was."
It's sunny today-it always is-the earth is hard and warm underneath your body as you both dry out. Somewhere beyond your boots, the river gurgles like a content baby, or maybe it's a pianist playing something beautiful. She's beside you; you're not sure where the others are. They seem to have a tendency for wandering off.
She's leaning a little, now. You're pretty sure where this is going. Her eyes are blank and flat, slates waiting to be written on, and the distance between you is closing in fractions like a zipper being draw up one tooth at a time. The suns shimmer on the water. You have the absurd notion to ask her for chalk.
"It wasn't your fault," she repeats, and on your lips you can feel the warmth of her breath, which is strange because there's none in her voice. "You have to stop grieving."
And you like DG, you really do, she's like the daughter you never had, but this isn't right. It doesn't stop you from feeling around a little, though. You tell yourself you're looking for rough edges, and when you don't find any, you consider that you might hate yourself a little bit more.
*
You used to be apart from her, even before he came, took her away from you. Just got tired of her sometimes. Got up and left. You had your job, your distractions, but most importantly, you had your excuse, which went like this: I am important, I love you.
And it was true, wasn't it? (Wasn't it?) You kept the peace, held in the palm of your hand, and then you shaped it. Your skin used to buzz with that greedy little feeling of being important. The world seemed to be brighter each time you had a hand in its running. You were a god-the ocean was in your right hand and a twist of metal in your left. Suns rose and fell in your eyes, and you never, ever thought there might be a day when they wouldn't get back up again.
The point is, you used to change things. Now you just change.
*
People say that life ends and begins in white. It doesn't really, though. White isn't grand enough for that. White is the color of transience; it's the color of waiting. An eternity tucked into the space between the strike and the blow.
Central City used to be white. Sun-loving, sun-light; gleaming ivory. In one minute, the sharp turrets a fairy-tale palace made of shells, teeth rising from the land in the next. A hungry sort of white.
It was beautiful. It was cruel. It was a stopped clock, and all of you dancing on its face.
Middles. Endings. Beginnings. They're the all the same, after a while, and when you touch his skin all you can feel is snow.
*
You measure time by emotion. Before him, after him. Not your broken one but the one sharp all the same. He's a dulled blade in your memory, a sword left too long in the armory; there's a reason why the more humane soldiers keep them sharp. Dull edges are slower, but they don't cut clean when they stab you. It's even worse when they stab you in the back.
You were powerless against him: a witch with no emerald, a key with no lock. Tears in the morning and fists beating brass and tin at night. After that man (that man) got ahold of her, you stayed, but it's not like you had a choice in the matter. You were trapped there by something far bigger than yourself.
*
In the South, the colors change. Everything there seems a little bit more sinister, a little brighter, a little faster. Something about the moss on the trees makes you want to find a safe harbor. You're glad to be rid of it when you leave. It's in the South that you realize you've forgotten her face.
*
This is what you tell yourself:
That man came out of nowhere; it's not like you could have done anything. Or maybe you did everything you could. It's not your fault she's gone.
This, you know, is a lie. If you had been a little smarter, a little faster, a little stronger, you could have beat Fate at her own card game. If you had taken the time to read the clouds for the coming storm; if you had been a garter snake instead of an adder and slipped past their heels. You had as many chances as there are stars, and they slipped through your fingers like sand in an hourglass, each fallen grain a reminder of the time that is running out.
"It wasn't my fault," you say, and in the empty space it echoes.
This is a lie, but it doesn't matter. This is what you must believe.
*
"I love you," she says. "I'm sure I do."
"No," you say. "No, you don't."
She frowns, and her voice as bland and clean as the rain that pelts his window the nights you stay in his bed, after. "Why don't you believe me?"
You're as timeless as the moons. You serve the universe in all your humanity, and none of your humility. You want to assure her that you've got the answer written down, somewhere, and you just have to find it.
*
Why do we measure love by loss? Your not-daughter is gone, back to wherever she came from, and you know you care about her because now that she's not yours, you want her back. In the same way you know you loved the woman who came before her. Maybe that woman's name was Adora, maybe you can't remember. Maybe her eyes were lavender and there's a zipper in your head, or her eyes were your little boy's bright blue and there's a hunk of muscle in your chest that someone might have once called a heart. All you know is that what was there, isn't anymore, and you can tell from the pain that's there instead.
*
The thing is, opposites attract, and people of all sorts knock together just to fill the empty spaces. That's all this is, and when you lose him too, it won't hurt, because it won't ever be anything more than what it already is.
Strange bedfellows, isn't that what they say? Two people looking for warmth in a cold place.
He's not perfect, but he'll do. You're both a little bit broken; maybe more in some places, less in others. Not the same, of course, but jagged edges will always lock together, if you jostle them around a little bit.