Azkadellia's Okay! Part 6: Dog In Prison; Keys Lost.
Before you read, I'd just like to note actual "Otherside" events are taken into account in the plot. And that Ambrose is a very stupid drunk.
AUTHORS: andrealyn and luchia13
TITLE: Azkadellia's Okay! (With Ambrose and the Cains' help), Part 6: Dog In Prison; Keys Lost.
RATING: PG-13.
PAIRING: Ambrose/Cain (or Cain/Ambrose, whatever), 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 kids get a very disgruntled dog. Cain gets naked, and Ambrose gets completely, stupidly drunk.
Part 1: Things Explode; Iceland Blamed.
Part 2: Pink House Purchased; Introductions Ensue.
Part 3: Fight In Classroom; Landslide Victory.
Part 4: Cain Doesn't Move; Children Scream.
Part 5: Countries Massacred; Restaurant Warned.
Azkadellia's Okay!
(With Ambrose and the Cains' help)
Part 6: Dog In Prison; Keys Lost.
Tutor was not easily scared by man, mobat, or little girls. But then, that had been the kind of man he was back before the O.Z. had been scorched to pieces and sweet little girls gazed at people with a look in their eyes that made you want to shiver up and die, made you feel like all the warmth was getting sucked right out of your soul. Little DG, all of seven annuals, had taken one look at him, one good long look at him and pointed her tiny finger in his direction and had said only one word to the men in the Longcoats beside her: “Him.”
He’d flinched and had come to regret it later because now she knew that he feared her.
The jail cell had been miserable and Tutor wasn’t sure he’d go so far as to call it that. Out past Central City had long been an unused structure from a time long ago. Some said it harkened back to the days of the great Dorothy Gale and others dismissed that, calling it a recently built outpost for the City’s Tin Men. That was where he’d been taken after DG took a good long look at him and when Tutor had looked into her eyes, he’d seen something else there, something that wasn’t the little DG he knew. She was supposed to be spinning dolls, for the sake of the gods! Just spinning dolls around and around and not killing her sister or supposedly committing crimes.
He wondered how the Queen could possibly withstand it all on her own without aid of family, Royal Advisors, or men like him, weak as she was.
It wasn’t something he had to wonder long. He had been in the dank little cave of a cell for months now. Food was scarce and company was scarcer. Every now and again, he’d hear a long and terrifying scream of pain from one of the lower levels and then a girlish giggle would echo throughout the whole prison, just a quiet reminder of what happened to you eventually. It was miserable and Tutor wondered how long he could manage without his sanity.
Ten months, ten whole months after he had been locked up because the Princess DG worried that he might start teaching people how to stop her, the Queen came to him, flanked by two shabbily dressed men with red scarves peeking out of their leather coats. The Queen herself wore a red riding habit and it was her lavender eyes that struck Tutor the most. Even in the dank light of the prison, the slightest glimmer would catch them and remind the teacher just how taken a man could be with their Queen. He rose wearily to his feet, glad he hadn’t assumed his dog-form and wandered to the bars.
“We do not have much time,” the Queen whispered, regretful from the very first word to the last syllable. It was clear she was weak. Every now and then, she turned to the blond man at her right side for help, smiling at him and whispering a ‘thank you’. He did nothing more than nod, his blue eyes dull in the dank corridors.
Tutor squinted, trying to see if she was really there and as if she could tell just what he was thinking, she reached her hand to the bars and rested a warm hand against his, smiling softly up at him. “You shouldn’t be here,” he warned gravely. “She’ll find you.”
“Perhaps,” the Queen said, her tone wavering for a moment.
They were all terrified of a child. It never did stop striking Tutor as ridiculous, but he had heard the screams and her demands for more and more and he knew not to take things too lightly.
“We have to hurry,” he insisted again, clasping her hand.
“Azkadellia will need your help, your guidance. I need you to be there with her when she returns to the O.Z.,” the Queen spoke with the utmost of determination and clarity. “She is safe on the Otherside with Ambrose and protection I have ensured, but I have only the power to concoct one last Travel Storm and I wish to send you across in your smaller form. I do not wish to impose, but you must,” she continued, voice striking a balance between fear and icy power. “Azkadellia is not old enough yet, but there will come a time for her to return and upon that time, you will resume your form and teach her how to properly use her light.”
“And until then, you want me to just watch?” Tutor clarified, the demeaning aspect clear to the both of them.
“It is the Otherside,” she said apologetically. “It would not be prudent if you switched forms.”
Tutor didn’t have to ask if that was an order. He nodded and stepped back from the bars and the man-into-beast moment happened before the Queen, who had seen the transformation many-a-time before. The two guards with her looked mildly shocked, but a whine from Tutor and a tilt of his head to the side was enough to distract their thoughts from the sight they had each just witnessed. One of the two men with the Queen hurried to the equipment and began to crank it, enough to open the cell by two feet, letting Tutor trot out.
He wasn’t Tutor like this, though.
It had been DG’s doing, the affectionate nickname that he had taken on for himself in a permanent fashion. He’d let it happen because it made DG giggle (before those laughs became sick and twisted, dark and dismal and promising pain) and always made Azkadellia clap her hands with delight.
He was Toto.
He scampered out of the cell and looked up past the great distance that separated him from the Queen. From where he stood, he could see the shadows that her hood caused and they could all of them hear the sounds of guards approaching. They didn’t have much time at all and the longer they delayed, the more trouble they would be in. If they were caught, then all the Queen’s plans were going to go awry. He had no way of explaining once he got to the other side, but the Queen seemed to understand and wrapped a collar around his neck carrying a parchment that itched against his neck.
“Goodbye, my old friend,” the Queen whispered into his ear and kneeling over him, she clapped her hands together as the sounds of a Travel Storm began to gather on the outskirts of the O.Z., too far away for any Longcoat or little girl to pick up on the activity. Lightning struck and Toto was caught in the middle of a rough crossing, whimpering and closing his smaller eyelids.
When the last clap of thunder died and the lightning no longer flashed, he found himself standing in a strange field and looking upon a pink house before him, tire hung as a swing in the backyard and a young boy playing with what looked to be a sling.
He broke into a bark, charging forward and immediately into the house - slipping in through the open door. Almost immediately, he found Azkadellia alive and well, just as the Queen had promised.
“Hello,” she greeted, sounding surprised while bending over and picking him up in her arms, staring at him almost as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. Her long and slender fingers pried the scroll out from his collar and her gaze flickered between him and the parchment. “Toto?” she asked. “But that has to be impossible.”
He yipped, an indication to read the scroll.
An unfamiliar blond man with familiar eyes entered the room, toweling off black marks from his hands with an old towel and Toto barked once more, trying to get both their attention. “Princess?” the man asked.
Azkadellia was too busy reading (mouth forming the words every now and again) to reply for some time. By the time she was through, there were tears in her eyes, though she was smiling broadly. Behind the man approached Ambrose and Toto barked once more, happy to see a familiar face. Azkadellia’s gaze flickered between all three of them - from the blond to Ambrose to Toto and then back again - and she let out a crystal clear laugh that was as beautiful as the most perfect day in Finaqua. “Mother sent Toto,” she said happily, stroking the fur atop his head. “She sent him for me.”
He settled into Azkadellia’s hold and tried not to think the dread thought that refused to leave him:
Thirteen more annuals like this.
--
There was a problem that they had all realized over the first dinner in the house with Toto joining their ranks and making them a group of five rather than the four that they’d grown used to. They had all been served dinner and heard the bark that came from the linoleum tiles of the kitchen.
Four gazes turned to the direction of the floor and at once, the epiphany struck them.
“Oh no,” Azkadellia murmured, biting her lower lip.
Cain and Ambrose exchanged a look over the heads of the children and they seemed to communicate privately without even so much as saying a word. Jeb just kept eating dinner after being disturbed (he had a recent habit of demolishing at least two plates’ worth of food set in front of him, which led both Ambrose and Cain to having to cook twice as much food just to keep up with Jeb’s growing appetite).
For the night, they solved the problem by putting a plate’s worth of dinner into a bowl that Toto could access, but instead of sitting down to games or discussion and instead of Cain retreating to his little pink house, they sat around the den and discussed the issue while Toto lay under one of the chairs.
“Obviously we need some form of communication,” Ambrose argued, which was the only thing all of them had been saying all evening. They went around and around like this with Cain offering a system of symbols and Ambrose concocting a very mathematical formula, but it was Azkadellia who came up with the best solution. She had taken Toto into her lap amidst the frills of her lace-green dress.
She already knew what she had to do, no matter how difficult it might be.
“I’ll just learn to understand Dog,” she said distantly.
While that had gotten her an almost unified disturbed look from both Cain and Ambrose, Azkadellia had Made Up Her Mind and when such a thing happened, there was absolutely nothing that could stop it from occurring. So Cain muttered a ‘fine, Princess’ and Ambrose had agreed before they left for whatever it was they did after Jeb went to bed and left Azkadellia to begin her work.
It was exciting if for no other reason than it finally gave her an opportunity to incorporate the use of magic into her life. She had gone too long and let it remain dormant for so many months and it felt as if a talent she was rusty at. It took so long for her to regain the light in her palm and rested it against Toto’s temple, trying to clear her mind and focus.
How do I understand you? she thought and willed him to answer in a way she could understand.
He barked and she didn’t comprehend a word of it.
“This is going to be harder than I thought,” she murmured to herself and curled up in the massive reading chair (made up of thick red velvet that seemed to swallow you up every time you even so much as perched on it) with a book in one hand and Toto in the other. They remained like that until it was ten o’clock and her official time for bed and even though she changed into a nightgown and brushed her teeth, she didn’t stop working on the problem until she drifted off to sleep.
Toto was curled up, asleep, on the foot of the bed when she awoke.
It was weeks before there was any progress and that was dubious at best. It came one day at lunch when Cain came by to check on her and they wound up at home eating take-out food when Toto barked and Azkadellia slipped him a fry without saying anything. When she sat back up, she caught Cain’s look.
“He said he was hungry,” she said, as if that was as obvious as day.
Cain regarded them both with suspicion, but got dual looks of pure innocence and he just drove Azkadellia back to school without another word said. Toto rode shotgun in the car on the way back to the house and Cain eyed him warily the whole time, even when he lowered the window to let Toto catch a bit of wind in his fur.
Two more weeks and Azkadellia had perfected enough to be conversational in Dog.
“I don’t know if I’m proud or worried,” Cain had murmured as he made himself and Ambrose a pot of coffee on a Saturday night before they went over the latest news to see if there were any red flags in the news they had to pay attention to. They sat to talking and Azkadellia ignored the hushed murmurs as she and Toto wandered around the porch of the house, having a perfectly lovely conversation.
--
They still didn't have a complete count on the bodies. One explosion in one building with children inside of it, and they didn't even know how many of the kids had died. Nobody knew why it had happened, including Ambrose, and it almost seemed like the Otherside was afraid to figure it out. Theories were being tossed around by so-called 'experts' on the radio and TV, but all Ambrose could think about was the deaths, and that Oklahoma City really wasn't that far from Kansas, and in Kansas was Baker, and in Baker there was Azkadellia and Jeb. Whatever senseless violence that had caused the bombing could just as easily migrate its way straight towards them, if it was some move by the Witch.
He doubted that, though. Even before the Witch, there had been evil in the O.Z., just not as easily personified.
So Ambrose found himself drinking for the first time in...gods, probably seven annuals. Or years. Whatever, he was past caring about the stupid little differences between home and the Otherside.
On either side, there was death and darkness and innocents being burned alive or crushed or...or...
He shuddered and finished off his vodka. Vodka, because he could pretend it was smelly water instead of something he intended to use to pass out on the floor. When his glass hit the bar, the bartender was already in front of him, smiling softly and filling it halfway again.
"It's rough on all of us, Professor," the man said kindly, and he just nodded back, slouching for probably the first time in ten annuals. It seemed like the bartender had been paying more attention to him than anyone else. Ambrose chalked it up to the fact he'd already looked drunk and red-eyed when he first walked in.
The bar wasn't just for men like Ambrose that night because on any college campus, there was going to be the odd nineteen year old and twenty year old with their fake ID's trying to get in and down a few beers before anyone noticed. It was just part of Cain's job that once a week, he made a surprise visit to the bar to root out the obviously underage (without fail, there was constantly one sixteen year old who looked the part nursing something foamy).
He'd picked that night to drop by because he had a sitter with the kids and Azkadellia knew how to get a hold of him if there was trouble. He might have also picked that night because Ambrose had yet to return home and Cain could search the campus while he was there.
His mere entrance into the bar sent a ripple in the conversation and several young people tried to leave without him noticing. Cain always noticed anyway. Just like he noticed Ambrose at the bar looking miserable, but he would tend to that later. Right now, he could see a baby-faced kid in the corner with a couple of shots, so he had his job to do. He sidled through and descended into the booth, smiling as kindly as he could.
"Are you gonna arrest me?" the kid asked warily, staring up from the shots.
"Only if I find you in here a second time drinking anything but a Coke," Cain said, as fairly as he could muster. "Go on, get."
The kid skittered off, wavering just enough to bump Ambrose's back slightly before he was out the door. Ambrose barely noticed, just staring at the glass, as if he were waiting for it to say something and explain all the horrible messes humanity stuck themselves in. Vodka was a cloudy kind of clear right now, and he was tempted to ask for some ice to stick in it just to watch them in the glass, but that would mean it'd be watered down, and he wanted the kick.
So he drank a half of his half a glass, and there was a quarter of it left. The bartender kept looking over somewhere and looking back at him, but Ambrose ignored it. He hadn't been drinking for the sake of drinking in a long time, and he fully intended on doing it right. That meant silent, fast, and hard. Hell, maybe he'd even be lucky enough to get in a bar fight, but he'd been stupid enough to pick a relatively tame bar close to campus, just because it was the only one he'd really known was around.
The other quarter slid down his throat, and he set it carefully on the bar, wondering how long it would be until he ended up using coasters again. Gods, he used to be such a stupid aristocrat, and he still was. Even as a happy, quirky professor, he was still Royal Advisor too, and kept wondering how could I have stopped all those people from dying even though there was no way he could have done it.
Ambrose knew he was just depressed and a bit scared and a lot tired of all this acting and adjusting and being away from where he was more needed. "Cain could handle Az," Ambrose muttered to himself and the empty glass. "Maybe I could go back and help her."
Cain, at that moment, was in no mood to handle anything but the situation at hand. He had written a quick note about the turnout of the evening (Kid ran, as usual.) in his work notebook and he had been ready to go home when he saw just who the kid had bumped into. He got up and crossed the room to the bar, sliding onto the seat next to Ambrose and signaling the bartender for a glass of water.
"A man might think you were looking to forget something, sweetheart," Cain said evenly, not even bothering to add levels to his tone.
Ambrose just looked at him. And then right through him. "You do occasionally introduce yourself to the fine knowledge the modern media produces for you, yes?" he asked, voice sharp and angry and tired. "I'd think if anyone was drinking themself dead it'd be you." He was drunk already, he was so sick of it all, and Ambrose ended up with his head slumped on Cain's shoulder, staring at the bottles on the wall - green, brown, beige, black... "I hate this."
Cain sighed as he tried to right Ambrose gently, prying him into a vertical position. At least, while they were still in public. The media of the day had gotten to the home, but Cain had been busy hiding newspapers and magazines from Jeb, trying to keep the kids outside and away from the news, going so far as to invent fake homework so they wouldn't watch television. "I heard about it," he said deadpan. "I just don't take it out on a bar's worth of alcohol."
Cain had gone out back and gone through four rounds of ammo with the shooting target until his hand stopped shaking and he stopped hearing the ring of explosions in his ears. He kept a hand on Ambrose's back until he was vertical and then he let go, sliding the glass of water in front of Ambrose and switching it with the vodka.
Ambrose drank the water just like he'd been drinking the vodka - one swig straight down the throat. He set the glass down carefully, looking at the pattern in the wood. "I was kind of hoping for a bar fight," Ambrose muttered, tracing one of the darker lines in the wood.
"Just so I could punch something that would feel it. And I'm not a violent guy, you know, I...I don't like hurting people or getting hurt. I'm supposed to protect people, and I know how to protect people in the big picture, but everything here's so..." He sighed, twirling the glass across the bar. "Small." He glanced over to Cain. "Why are you here if you're not drinking, then?"
"I had an underage kid with a fake ID to deal with," Cain explained easily, replacing his hand on Ambrose's back, worried he'd just topple over if he let go. "Had to scare the kid off. I swear, not even eighteen." As he spoke, Cain continued moving the vodka further and further out of eye contact until it was sitting in front of another man completely. He was on his feet easily enough (and graceful as Cain was utterly sober). "Come on. Let's go home, you can take a swing at me."
"Why would I punch you? You're the smaller picture...protector kind of guy," Ambrose proclaimed, voice practically scandalized at the thought, walking with surprising ease, although he idly swiped an open bottle of beer off some unsuspecting college students' table with an equally surprising (and slightly disturbing) ease.
"Okay," Cain agreed, just as gracefully swiping the beer out of Ambrose's hands and settling it back with the students with a murmured apology and a tight smile, stepping back beside Ambrose to walk beside him.
"You know, I once got dared to steal her Majesty's panties, back when I was just an advisor," he said absently.
"And did you do it? Steal 'em, I mean."
"Yyyyep," Ambrose snickered. "Got 'em from the laundry, though - the clean stuff, obviously, I mean...yeah. But yep. They didn't believe me so I gave them back to her in front of them!"
Ambrose started giggling. "And she was so graaacious about it, too. Got my name, said she'd keep an eye on me, all that jazz." He paused. "It's kinda funny that swiping the Queen's panties when I was eleven got me here, huh."
Cain couldn't help laughing at the story, keeping an eye on Ambrose himself as he led him out the front door and got the keys out, half-willing to just pick Ambrose up and carry him the rest of the way. "When you were eleven?" he echoed. "What happened to stuff like having a childhood, sweetheart?"
Ambrose actually snorted and shook his head, hair trailing a bit into his eyes. He paused. "My hair's getting kind of longer, huh. But yep, I was eleven. Fourth child, started getting clever...er? More clever? Cleverer? Anyway, I got clev-whatever when I was real little, means they immediately sent me into the Academy where I was a smart little boy, learned how to fight because of it, and blah blah blah. Everyone's got a childhood, just some people get to be more...kid-ish than others."
It was hard to miss the fact that Ambrose was kind of an adorable drunk. And that it was doing very little to help the fact that Cain was about a half-minute from kissing him again.
He looked over at Cain. "Did you know I was Royal Advisor before I hit thirty? Can you believe that? Out of all of us, it was me. What the hell." He paused, blinking. "...I have no idea how old I am. Old enough to drink, at least."
"Well, I'm twenty-nine and Jeb's just recently seven annuals," Cain said, guiding Ambrose to the truck and opening the door, pretty much picking the other man up and tucking him into the seat, keeping an eye on things. "So there are some ages for you." Ages came and went and Cain kept track of them carefully, buckling Ambrose in good and tight and making sure the seatbelt wasn't loose at all, his hand trailing Ambrose's chest in the process, slow and languid as his fingers brushed diagonal across it. He closed the door firmly and made his way around, glad he hadn't had anything to drink. "I'll have to make sure you join us for a water-fight. You need to have some fun. Everyone needs that."
"Hmmmm." The noise was deep, and Ambrose was honest-to-gods trying to figure out his age. Finally, he just smiled at Cain. An honest, completely happy smile. "At least I know I'm older than Jeb. Might be older than you, might be the same age as you, might be younger, but I'm around you." He paused. "Well, technically, I'm near you, but you know what I mean. You're smart when you're not all...stoic." He sighed, leaning back to stare at the roof of the car, chin tilting up. "It's like the weirdest looking sky ever."
"That'd be the roof," Cain answered as calmly as he could, keeping his eyes on the road and ignoring Ambrose completely for the moment for the short ride home. "It's weird because it ain't sky. Just roof. Material and fabric and all that good stuff, Mr. Older-Than-My-Boy."
"I know it's the roof," Ambrose laughed. "I'm just saying that if the sky looked like that, the world would be a very, very strange place. And you're lucky I'm drunk or I'd be offended you thought I was that stupid, but since I'm drunk I kind of am that stupid, you know? Topsy-turvy world. SPEAKING of which, Azkadellia made me watch Alice in Wonderland because some guy named Bill Peet did something in it. It was weird. I love Az, but sometimes she just pushes too hard, but I'll always love her, no matter what she puts me through." He sighed. "Jane likes her too. That's why she's nice enough to lie like me for her. She's nice."
In the midst of Ambrose's rambling, Cain had pulled them up the drive, parking closer to the small pink house than the main one and just as Cain turned the engine off, he heard the last bit of Ambrose's sentence, enough to make him do a double-take. "Sorry, but what? Lie like you? About what?" The keys safely in his pocket, Cain hopped out gracefully and rounded the truck to open the door and unbuckle Ambrose, wrapping his arms around his torso while guiding him down.
Ambrose blinked at him as they walked, not terribly wobbly. "I thought you knew we were fake-dating," he said, completely surprised. "It gives Jane an excuse to come over and chat with Az, gives me an excuse to, and sorry about this, get out of the house, and gives me and Jane an excuse to just sort of...sit around. We watched the Terminator last time. I kind of want to build one. She burnt the popcorn though."
"C'mon, easy now," he coaxed quietly. "Our Az tried to set me up with Annie," Cain spoke conversationally, shifting to bear Ambrose's weight. "Told her no about a dozen times over and I think she's finally getting the message." Cain had to shift, his center of gravity slightly off as one arm wrapped snugly around Ambrose's front, holding tight to his hips. It was the shock of the admission, that Ambrose wasn't really dating Jane Walker, that was what got to him and he was speechless for a good while,
He sighed, head rolling back onto Cain's shoulder. "How you can say no so many times I will neeever understand. It's probably because you were always The Dad and I was just The Doting Uncle when I got to be." He smiled. "DG was just so damn cute and adventurous. I miss her."
As he spoke, Cain’s free hand kept brushing over Ambrose's longer-hair again and again, but he couldn't get into the house without the keys for the door and he leaned Ambrose against the exterior of his vehicle while opening the back seat of the truck and digging through it for the house keys, which were back there somewhere. "Should just keep them with the car ones," he muttered, glancing over his shoulder worriedly at the talk of DG. "You're a father on your own, Ambrose," Cain promised. "You're basically her father. I should know. Takes one to know one, right?"
That hand had felt nice, and Ambrose made a noise of protest when it went away. When he was leaned against the car, he rolled his eyes and immediately stuck his hand in the back pocket of his pants, dangling a set of keys behind Cain's head. "This is why I walk everywhere," he said, sounding very wise despite how he was slowly tipping over. "Because cars just mess everything up, no matter how fast they go. And Baker's tiny anywa...woouh."
He swivelled, the noise not even making sense to himself, and he was wondering about that before he realized that yes, he was still falling down, and immediately grabbed onto Cain.
"I'm kind of drunk," he said absently, and snickered.
Cain spun on the ball of his foot and with a step that was almost a dance-move, he caught Ambrose in his arms, wrapping one arm around his waist and the other around his shoulders, just holding on tight, one knee braced inside Ambrose's legs to make sure he wouldn't fall. The proximity, though, was making things more than difficult for him and he swallowed hard, staring at Ambrose's lips from where he stood.
Guess there's no reason why not, was what Cain told himself. "You're adorable when you're drunk," Cain murmured, taking his mind off the news and the way he wouldn't be able to sleep for days by holding on as tight as he could to Ambrose. He even backed them up until the backs of Cain's knees hit the open car door and he kissed Ambrose slow and steady and deeply.
It took Ambrose a moment to realize he was being kissed, but as soon as he got that part in his mind, he kissed back hard, wrapping his arms around Cain's neck. His hands slid down the other man's back as he leaned forward, grinning into the kiss and catching Cain's upper lip between his own.
Ambrose felt a little bad about it, taking advantage of Cain when he was clearly not in his right mind, but the man could kiss and Ambrose was sick of just standing there when he decided to do it.
The sheer shock that he was being kissed back sent Cain reeling -- literally so. He tugged Ambrose with him as he staggered and stumbled into the truck, damn near lifting Ambrose with him onto the seat and yanking the door shut while still managing to keep kissing because he had no idea how long this would last before Ambrose pulled away or stopped kissing or just didn't want him back like all the times before.
"Gods," he exhaled, breathless as one hand slowly (and shakily) stroked down Ambrose's chest and down lower, nudging past trousers and snaking into his pants. Fingers very slowly pushed a little further to grasp hold of Ambrose properly and, still kissing, he got a good grip, easing back enough to look him in the eye. "...Yeah?"
Ambrose thought that was a genuinely stupid question. He was panting under Cain with his eyes half rolled into his head and he asked Yeah? Really, Cain was so stupid sometimes. Ambrose leaned up, flipped the damn hat off Cain's head, and kissed him in a way that was apparently French somehow. Honestly, Ambrose had always thought it involved tongue and a hell of a lot of heat, but the Otherside was weird. French fries, French kiss, Cain's hand was down his pants, life was pretty good.
"Oh yeah," Ambrose said, practically breathing the words into Cain's ear, a hand sliding up to the nape of Cain's neck, and kissed him again.
Cain's cheeks had flushed red with the heat of the moment and he kissed back with so much determination and skill that a man might have thought the world was about to end, the way Cain was going at it. His fingertips were calloused and he wrapped his hand firmly around Ambrose's length as he kissed him desperately. It was the physical desperation that men could often drown in and Cain was lost at sea. "Ambrose," he moaned against the kiss, hand pushing firm down, thumb circling the head of Ambrose's cock as he gave a sharp shout, biting Ambrose's lower lip before kissing harder again (he wanted to leave some kind of mark). His hand was pushing Ambrose's pants down as best as they could, but Cain was panting and sweating and stroking Ambrose as firm and fast as he could while still giving him proper attention and his knees kept digging into the leather seats of the truck, shirt buttons straining undone as he writhed atop Ambrose. As a result, the pants didn't go further than mid-thigh in his effort to get them off.
Ambrose could barely breathe, definitely couldn't think, and his world had turned to nothing but Cain, Cain and his lips and his fantastic, glorious hand and teeth and tongue and lips and eyes, gods his eyes and his hand and he felt like he was fifteen again but blamed the alcohol and Wyatt Cain for that because the man was apparently infinitely better than vodka could ever be.
Ambrose barely managed to stop whatever his drunk, stupid mouth was saying (which had just about been exactly what his mind had been rambling on about except for the fifteen part because he'd been busy kissing) to get out a warning that was more of a panted, whispered version of Cain's name before he came in his pants and immediately started wondering about laundry and then wondered if he could convince Cain that more sex would be a good idea. Because it sure as hell sounded good to Ambrose.
Cain heard his name and oh gods, he didn't even have a drop of alcohol in him, but the way Ambrose said it could make him a very different kind of drunk, the kind where his world spun off its axis and just drifted off into space, surrounded by too-bright stars and he swallowed thickly as he moved his lips to give Ambrose a barely-there hickey on his neck (in a place that could be covered by a collar because Cain was still considerate, above all things).
For a long moment, Ambrose just breathed against him, feeling Cain's pulse beneath his hands as he pulled the other man closer to him, practically on top of him, chest to chest. There was a tiny bit of sweat on his neck and Ambrose didn't know if it was being trapped in the truck or what that had caused it, but he leaned up that tiny bit and licking across the same trail, fully intent on tasting Cain. Tasting Cain and feeling Cain and breathing in as much as he could...
Ambrose had his arms twisted around Cain's head and neck, and he smirked straight into his eyes before leaning up and kissing him on the lips, and then the cheek, and then finally just carefully nibbling on Cain's ear. "One day I am going to fuck you into the mattress and take a loooong time doing it, Cain," he practically purred. He'd heard that from his students, or parts of it, and it certainly felt like a good and honest thing to say, because he really, really wanted to, but they were in a truck so he couldn't actually do it word for word. That was very, very disappointing.
"Oh gods," Cain gasped at the promise and he wasn't that strong, he couldn't possibly be that strong when Ambrose was doing those things to him and saying those things. Ambrose's wandering hands were making Cain's pulse race, in point of fact, and when he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbed hard and the sound was palpable to be heard as that tongue made Cain moan, without really meaning to.
One hand concentrated on just keeping Cain's face nearby, and the other slid down Cain's spine to grab a hip. Ambrose wondered why they were still mostly dressed. Or at least why they weren't naked. But then again, Ambrose also knew that he was very, very drunk, so he kissed him again, because that was always fantastic.
It was all driving him to stroke himself harder than he had Ambrose. His hand felt like it was controlled by something else now, as fast as it was going, but he was stronger than this. Strong and good and better than that. "You're drunk," Cain exhaled the words, a quiet accusation, but he didn't stop getting off.
"I am extremely drunk," Ambrose agreed with a low laugh, but that didn't keep him from kissing Cain again, thumb sneaking into Cain's pants to just idly trace circles, humming at the smooth skin and breathing hard, Ambrose's fist clenching in the other man's shirt. "And I'm thinking I should get drunk more often."
He could get rid of the truck part, though. Lose the truck, get a bed, lose the clothing, get some nice smooth sheets to ruin...Ambrose was giving Cain a very devilish look just at the thought. It was a look that promised a lot of dirty, dirty things that were very, very fun.
Cain gave a low groan that kept steady and was just this side of frustrated beyond all the telling of it as he kept pushing harder, wanting to bring himself off too and he added kisses to the repertoire again to dampen that look and to just kiss him like he hadn't ever been able to before, knowing that so long wanting had done him in and now he was lost to the kissing and the touching (and oh gods, but the touching was wonderful. Beyond wonderful)
This was wrong.
This was so wrong of him. He was the sober one and he was supposed to be much better than this and he slowly used one hand (shaking) to redress Ambrose as he swallowed and stared at the man beneath him.
Ambrose was understandably not happy about being less naked. Hell, Cain was even less naked than him and now was putting the damn clothes back on Ambrose. This was not how he'd been hoping things would turn out, so he was going to do his best to right the topsy-turvy world where they didn't have sex.
Because Ambrose thought this was wrong, this whole...no sex thing. He grabbed the shaking hands with his own, twisting his fingers with one and pulling the other up to his mouth and wrapping his lips around two of Cain's fingers, staring straight at Cain, Ambrose's eyes and mouth doing all the talking he couldn't, what with being otherwise occupied.
"No," Cain said roughly, shifting until he had one foot on the floor of the truck and he could pull away, shaking his head. "No, no," he added, voice still husky while lifting Ambrose back into his arms, one hand strong and steady as it supported his back and he sat them both up, easing the door open and slowly steadying his feet on the asphalt of the drive before he collected Ambrose (and the keys) into his arms and lifted him into a fireman carry over his shoulder. "You are drunk," Cain reasoned aloud as he carried him, opened the lock and bumping the door open with his hip, gracefully twisting and turning to avoid bumping into doorways and he took Ambrose straight to the bed and laid him out atop the covers, prying off shoe by shoe as he zipped up the pants and kept him decent.
Cain was still half-hard and breathing heavily, but he knew he had to be doing the right thing.
"You're drunk and we can't. You're drunk."
By now Ambrose was pouting, the only consolation being that in a fireman's hold he could just stare at Cain's ass, even though he didn't like this whole...being moved and no sex thing. Getting flung on the bed let him be a bit more optimistic, but Cain kept talking about being drunk and impaired judgement and blah blah blah. Cain was getting annoying with all his morals and stuff.
"You know, Cain, maybe you should get drunk too so you'd see this from my perspective," Ambrose said, voice a bit slurred and he was actually getting tired now. Not acceptable. He was in bed, Cain was there, and there was no sex. Not acceptable at all. "And what's being drunk have to do with anything?" He snorted. "Back home when I got drunk I usually woke up in jail for physical assault. It was funny. Little skinny me, 'round twenty, took out three guys when I got drunk."
Cain sighed as he leaned in and started to unbutton Ambrose's shirt, pushing off his pants and pausing for a moment when he wondered whether or not to completely undress him. He solved that by going to a drawer and digging out a pair of pajama bottoms, replacing Ambrose's clothing for those, averting his eyes to preserve dignity. All the while Ambrose spoke, he got that shirt off until all he had was a pair of pants and the covers atop him. “You don't want this, not really,” Cain gently added. “This is just the alcohol.”
He started laughing. Ambrose was laughing, and managed to make it sound pretty scathing. Impressive for someone as hammered as he was. "Sex and violence are kind of different impulses, Cain! You'd be unconscious if I didn't want this, you...something." His eyes fluttered, and Ambrose blinked. "Wow am I drunk."
Cain tucked him in, collapsing into a weary sit on the bed. His mind was tired, his body was tired, and his soul (stupidly enough) was tired. He couldn't stop thinking about the kissing or the blast back in Central and a part of him just wanted to go wrap his arms around Jeb and never let go.
But instead, he sat there with Ambrose.
"I'm gonna sleep in the house on the couch, okay?" he spoke very slowly. "There's some water in a pitcher on the nightstand and a bucket by the bed. You're in my bed, in case you forget." He reached a hand out to brush wayward strands of hair off of Ambrose's forehead and leaned down to kiss him just one more time. "I know you won't want to have done this when you sober up, so I'm going to go. Need anything else?" He paused, giving a wry look. "Anything but sex?"
Ambrose yawned, and hated himself for it. He was supposed to be pouncing Cain, not humming all contented-like when he brushed the hair away. But he had to answer, so he nodded, waving absently towards his clothes.
"Key in my pocket. Goes to the lab, you know," he said, eyes closing for a moment. "You can tell which one it is 'cuz it looks like a tube-y whistle thing with a key inside it." He restrained the duh he wanted to add on. "Go down and just shut all the power off. Don't touch anything, 'cuz it could explode or electrocute you." Ambrose yawned. "And just tell me you did that in the morning if I don't remember, mmmkay?" Ambrose was already curling up in the blankets. "An just sleep in m' bed. Bedswap, since you don't wanna share."
Cain leaned over to dig out the key and nodded, listening carefully to the instructions. He didn't mention anything about actually wanting to share, but the thing was, he didn't put it past himself to not just sit in a chair in Jeb's room and watch over him until the sun came up. "I'll turn everything off," Cain promised, tucking the key into his back pocket as he rose to his feet and turned off the lights. "Sweet dreams, Ambrose. I'll call in sick for you tomorrow," he added and gently closed the door behind him as he went, exhaling shakily and taking a long moment to compose himself and try to forget everything that had happened.
Gods, he was doomed.
--
After a long day of things, there was no doubt in Cain's mind that his decision to add a bathroom to the small car-hold had been the best decision he'd ever had. It meant that he could relax in the privacy of his own space and didn't have to bicker with Azkadellia and Ambrose for bathroom time, nor did he have to fight with Jeb. He'd been in from work for all of thirty minutes and had gone through a rousing chase with a local kid thieving from the grocery store and was covered in sweat and grime, more than enough to push him into a long hot shower. He'd missed the beginning of dinner, but with the warm water pounding against his back, he wasn't so inclined to care.
He stood in the steam of the shower for a good while before he was motivated to turn it off, knowing he had plenty to do in the evening. He grasped hold of his only towel, wrapping it around his waist tightly before staring at his reflection in the fogged-up mirror, catching only the glimpse of his own eyes, reflecting blue and clear across from him.
With a hand, he wiped the condensation and ignored the annoying squeaking sound it made.
Dinner would be over by now, but he could always pop in and grab some leftovers when they'd all left the kitchen. He made his way out to the main room, collecting some dropped clothes from the day and keeping one hand on the towel to keep it from slipping as he went, tidying up in a lazy fashion.
Occasionally when Cain missed dinner and it had been a warm one, Ambrose would just bring it over for whenever what had kept Cain away was done. Sometimes it was a bad day and not being ready to face the kids (something Ambrose himself had done a few times, locked up in the lab and working until he fell asleep), sometimes he accidentally fell asleep, and sometimes Cain was just a lazy idiot. But Ambrose had had a relatively good day, and figured that meant Cain had probably gotten a hell of a bad one, so he walked out of the house with the stew and bread (home-cooked, much to his pride, and half the reason he was delivering it) and bumped the door open with his hip.
"I decided to be nice-"
Which was when he saw a dripping wet Wyatt Cain standing in the middle of the room trying to keep his towel up and wandering around. Ambrose closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Um. Here. Food."
Cain nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the strange voice just wandering into his house and he cursed in the Ancient tongue of the O.Z. (he knew a few choice words, taught by his mother) and grappled to hold the towel a lot tighter, angling his hips away from Ambrose to avoid the whole part where he got mildly aroused just thinking about the situation they were in.
Kids were in the house. He was wet and pretty much naked. And Ambrose was bringing him food personally. "Ambrose," Cain got out, strangled. "You couldn't have knocked?"
"I-I..." Ambrose said, voice pitched a bit high before he cleared his throat, feeling like he was a stupid teenager again. "I've done this plenty of times before and you've never been..." He couldn't even say it, just swept his hand towards Cain, and immediately regretted it. He groaned. "Gods, don't you have a...a robe or something?" His hands were getting just as stupid as his libido, so Ambrose found the small table and set the food down, keeping his eyes as far away from Cain. Brain, too. "I baked the bread myself," he blurted out. "It's good."
There was a bright pink flush flooding Cain's cheeks as he readjusted both hands on the towel, gripping it like he might his belt and he tried to keep distance between them, seeing as if he got any closer, he might just pounce on Ambrose and that could lead to a lot of ill consequences. "We had a runner. I got filthy. I just got out of the shower." He kept his sentences good and terse because he had the feeling he'd start babbling if he didn't.
"I can kind of tell the shower thing," Ambrose said, nodding quickly, keeping his eyes intent on the stew. Stew was very interesting. Definitely worth further examination. Stew was thicker than soup, thinner than...something solid...gods, this was horrible.
Cain’s fingers grasped the towel harder, knuckles going white. "Just...let me get dressed," he insisted, gesturing with one hand for Ambrose to turn around, which made the towel slip slightly and give off a flash of hip before he righted the towel.
He made the mistake of looking up, and there he was again, all naked and wet and- "Okay I'll turn around and you can get dressed." Ambrose practically squeaked, turning around quickly and forcing himself to breathe nice and slowly, concentrating on nothing but thinking of nothing, trying to distract himself from the fact Cain was naked and wet and...he groaned. Ambrose knew he couldn't leave before Cain was changed, just in case someone else made the mistake of wandering in. "Dress fast?"
Cain yanked his boxers on, hopping into them as he lunged for his jeans and shook the towel through his short hair, nearly tripping in the panicked effort to get decent. Cain never panicked. He never got so away from himself that he couldn't manage, but here he was acting more like an idiot than ever before. "Okay, I'm decent," Cain promised, tugging on a tank top as he promised his decency.
Ambrose nodded and turned back around, only to wish he hadn't because he still managed to see Cain slipping on the tank top and he had a very nice chest, and Ambrose needed to distract himself. "So I brought dinner," he said. He was probably repeating himself, but that was better than just staring. "Stew and bread. The kids seemed to like it." He swallowed. "And...I should go help them with their homework. Or tell them to do their homework." Or just leave with no explanation.
Cain wandered closer and leaned over to sniff the stew, glancing up at Ambrose from the small table, pushing over some papers and making room for two, just in case Ambrose did want to stay. He kept his hat off and rolled his shoulders back while sliding down into a chair. "I'm sure they're getting on fine," he promised, grasping a spoon and breaking the bread apart as he took large bites, not bothering to lightly eat things.
He took a large bite of bread coated in stew and gave a surprised sound at the taste.
"Gods, how did you get so good at cooking?" he murmured in quiet approval, eyeing Ambrose up and down. If he had to, he would start dragging things out just to keep Ambrose there a while longer.
Ambrose could tell he wasn't going to be able to leave without putting up a fight or just being incredibly rude and simply walking out the door. Since that was practically a challenge, Ambrose sat and tried not to blush or twitch or even look away at the once-over. Or to look at Cain in general. This was nothing but a game, absolutely nothing but Who Has To Leave First, and Ambrose was going to win and have Cain practically throw him out.
He waited until Cain's mouth was good and full before he voiced the first lie he could think up, considering 'it's a benefit from extensive chemistry experience' wasn't something that would accomplish his goals. "When I was kidnapped, it was either cooking or slave labour. I picked cooking, and here we are."
Cain nearly choked on the food, gaping up at Ambrose with disbelief in his eyes and then mistrust and then he shook his head and started divvying up his food into halves like he always did, swallowing hard. "Kidnapped? By royalty?"
"By pseudo-royalty," Ambrose said blandly, wondering how much of this Cain was honestly believing and how long he could keep going with the same lie. "Attempted to usurp the throne without any blood ties to it, so I managed to poison them all with-" With what? He thought ridiculously fast "-some of the laundry detergent mixed with a few oils and put them in a gelatin for dessert."
Ambrose was good at chemistry. He was brilliant with it, in fact. But poisons were definitely not his forte. For all he knew, he'd only given the usurpers an itchy throat.
That got a dubious raise of Cain's brow, but not a word spoken while he finished up the remainder of his stew and half the bread, slowly pushing to his feet to get out a couple of containers from the drawer he kept them in. "Uh huh," he deadpanned. "And then what, you became King Ambrose?"
Ambrose barely stopped his jaw from dropping. He'd just been given a big wide opening for getting to leave, and he was taking it. "If you're not going to listen and understand the trials I've been through in my life, I'm not going to sit here and be insulted by your snide commentary, considering the amounts of trauma I still have from the event," Ambrose said a bit too quickly, standing up. "I'll be going, then."
"Hold up," Cain said, barely glancing up from the table, spooning the stew in. "Wait a second so you can take these in with you." Cain still didn't have a fridge of his own out there, seeing as he ate with the rest often enough.
And maybe, just maybe, he was thinking up reasons to keep Ambrose there a while longer.
Ambrose paused practically mid-step to turn around and frown at Cain. "...but I'm." He stopped for a moment, and pointed at the door, genuinely confused. The clever script in his head had just been incinerated, leaving him with nothing but stage directions. "But I'm storming out indignantly, Cain."
"And I don't have a cooling unit," Cain explained patiently. "So unless you want to clean the smell, you can wait two minutes and take these back with you," he said simply, making sure everything was neat and put away, licking a stray droplet of stew from his thumb, eyes glancing up to catch sight of Ambrose and wish he would've just sat down and stayed. The sigh was audible and he knew that he couldn't force him to stay, so he closed the container and brought them over to place in Ambrose's hands, standing only inches away from him. "I guess you can finish storming out now."
Cain needed to stop licking things, and he needed to stop now, and since Ambrose really couldn't just shout at him to keep his tongue to himself that meant he had to just stand there, and breathe. When Ambrose's hands went for the container, he nearly dropped the thing when he touched Cain's hands. His hands were shaking, for gods sake, so he clamped a grip on the container - one hand on top, and one hand on the bottom.
"...Thank you," Ambrose said. Or asked. Or possibly whimpered. He wanted to hate Cain but apparently the impulse to kiss him was stronger, so he shut his mouth, biting his lower lip and just sort of staring at Cain, probably looking like an idiot. Ambrose blamed the shower for every bit of this. The very, very nice shower and the fact Cain didn't have a big enough towel.
Cain had to wonder if it had always been this difficult to breathe and this hot when it came to his little pink house. Maybe it was an illness. In that case, he ought to avoid the kids so they wouldn't get this light-headed, stomach-churning feeling, but really, he was just deluding himself when he really knew what was going on.
"You're welcome," Cain exhaled the words, eyes flickering down to Ambrose's lips and stayed there for a while before he closed his eyes and reminded himself that they couldn't do this. When he opened his eyes, he half-expected Ambrose to have run, but they were still standing there and so, Cain went for the default: awkward conversation. "It really was good food," he said lamely.
Awkward conversation was about all Ambrose had too. "I learned to bake bread for a science experiment," he practically mumbled, blushing. "It's the...yeast? It."
He cleared his throat, mentally smacked himself really hard, and began backing away with a light laugh. "Well, glad you enjoyed the food! Have a good ni-ow." Ambrose frowned and looked behind him. He'd managed to poke himself in the spine with the doorknob.
Cain was instantly in action, yanking the door open while pulling Ambrose back into his arms to avoid the inward swing of it. "Would you be careful?" he chastised, more concerned-sounding than anything else as he got the door open and when Ambrose was steady, let him go. His fingers just might have trailed languidly over his hip as he released him. "You okay? Or should I kiss it better?" The jovial words were out of his mouth before he even realized what he'd said.
Ambrose just about dropped the container when he felt the hand on his hip, barely rescuing it from a mess on the floor, which he would have made Cain clean up; nobody could expect him to have steady hands with Cain all...pressed up against him and...oh gods. Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neon, Sodium...
Ambrose's stupid, stupid mouth was babbling out the Otherside periodic table, all the while his libido screaming YES and his brain was saying NO and so he just stood there, moving onto Silver and still churning away the elements.
Cain took a large step backwards, giving Ambrose a wary and worried look, figuring he had done something wrong or hit some strange switch and made Ambrose babble like that. So he just took a deep breath and grasped hold of the door with one hand, still looking curiously at Ambrose. "I'll come in later to say goodnight to the kids," he said, swallowing that desire to just grab Ambrose and push him to the bed and keep him there for a week. "Thanks, again, for the dinner."
It was code. A 'leave now or you won't leave for a month' in other words.
"You're welcome," Ambrose said quickly, which was practically code for 'oh gods don't tempt me' but Ambrose didn't know that, he was just thinking that and skittering out the door and nearly kicking the house's door to get back in and away from Cain and all his...okay fine. Ambrose could admit that it was Cain he was running from.
When Ambrose was clearly inside the house and couldn't hear anything, the door to the little pink house got slammed hard with frustration.
What Cain knew and Ambrose could probably guess, was that it was most definitely of the sexual variant.
tbc
AUTHORS: andrealyn and luchia13
TITLE: Azkadellia's Okay! (With Ambrose and the Cains' help), Part 6: Dog In Prison; Keys Lost.
RATING: PG-13.
PAIRING: Ambrose/Cain (or Cain/Ambrose, whatever), 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 kids get a very disgruntled dog. Cain gets naked, and Ambrose gets completely, stupidly drunk.
Part 1: Things Explode; Iceland Blamed.
Part 2: Pink House Purchased; Introductions Ensue.
Part 3: Fight In Classroom; Landslide Victory.
Part 4: Cain Doesn't Move; Children Scream.
Part 5: Countries Massacred; Restaurant Warned.
Azkadellia's Okay!
(With Ambrose and the Cains' help)
Part 6: Dog In Prison; Keys Lost.
Tutor was not easily scared by man, mobat, or little girls. But then, that had been the kind of man he was back before the O.Z. had been scorched to pieces and sweet little girls gazed at people with a look in their eyes that made you want to shiver up and die, made you feel like all the warmth was getting sucked right out of your soul. Little DG, all of seven annuals, had taken one look at him, one good long look at him and pointed her tiny finger in his direction and had said only one word to the men in the Longcoats beside her: “Him.”
He’d flinched and had come to regret it later because now she knew that he feared her.
The jail cell had been miserable and Tutor wasn’t sure he’d go so far as to call it that. Out past Central City had long been an unused structure from a time long ago. Some said it harkened back to the days of the great Dorothy Gale and others dismissed that, calling it a recently built outpost for the City’s Tin Men. That was where he’d been taken after DG took a good long look at him and when Tutor had looked into her eyes, he’d seen something else there, something that wasn’t the little DG he knew. She was supposed to be spinning dolls, for the sake of the gods! Just spinning dolls around and around and not killing her sister or supposedly committing crimes.
He wondered how the Queen could possibly withstand it all on her own without aid of family, Royal Advisors, or men like him, weak as she was.
It wasn’t something he had to wonder long. He had been in the dank little cave of a cell for months now. Food was scarce and company was scarcer. Every now and again, he’d hear a long and terrifying scream of pain from one of the lower levels and then a girlish giggle would echo throughout the whole prison, just a quiet reminder of what happened to you eventually. It was miserable and Tutor wondered how long he could manage without his sanity.
Ten months, ten whole months after he had been locked up because the Princess DG worried that he might start teaching people how to stop her, the Queen came to him, flanked by two shabbily dressed men with red scarves peeking out of their leather coats. The Queen herself wore a red riding habit and it was her lavender eyes that struck Tutor the most. Even in the dank light of the prison, the slightest glimmer would catch them and remind the teacher just how taken a man could be with their Queen. He rose wearily to his feet, glad he hadn’t assumed his dog-form and wandered to the bars.
“We do not have much time,” the Queen whispered, regretful from the very first word to the last syllable. It was clear she was weak. Every now and then, she turned to the blond man at her right side for help, smiling at him and whispering a ‘thank you’. He did nothing more than nod, his blue eyes dull in the dank corridors.
Tutor squinted, trying to see if she was really there and as if she could tell just what he was thinking, she reached her hand to the bars and rested a warm hand against his, smiling softly up at him. “You shouldn’t be here,” he warned gravely. “She’ll find you.”
“Perhaps,” the Queen said, her tone wavering for a moment.
They were all terrified of a child. It never did stop striking Tutor as ridiculous, but he had heard the screams and her demands for more and more and he knew not to take things too lightly.
“We have to hurry,” he insisted again, clasping her hand.
“Azkadellia will need your help, your guidance. I need you to be there with her when she returns to the O.Z.,” the Queen spoke with the utmost of determination and clarity. “She is safe on the Otherside with Ambrose and protection I have ensured, but I have only the power to concoct one last Travel Storm and I wish to send you across in your smaller form. I do not wish to impose, but you must,” she continued, voice striking a balance between fear and icy power. “Azkadellia is not old enough yet, but there will come a time for her to return and upon that time, you will resume your form and teach her how to properly use her light.”
“And until then, you want me to just watch?” Tutor clarified, the demeaning aspect clear to the both of them.
“It is the Otherside,” she said apologetically. “It would not be prudent if you switched forms.”
Tutor didn’t have to ask if that was an order. He nodded and stepped back from the bars and the man-into-beast moment happened before the Queen, who had seen the transformation many-a-time before. The two guards with her looked mildly shocked, but a whine from Tutor and a tilt of his head to the side was enough to distract their thoughts from the sight they had each just witnessed. One of the two men with the Queen hurried to the equipment and began to crank it, enough to open the cell by two feet, letting Tutor trot out.
He wasn’t Tutor like this, though.
It had been DG’s doing, the affectionate nickname that he had taken on for himself in a permanent fashion. He’d let it happen because it made DG giggle (before those laughs became sick and twisted, dark and dismal and promising pain) and always made Azkadellia clap her hands with delight.
He was Toto.
He scampered out of the cell and looked up past the great distance that separated him from the Queen. From where he stood, he could see the shadows that her hood caused and they could all of them hear the sounds of guards approaching. They didn’t have much time at all and the longer they delayed, the more trouble they would be in. If they were caught, then all the Queen’s plans were going to go awry. He had no way of explaining once he got to the other side, but the Queen seemed to understand and wrapped a collar around his neck carrying a parchment that itched against his neck.
“Goodbye, my old friend,” the Queen whispered into his ear and kneeling over him, she clapped her hands together as the sounds of a Travel Storm began to gather on the outskirts of the O.Z., too far away for any Longcoat or little girl to pick up on the activity. Lightning struck and Toto was caught in the middle of a rough crossing, whimpering and closing his smaller eyelids.
When the last clap of thunder died and the lightning no longer flashed, he found himself standing in a strange field and looking upon a pink house before him, tire hung as a swing in the backyard and a young boy playing with what looked to be a sling.
He broke into a bark, charging forward and immediately into the house - slipping in through the open door. Almost immediately, he found Azkadellia alive and well, just as the Queen had promised.
“Hello,” she greeted, sounding surprised while bending over and picking him up in her arms, staring at him almost as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. Her long and slender fingers pried the scroll out from his collar and her gaze flickered between him and the parchment. “Toto?” she asked. “But that has to be impossible.”
He yipped, an indication to read the scroll.
An unfamiliar blond man with familiar eyes entered the room, toweling off black marks from his hands with an old towel and Toto barked once more, trying to get both their attention. “Princess?” the man asked.
Azkadellia was too busy reading (mouth forming the words every now and again) to reply for some time. By the time she was through, there were tears in her eyes, though she was smiling broadly. Behind the man approached Ambrose and Toto barked once more, happy to see a familiar face. Azkadellia’s gaze flickered between all three of them - from the blond to Ambrose to Toto and then back again - and she let out a crystal clear laugh that was as beautiful as the most perfect day in Finaqua. “Mother sent Toto,” she said happily, stroking the fur atop his head. “She sent him for me.”
He settled into Azkadellia’s hold and tried not to think the dread thought that refused to leave him:
Thirteen more annuals like this.
--
There was a problem that they had all realized over the first dinner in the house with Toto joining their ranks and making them a group of five rather than the four that they’d grown used to. They had all been served dinner and heard the bark that came from the linoleum tiles of the kitchen.
Four gazes turned to the direction of the floor and at once, the epiphany struck them.
“Oh no,” Azkadellia murmured, biting her lower lip.
Cain and Ambrose exchanged a look over the heads of the children and they seemed to communicate privately without even so much as saying a word. Jeb just kept eating dinner after being disturbed (he had a recent habit of demolishing at least two plates’ worth of food set in front of him, which led both Ambrose and Cain to having to cook twice as much food just to keep up with Jeb’s growing appetite).
For the night, they solved the problem by putting a plate’s worth of dinner into a bowl that Toto could access, but instead of sitting down to games or discussion and instead of Cain retreating to his little pink house, they sat around the den and discussed the issue while Toto lay under one of the chairs.
“Obviously we need some form of communication,” Ambrose argued, which was the only thing all of them had been saying all evening. They went around and around like this with Cain offering a system of symbols and Ambrose concocting a very mathematical formula, but it was Azkadellia who came up with the best solution. She had taken Toto into her lap amidst the frills of her lace-green dress.
She already knew what she had to do, no matter how difficult it might be.
“I’ll just learn to understand Dog,” she said distantly.
While that had gotten her an almost unified disturbed look from both Cain and Ambrose, Azkadellia had Made Up Her Mind and when such a thing happened, there was absolutely nothing that could stop it from occurring. So Cain muttered a ‘fine, Princess’ and Ambrose had agreed before they left for whatever it was they did after Jeb went to bed and left Azkadellia to begin her work.
It was exciting if for no other reason than it finally gave her an opportunity to incorporate the use of magic into her life. She had gone too long and let it remain dormant for so many months and it felt as if a talent she was rusty at. It took so long for her to regain the light in her palm and rested it against Toto’s temple, trying to clear her mind and focus.
How do I understand you? she thought and willed him to answer in a way she could understand.
He barked and she didn’t comprehend a word of it.
“This is going to be harder than I thought,” she murmured to herself and curled up in the massive reading chair (made up of thick red velvet that seemed to swallow you up every time you even so much as perched on it) with a book in one hand and Toto in the other. They remained like that until it was ten o’clock and her official time for bed and even though she changed into a nightgown and brushed her teeth, she didn’t stop working on the problem until she drifted off to sleep.
Toto was curled up, asleep, on the foot of the bed when she awoke.
It was weeks before there was any progress and that was dubious at best. It came one day at lunch when Cain came by to check on her and they wound up at home eating take-out food when Toto barked and Azkadellia slipped him a fry without saying anything. When she sat back up, she caught Cain’s look.
“He said he was hungry,” she said, as if that was as obvious as day.
Cain regarded them both with suspicion, but got dual looks of pure innocence and he just drove Azkadellia back to school without another word said. Toto rode shotgun in the car on the way back to the house and Cain eyed him warily the whole time, even when he lowered the window to let Toto catch a bit of wind in his fur.
Two more weeks and Azkadellia had perfected enough to be conversational in Dog.
“I don’t know if I’m proud or worried,” Cain had murmured as he made himself and Ambrose a pot of coffee on a Saturday night before they went over the latest news to see if there were any red flags in the news they had to pay attention to. They sat to talking and Azkadellia ignored the hushed murmurs as she and Toto wandered around the porch of the house, having a perfectly lovely conversation.
--
They still didn't have a complete count on the bodies. One explosion in one building with children inside of it, and they didn't even know how many of the kids had died. Nobody knew why it had happened, including Ambrose, and it almost seemed like the Otherside was afraid to figure it out. Theories were being tossed around by so-called 'experts' on the radio and TV, but all Ambrose could think about was the deaths, and that Oklahoma City really wasn't that far from Kansas, and in Kansas was Baker, and in Baker there was Azkadellia and Jeb. Whatever senseless violence that had caused the bombing could just as easily migrate its way straight towards them, if it was some move by the Witch.
He doubted that, though. Even before the Witch, there had been evil in the O.Z., just not as easily personified.
So Ambrose found himself drinking for the first time in...gods, probably seven annuals. Or years. Whatever, he was past caring about the stupid little differences between home and the Otherside.
On either side, there was death and darkness and innocents being burned alive or crushed or...or...
He shuddered and finished off his vodka. Vodka, because he could pretend it was smelly water instead of something he intended to use to pass out on the floor. When his glass hit the bar, the bartender was already in front of him, smiling softly and filling it halfway again.
"It's rough on all of us, Professor," the man said kindly, and he just nodded back, slouching for probably the first time in ten annuals. It seemed like the bartender had been paying more attention to him than anyone else. Ambrose chalked it up to the fact he'd already looked drunk and red-eyed when he first walked in.
The bar wasn't just for men like Ambrose that night because on any college campus, there was going to be the odd nineteen year old and twenty year old with their fake ID's trying to get in and down a few beers before anyone noticed. It was just part of Cain's job that once a week, he made a surprise visit to the bar to root out the obviously underage (without fail, there was constantly one sixteen year old who looked the part nursing something foamy).
He'd picked that night to drop by because he had a sitter with the kids and Azkadellia knew how to get a hold of him if there was trouble. He might have also picked that night because Ambrose had yet to return home and Cain could search the campus while he was there.
His mere entrance into the bar sent a ripple in the conversation and several young people tried to leave without him noticing. Cain always noticed anyway. Just like he noticed Ambrose at the bar looking miserable, but he would tend to that later. Right now, he could see a baby-faced kid in the corner with a couple of shots, so he had his job to do. He sidled through and descended into the booth, smiling as kindly as he could.
"Are you gonna arrest me?" the kid asked warily, staring up from the shots.
"Only if I find you in here a second time drinking anything but a Coke," Cain said, as fairly as he could muster. "Go on, get."
The kid skittered off, wavering just enough to bump Ambrose's back slightly before he was out the door. Ambrose barely noticed, just staring at the glass, as if he were waiting for it to say something and explain all the horrible messes humanity stuck themselves in. Vodka was a cloudy kind of clear right now, and he was tempted to ask for some ice to stick in it just to watch them in the glass, but that would mean it'd be watered down, and he wanted the kick.
So he drank a half of his half a glass, and there was a quarter of it left. The bartender kept looking over somewhere and looking back at him, but Ambrose ignored it. He hadn't been drinking for the sake of drinking in a long time, and he fully intended on doing it right. That meant silent, fast, and hard. Hell, maybe he'd even be lucky enough to get in a bar fight, but he'd been stupid enough to pick a relatively tame bar close to campus, just because it was the only one he'd really known was around.
The other quarter slid down his throat, and he set it carefully on the bar, wondering how long it would be until he ended up using coasters again. Gods, he used to be such a stupid aristocrat, and he still was. Even as a happy, quirky professor, he was still Royal Advisor too, and kept wondering how could I have stopped all those people from dying even though there was no way he could have done it.
Ambrose knew he was just depressed and a bit scared and a lot tired of all this acting and adjusting and being away from where he was more needed. "Cain could handle Az," Ambrose muttered to himself and the empty glass. "Maybe I could go back and help her."
Cain, at that moment, was in no mood to handle anything but the situation at hand. He had written a quick note about the turnout of the evening (Kid ran, as usual.) in his work notebook and he had been ready to go home when he saw just who the kid had bumped into. He got up and crossed the room to the bar, sliding onto the seat next to Ambrose and signaling the bartender for a glass of water.
"A man might think you were looking to forget something, sweetheart," Cain said evenly, not even bothering to add levels to his tone.
Ambrose just looked at him. And then right through him. "You do occasionally introduce yourself to the fine knowledge the modern media produces for you, yes?" he asked, voice sharp and angry and tired. "I'd think if anyone was drinking themself dead it'd be you." He was drunk already, he was so sick of it all, and Ambrose ended up with his head slumped on Cain's shoulder, staring at the bottles on the wall - green, brown, beige, black... "I hate this."
Cain sighed as he tried to right Ambrose gently, prying him into a vertical position. At least, while they were still in public. The media of the day had gotten to the home, but Cain had been busy hiding newspapers and magazines from Jeb, trying to keep the kids outside and away from the news, going so far as to invent fake homework so they wouldn't watch television. "I heard about it," he said deadpan. "I just don't take it out on a bar's worth of alcohol."
Cain had gone out back and gone through four rounds of ammo with the shooting target until his hand stopped shaking and he stopped hearing the ring of explosions in his ears. He kept a hand on Ambrose's back until he was vertical and then he let go, sliding the glass of water in front of Ambrose and switching it with the vodka.
Ambrose drank the water just like he'd been drinking the vodka - one swig straight down the throat. He set the glass down carefully, looking at the pattern in the wood. "I was kind of hoping for a bar fight," Ambrose muttered, tracing one of the darker lines in the wood.
"Just so I could punch something that would feel it. And I'm not a violent guy, you know, I...I don't like hurting people or getting hurt. I'm supposed to protect people, and I know how to protect people in the big picture, but everything here's so..." He sighed, twirling the glass across the bar. "Small." He glanced over to Cain. "Why are you here if you're not drinking, then?"
"I had an underage kid with a fake ID to deal with," Cain explained easily, replacing his hand on Ambrose's back, worried he'd just topple over if he let go. "Had to scare the kid off. I swear, not even eighteen." As he spoke, Cain continued moving the vodka further and further out of eye contact until it was sitting in front of another man completely. He was on his feet easily enough (and graceful as Cain was utterly sober). "Come on. Let's go home, you can take a swing at me."
"Why would I punch you? You're the smaller picture...protector kind of guy," Ambrose proclaimed, voice practically scandalized at the thought, walking with surprising ease, although he idly swiped an open bottle of beer off some unsuspecting college students' table with an equally surprising (and slightly disturbing) ease.
"Okay," Cain agreed, just as gracefully swiping the beer out of Ambrose's hands and settling it back with the students with a murmured apology and a tight smile, stepping back beside Ambrose to walk beside him.
"You know, I once got dared to steal her Majesty's panties, back when I was just an advisor," he said absently.
"And did you do it? Steal 'em, I mean."
"Yyyyep," Ambrose snickered. "Got 'em from the laundry, though - the clean stuff, obviously, I mean...yeah. But yep. They didn't believe me so I gave them back to her in front of them!"
Ambrose started giggling. "And she was so graaacious about it, too. Got my name, said she'd keep an eye on me, all that jazz." He paused. "It's kinda funny that swiping the Queen's panties when I was eleven got me here, huh."
Cain couldn't help laughing at the story, keeping an eye on Ambrose himself as he led him out the front door and got the keys out, half-willing to just pick Ambrose up and carry him the rest of the way. "When you were eleven?" he echoed. "What happened to stuff like having a childhood, sweetheart?"
Ambrose actually snorted and shook his head, hair trailing a bit into his eyes. He paused. "My hair's getting kind of longer, huh. But yep, I was eleven. Fourth child, started getting clever...er? More clever? Cleverer? Anyway, I got clev-whatever when I was real little, means they immediately sent me into the Academy where I was a smart little boy, learned how to fight because of it, and blah blah blah. Everyone's got a childhood, just some people get to be more...kid-ish than others."
It was hard to miss the fact that Ambrose was kind of an adorable drunk. And that it was doing very little to help the fact that Cain was about a half-minute from kissing him again.
He looked over at Cain. "Did you know I was Royal Advisor before I hit thirty? Can you believe that? Out of all of us, it was me. What the hell." He paused, blinking. "...I have no idea how old I am. Old enough to drink, at least."
"Well, I'm twenty-nine and Jeb's just recently seven annuals," Cain said, guiding Ambrose to the truck and opening the door, pretty much picking the other man up and tucking him into the seat, keeping an eye on things. "So there are some ages for you." Ages came and went and Cain kept track of them carefully, buckling Ambrose in good and tight and making sure the seatbelt wasn't loose at all, his hand trailing Ambrose's chest in the process, slow and languid as his fingers brushed diagonal across it. He closed the door firmly and made his way around, glad he hadn't had anything to drink. "I'll have to make sure you join us for a water-fight. You need to have some fun. Everyone needs that."
"Hmmmm." The noise was deep, and Ambrose was honest-to-gods trying to figure out his age. Finally, he just smiled at Cain. An honest, completely happy smile. "At least I know I'm older than Jeb. Might be older than you, might be the same age as you, might be younger, but I'm around you." He paused. "Well, technically, I'm near you, but you know what I mean. You're smart when you're not all...stoic." He sighed, leaning back to stare at the roof of the car, chin tilting up. "It's like the weirdest looking sky ever."
"That'd be the roof," Cain answered as calmly as he could, keeping his eyes on the road and ignoring Ambrose completely for the moment for the short ride home. "It's weird because it ain't sky. Just roof. Material and fabric and all that good stuff, Mr. Older-Than-My-Boy."
"I know it's the roof," Ambrose laughed. "I'm just saying that if the sky looked like that, the world would be a very, very strange place. And you're lucky I'm drunk or I'd be offended you thought I was that stupid, but since I'm drunk I kind of am that stupid, you know? Topsy-turvy world. SPEAKING of which, Azkadellia made me watch Alice in Wonderland because some guy named Bill Peet did something in it. It was weird. I love Az, but sometimes she just pushes too hard, but I'll always love her, no matter what she puts me through." He sighed. "Jane likes her too. That's why she's nice enough to lie like me for her. She's nice."
In the midst of Ambrose's rambling, Cain had pulled them up the drive, parking closer to the small pink house than the main one and just as Cain turned the engine off, he heard the last bit of Ambrose's sentence, enough to make him do a double-take. "Sorry, but what? Lie like you? About what?" The keys safely in his pocket, Cain hopped out gracefully and rounded the truck to open the door and unbuckle Ambrose, wrapping his arms around his torso while guiding him down.
Ambrose blinked at him as they walked, not terribly wobbly. "I thought you knew we were fake-dating," he said, completely surprised. "It gives Jane an excuse to come over and chat with Az, gives me an excuse to, and sorry about this, get out of the house, and gives me and Jane an excuse to just sort of...sit around. We watched the Terminator last time. I kind of want to build one. She burnt the popcorn though."
"C'mon, easy now," he coaxed quietly. "Our Az tried to set me up with Annie," Cain spoke conversationally, shifting to bear Ambrose's weight. "Told her no about a dozen times over and I think she's finally getting the message." Cain had to shift, his center of gravity slightly off as one arm wrapped snugly around Ambrose's front, holding tight to his hips. It was the shock of the admission, that Ambrose wasn't really dating Jane Walker, that was what got to him and he was speechless for a good while,
He sighed, head rolling back onto Cain's shoulder. "How you can say no so many times I will neeever understand. It's probably because you were always The Dad and I was just The Doting Uncle when I got to be." He smiled. "DG was just so damn cute and adventurous. I miss her."
As he spoke, Cain’s free hand kept brushing over Ambrose's longer-hair again and again, but he couldn't get into the house without the keys for the door and he leaned Ambrose against the exterior of his vehicle while opening the back seat of the truck and digging through it for the house keys, which were back there somewhere. "Should just keep them with the car ones," he muttered, glancing over his shoulder worriedly at the talk of DG. "You're a father on your own, Ambrose," Cain promised. "You're basically her father. I should know. Takes one to know one, right?"
That hand had felt nice, and Ambrose made a noise of protest when it went away. When he was leaned against the car, he rolled his eyes and immediately stuck his hand in the back pocket of his pants, dangling a set of keys behind Cain's head. "This is why I walk everywhere," he said, sounding very wise despite how he was slowly tipping over. "Because cars just mess everything up, no matter how fast they go. And Baker's tiny anywa...woouh."
He swivelled, the noise not even making sense to himself, and he was wondering about that before he realized that yes, he was still falling down, and immediately grabbed onto Cain.
"I'm kind of drunk," he said absently, and snickered.
Cain spun on the ball of his foot and with a step that was almost a dance-move, he caught Ambrose in his arms, wrapping one arm around his waist and the other around his shoulders, just holding on tight, one knee braced inside Ambrose's legs to make sure he wouldn't fall. The proximity, though, was making things more than difficult for him and he swallowed hard, staring at Ambrose's lips from where he stood.
Guess there's no reason why not, was what Cain told himself. "You're adorable when you're drunk," Cain murmured, taking his mind off the news and the way he wouldn't be able to sleep for days by holding on as tight as he could to Ambrose. He even backed them up until the backs of Cain's knees hit the open car door and he kissed Ambrose slow and steady and deeply.
It took Ambrose a moment to realize he was being kissed, but as soon as he got that part in his mind, he kissed back hard, wrapping his arms around Cain's neck. His hands slid down the other man's back as he leaned forward, grinning into the kiss and catching Cain's upper lip between his own.
Ambrose felt a little bad about it, taking advantage of Cain when he was clearly not in his right mind, but the man could kiss and Ambrose was sick of just standing there when he decided to do it.
The sheer shock that he was being kissed back sent Cain reeling -- literally so. He tugged Ambrose with him as he staggered and stumbled into the truck, damn near lifting Ambrose with him onto the seat and yanking the door shut while still managing to keep kissing because he had no idea how long this would last before Ambrose pulled away or stopped kissing or just didn't want him back like all the times before.
"Gods," he exhaled, breathless as one hand slowly (and shakily) stroked down Ambrose's chest and down lower, nudging past trousers and snaking into his pants. Fingers very slowly pushed a little further to grasp hold of Ambrose properly and, still kissing, he got a good grip, easing back enough to look him in the eye. "...Yeah?"
Ambrose thought that was a genuinely stupid question. He was panting under Cain with his eyes half rolled into his head and he asked Yeah? Really, Cain was so stupid sometimes. Ambrose leaned up, flipped the damn hat off Cain's head, and kissed him in a way that was apparently French somehow. Honestly, Ambrose had always thought it involved tongue and a hell of a lot of heat, but the Otherside was weird. French fries, French kiss, Cain's hand was down his pants, life was pretty good.
"Oh yeah," Ambrose said, practically breathing the words into Cain's ear, a hand sliding up to the nape of Cain's neck, and kissed him again.
Cain's cheeks had flushed red with the heat of the moment and he kissed back with so much determination and skill that a man might have thought the world was about to end, the way Cain was going at it. His fingertips were calloused and he wrapped his hand firmly around Ambrose's length as he kissed him desperately. It was the physical desperation that men could often drown in and Cain was lost at sea. "Ambrose," he moaned against the kiss, hand pushing firm down, thumb circling the head of Ambrose's cock as he gave a sharp shout, biting Ambrose's lower lip before kissing harder again (he wanted to leave some kind of mark). His hand was pushing Ambrose's pants down as best as they could, but Cain was panting and sweating and stroking Ambrose as firm and fast as he could while still giving him proper attention and his knees kept digging into the leather seats of the truck, shirt buttons straining undone as he writhed atop Ambrose. As a result, the pants didn't go further than mid-thigh in his effort to get them off.
Ambrose could barely breathe, definitely couldn't think, and his world had turned to nothing but Cain, Cain and his lips and his fantastic, glorious hand and teeth and tongue and lips and eyes, gods his eyes and his hand and he felt like he was fifteen again but blamed the alcohol and Wyatt Cain for that because the man was apparently infinitely better than vodka could ever be.
Ambrose barely managed to stop whatever his drunk, stupid mouth was saying (which had just about been exactly what his mind had been rambling on about except for the fifteen part because he'd been busy kissing) to get out a warning that was more of a panted, whispered version of Cain's name before he came in his pants and immediately started wondering about laundry and then wondered if he could convince Cain that more sex would be a good idea. Because it sure as hell sounded good to Ambrose.
Cain heard his name and oh gods, he didn't even have a drop of alcohol in him, but the way Ambrose said it could make him a very different kind of drunk, the kind where his world spun off its axis and just drifted off into space, surrounded by too-bright stars and he swallowed thickly as he moved his lips to give Ambrose a barely-there hickey on his neck (in a place that could be covered by a collar because Cain was still considerate, above all things).
For a long moment, Ambrose just breathed against him, feeling Cain's pulse beneath his hands as he pulled the other man closer to him, practically on top of him, chest to chest. There was a tiny bit of sweat on his neck and Ambrose didn't know if it was being trapped in the truck or what that had caused it, but he leaned up that tiny bit and licking across the same trail, fully intent on tasting Cain. Tasting Cain and feeling Cain and breathing in as much as he could...
Ambrose had his arms twisted around Cain's head and neck, and he smirked straight into his eyes before leaning up and kissing him on the lips, and then the cheek, and then finally just carefully nibbling on Cain's ear. "One day I am going to fuck you into the mattress and take a loooong time doing it, Cain," he practically purred. He'd heard that from his students, or parts of it, and it certainly felt like a good and honest thing to say, because he really, really wanted to, but they were in a truck so he couldn't actually do it word for word. That was very, very disappointing.
"Oh gods," Cain gasped at the promise and he wasn't that strong, he couldn't possibly be that strong when Ambrose was doing those things to him and saying those things. Ambrose's wandering hands were making Cain's pulse race, in point of fact, and when he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbed hard and the sound was palpable to be heard as that tongue made Cain moan, without really meaning to.
One hand concentrated on just keeping Cain's face nearby, and the other slid down Cain's spine to grab a hip. Ambrose wondered why they were still mostly dressed. Or at least why they weren't naked. But then again, Ambrose also knew that he was very, very drunk, so he kissed him again, because that was always fantastic.
It was all driving him to stroke himself harder than he had Ambrose. His hand felt like it was controlled by something else now, as fast as it was going, but he was stronger than this. Strong and good and better than that. "You're drunk," Cain exhaled the words, a quiet accusation, but he didn't stop getting off.
"I am extremely drunk," Ambrose agreed with a low laugh, but that didn't keep him from kissing Cain again, thumb sneaking into Cain's pants to just idly trace circles, humming at the smooth skin and breathing hard, Ambrose's fist clenching in the other man's shirt. "And I'm thinking I should get drunk more often."
He could get rid of the truck part, though. Lose the truck, get a bed, lose the clothing, get some nice smooth sheets to ruin...Ambrose was giving Cain a very devilish look just at the thought. It was a look that promised a lot of dirty, dirty things that were very, very fun.
Cain gave a low groan that kept steady and was just this side of frustrated beyond all the telling of it as he kept pushing harder, wanting to bring himself off too and he added kisses to the repertoire again to dampen that look and to just kiss him like he hadn't ever been able to before, knowing that so long wanting had done him in and now he was lost to the kissing and the touching (and oh gods, but the touching was wonderful. Beyond wonderful)
This was wrong.
This was so wrong of him. He was the sober one and he was supposed to be much better than this and he slowly used one hand (shaking) to redress Ambrose as he swallowed and stared at the man beneath him.
Ambrose was understandably not happy about being less naked. Hell, Cain was even less naked than him and now was putting the damn clothes back on Ambrose. This was not how he'd been hoping things would turn out, so he was going to do his best to right the topsy-turvy world where they didn't have sex.
Because Ambrose thought this was wrong, this whole...no sex thing. He grabbed the shaking hands with his own, twisting his fingers with one and pulling the other up to his mouth and wrapping his lips around two of Cain's fingers, staring straight at Cain, Ambrose's eyes and mouth doing all the talking he couldn't, what with being otherwise occupied.
"No," Cain said roughly, shifting until he had one foot on the floor of the truck and he could pull away, shaking his head. "No, no," he added, voice still husky while lifting Ambrose back into his arms, one hand strong and steady as it supported his back and he sat them both up, easing the door open and slowly steadying his feet on the asphalt of the drive before he collected Ambrose (and the keys) into his arms and lifted him into a fireman carry over his shoulder. "You are drunk," Cain reasoned aloud as he carried him, opened the lock and bumping the door open with his hip, gracefully twisting and turning to avoid bumping into doorways and he took Ambrose straight to the bed and laid him out atop the covers, prying off shoe by shoe as he zipped up the pants and kept him decent.
Cain was still half-hard and breathing heavily, but he knew he had to be doing the right thing.
"You're drunk and we can't. You're drunk."
By now Ambrose was pouting, the only consolation being that in a fireman's hold he could just stare at Cain's ass, even though he didn't like this whole...being moved and no sex thing. Getting flung on the bed let him be a bit more optimistic, but Cain kept talking about being drunk and impaired judgement and blah blah blah. Cain was getting annoying with all his morals and stuff.
"You know, Cain, maybe you should get drunk too so you'd see this from my perspective," Ambrose said, voice a bit slurred and he was actually getting tired now. Not acceptable. He was in bed, Cain was there, and there was no sex. Not acceptable at all. "And what's being drunk have to do with anything?" He snorted. "Back home when I got drunk I usually woke up in jail for physical assault. It was funny. Little skinny me, 'round twenty, took out three guys when I got drunk."
Cain sighed as he leaned in and started to unbutton Ambrose's shirt, pushing off his pants and pausing for a moment when he wondered whether or not to completely undress him. He solved that by going to a drawer and digging out a pair of pajama bottoms, replacing Ambrose's clothing for those, averting his eyes to preserve dignity. All the while Ambrose spoke, he got that shirt off until all he had was a pair of pants and the covers atop him. “You don't want this, not really,” Cain gently added. “This is just the alcohol.”
He started laughing. Ambrose was laughing, and managed to make it sound pretty scathing. Impressive for someone as hammered as he was. "Sex and violence are kind of different impulses, Cain! You'd be unconscious if I didn't want this, you...something." His eyes fluttered, and Ambrose blinked. "Wow am I drunk."
Cain tucked him in, collapsing into a weary sit on the bed. His mind was tired, his body was tired, and his soul (stupidly enough) was tired. He couldn't stop thinking about the kissing or the blast back in Central and a part of him just wanted to go wrap his arms around Jeb and never let go.
But instead, he sat there with Ambrose.
"I'm gonna sleep in the house on the couch, okay?" he spoke very slowly. "There's some water in a pitcher on the nightstand and a bucket by the bed. You're in my bed, in case you forget." He reached a hand out to brush wayward strands of hair off of Ambrose's forehead and leaned down to kiss him just one more time. "I know you won't want to have done this when you sober up, so I'm going to go. Need anything else?" He paused, giving a wry look. "Anything but sex?"
Ambrose yawned, and hated himself for it. He was supposed to be pouncing Cain, not humming all contented-like when he brushed the hair away. But he had to answer, so he nodded, waving absently towards his clothes.
"Key in my pocket. Goes to the lab, you know," he said, eyes closing for a moment. "You can tell which one it is 'cuz it looks like a tube-y whistle thing with a key inside it." He restrained the duh he wanted to add on. "Go down and just shut all the power off. Don't touch anything, 'cuz it could explode or electrocute you." Ambrose yawned. "And just tell me you did that in the morning if I don't remember, mmmkay?" Ambrose was already curling up in the blankets. "An just sleep in m' bed. Bedswap, since you don't wanna share."
Cain leaned over to dig out the key and nodded, listening carefully to the instructions. He didn't mention anything about actually wanting to share, but the thing was, he didn't put it past himself to not just sit in a chair in Jeb's room and watch over him until the sun came up. "I'll turn everything off," Cain promised, tucking the key into his back pocket as he rose to his feet and turned off the lights. "Sweet dreams, Ambrose. I'll call in sick for you tomorrow," he added and gently closed the door behind him as he went, exhaling shakily and taking a long moment to compose himself and try to forget everything that had happened.
Gods, he was doomed.
--
After a long day of things, there was no doubt in Cain's mind that his decision to add a bathroom to the small car-hold had been the best decision he'd ever had. It meant that he could relax in the privacy of his own space and didn't have to bicker with Azkadellia and Ambrose for bathroom time, nor did he have to fight with Jeb. He'd been in from work for all of thirty minutes and had gone through a rousing chase with a local kid thieving from the grocery store and was covered in sweat and grime, more than enough to push him into a long hot shower. He'd missed the beginning of dinner, but with the warm water pounding against his back, he wasn't so inclined to care.
He stood in the steam of the shower for a good while before he was motivated to turn it off, knowing he had plenty to do in the evening. He grasped hold of his only towel, wrapping it around his waist tightly before staring at his reflection in the fogged-up mirror, catching only the glimpse of his own eyes, reflecting blue and clear across from him.
With a hand, he wiped the condensation and ignored the annoying squeaking sound it made.
Dinner would be over by now, but he could always pop in and grab some leftovers when they'd all left the kitchen. He made his way out to the main room, collecting some dropped clothes from the day and keeping one hand on the towel to keep it from slipping as he went, tidying up in a lazy fashion.
Occasionally when Cain missed dinner and it had been a warm one, Ambrose would just bring it over for whenever what had kept Cain away was done. Sometimes it was a bad day and not being ready to face the kids (something Ambrose himself had done a few times, locked up in the lab and working until he fell asleep), sometimes he accidentally fell asleep, and sometimes Cain was just a lazy idiot. But Ambrose had had a relatively good day, and figured that meant Cain had probably gotten a hell of a bad one, so he walked out of the house with the stew and bread (home-cooked, much to his pride, and half the reason he was delivering it) and bumped the door open with his hip.
"I decided to be nice-"
Which was when he saw a dripping wet Wyatt Cain standing in the middle of the room trying to keep his towel up and wandering around. Ambrose closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Um. Here. Food."
Cain nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the strange voice just wandering into his house and he cursed in the Ancient tongue of the O.Z. (he knew a few choice words, taught by his mother) and grappled to hold the towel a lot tighter, angling his hips away from Ambrose to avoid the whole part where he got mildly aroused just thinking about the situation they were in.
Kids were in the house. He was wet and pretty much naked. And Ambrose was bringing him food personally. "Ambrose," Cain got out, strangled. "You couldn't have knocked?"
"I-I..." Ambrose said, voice pitched a bit high before he cleared his throat, feeling like he was a stupid teenager again. "I've done this plenty of times before and you've never been..." He couldn't even say it, just swept his hand towards Cain, and immediately regretted it. He groaned. "Gods, don't you have a...a robe or something?" His hands were getting just as stupid as his libido, so Ambrose found the small table and set the food down, keeping his eyes as far away from Cain. Brain, too. "I baked the bread myself," he blurted out. "It's good."
There was a bright pink flush flooding Cain's cheeks as he readjusted both hands on the towel, gripping it like he might his belt and he tried to keep distance between them, seeing as if he got any closer, he might just pounce on Ambrose and that could lead to a lot of ill consequences. "We had a runner. I got filthy. I just got out of the shower." He kept his sentences good and terse because he had the feeling he'd start babbling if he didn't.
"I can kind of tell the shower thing," Ambrose said, nodding quickly, keeping his eyes intent on the stew. Stew was very interesting. Definitely worth further examination. Stew was thicker than soup, thinner than...something solid...gods, this was horrible.
Cain’s fingers grasped the towel harder, knuckles going white. "Just...let me get dressed," he insisted, gesturing with one hand for Ambrose to turn around, which made the towel slip slightly and give off a flash of hip before he righted the towel.
He made the mistake of looking up, and there he was again, all naked and wet and- "Okay I'll turn around and you can get dressed." Ambrose practically squeaked, turning around quickly and forcing himself to breathe nice and slowly, concentrating on nothing but thinking of nothing, trying to distract himself from the fact Cain was naked and wet and...he groaned. Ambrose knew he couldn't leave before Cain was changed, just in case someone else made the mistake of wandering in. "Dress fast?"
Cain yanked his boxers on, hopping into them as he lunged for his jeans and shook the towel through his short hair, nearly tripping in the panicked effort to get decent. Cain never panicked. He never got so away from himself that he couldn't manage, but here he was acting more like an idiot than ever before. "Okay, I'm decent," Cain promised, tugging on a tank top as he promised his decency.
Ambrose nodded and turned back around, only to wish he hadn't because he still managed to see Cain slipping on the tank top and he had a very nice chest, and Ambrose needed to distract himself. "So I brought dinner," he said. He was probably repeating himself, but that was better than just staring. "Stew and bread. The kids seemed to like it." He swallowed. "And...I should go help them with their homework. Or tell them to do their homework." Or just leave with no explanation.
Cain wandered closer and leaned over to sniff the stew, glancing up at Ambrose from the small table, pushing over some papers and making room for two, just in case Ambrose did want to stay. He kept his hat off and rolled his shoulders back while sliding down into a chair. "I'm sure they're getting on fine," he promised, grasping a spoon and breaking the bread apart as he took large bites, not bothering to lightly eat things.
He took a large bite of bread coated in stew and gave a surprised sound at the taste.
"Gods, how did you get so good at cooking?" he murmured in quiet approval, eyeing Ambrose up and down. If he had to, he would start dragging things out just to keep Ambrose there a while longer.
Ambrose could tell he wasn't going to be able to leave without putting up a fight or just being incredibly rude and simply walking out the door. Since that was practically a challenge, Ambrose sat and tried not to blush or twitch or even look away at the once-over. Or to look at Cain in general. This was nothing but a game, absolutely nothing but Who Has To Leave First, and Ambrose was going to win and have Cain practically throw him out.
He waited until Cain's mouth was good and full before he voiced the first lie he could think up, considering 'it's a benefit from extensive chemistry experience' wasn't something that would accomplish his goals. "When I was kidnapped, it was either cooking or slave labour. I picked cooking, and here we are."
Cain nearly choked on the food, gaping up at Ambrose with disbelief in his eyes and then mistrust and then he shook his head and started divvying up his food into halves like he always did, swallowing hard. "Kidnapped? By royalty?"
"By pseudo-royalty," Ambrose said blandly, wondering how much of this Cain was honestly believing and how long he could keep going with the same lie. "Attempted to usurp the throne without any blood ties to it, so I managed to poison them all with-" With what? He thought ridiculously fast "-some of the laundry detergent mixed with a few oils and put them in a gelatin for dessert."
Ambrose was good at chemistry. He was brilliant with it, in fact. But poisons were definitely not his forte. For all he knew, he'd only given the usurpers an itchy throat.
That got a dubious raise of Cain's brow, but not a word spoken while he finished up the remainder of his stew and half the bread, slowly pushing to his feet to get out a couple of containers from the drawer he kept them in. "Uh huh," he deadpanned. "And then what, you became King Ambrose?"
Ambrose barely stopped his jaw from dropping. He'd just been given a big wide opening for getting to leave, and he was taking it. "If you're not going to listen and understand the trials I've been through in my life, I'm not going to sit here and be insulted by your snide commentary, considering the amounts of trauma I still have from the event," Ambrose said a bit too quickly, standing up. "I'll be going, then."
"Hold up," Cain said, barely glancing up from the table, spooning the stew in. "Wait a second so you can take these in with you." Cain still didn't have a fridge of his own out there, seeing as he ate with the rest often enough.
And maybe, just maybe, he was thinking up reasons to keep Ambrose there a while longer.
Ambrose paused practically mid-step to turn around and frown at Cain. "...but I'm." He stopped for a moment, and pointed at the door, genuinely confused. The clever script in his head had just been incinerated, leaving him with nothing but stage directions. "But I'm storming out indignantly, Cain."
"And I don't have a cooling unit," Cain explained patiently. "So unless you want to clean the smell, you can wait two minutes and take these back with you," he said simply, making sure everything was neat and put away, licking a stray droplet of stew from his thumb, eyes glancing up to catch sight of Ambrose and wish he would've just sat down and stayed. The sigh was audible and he knew that he couldn't force him to stay, so he closed the container and brought them over to place in Ambrose's hands, standing only inches away from him. "I guess you can finish storming out now."
Cain needed to stop licking things, and he needed to stop now, and since Ambrose really couldn't just shout at him to keep his tongue to himself that meant he had to just stand there, and breathe. When Ambrose's hands went for the container, he nearly dropped the thing when he touched Cain's hands. His hands were shaking, for gods sake, so he clamped a grip on the container - one hand on top, and one hand on the bottom.
"...Thank you," Ambrose said. Or asked. Or possibly whimpered. He wanted to hate Cain but apparently the impulse to kiss him was stronger, so he shut his mouth, biting his lower lip and just sort of staring at Cain, probably looking like an idiot. Ambrose blamed the shower for every bit of this. The very, very nice shower and the fact Cain didn't have a big enough towel.
Cain had to wonder if it had always been this difficult to breathe and this hot when it came to his little pink house. Maybe it was an illness. In that case, he ought to avoid the kids so they wouldn't get this light-headed, stomach-churning feeling, but really, he was just deluding himself when he really knew what was going on.
"You're welcome," Cain exhaled the words, eyes flickering down to Ambrose's lips and stayed there for a while before he closed his eyes and reminded himself that they couldn't do this. When he opened his eyes, he half-expected Ambrose to have run, but they were still standing there and so, Cain went for the default: awkward conversation. "It really was good food," he said lamely.
Awkward conversation was about all Ambrose had too. "I learned to bake bread for a science experiment," he practically mumbled, blushing. "It's the...yeast? It."
He cleared his throat, mentally smacked himself really hard, and began backing away with a light laugh. "Well, glad you enjoyed the food! Have a good ni-ow." Ambrose frowned and looked behind him. He'd managed to poke himself in the spine with the doorknob.
Cain was instantly in action, yanking the door open while pulling Ambrose back into his arms to avoid the inward swing of it. "Would you be careful?" he chastised, more concerned-sounding than anything else as he got the door open and when Ambrose was steady, let him go. His fingers just might have trailed languidly over his hip as he released him. "You okay? Or should I kiss it better?" The jovial words were out of his mouth before he even realized what he'd said.
Ambrose just about dropped the container when he felt the hand on his hip, barely rescuing it from a mess on the floor, which he would have made Cain clean up; nobody could expect him to have steady hands with Cain all...pressed up against him and...oh gods. Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neon, Sodium...
Ambrose's stupid, stupid mouth was babbling out the Otherside periodic table, all the while his libido screaming YES and his brain was saying NO and so he just stood there, moving onto Silver and still churning away the elements.
Cain took a large step backwards, giving Ambrose a wary and worried look, figuring he had done something wrong or hit some strange switch and made Ambrose babble like that. So he just took a deep breath and grasped hold of the door with one hand, still looking curiously at Ambrose. "I'll come in later to say goodnight to the kids," he said, swallowing that desire to just grab Ambrose and push him to the bed and keep him there for a week. "Thanks, again, for the dinner."
It was code. A 'leave now or you won't leave for a month' in other words.
"You're welcome," Ambrose said quickly, which was practically code for 'oh gods don't tempt me' but Ambrose didn't know that, he was just thinking that and skittering out the door and nearly kicking the house's door to get back in and away from Cain and all his...okay fine. Ambrose could admit that it was Cain he was running from.
When Ambrose was clearly inside the house and couldn't hear anything, the door to the little pink house got slammed hard with frustration.
What Cain knew and Ambrose could probably guess, was that it was most definitely of the sexual variant.
tbc