15 Annuals, Chapter 5: The Part Where Their Cover's Blown Really, Really Badly
EVERYBODY SEE THIS ICON YET? I have three other versions of it, but! GLIMBROSE! :D :D :D
Title: Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch (15 Annuals); CHAPTER 5, AKA The Part Where Their Cover's Blown Really, Really Badly
Fandom: TINMAN.
Rating: R! :D
Summary: Who needs Roboparents when a Queen's got an Advisor-Ninja to take care of their recently deceased daughter?
This Chapter: Glitch mindfucks himself, poor baby. And AZ ATTACKS!!! *insert jaws theme* Also, having seven names can be a bitch sometimes. :/
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: That Part Where Ambrose Gets Executed
Chapter 2: The Bit With The Ninjas
Chapter 3: The End Of The Ninja Bit Thanks To LOTS OF FIRE
Chapter 4: The Resistance Meets A Magical Ninja Princess (And Glitch)
Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch
(aka 15 Annuals)
CHAPTER V:
AKA The Part Where Their Cover’s Blown Really, Really Badly
The Joats (they were still called that, thanks to a third of the Resistance being referred to the movement by said ‘Joats’) moved faster than the long caravan of Resistance fighters and the crew that moved with them. And that was really starting to tick Cain off.
It would be a long, drawn-out day of moving as carefully and quickly as possible, and when they stopped, the Joats would show up, chatting in their gibberish (kageri, he amended, although it still sounded like gibberish to him) and walking up with their packs and looking like they’d just been strolling along.
“There’s a nice river five miles to the north, no Longcoats around for a couple days’ traveling at least,” Hime or Deeg or whatever her name was said with a smile, toying with that metallic cylinder she always had on her person. They never explained how they would get five miles ahead, or scout two days in every direction, or how they could just sit in a spot and wait for the Resistance to show up.
They usually had tea, too. Sitting in the middle of the path, the less-fit Resistance members panting and ready to collapse, and Glitch and the young woman would be sitting, drinking tea, and chatting, two cushions already on the ground and waiting for the Cains. By now Jeb seemed to just accept it and would sit down and drink his tea while the Kage and his ward talked about their scouting and the terrain and the expected weather.
Cain always tried to not sit. Always tried, and always failed, because Hime-or-Deeg or whatever her name was would give him a smile, pour a cup of tea, and say “Please, have a seat.”
And it always worked. He didn’t know if he was whipped or she was toying with his mind or what, but it was efficient and slightly terrifying to him. Cain was a man who liked to be in control of his own life.
…which led to the problem of Glitch. The Joats and the Cains had been working together leading the Resistance (the Cains actually leading it, the Joats advising the Cains, with stunning results) for three months, and Cain had quickly realized the mess he had gotten himself into during the first week.
It could be intentional. After a long, taxing day, he’d find himself leaning close to Glitch and feel the man’s arms wrap around him, and he’d find himself saying “Let’s get out of here, Sweetheart.” Within ten minutes they would be losing their clothing and themselves inside each other, ignoring the world around them in favor for one another, for the small scars he could see on Glitch’s body, the Kage tattoo that Cain knew he was the only one to have seen, knew that even Hime probably had never seen, and it was a thought that could make every part of his body shiver at the thought.
It could be by accidental. Glitch was graceful, but even he tended to trip on his own feet, as if sometimes he expected something different than the rough forest floor they usually traveled on, something smooth and almost sliding, and Cain would catch him, grinning, and accidentally say “Watch yourself now, Sweetheart.” That usually ended up with hard, heated sex against the nearest convenient rock or tree or even a good bit of grass, trying to be quiet as the rest of the group passed them. It usually left bite marks, bruises, hickeys, and that horribly sexy ‘hello I just had rough hot sex with you and am more than happy to do it again’ hair on Glitch for the rest of the day that would usually drive Cain into a not-so-accidental Sweetheart Incident.
When Glitch had said “Sweetheart gets you lots and lots of sex,” he hadn’t known it had been literally every time he used the name. He’d thought it was the sort of teasing, goofy talking Glitch would do late at night when the Resistance settled down for the night and the ones too tortured by nightmares or memories or even the thought of what could happen to them congregated around the only fire left lit. Hime was usually at those too, and Jeb and Cain found themselves joining in as well to hear the stories that Glitch would pull out of nowhere.
Stories of a Queen and her two rambunctious, adventurous daughters. Stories of a foreign people and their legends, where Jeb found himself repeatedly asking for ‘The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms’, the one where the entire world was at war, three rulers fighting for power, and the forbidden love that stretched between the daughter of one leader’s deadly, beautiful warrior daughter and the other ruler, and how they fell in love with each other. Stories of Central Academy and the insidious plotting and intrigue that swarmed the academia.
Sometimes, Cain found himself wondering when Glitch really slept. When Hime slept, he was usually only napping nearby, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice. The only time he ever saw Glitch honestly sleep was when the man was curled in his arms, that small, priceless smile on his face.
“Hime and I are okay with it, you know,” Jeb said one day as they walked, the carts squeaking behind them, the Joads out scouting today.
Cain frowned. “What?”
“With the whole…well, you know. With you and Glitch,” he said, blushing. It was quite honestly the first time Cain had ever seen his son blush. “We think it’s good for you both, and Hime says that Glitch seems happier than she’s seen him since they left home.”
Cain knew not to ask exactly where Jeb thought their ‘home’ was, but he was a bit busy being stunned by the fact Hime and Jeb actually supported this insane…thing. Which Cain actually really really liked but hadn’t dreamed either Jeb or Hime would.
“But, um, we just wanted to ask you to sort of…move further away from the path when we’re traveling,” Jeb said, the blush deepening. “People go looking for you guys sometimes, after all.”
And by people Jeb probably meant himself.
Which meant his son had probably stumbled across his dad and Glitch fucking against a rock or a tree or whatever was conveniently placed nearby during a sporadic, usually-accidental (although the accidents were becoming a bit more intentional lately) Sweetheart Incident.
“…I think we can manage that,” Cain said, very much trying to not blush although he knew his face was at least pink to fuchsia. Good gods, his son had seen him.
He was going to KILL Glitch.
Unfortunately, someone else was busy trying to do that before the thought even crossed his mind.
---
“Sorceress, we’ve found him in the archives,” some nameless Longcoat said, breathless as he practically ran into the room she usually used as her office, spilling a few papers in his haste, which her attendant was picking up nonchalantly and placing on her desk before the nameless Longcoat had even put the folder on her desk. “The Sorceror, we found him. It took a lot of work, but as soon as we found him it all came tumbling out! Graduated the Academy at sixteen, enrolled at nine-”
“His name,” Azkadellia said, voice icy. “Tell me. What is his name.”
The Longcoat swallowed the lump in his throat. “Ambrose.”
She didn’t let herself breathe in sharply, didn’t let herself pale, didn’t let herself differ in anyway.
Compose yourself, child. She didn’t answer this time, instead turning towards the Longcoat.
“No last name?” Traditional royalty in the OZ never had last names, and his shake of the head was practically a death sentence to the hope a family connection could be a fluke with proof by a simple last name was thrown out the window. “A picture, then,” she said, already standing as the Longcoat fumbled through the papers and presented a picture of a younger but undeniable Sorceror - no, his name was Ambrose. She memorized it. Ambrose. Ambrose. Ambrose.
“Now get out,” she said, holding the picture and heading for her private balcony, taking a deep breath.
We will find him. We will kill him.
“Yes,” she said, and glared unseeingly at the world as the summoning, the power flowed through her. “And then Mother will tell us everything.”
It hurt. It always hurt when the Mobats emerged, agony jolting down her spine. But she grit her teeth, listened to the voice inside of her that was hissing in a violent fit ov joy, and watched them emerge, one by one.
Zora got the picture, in every way. She also got a soft stroke of the fur. “Find him. Kill him.”
They were off and moving as soon as she spoke, going every direction at the speed only a Mobat could reach. She knew she’d get results soon - they had yet to let her down, after all - so she sauntered over to the door, opening it. Blue-green light spilled onto the ground.
No loose ends.
“I already knew that,” she said to the voice, and turned towards the Longcoat and her faithful attendant. “And you are the only one who’s gotten to all this information?”
“I came as soon as I gathered everything,” he nodded.
Azkadellia smiled. “Good,” she said, and sucked the man’s soul out.
She couldn’t have anyone ruining her aborted family reunion, after all.
---
“Why are we even talking about this?” Glitch whined, but DG kept on going.
“I just want to make sure you’re being safe. You warned me about all this and you two seem to just go find a rock and fuck-”
“I swear that if you start using that word I will force you into dresses,” Glitch snapped, glaring at the far too grown princess at his side as they scouted. He’d done it before, although she’d nearly screamed his ear off with her temper tantrum.
…of course, she’d been sixteen, but the point still stood.
“Fine, no cursing,” DG conceded, twirling her staff deftly in one hand, almost absentmindedly. “I’m just saying that you warned me about all the precautions about…intimacy. Make sure you know where he’s been.”
“DEEG!” he snapped out, scandalized. “What…why are you even…gods, just drop the subject okay? This is…” He winced. “It’s like my baby sister giving me The Talk.”
She grinned at him, sneaking in a kiss on the cheek before Glitch batted her away. “But honestly, I want you to be careful. You’re…you’re really happy and I want you to stay that way.” She paused. “Oh, yeah, Jeb and I wanted to ask you guys to move a bit further from the caravan when you have one of those sudden moments of passion.”
He blushed. “Well that sounds like a valid concern I guess.”
“Yeah, walking into a clearing to see you two up against a big rock-”
“Deeeeeg-”
“I’m just trying to help! If you didn’t even notice us, who knows what else you wouldn’t notice? Anyone could come out and attack you.”
Glitch frowned. “Hmm.”
“Exactly,” she nodded, and paused. “I’ve been thinking that maybe we drop the Joads and show what we really are to the Resistance.”
That jerked Glitch’s head up, fast and sharp, eyes narrowed on her as they walked at a pace that counted as jogging for most people. “What does that mean exactly, Hime?”
“I want them to know what they have on their side,” DG said simply, flicking her wrist and collapsing the staff.
“And I swore I’d protect you,” the man she knew as Glitch but was much more Ambrose at that moment said. “No. Absolutely not. You can tell someone you’re the crown princess of the OZ when Azkadellia’s taken care of.”
“Well what about magic, then?” she asked, frustrated, and Ambrose shook his head.
“NO, DG,” he snapped. “Magic connects anyone and everyone to the royal family, and if anyone is a spy, or defects, or tortured, there is no way that your identity wouldn’t be revealed. She’s smart, she’s already paranoid enough by the thought of having family out there-”
“DOWN!” DG shouted, and they both immediately complied, a dark, winged creature flitting past them, screaming as it barely missed his head.
“Oh fuck it’s a Mobat,” he said a bit blurrily, and blinked at the sight of DG on top of him.
Protecting him.
She was staring down at him with worried eyes, glancing from him to where the Mobat had disappeared to and then back.
DG was never supposed to protect him. It was supposed to be the other way around. She was the princess. She was the one who would save the OZ. She was the one fated to rule the Outer Zone and make him proud until the day he died, hopefully in her service.
So Ambrose found himself grabbing one of her hands and saying, very calmly, “DG, I need you to do something for me.”
---
Azkadellia was watching. Eyes closed, she watched as Zora found Ambrose, saw him dive to the ground, saw the young woman - probably nothing but a pretty young thing he’d snatched on the street, from that tight of a top - throw herself over him.
“That’s him,” she whispered, mouth open, panting at the effort it took to see through the eyes of her creatures. Ambrose practically threw the girl off, but she clutched at his hand, face hidden behind her unbound hair. Probably terrified. “Kill him, darling Zora. Kill him.”
The Mobat screeched, the soul inside her screamed in rapture, and they dove.
---
“Now?” DG whispered.
The Mobat approached.
“Not yet,” Ambrose said flatly, and the Mobat screeched, turning into a dive.
---
She saw the smirk. Saw the woman clutching to his hand.
Heard his voice, the voice that had haunted her for years. “Come on then, cousin dearest.”
Zora’s claws were out. She dove straight for the man, who looked at Zora - no, looked through the Mobat. He was looking straight at her.
“Now,” he said simply.
His hands flashed a brilliant blue, and with a scream she could feel the pressure, the squeezing that was literally squishing Zora to death.
Kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him
Azkadellia grit her teeth, and glared through the dying Zora’s eyes. “Kill him.”
Zora complied, dropping her body straight onto a startled Ambrose, who pushed the girl aside and managed to dodge everything but the mouth that latched onto his shoulder, showing a disturbing amount of agility.
“NO,” a female voice roared, and Azkadellia screamed as she could feel Zora twisted, broken, shattered, and squished.
She fell to the floor, nearly vomiting at the feeling of Zora being torn from her, undeniably from magic. Nothing but magic.
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as the pain shot through her spine, through her entire body as it transferred to the other Mobats.
He’ll still die, even if it’s slowly.
Azkadellia tried to respond, to agree, to praise Zora for her devotion even to her dying breath, but instead fell to the well-kempt floor, her body a waterfall of hard gold and a vulnerable black.
Armored shoulders clanging against the marble, and at the sound Longcoats came pouring in as Mobat after Mobat cried out and headed for the tower and their mistress.
---
“Oh gods, Glitch! Glitch!” DG was screaming in his ear. His hands hurt. His body hurt. But his shoulder hurt the most, almost like someone had-
He looked over, at the teeth still embedded into his shoulder and the torn area from where the Mobat had latched on. “Oh,” he said a bit fuzzily. “Hi, Deeg. I’m probably about to go unconscious again so I’m going to tell you not to worry and to go get help from the Resistance which you can find easily if you ask the Cains and I don’t think I’ll die while you’re gone what with being a Kage and all but still hurry.” He paused. “Got all that?”
“Yes, Glitch,” she stated.
He smiled at that. “I’m so happy to be your Glitch…” he muttered, and passed out.
---
Nobody was expecting it. Nobody had ever expected to need to.
That still wasn’t much of an excuse for Cain nearly shooting the young woman he knew as Hime as she flung herself down from a tree, metal staff held at the ready behind her and eyes screaming death. People scream and ran around him as she strode forward, flicking her wrist and pulling the pole back into a slender tube.
But he didn’t run, because he noticed how pale she was, how she looked like she was about to collapse, and how she looked like she had just stared into death’s face and see it grin at her.
“Hey now, kid, you alright?” he began, walking forward to help her remain standing, only to find himself grabbed by the collar, a hand right in front of his face.
A glowing blue hand.
“I need someone…a, a healer, he said, a doctor or whatever you’ve got-”
“Dad!” Jeb shouted, running towards him as everyone else ran away, and there was a rush of air so loud it left his ears ringing.
Jeb, Cain, and the woman were standing in a glowing blue sphere, and she had the staff out again. “Healer. NOW.”
“Jeb? If you’d help her out?” he asked, and Jeb nodded sharply. Cain blinked as he realized that with a flick of her finger, Jeb was out of the half-sphere, and from the way Jeb was gaping, they were just as startled by it. But now wasn’t the time to demand answers from Hime - if that was her name.
He grabbed her hand cautiously, feeling the hot sweat over the near-freezing skin, noticing the dangerously fast pulse. “Now, what’s going on?”
“My Glitch,” she whispered, looking, for the first time, like a girl instead of a woman. A scared, worried little girl. “He always tries to save me and I saved him I saved him but I wasn’t fast enough wasn’t GOOD enough yet-”
“Hey, hold on kid, everything’s going to be fine,” he said, and against his better judgment reached out and gave her an awkward hug. “You’re doing exactly what you need to, you came to get help for him as fast as you could, and I’m betting as soon as Jeb and a healer get over here we’ll get back and have him fixed up in no time, right?”
“Stop acting. You’re just as worried as I am,” she whispered, clinging to him like a log in a lake.
Cain didn’t say anything to that, because he couldn’t really talk anyway. For some reason his eyes were stinging too, and he decided he was allergic to hugs when Jeb and a man in his late fifties showed up, the shield gone and Cain hanging awkwardly onto the clinging Hime.
“Glitch is hurt,” Cain managed to say, not admitting that the hoarseness of his voice was only half due to how tightly Hime was hanging onto him - and then wasn’t.
She was already moving, striding along in front of them in those strange skirt-pants of hers. “We’re going to make this as fast as possible, which means you may get a little…weirded out.”
“What do you mean-” Jeb asked, but was stopped mid-sentence when she took a deep breath in, and clapped her hands very, very hard.
She was panting, but kept walking as the others tried to regain their balance. It looked like she was about ready to fall over too, honestly.
But she shouted for them to keep walking, and they did, and she clapped her hands again, each time accompanied by a brilliant flash of blue-white light and even more panting, gasping breaths from Hime.
“We can walk for longer bits of time between the…the claps.” Jeb shouted from where he was leaning against a rock. Cain, in a much more undignified position, was kneeling on the ground, head and hat touching the dirt beneath him as he closed his eyes and breathed and tried to not throw up from how dizzy he was. How Jeb was taking all this was remarkable. The healer had already given up and fainted, also being carried by Jeb.
Cain had always known his son was someone to be proud of, but for some reason him being able to stand wobbly with an old man on his back after repeated magic-clapping made his heart just about ready to burst.
“We don’t have the time!” she shouted back, hands on her knees as she breathed harshly, as if she was forcing the air into her lungs. “Now walk.”
They did.
---
Ambrose was not happy when he heard the ringing, almost thunder-like sound behind him.
He pulled his shirt back on with one hand and continued his work on pulling the second-to-last tooth out of his skin.
“You just did a very, very stupid thing, although you don’t know it yet,” he said airily to DG, who was busy gasping in horror as he flung the ivory scythe out of his skin and it disappeared somewhere in the forest. He switched to Kageri. “I meant for you to just RUN, Princess.”
“So you could perform surgery on yourself?!” DG hissed out, and he turned toward her, frowning.
…and also saw the Cains and the old man.
“Deeg, I don’t think I have ever seen you lose your head like this,” he said idly, and turned his head back to his knife and the teeth still embedded in his shoulder. He heard the old healer faint as he carefully stabbed himself.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Cain shouted out, storming over, but not in time to stop Ambrose from pulling the final tooth out. This time, he held it, wiping his knife on the already-bloodied pants and resheathing it.
Ambrose held the tooth out, wrapping his second shirt around the wound when Cain took it. “Mobat teeth hold venom in their saliva. The longer they’re in, the more poison gets into the body.” He let himself lie back down. “Think of it like a snake. The longer the fangs are in, the more venom gets pumped into your bloodstream.”
“But I killed it,” DG snapped.
“Yes you did, and I’m very proud of you,” Ambrose stated, and then frowned, Glitch slipping in. “But honestly, the squishing? It was…ew.”
“Says the man who pulled teeth out of himself with a knife,” Cain muttered from where he was kneeling next to him, and Glitch giggled.
Giggling was not a normal Glitch behavior. He attributed it to bloodloss and not the fact Cain had picked that moment to brush his hand over the nape of his neck.
“You said sadistic, it was the first thing I could think of, and we didn’t exactly have the time to discuss things like…like…”
“Catch her, please,” Ambrose called out, and Jeb was a good boy and did as he was told, blinking at the figure in his arms. Ambrose cleared his throat. “You get any ideas about her and you’ll get to know my knife even better than the shoulder does.”
“If you don’t remember, that’s my son, Swee- Glitch,” Cain said, amused before he realized the near slip.
But at the near slip of his seventh name, Glitch found himself losing his composure. Found himself biting his own lip to keep the pain he’d had repressed in a technique learned by life as a Kage. Found himself breathing hard and fast and clutching Cain’s hand painfully hard.
“Oh gods, they’re going to find her now, they’re going to find her now,” he said, holding back tears, from the pain and the thought. “Two months, and they’re going to find her, only two months left, two months, Cain, we were so close-”
“Glitch?” Cain asked, squeezing just as hard as terror started to grip him. Glitch was actually crying. Cain knew his legends, and Glitch seemed to be proving them one by one, with one exception. Kage never cried from pain. Never. Fear clutching his heart, Cain leaned over him, looking into those scared, watery brown eyes. “Sweetheart?”
“I’ve given up everything for her, Cain, and I always thought I could easily give her my life too,” he whispered. “I even planned for it. Knew it would happen. Added it into all the equations, my death spurring her on-”
“You’re not going to die, darling, you pulled out the teeth-”
“Gods, I’m so selfish,” he cried, and for the first time Cain noticed the respectful distance between the other three and them. “I planned it, I know how much good it would do for her-”
“Your dying would be good for her?” Cain asked, horrified, and Glitch nodded, gasping as another wave of pain shot through his body.
“Think about why you’re in the Resistance, Cain, think about why you want to get them so badly,” he whispered, and Cain stared, realizing what he was getting at.
“No.” Not again.
“It doesn’t matter what you do, the poison will get me.”
“No it won’t,” Cain hissed at him, glaring. “You’re a fucking Kage, and you’re going to let an animal bite kill you when you’ve been entrusted with…her?”
“DG,” Glitch whimpered. “Her name is DG. My pretty little DG, she only named her fighting style a year or so ago, so talented, I’m so proud of her, darling princess…”
Cain’s brain snapped into action at the words. Kageri. Glitch was a Kage, and he guessed DG was too, and he remembered every story he’d heard from Glitch around those fires of the people only he and DG had known were of his own life and his own people’s history.
“And in the land of smoke and shadows, there lived a woman strong and infallible as steel, as beautiful as any flower. She could cure anything so long as you brought the cause of the illness.” There had been more, of course, but it was something about traveling and falling in love with a man and all that romantic nonsense.
He looked at the tooth still in his palm, trying to ignore the pale, shivering mess that was Glitch at the moment and looking up to Jeb. “Is she awake yet?”
“…no,” he said, looking a bit befuddled. “But…that’s Glitch? That’s really him?”
Cain looked down at the man, who had finally gone unconscious, blood already starting to seep through the rough dressing of his shoulder.
“Glitch is…he’s a very deep well,” Cain stated. “There’s a lot more to him that I don’t think anyone but he knows.”
Jeb just nodded. “I’ll tell you when Hime wakes up,” he said, and stationed himself in front of DG and the healer, back turned to Cain and Glitch.
---
Night came. The healer had woken up, vomited practically his entire body weight, and then gone unconscious again. DG remained unconscious, and even Jeb eventually went out like a light.
Cain didn’t know when he fell asleep, coat over Glitch and covering him to the best of his ability, tucking the man’s head under his chin and hugging him with the hand still not caught in their death-grip. He did, however, know when he woke up.
“…Cain?” Glitch’s voice whispered, and Cain pulled him closer, tighter.
“I’m here. DG’s alright.”
“I just…I’m being selfish,” he whispered guiltily, and Cain’s eyes opened.
“What are you saying now?”
“I’m being selfish because I don’t want to die for the plan,” he said, leaning his forehead on Cain. “I don’t want to die again. I…It’s selfish, but I want to live, and see what she grows into, and to…to stay with you.”
Cain smiled slightly. “I…I’d like that too.”
“Call me Ambrose first thing in the morning,” he whispered. “I’m selfish. I won’t be able to take all of you and the pain put together like this. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
And Glitch was out like a light.
While he lay there, looking around and still repeatedly clenching and unclenching the Mobat tooth he was holding onto almost as hard as Glitch’s hand, he realized the rest of the meaning behind Glitch’s seventh name.
Emotions. Lust, love, fear, shame, guilt, everything he couldn’t show to anyone else, just like the Kage mark. Things only Cain ever got to see. Things Glitch would only let Cain see. The realization twisted all his own emotions into one firm glob of magma in his mind. Glitch loved him. Cain loved every part of Glitch that he’d seen so far, and strongly doubted there was another part he couldn’t.
And when he fell asleep again, he knew that even if Glitch died that very moment, Cain would never stop trying to wake him up.
---
But he did wake up. He woke up scared, and confused, and panting, until a familiar voice said “Good morning, Ambrose,” into his ear.
Ambrose relaxed, and then paused, looking around him. “Who put me on a stretcher?”
“I did, with Jeb and DG’s help,” Cain said, holding the back as Jeb held the front.
“…DG.” Cain just smiled. “So what don’t you know?”
“That I’m the second princess,” DG said simply from next to the stretcher, which faltered for a moment as the Cains swallowed that fact.
Ambrose sighed, putting his uninjured hand over his eyes. “And where are you taking me?”
“Hana,” DG smiled, and Glitch paled, Ambrose glared, and Sweetheart squeaked a bit, Spiral swallowing. “Oh come on. Think of it as Wyatt meeting the in-laws.”
“What?” Cain frowned.
“Would you care to explain why exactly you think taking me to the Kage is a good idea?” Ambrose said icily.
“Because you don’t let yourself be selfish,” Cain said, and smirked at the stare Ambrose gave him. “And I will.”
“I’m going to pass out again,” Ambrose stated, and shrugged with his good shoulder as he laid back down. “Blood loss, after all.”
“Sleep well then, Ambrose,” Cain said.
And for the first time in a very long time, ever since Ambrose had executed himself, he did without Cain next to him.
Knowing a shout would bring him near and keep the nightmares away made them not come at all.
---
AND DELETED SCENE!! Puuuuuuuuuure crack, just like the good ol' days. ♥
"We have to suck the poison out!" The not-unconscious-and-vomiting doctor said, pulling out his medic kit to do absolutely nothing, just like in the rest of the fic.
Jeb and DG immediately turned to Cain.
"What?"
"Well, get to it," DG said, crossing her arms and glaring at him.
"She has a point, Dad," Jeb added. "I mean, look at this chapter. All we get are kinky mentions of you two."
"Very vague ones, too," DG pointed out, earning a nod and a point from Jeb. One of those 'see? see? She's got a point, Dad' points that he hated the fact that he understood them. "Plus the writer here's not very good at fluff, she's more cracky, and likes to write porn with plot."
"So we've give you a plot, and now you've got to suck out the poison, hopefully using your tongue," Jeb stated.
Tomo/Sessha/Spiral/Ambrose/Glitch/Mr Joat/Sweetheart remained unconscious and bored out of his mind.
Cain blinked. "Where'd the doctor go?"
AND THERE WAS A PUMPING NOISE AS A BIG BLUE BOX BLINKED REPEATEDLY AND THEN LEFT THE TEN-SECOND CROSSOVER.
(In the end, Cain sucked the poison out of Glitch, but the writer was too busy watching Torchwood to write it. ♥)
Title: Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch (15 Annuals); CHAPTER 5, AKA The Part Where Their Cover's Blown Really, Really Badly
Fandom: TINMAN.
Rating: R! :D
Summary: Who needs Roboparents when a Queen's got an Advisor-Ninja to take care of their recently deceased daughter?
This Chapter: Glitch mindfucks himself, poor baby. And AZ ATTACKS!!! *insert jaws theme* Also, having seven names can be a bitch sometimes. :/
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: That Part Where Ambrose Gets Executed
Chapter 2: The Bit With The Ninjas
Chapter 3: The End Of The Ninja Bit Thanks To LOTS OF FIRE
Chapter 4: The Resistance Meets A Magical Ninja Princess (And Glitch)
Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch
(aka 15 Annuals)
CHAPTER V:
AKA The Part Where Their Cover’s Blown Really, Really Badly
The Joats (they were still called that, thanks to a third of the Resistance being referred to the movement by said ‘Joats’) moved faster than the long caravan of Resistance fighters and the crew that moved with them. And that was really starting to tick Cain off.
It would be a long, drawn-out day of moving as carefully and quickly as possible, and when they stopped, the Joats would show up, chatting in their gibberish (kageri, he amended, although it still sounded like gibberish to him) and walking up with their packs and looking like they’d just been strolling along.
“There’s a nice river five miles to the north, no Longcoats around for a couple days’ traveling at least,” Hime or Deeg or whatever her name was said with a smile, toying with that metallic cylinder she always had on her person. They never explained how they would get five miles ahead, or scout two days in every direction, or how they could just sit in a spot and wait for the Resistance to show up.
They usually had tea, too. Sitting in the middle of the path, the less-fit Resistance members panting and ready to collapse, and Glitch and the young woman would be sitting, drinking tea, and chatting, two cushions already on the ground and waiting for the Cains. By now Jeb seemed to just accept it and would sit down and drink his tea while the Kage and his ward talked about their scouting and the terrain and the expected weather.
Cain always tried to not sit. Always tried, and always failed, because Hime-or-Deeg or whatever her name was would give him a smile, pour a cup of tea, and say “Please, have a seat.”
And it always worked. He didn’t know if he was whipped or she was toying with his mind or what, but it was efficient and slightly terrifying to him. Cain was a man who liked to be in control of his own life.
…which led to the problem of Glitch. The Joats and the Cains had been working together leading the Resistance (the Cains actually leading it, the Joats advising the Cains, with stunning results) for three months, and Cain had quickly realized the mess he had gotten himself into during the first week.
It could be intentional. After a long, taxing day, he’d find himself leaning close to Glitch and feel the man’s arms wrap around him, and he’d find himself saying “Let’s get out of here, Sweetheart.” Within ten minutes they would be losing their clothing and themselves inside each other, ignoring the world around them in favor for one another, for the small scars he could see on Glitch’s body, the Kage tattoo that Cain knew he was the only one to have seen, knew that even Hime probably had never seen, and it was a thought that could make every part of his body shiver at the thought.
It could be by accidental. Glitch was graceful, but even he tended to trip on his own feet, as if sometimes he expected something different than the rough forest floor they usually traveled on, something smooth and almost sliding, and Cain would catch him, grinning, and accidentally say “Watch yourself now, Sweetheart.” That usually ended up with hard, heated sex against the nearest convenient rock or tree or even a good bit of grass, trying to be quiet as the rest of the group passed them. It usually left bite marks, bruises, hickeys, and that horribly sexy ‘hello I just had rough hot sex with you and am more than happy to do it again’ hair on Glitch for the rest of the day that would usually drive Cain into a not-so-accidental Sweetheart Incident.
When Glitch had said “Sweetheart gets you lots and lots of sex,” he hadn’t known it had been literally every time he used the name. He’d thought it was the sort of teasing, goofy talking Glitch would do late at night when the Resistance settled down for the night and the ones too tortured by nightmares or memories or even the thought of what could happen to them congregated around the only fire left lit. Hime was usually at those too, and Jeb and Cain found themselves joining in as well to hear the stories that Glitch would pull out of nowhere.
Stories of a Queen and her two rambunctious, adventurous daughters. Stories of a foreign people and their legends, where Jeb found himself repeatedly asking for ‘The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms’, the one where the entire world was at war, three rulers fighting for power, and the forbidden love that stretched between the daughter of one leader’s deadly, beautiful warrior daughter and the other ruler, and how they fell in love with each other. Stories of Central Academy and the insidious plotting and intrigue that swarmed the academia.
Sometimes, Cain found himself wondering when Glitch really slept. When Hime slept, he was usually only napping nearby, ready to spring up at a moment’s notice. The only time he ever saw Glitch honestly sleep was when the man was curled in his arms, that small, priceless smile on his face.
“Hime and I are okay with it, you know,” Jeb said one day as they walked, the carts squeaking behind them, the Joads out scouting today.
Cain frowned. “What?”
“With the whole…well, you know. With you and Glitch,” he said, blushing. It was quite honestly the first time Cain had ever seen his son blush. “We think it’s good for you both, and Hime says that Glitch seems happier than she’s seen him since they left home.”
Cain knew not to ask exactly where Jeb thought their ‘home’ was, but he was a bit busy being stunned by the fact Hime and Jeb actually supported this insane…thing. Which Cain actually really really liked but hadn’t dreamed either Jeb or Hime would.
“But, um, we just wanted to ask you to sort of…move further away from the path when we’re traveling,” Jeb said, the blush deepening. “People go looking for you guys sometimes, after all.”
And by people Jeb probably meant himself.
Which meant his son had probably stumbled across his dad and Glitch fucking against a rock or a tree or whatever was conveniently placed nearby during a sporadic, usually-accidental (although the accidents were becoming a bit more intentional lately) Sweetheart Incident.
“…I think we can manage that,” Cain said, very much trying to not blush although he knew his face was at least pink to fuchsia. Good gods, his son had seen him.
He was going to KILL Glitch.
Unfortunately, someone else was busy trying to do that before the thought even crossed his mind.
---
“Sorceress, we’ve found him in the archives,” some nameless Longcoat said, breathless as he practically ran into the room she usually used as her office, spilling a few papers in his haste, which her attendant was picking up nonchalantly and placing on her desk before the nameless Longcoat had even put the folder on her desk. “The Sorceror, we found him. It took a lot of work, but as soon as we found him it all came tumbling out! Graduated the Academy at sixteen, enrolled at nine-”
“His name,” Azkadellia said, voice icy. “Tell me. What is his name.”
The Longcoat swallowed the lump in his throat. “Ambrose.”
She didn’t let herself breathe in sharply, didn’t let herself pale, didn’t let herself differ in anyway.
Compose yourself, child. She didn’t answer this time, instead turning towards the Longcoat.
“No last name?” Traditional royalty in the OZ never had last names, and his shake of the head was practically a death sentence to the hope a family connection could be a fluke with proof by a simple last name was thrown out the window. “A picture, then,” she said, already standing as the Longcoat fumbled through the papers and presented a picture of a younger but undeniable Sorceror - no, his name was Ambrose. She memorized it. Ambrose. Ambrose. Ambrose.
“Now get out,” she said, holding the picture and heading for her private balcony, taking a deep breath.
We will find him. We will kill him.
“Yes,” she said, and glared unseeingly at the world as the summoning, the power flowed through her. “And then Mother will tell us everything.”
It hurt. It always hurt when the Mobats emerged, agony jolting down her spine. But she grit her teeth, listened to the voice inside of her that was hissing in a violent fit ov joy, and watched them emerge, one by one.
Zora got the picture, in every way. She also got a soft stroke of the fur. “Find him. Kill him.”
They were off and moving as soon as she spoke, going every direction at the speed only a Mobat could reach. She knew she’d get results soon - they had yet to let her down, after all - so she sauntered over to the door, opening it. Blue-green light spilled onto the ground.
No loose ends.
“I already knew that,” she said to the voice, and turned towards the Longcoat and her faithful attendant. “And you are the only one who’s gotten to all this information?”
“I came as soon as I gathered everything,” he nodded.
Azkadellia smiled. “Good,” she said, and sucked the man’s soul out.
She couldn’t have anyone ruining her aborted family reunion, after all.
---
“Why are we even talking about this?” Glitch whined, but DG kept on going.
“I just want to make sure you’re being safe. You warned me about all this and you two seem to just go find a rock and fuck-”
“I swear that if you start using that word I will force you into dresses,” Glitch snapped, glaring at the far too grown princess at his side as they scouted. He’d done it before, although she’d nearly screamed his ear off with her temper tantrum.
…of course, she’d been sixteen, but the point still stood.
“Fine, no cursing,” DG conceded, twirling her staff deftly in one hand, almost absentmindedly. “I’m just saying that you warned me about all the precautions about…intimacy. Make sure you know where he’s been.”
“DEEG!” he snapped out, scandalized. “What…why are you even…gods, just drop the subject okay? This is…” He winced. “It’s like my baby sister giving me The Talk.”
She grinned at him, sneaking in a kiss on the cheek before Glitch batted her away. “But honestly, I want you to be careful. You’re…you’re really happy and I want you to stay that way.” She paused. “Oh, yeah, Jeb and I wanted to ask you guys to move a bit further from the caravan when you have one of those sudden moments of passion.”
He blushed. “Well that sounds like a valid concern I guess.”
“Yeah, walking into a clearing to see you two up against a big rock-”
“Deeeeeg-”
“I’m just trying to help! If you didn’t even notice us, who knows what else you wouldn’t notice? Anyone could come out and attack you.”
Glitch frowned. “Hmm.”
“Exactly,” she nodded, and paused. “I’ve been thinking that maybe we drop the Joads and show what we really are to the Resistance.”
That jerked Glitch’s head up, fast and sharp, eyes narrowed on her as they walked at a pace that counted as jogging for most people. “What does that mean exactly, Hime?”
“I want them to know what they have on their side,” DG said simply, flicking her wrist and collapsing the staff.
“And I swore I’d protect you,” the man she knew as Glitch but was much more Ambrose at that moment said. “No. Absolutely not. You can tell someone you’re the crown princess of the OZ when Azkadellia’s taken care of.”
“Well what about magic, then?” she asked, frustrated, and Ambrose shook his head.
“NO, DG,” he snapped. “Magic connects anyone and everyone to the royal family, and if anyone is a spy, or defects, or tortured, there is no way that your identity wouldn’t be revealed. She’s smart, she’s already paranoid enough by the thought of having family out there-”
“DOWN!” DG shouted, and they both immediately complied, a dark, winged creature flitting past them, screaming as it barely missed his head.
“Oh fuck it’s a Mobat,” he said a bit blurrily, and blinked at the sight of DG on top of him.
Protecting him.
She was staring down at him with worried eyes, glancing from him to where the Mobat had disappeared to and then back.
DG was never supposed to protect him. It was supposed to be the other way around. She was the princess. She was the one who would save the OZ. She was the one fated to rule the Outer Zone and make him proud until the day he died, hopefully in her service.
So Ambrose found himself grabbing one of her hands and saying, very calmly, “DG, I need you to do something for me.”
---
Azkadellia was watching. Eyes closed, she watched as Zora found Ambrose, saw him dive to the ground, saw the young woman - probably nothing but a pretty young thing he’d snatched on the street, from that tight of a top - throw herself over him.
“That’s him,” she whispered, mouth open, panting at the effort it took to see through the eyes of her creatures. Ambrose practically threw the girl off, but she clutched at his hand, face hidden behind her unbound hair. Probably terrified. “Kill him, darling Zora. Kill him.”
The Mobat screeched, the soul inside her screamed in rapture, and they dove.
---
“Now?” DG whispered.
The Mobat approached.
“Not yet,” Ambrose said flatly, and the Mobat screeched, turning into a dive.
---
She saw the smirk. Saw the woman clutching to his hand.
Heard his voice, the voice that had haunted her for years. “Come on then, cousin dearest.”
Zora’s claws were out. She dove straight for the man, who looked at Zora - no, looked through the Mobat. He was looking straight at her.
“Now,” he said simply.
His hands flashed a brilliant blue, and with a scream she could feel the pressure, the squeezing that was literally squishing Zora to death.
Kill him kill him kill him kill him kill him
Azkadellia grit her teeth, and glared through the dying Zora’s eyes. “Kill him.”
Zora complied, dropping her body straight onto a startled Ambrose, who pushed the girl aside and managed to dodge everything but the mouth that latched onto his shoulder, showing a disturbing amount of agility.
“NO,” a female voice roared, and Azkadellia screamed as she could feel Zora twisted, broken, shattered, and squished.
She fell to the floor, nearly vomiting at the feeling of Zora being torn from her, undeniably from magic. Nothing but magic.
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as the pain shot through her spine, through her entire body as it transferred to the other Mobats.
He’ll still die, even if it’s slowly.
Azkadellia tried to respond, to agree, to praise Zora for her devotion even to her dying breath, but instead fell to the well-kempt floor, her body a waterfall of hard gold and a vulnerable black.
Armored shoulders clanging against the marble, and at the sound Longcoats came pouring in as Mobat after Mobat cried out and headed for the tower and their mistress.
---
“Oh gods, Glitch! Glitch!” DG was screaming in his ear. His hands hurt. His body hurt. But his shoulder hurt the most, almost like someone had-
He looked over, at the teeth still embedded into his shoulder and the torn area from where the Mobat had latched on. “Oh,” he said a bit fuzzily. “Hi, Deeg. I’m probably about to go unconscious again so I’m going to tell you not to worry and to go get help from the Resistance which you can find easily if you ask the Cains and I don’t think I’ll die while you’re gone what with being a Kage and all but still hurry.” He paused. “Got all that?”
“Yes, Glitch,” she stated.
He smiled at that. “I’m so happy to be your Glitch…” he muttered, and passed out.
---
Nobody was expecting it. Nobody had ever expected to need to.
That still wasn’t much of an excuse for Cain nearly shooting the young woman he knew as Hime as she flung herself down from a tree, metal staff held at the ready behind her and eyes screaming death. People scream and ran around him as she strode forward, flicking her wrist and pulling the pole back into a slender tube.
But he didn’t run, because he noticed how pale she was, how she looked like she was about to collapse, and how she looked like she had just stared into death’s face and see it grin at her.
“Hey now, kid, you alright?” he began, walking forward to help her remain standing, only to find himself grabbed by the collar, a hand right in front of his face.
A glowing blue hand.
“I need someone…a, a healer, he said, a doctor or whatever you’ve got-”
“Dad!” Jeb shouted, running towards him as everyone else ran away, and there was a rush of air so loud it left his ears ringing.
Jeb, Cain, and the woman were standing in a glowing blue sphere, and she had the staff out again. “Healer. NOW.”
“Jeb? If you’d help her out?” he asked, and Jeb nodded sharply. Cain blinked as he realized that with a flick of her finger, Jeb was out of the half-sphere, and from the way Jeb was gaping, they were just as startled by it. But now wasn’t the time to demand answers from Hime - if that was her name.
He grabbed her hand cautiously, feeling the hot sweat over the near-freezing skin, noticing the dangerously fast pulse. “Now, what’s going on?”
“My Glitch,” she whispered, looking, for the first time, like a girl instead of a woman. A scared, worried little girl. “He always tries to save me and I saved him I saved him but I wasn’t fast enough wasn’t GOOD enough yet-”
“Hey, hold on kid, everything’s going to be fine,” he said, and against his better judgment reached out and gave her an awkward hug. “You’re doing exactly what you need to, you came to get help for him as fast as you could, and I’m betting as soon as Jeb and a healer get over here we’ll get back and have him fixed up in no time, right?”
“Stop acting. You’re just as worried as I am,” she whispered, clinging to him like a log in a lake.
Cain didn’t say anything to that, because he couldn’t really talk anyway. For some reason his eyes were stinging too, and he decided he was allergic to hugs when Jeb and a man in his late fifties showed up, the shield gone and Cain hanging awkwardly onto the clinging Hime.
“Glitch is hurt,” Cain managed to say, not admitting that the hoarseness of his voice was only half due to how tightly Hime was hanging onto him - and then wasn’t.
She was already moving, striding along in front of them in those strange skirt-pants of hers. “We’re going to make this as fast as possible, which means you may get a little…weirded out.”
“What do you mean-” Jeb asked, but was stopped mid-sentence when she took a deep breath in, and clapped her hands very, very hard.
She was panting, but kept walking as the others tried to regain their balance. It looked like she was about ready to fall over too, honestly.
But she shouted for them to keep walking, and they did, and she clapped her hands again, each time accompanied by a brilliant flash of blue-white light and even more panting, gasping breaths from Hime.
“We can walk for longer bits of time between the…the claps.” Jeb shouted from where he was leaning against a rock. Cain, in a much more undignified position, was kneeling on the ground, head and hat touching the dirt beneath him as he closed his eyes and breathed and tried to not throw up from how dizzy he was. How Jeb was taking all this was remarkable. The healer had already given up and fainted, also being carried by Jeb.
Cain had always known his son was someone to be proud of, but for some reason him being able to stand wobbly with an old man on his back after repeated magic-clapping made his heart just about ready to burst.
“We don’t have the time!” she shouted back, hands on her knees as she breathed harshly, as if she was forcing the air into her lungs. “Now walk.”
They did.
---
Ambrose was not happy when he heard the ringing, almost thunder-like sound behind him.
He pulled his shirt back on with one hand and continued his work on pulling the second-to-last tooth out of his skin.
“You just did a very, very stupid thing, although you don’t know it yet,” he said airily to DG, who was busy gasping in horror as he flung the ivory scythe out of his skin and it disappeared somewhere in the forest. He switched to Kageri. “I meant for you to just RUN, Princess.”
“So you could perform surgery on yourself?!” DG hissed out, and he turned toward her, frowning.
…and also saw the Cains and the old man.
“Deeg, I don’t think I have ever seen you lose your head like this,” he said idly, and turned his head back to his knife and the teeth still embedded in his shoulder. He heard the old healer faint as he carefully stabbed himself.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Cain shouted out, storming over, but not in time to stop Ambrose from pulling the final tooth out. This time, he held it, wiping his knife on the already-bloodied pants and resheathing it.
Ambrose held the tooth out, wrapping his second shirt around the wound when Cain took it. “Mobat teeth hold venom in their saliva. The longer they’re in, the more poison gets into the body.” He let himself lie back down. “Think of it like a snake. The longer the fangs are in, the more venom gets pumped into your bloodstream.”
“But I killed it,” DG snapped.
“Yes you did, and I’m very proud of you,” Ambrose stated, and then frowned, Glitch slipping in. “But honestly, the squishing? It was…ew.”
“Says the man who pulled teeth out of himself with a knife,” Cain muttered from where he was kneeling next to him, and Glitch giggled.
Giggling was not a normal Glitch behavior. He attributed it to bloodloss and not the fact Cain had picked that moment to brush his hand over the nape of his neck.
“You said sadistic, it was the first thing I could think of, and we didn’t exactly have the time to discuss things like…like…”
“Catch her, please,” Ambrose called out, and Jeb was a good boy and did as he was told, blinking at the figure in his arms. Ambrose cleared his throat. “You get any ideas about her and you’ll get to know my knife even better than the shoulder does.”
“If you don’t remember, that’s my son, Swee- Glitch,” Cain said, amused before he realized the near slip.
But at the near slip of his seventh name, Glitch found himself losing his composure. Found himself biting his own lip to keep the pain he’d had repressed in a technique learned by life as a Kage. Found himself breathing hard and fast and clutching Cain’s hand painfully hard.
“Oh gods, they’re going to find her now, they’re going to find her now,” he said, holding back tears, from the pain and the thought. “Two months, and they’re going to find her, only two months left, two months, Cain, we were so close-”
“Glitch?” Cain asked, squeezing just as hard as terror started to grip him. Glitch was actually crying. Cain knew his legends, and Glitch seemed to be proving them one by one, with one exception. Kage never cried from pain. Never. Fear clutching his heart, Cain leaned over him, looking into those scared, watery brown eyes. “Sweetheart?”
“I’ve given up everything for her, Cain, and I always thought I could easily give her my life too,” he whispered. “I even planned for it. Knew it would happen. Added it into all the equations, my death spurring her on-”
“You’re not going to die, darling, you pulled out the teeth-”
“Gods, I’m so selfish,” he cried, and for the first time Cain noticed the respectful distance between the other three and them. “I planned it, I know how much good it would do for her-”
“Your dying would be good for her?” Cain asked, horrified, and Glitch nodded, gasping as another wave of pain shot through his body.
“Think about why you’re in the Resistance, Cain, think about why you want to get them so badly,” he whispered, and Cain stared, realizing what he was getting at.
“No.” Not again.
“It doesn’t matter what you do, the poison will get me.”
“No it won’t,” Cain hissed at him, glaring. “You’re a fucking Kage, and you’re going to let an animal bite kill you when you’ve been entrusted with…her?”
“DG,” Glitch whimpered. “Her name is DG. My pretty little DG, she only named her fighting style a year or so ago, so talented, I’m so proud of her, darling princess…”
Cain’s brain snapped into action at the words. Kageri. Glitch was a Kage, and he guessed DG was too, and he remembered every story he’d heard from Glitch around those fires of the people only he and DG had known were of his own life and his own people’s history.
“And in the land of smoke and shadows, there lived a woman strong and infallible as steel, as beautiful as any flower. She could cure anything so long as you brought the cause of the illness.” There had been more, of course, but it was something about traveling and falling in love with a man and all that romantic nonsense.
He looked at the tooth still in his palm, trying to ignore the pale, shivering mess that was Glitch at the moment and looking up to Jeb. “Is she awake yet?”
“…no,” he said, looking a bit befuddled. “But…that’s Glitch? That’s really him?”
Cain looked down at the man, who had finally gone unconscious, blood already starting to seep through the rough dressing of his shoulder.
“Glitch is…he’s a very deep well,” Cain stated. “There’s a lot more to him that I don’t think anyone but he knows.”
Jeb just nodded. “I’ll tell you when Hime wakes up,” he said, and stationed himself in front of DG and the healer, back turned to Cain and Glitch.
---
Night came. The healer had woken up, vomited practically his entire body weight, and then gone unconscious again. DG remained unconscious, and even Jeb eventually went out like a light.
Cain didn’t know when he fell asleep, coat over Glitch and covering him to the best of his ability, tucking the man’s head under his chin and hugging him with the hand still not caught in their death-grip. He did, however, know when he woke up.
“…Cain?” Glitch’s voice whispered, and Cain pulled him closer, tighter.
“I’m here. DG’s alright.”
“I just…I’m being selfish,” he whispered guiltily, and Cain’s eyes opened.
“What are you saying now?”
“I’m being selfish because I don’t want to die for the plan,” he said, leaning his forehead on Cain. “I don’t want to die again. I…It’s selfish, but I want to live, and see what she grows into, and to…to stay with you.”
Cain smiled slightly. “I…I’d like that too.”
“Call me Ambrose first thing in the morning,” he whispered. “I’m selfish. I won’t be able to take all of you and the pain put together like this. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
And Glitch was out like a light.
While he lay there, looking around and still repeatedly clenching and unclenching the Mobat tooth he was holding onto almost as hard as Glitch’s hand, he realized the rest of the meaning behind Glitch’s seventh name.
Emotions. Lust, love, fear, shame, guilt, everything he couldn’t show to anyone else, just like the Kage mark. Things only Cain ever got to see. Things Glitch would only let Cain see. The realization twisted all his own emotions into one firm glob of magma in his mind. Glitch loved him. Cain loved every part of Glitch that he’d seen so far, and strongly doubted there was another part he couldn’t.
And when he fell asleep again, he knew that even if Glitch died that very moment, Cain would never stop trying to wake him up.
---
But he did wake up. He woke up scared, and confused, and panting, until a familiar voice said “Good morning, Ambrose,” into his ear.
Ambrose relaxed, and then paused, looking around him. “Who put me on a stretcher?”
“I did, with Jeb and DG’s help,” Cain said, holding the back as Jeb held the front.
“…DG.” Cain just smiled. “So what don’t you know?”
“That I’m the second princess,” DG said simply from next to the stretcher, which faltered for a moment as the Cains swallowed that fact.
Ambrose sighed, putting his uninjured hand over his eyes. “And where are you taking me?”
“Hana,” DG smiled, and Glitch paled, Ambrose glared, and Sweetheart squeaked a bit, Spiral swallowing. “Oh come on. Think of it as Wyatt meeting the in-laws.”
“What?” Cain frowned.
“Would you care to explain why exactly you think taking me to the Kage is a good idea?” Ambrose said icily.
“Because you don’t let yourself be selfish,” Cain said, and smirked at the stare Ambrose gave him. “And I will.”
“I’m going to pass out again,” Ambrose stated, and shrugged with his good shoulder as he laid back down. “Blood loss, after all.”
“Sleep well then, Ambrose,” Cain said.
And for the first time in a very long time, ever since Ambrose had executed himself, he did without Cain next to him.
Knowing a shout would bring him near and keep the nightmares away made them not come at all.
---
AND DELETED SCENE!! Puuuuuuuuuure crack, just like the good ol' days. ♥
"We have to suck the poison out!" The not-unconscious-and-vomiting doctor said, pulling out his medic kit to do absolutely nothing, just like in the rest of the fic.
Jeb and DG immediately turned to Cain.
"What?"
"Well, get to it," DG said, crossing her arms and glaring at him.
"She has a point, Dad," Jeb added. "I mean, look at this chapter. All we get are kinky mentions of you two."
"Very vague ones, too," DG pointed out, earning a nod and a point from Jeb. One of those 'see? see? She's got a point, Dad' points that he hated the fact that he understood them. "Plus the writer here's not very good at fluff, she's more cracky, and likes to write porn with plot."
"So we've give you a plot, and now you've got to suck out the poison, hopefully using your tongue," Jeb stated.
Tomo/Sessha/Spiral/Ambrose/Glitch/Mr Joat/Sweetheart remained unconscious and bored out of his mind.
Cain blinked. "Where'd the doctor go?"
AND THERE WAS A PUMPING NOISE AS A BIG BLUE BOX BLINKED REPEATEDLY AND THEN LEFT THE TEN-SECOND CROSSOVER.
(In the end, Cain sucked the poison out of Glitch, but the writer was too busy watching Torchwood to write it. ♥)