Fic: If I Didn't Have A Heart

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: If I Didn’t Have A Heart
Chapters: 1/1
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Angst. Romance.
Ratings: T
Word Count: ~1,400
Pairings/Characters: Cain/Glitch
Synopsis: In which Glitch is surprisingly coherent and Cain is haunted by his and Adora’s anniversary.
Comments: Inspired by Kenny Chesney’s song ‘The Tin Man’. Mostly written a while ago, quickly finished up tonight. God, I missed Cain and Glitch, I need to re-watch the series and hope for more plot bunnies or something. Ugh, characters aren’t mine. Enjoy!

Cain wakes with a start and knows already that he won't be getting any more sleep tonight. A shame, really, since he'd only gone to bed little more than an hour ago. His skin, sweat soaked and sticking to the sheets from his less than pleasant dream, irritates him as he rolls out of bed and dresses again.

"A walk, then," he decides. A walk will do him some good. It certainly can't do him any harm.

Walking quietly through the palace halls, he finally reaches an exit and passes by the guards with a curt nod of his head.

"Going to hunt down the headcase, then?" One of them quips, and if Cain weren't so bloody tired, he would have had the man sanctioned for his words. As it stands, Cain is that bloody tired, so he settles for glaring intently at the sentry – obviously not one on his command, they all know better – and it's only when he's taken another few steps away that he realizes what the impertinent guard had asked him.

"Glitch is out here?"

The other guard - one who is under Cain's command and does know better than to insult the Royal Advisor's current state of brainlessness - speaks up in response. "He left not long ago. Headed toward the maze, I think."

 

Ignoring his desire to ask why they had allowed Glitch to do so – it wasn't fair to Glitch at all, he could do as he pleased and didn't need permission from a couple of low-level guards – Cain takes off in the direction of the maze. Its pitch dark out, and the moons are both new and not providing him with much by way of natural light. He rather wishes he'd brought a light of some kind along with him, as well, but he's not wasting time in turning back for one now.

"Glitch!" He calls out, as loudly as he dares to in the night. The path through the maze is complicated enough in the daylight, and he doesn't even want to think about how lost Glitch could get like this.

But, perhaps he underestimates his friend.

As he weaves through the path to the other side of the maze, he finds Glitch – albeit a little bit unintentionally – in the form of an out of nowhere attack that nearly lands him on the ground. Wyatt Cain, however, shall not bested by his admittedly skilful companion, and manages to reign in Glitch's gracefully deadly movements.

"Hey! Glitch, it's just me." He says, holding the headcase's wrists tightly in his hands. "Relax, sweetheart."

Glitch stills at the words as if nothing so eventful had just occurred, grinning at Cain like he hasn't seen him in weeks. "Oh, Cain! Hello, where did you come from?" He happily chirps as his hands are released, and moves to sit on one of the long stone benches that surround the circle of cleared hedge, leading the Tin Man along with him.

He ignores the rapid fire switch from on-the-lookout-Glitch to friendly-as-ever-Glitch and sits down beside the headcase. "What're you doing out here so late? You should be sleeping."

"And so should you?" Glitch counters, staring up at the night sky, dotted with thousands upon millions upon billions of stars. His brow furrows in confusion and he turns back to Cain. "Shouldn't you be?"

"Didn't feel like it." He says, tone snappier than he'd intended in his response.

"Ah, likewise, then. It was far too pretty out here to stay inside that stuffy old palace for one more moment."

Cain would have hardly called the conditions inside the Finaquan Palace 'stuffy' – unless you were talking about the nobles and royals occupying it, in which case, 'stuffy' was not strong enough a word to describe them – it was nice enough inside and a bit on the chillier side out here in the open. "Right." He says, though, because he's not going to admit to Glitch that the reason he is out here is because of something as pathetic as nightmares.

Glitch sighs and closes his eyes, head tilted back still. "You're staring." He says, when he feels the Tin Man's eyes on him.

What little moonlight there is makes Glitch glow ethereally and Cain can't help but watch. "I am," he admits. And it's not like it's the first time, either. He keeps watching Glitch because it keeps his mind off of his nightmare and off of what today is.

"Why couldn't you sleep?"

Cain sighs, finally breaks away from staring at Glitch to instead stare intently at the ground – at least that won't question his motives. "Eighteen years ago today Adora and I were married. Our anniversary."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Cain counters, and the fingers of his right hand automatically start spinning the gold band on his ring finger. "You know, Glitch, sometimes I wish I didn't come out of the suit with a heart. Most guys who get thrown into those things don't come out of it in one piece. They lose their sanity, their memories, their heart. Maybe that would have been better."

Glitch scoots closer to him on the bench, eyes fixed on the Tin Man before him. "But you'd lose the good memories, too. Not just the bad ones." He hums in thought, looks like he's trying very, very hard not to glitch and screw this up. "Would you want to forget what your wedding day was like? Or when your son was born? Or… or… or saving the OZ?"

Cain thinks this over for a long moment before he answers. "Why don't I listen to you more often?" He inquires, finally. "I wouldn't want to forget meeting you either. You and DG, if anyone else had pulled me out of the suit, I probably would have been heartless."

Glitch picks at the sleeves of his well-worn coat and Cain spots the ghost of a smile on the headcase's lips. "Maybe… maybe you should celebrate."

Cain's frowns in confusion. Has Glitch glitched again? "Huh?"

"Your anniversary." Glitch explains, fingers brushing against Cain's ring. "Maybe you should try and have more good memories of today, rather than your not-sleeping plan. You won't be so grumpy in the morning that way."

"That was almost funny." Cain snorts, playfully smacks the zipperhead with his hat.

Glitch grins so wide that his eyes light up in the moonlight and Cain is caught in staring again. "Well, I try."

Silence falls between them for a long moment, then. Just staring and staring, with daybreak ticking closer and closer. "This is a good memory." Cain says, when he fears Glitch's lengthy moment of coherency will fail if he doesn't speak up soon. "Don't you think?"

"It is."

"Glitch." Cain says, but Glitch doesn't move or respond when Cain's hand covers his, or when Cain shifts even closer to him, or when a hand curls around the back of his neck. "You want this, too, right?" He asks, when they're just inches apart and Adora isn't the first thing on his mind in what feels like forever. Just Glitch and everything that goes along with him.

Glitch smiles, his own hands curling into the material of Cain's coat. "Yes."

And then it's lips on lips and they fit together perfectly and Cain never wants this to end. Wants the memories – all of them, good and bad – because they got him here, with Glitch, right now. And he'll miss Adora forever, and he'll hate that he missed most of Jeb's childhood, but he can't go wishing away his heart now because he doesn't even have it anymore anyway.

Glitch does.

And he never even realized it until right this second.

When they break apart, Cain slowly pulls himself to his feet head spinning with emotions he'd never thought he'd get to feel again. But his hand is still entwined with Glitch's and something about that just makes him sure that this, Glitch, is right. What he needs. He pulls Glitch to his feet as well and catches him in a quick kiss. "C'mon, sweetheart, we should get back to the Palace before they send out the search parties."

Glitch follows along eagerly, and when they pass by the guards to re-enter the castle, still hand in hand, both the one under his command who knows better that to provide snarky comments and the one who isn't and doesn't, stay silent.