InsaneJournal

Waxy Green Gardenias
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine.

Title: Waxy Green Gardenias
Pairing: Glitch/Cain
Fandom: Tin Man
Rating: R
Summary: Cain doesn't know what's happening to him, but he has a theory.



The restaurant is dark, or it would be dark if it weren’t for all the candles and tin punch lanterns, and it’s really not very dark at all. It is smoky, Cain notices, and crowded, and smells like foods he can’t identify. Even after having eaten nearly two courses of it.

Glitch is making Cain feel twitchy tonight for some reason, and Raw’s presence isn’t helping because it makes Cain feel transparent, and the two of them over there are eating like a couple of horses, apparently oblivious to his discomfiture.

Twitchy and transparent. That’s how he feels.

The music is sultry and has an air of sinfulness about it, like they’re in what his mother would have called a den of iniquity, instead of a moderately priced dive.

The lyrics are making him tug at his collar. The woman singing them is wearing very distracting boots. He hadn’t known leather came in quite that shade of green, or in sufficient quantities to make boots go up quite that high. Now he is feeling hot on top of everything else.

Hot, twitchy, and transparent. He’s got to get out of here.

“I’m going to order another salad,” Glitch suddenly announces, and before Cain can argue the zipperhead is already catching the attention of the innkeeper, and making what must be some universal signal for ‘more salad’ of which Cain was previously unaware.

“Don’t like the food?” Raw enquires, no doubt catching a sense of his annoyance. Blasted Viewers.

“It’s fine,” Cain snaps. Eastern Quadrant cuisine is actually pretty good, plenty of beef and spiced rice, it isn’t the food that’s the problem. He’s not sure exactly what the problem is, but Glitch seems to be directly involved somehow. Glitch over there munching on the last of his sprouts like a distracted rabbit, and Cain stares so long that by the time he catches himself at it the serving girl has arrived and he pulls his gaze away from Glitch with a guilty start.

The serving girl is very well-endowed, and that endowment is very well-showcased by the cross-laced bodice of her uniform. As she leans down to set Glitch’s salad in front of him, Glitch almost can’t help staring straight down her blouse. It would be time for a prudent man to develop an interest in his cutlery, or at least keep quiet, but Glitch isn’t always that cautious with his tongue.

“You’re a very pretty woman,” Glitch says to the serving girl.

Considering where he is still looking, Cain tenses and waits for the girl to get offended and maybe pour the salad in his lap. But it’s hard to be offended by Glitch, since even the most outrageous statements are usually accompanied by a genuinely innocent expression, and the fact that women seem to find him cute and in need of feeding certainly doesn’t hurt. She simply smiles benignly as she gathers up their empty cups. She brings back fresh ones for the table almost immediately, full of ale and green wine and cider.

Cain is never going to get out of here, he realizes.

Never, ever.

“What is wrong with you?” Raw growls.

Cain takes it as a comfort that Raw doesn’t already know. Well, see, I seem to have developed an intense fascination with Glitch over here, and between my recurring fantasy about taking him on the table, the perfect tiny curl of black hair that is falling over his left eyebrow, and the fact this songstress seems insanely intent on singing things with lyrics that mention waxy green gardenia petals and people’s milky thighs, I need to return to my room and take a very cold shower.

“Nothing,” he grunts.

Raw pushes Cain’s ale at him before curling a hand around his own mug of cider. “Then drink, stop glaring at everyone.”

Am I glaring? Cain picks up his ale apologetically and stares into the gold bubbles a moment. Then it hits him.

The drinks.

Cain stands up.

“I think I’ve been poisoned,” he announces, aware he sounds almost excited about the prospect.

Because that would explain everything. So. Very. Beautifully.

“Why? Do you feel sick?” Glitch asks solicitously. “Sometimes the local brew can be a little on the musty side, but…”

“Do either of you… feel funny?” he asks. Raw and Glitch shake their heads like a pair of brown-eyed puppies.

“Maybe you should go lie down,” Glitch suggests. “We’ll come up later and check on you.”

Raw sniffs at the contents of Cain’s cup. “Not poisoned,” he insists, but Cain is sure it must be something fiendishly clever and therefore undetectable by Viewers.

Yes, it was definitely the ale, Cain tells himself as he heads up the stairs. Poisoned golden hops. He is suddenly feeling very sleepy. Maybe he did just need a lie down, and a couple of hours without Glitch in his face looking so unbearably and irresistibly Glitch-like.

Of course, if there’s poisoned ale that must mean there’s some sort of treacherous plot afoot, and renegade longcoats are probably about to invade the restaurant and cause havoc and mayhem.

As long as they wait until after his shower, Cain can’t bring himself to care.


*

Cain wakes up with no sense of how much time has passed. He remembers taking off his boots, gun, and hat, and lying on top of the burlap-like coverlet to just catch a few minutes of rest. The slit between the mismatched shutters is black, so it’s at least after nightfall.

And Cain suddenly recalls what had sent him hightailing up here in the first place. It had all been like some sort of Vapor dream. He shifts on the bed, moving to push the grainy bedcovers back to reveal the white sheets, it makes a bit of noise and suddenly Glitch appears in the little alcove between the bathroom and the bedroom suite.

“You’re awake! Feeling any better?”

“What… in the green hills. … are you wearing?”

Glitch glances down as if he has to jog his own memory, which he probably does. “My nightshirt,” he explains earnestly, though unnecessarily. The thin blue and white pinstripes on the long white garment sort of speak for themselves.

“I can see that, Glitch. What I meant was, why are you wearing it here?”

“I thought it would be more practical attire for…ah … a private liaison, as they say in court.”

Cain had started to sit up, but when Glitch says this he is knocked flat back against the bed again from sheer astonishment and covers his face in his hands. Maybe this is Vapors after all. It can’t really be happening.

Glitch sits down on the edge of the bed. “It’s nothing to get yourself all in a state over. We’ve been on the road together a long time.” As he talks, he unfastens Cain’s belt as calmly as Cain had taken the girth strap off his horse earlier. “And you’ve been alone a lot longer than that. I know you haven’t been with anybody since we were at the palace, because all the women at court used to complain to me about it, you know, how they tried and tried, some of them practically threw themselves at you, to hear tell of it, but they said it was like trying to warm up a statue.”

Cain lowers his hands and does his best to coherently explain about his hops theory. The one that had made so much sense earlier.

“Oh, you haven’t been poisoned, you great idiot! You’re just in love!”

“I… what…that’s ridiculous! I… that..”

Glitch waits patiently until Cain sputters himself out, then leans forward. “Your heart’s been frozen so long you just didn’t recognize it when it happened. Not that anybody else would’ve been able to tell either, except that you bumped into Raw on the way out of the restaurant…”

“Raw knows? Miserable Viewers!” Cain pushes Glitch’s hand aside and sits up, almost spitting with indignation. “Those intrusive, manipulative little…”

“They do come in handy sometimes. You may have reason to thank him before the night’s over.”

“Glitch, I cannot… will not…. indulge in this sort of thing…this sort of …fantasy. I’ve never….I had a wife!”

“You had a wife,” Glitch clarifies, very gently. “Now you have me.”

Cain stands up and begins to pace. “This is crazy. You were just telling the barmaid she was attractive.”

Glitch stands up, too, blocking his path in the tiny room. “Well, she was. I’m not blind. But I’m not in love with her.”

“And you are not in love with ME!” He grabs Glitch by the arms as if to squeeze sense into him, and might have pushed him against the wall except he is ever mindful of the zipper running down the back of the other man’s head.

“But I am,” Glitch insists quietly. “I’ve loved you ever since… well, oddly enough I think the exact moment was when we found that door in the field. You were all excited about it, like a bloodhound that had finally found a trail, only instead of showing on your face it was just shining through your eyes and nowhere else, and that was when I really noticed them, and how beautiful they were. Sounds all gushy and pathetic, doesn’t it? I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

“Tell me, “ Cain says through gritted teeth, “that you’ve ever once in your entire life had a man in your bed.”

“I couldn’t really say,” Glitch admitted. “To be honest I can’t remember a single time. Either those memories are in the other half of my brain, or Ambrose was just really not much for company.”

Oh, wonderful. He’s not only contemplating seducing a zipperhead, but deflowering a virgin, too. Whether literal or virtual, it hardly matters.

Glitch must’ve seen the conflict on his face. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says stubbornly. “Unless you plan on picking me up and putting me out into the hallway.”

“I’m thinking about it,” Cain returns grimly, but he realizes he is gripping his friend’s arms rather tightly and eases up a little. Sweet Wandering Way, what is he supposed to do now? Assuming he is going to yield to this mad, selfish desire - this crazy temptation that is making his heart pound in his chest like he’s been running across the O.Z. for days. Does he pick him up and carry him to bed and pour him across it like he used to do with Adora?

“There now, don’t look so worried,” Glitch soothes, reaching up to take his face in both calloused, clever hands, in what Cain thinks is a rather bizarre role reversal. “We’ll figure it out together, nice and slow.” His lips are so close to Cain’s he can feel every syllable brush against them like the beat of a silent telegraph.

“I’m sorry,” Cain rasps.

“What for?”

Cain reaches up to mirror Glitch’s gesture. “Because I’m the one who should be telling you everything’s going to be all right.”

“So make everything all right.”

And somehow Cain makes it happen. He leans in and kisses Glitch and they catch onto each other’s lips in a needy hunger.

Glitch tastes faintly of vinegar and oil. It’s delicious. Glitch is delicious. The kiss sways back and forth between tender and desperate ~ cautious, then rough and reckless.

It ends gentle, Glitch’s bottom lip slipping free of Cain’s careful teeth. Cain finds they’re against the wall after all, his hand protectively wedged between Glitch’s scalp and the stone, and his knees are shaking in a way they haven’t done since he was sixteen.

He strokes a random stray outcropping of black hair back tenderly with his thumb.

“I’m afraid to touch your head,” Cain confesses in a whisper. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Just don’t pull the zipper,” Glitch instructs lightly, with a faint grin he takes Cain’s other hand and guides it down to the front of Cain’s trousers. “But you can do what you like with this one.”

Suddenly Cain doesn’t care if Glitch thinks he’s lost his mind, he wants to hold him, every part of him, every scant pound of him, completely off the ground so that he’s entirely resting on Cain’s strength and nothing else. He cups hands under thighs, and hoists him up, careful not to bump him into the low beam that holds up the ceiling of their top floor room. And Glitch grabs at him, but doesn’t fight him, limp and trusting as a ragdoll for the short .. too short… ride to the bed, and then he spills Glitch out onto it exactly like he used to do to Adora.

And those stupid song lyrics pop into his head about the gardenia petals and he wants to push Glitch’s nightshirt up to his hips and suddenly realizes he can do just that, and so he slides up the fabric while sliding Glitch up the sheets, and Glitch is shivering, but not from cold, not in midsummer, if anything they could use a fan in here, the way they’re both sweating.

He’s already decided he’s not going to ask too much of Glitch tonight, not going to take too much. Ambrose is going to have to be present and accounted for before they move into deeper waters. Instead he’s going to pleasure Glitch with his fingertips and his palms, his lips and his tongue, because Glitch deserves it, so much, because his face is beautiful and strange when contorted in ecstasy, and because Cain loves him, pure and simple.

Even a heart as rusty as his can recognize that.

There’s a kiss of cool air drifting through the gap in the shutters by the bed, a welcome antidote to the salt-water beading along his spine. And maybe it’s his imagination, but Cain is pretty sure he smells gardenias on the breeze.