(no subject)

[amicably_absent]

Glitch had swum for hours, chasing fish and insects and bubbles and sunbeams. Eventually, worn out and tired, he had swum to shore and curled up on the bank on the sun warmed pebbles, grumbling about his lack of coat until he fell asleep.

He woke up with Rennie shaking him, a scolding voice telling him he had to come in, he was all wet and dirty and needed a bath and clean clothes, and was she going to have to strap him in the chair.

Glitch reacted predictably.

He screamed at her, judo flipped her while sitting down, dove into the water, swam to a far edge and took off.

Rennie asked Cain to go find Glitch and bring him in before he froze or hurt himself.

Glitch had retreated to the rotunda, sitting on the seat and swinging himself back and forth, watching the sun setting on the lake. He was soaking wet again, but his trembling didn't seem to worry him at all.

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She asked, yes, and then Cain had to ask himself why she couldn't do her job and handle one guy. So, he goes out looking, a spare coat over the crook of his elbow and nothing but Glitch's last whereabouts to go by.

And his long neglected tracking skills.

And his sizable lungs.

"Glitch? Where are you?!"

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Because there's exactly three people who can handle Glitch in full Glitch mode and he's the only one here.

Glitch perks when he hears his name. "At the swing!" He yells back with his own not inconsiderable volume.

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At the swing. Of course he's at the swing, and if only he could remember where the damned swing was, there wouldn't be a problem.

"We gotta get you indoors, Sweetheart. It's getting late."

Maybe if he can just keep Glitch hollering, he'll find his way through the maze.

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Glitch down the unthinkable.

He comes to find Cain. By scrambling up the maze and walking across the top in his bare feet. "The sunset is lovely from here though, Wyatt!" He's still dripping water.

"You know the hedge is magically enforced!"

[less-hugging.livejournal.com]

Somewhere in the O.Z, pigs just learned to fly. If Cain could catch sigh of Glitch as he weaves his way through the maze, all the better.

"I don't, actually! Where are you?!"

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"I'm on top of the maze! On the hedges!"

Yes, it was a scramble to get up. Luckily, climbing and walking are equally likely yo make Glitch fall over. He's okay right now, walking along the top of the massive maze.

"Stay where you are, I'll find you!"

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He'd better not fall over from up there, or Cain will be a very unhappy camper. He takes a few more steps, then begrudgingly comes to a stop. It's one thing to chase young women on a quest through the gigantic weave of a magically enforced maze, but to go running through it on your own... He's just not up to it. It's getting late, it's getting dark, and he'd much rather be indoors right now, where the hearth is warm and the lamps shine like amber.

"I'm over here! Looks like a small garden with a fish pool at the center! It's shaped like a circle, but with eight corners!"

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"Octagon! It's called an octagon, Wyatt! Line, parrallel lines, triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, septagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon!" He keeps walking, keeping an eye out. He has no idea where he's going, but his feet move on their own.

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Magically enforced... Cain frowns, looking for a way up that doesn't involved scrambling for purchase. He finds a bench, once a beautiful token of artisanship, now decaying from many annuals of neglect. It's still solid enough to aid in his attempt to climb the hedge. He can hear Glitch coming closer, even from afar, and he wouldn't at all mind the added help of visual confirmation.

And if Glitch suddenly stumbles and falls, he'd like to know where and when, for obvious reasons.

It is true that the former Tin Man isn't as agile as his friend, but what he lacks in that department, he makes up for in stubbornness, and after one or two botched attempts, he clambers his way up top, to spy for his friend in the distance.

It doesn't take long for him to spot the figure walking the wobbly line, and he raises his hand to wave. "Over here!"

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Glitch is walking without thinking, because it usually turns out okay when he does that. He spots Cain when he calls, hopping over a walkway and starting over towards him.

"I wish I knew how I got up here," he calls over.

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"Probably with one of your many hidden martial talents."

It's...beyond good to see Glitch safe and sound. If he were the kind of man to wax poetic (and maybe, once upon a long time ago, he was), he might admit that his heart melts a little at the sight of his friend.

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"Probably! Do I have hidden martial talents?"

He leaps across another gap and winds over to where Cain is, sitting down on the edge of the hedge. "Hi. I seem to be wet."

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Cain shrugs, and waits for Glitch to come on closer. "Hidden from me, at least. I'm sure they're less hidden to you, and yes, you're wet."

Still looking like a wet cat, but Cain doesn't mind much. "I'm here to get you indoors and cleaned up and warm again. Unless you like catching colds out here."

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"Ooh, nifty. I have hidden martial skills." He swings his legs. "I'm wet, so I must be clean. Right?"

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"You can kick butt any day, you just need some sort of trigger." He smiles, his eyes pulled to Glitch's none too clean feet. He remembers a similar argument from Jeb, when he was a boy, and hated washing up after a day of outdoor games.

"Not necessarily. I bet you've been swimming all day, soap not included."

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"I... went swimming with someone and then I swam more and then I had a nap and..."

He frowns, looks to Cain and then beams. "Hi there!"

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"Hey." Cain reaches out to pat his friends shoulder. "How about we go back inside, get you into some nice, dry clothes, and raid the kitchen for something to eat?"

He isn't sure why he doesn't just tell Glitch they went swimming.

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"Yeah, I guess so." He jumps down, sliding down onto the bench and then to the cracked pavement. He shivers hard and frowns. "I think I'm cold. But at least my pants aren't white and see through with the water."

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Cain follows suit, and figures he might as well just drape the coat he brought over Glitch's shoulders.

And then his face flushes with embarrassment. "Yeah. There's that."

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Glitch snuggles into the coat, thin hands curling on the lapels to draw them shut.

"I went swimming today. And we watched a really lovely man chopping wood."

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"Uhuh." Keeping his tone of voice as noncommittal as possible, Cain steers them both out of the labyrinthine mass of hedges.

He shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't let Glitch prattle on without knowing who it was, chopping wood, but he can't make himself fess up. He's not used to being the object of people's attention quite like this.

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"Uhuh," Glitch agrees. He follows alongside Cain like a puppy, barely keeping focused on where he's going, feet almost tripping over tiles constantly.

"My feet ache. Oh, we went swimming earlier, didn't we?! Is that why I'm wet?"

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And always, always, Cain is there to keep him steady. For a given value of steady, of course. "We sure did."

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"Oh wow, that means the gorgeous chopping wood guy is you!" Glitch says it loudly and brightly and only seconds later, the implication sinks in and both hands go up to his mouth, eyes wide.

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Cain blinks, glances to the side, then figures it's up to him to dispel the very sudden, very awkward tension.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you very much, Sweetheart. I do my best."