Separation Anxiety
Special thanks to Druid lass for the beta and Eleanor Ariail for her input. Sorry this took so long guys
One night and then they'd go their separate ways.
The first time was the night after the witches defeat. DG stated that it was far too late in the day for Cain to try to get back to the cabin by the white tree. Never mind that inhospitable, uninhabitable rundown old shack, where as likely as not the TDESPHTL had started up again. He would simply have to stay at the palace. Glitch agreed whole heartedly and with Raw, ever expecting to be left along the roadside but keeping up as long as allowed, following in their wake, the pair marched the tin man-or ex tin man-or (during an odd sort of glitch that made DG laugh uncontrollably) ex man- away. All the time Cain grumbled half heartedly. But evening found the four tucked away in a room together. DG got the bed, Glitch rested on a sofa not far away, Cain insisted that he was comfortable in a far less than comfortable looking chair, and Raw sprawled on the floor.
The second night, Cain insisted Glitch was bound to misfire -being such a head case and all- and would need to be watched, just in case. Though he seemed upset at first at being called a head case, the Adviser/Inventor/Non-convict (which was as much as Cain would concede) followed the princess to the room that was once his. This time DG took the couch, and Cains chair was less uncomfortable looking.
The third night Found them huddled in the princess DGs room. Glitch insisted the O.Z. was all still so new to DG . The smallest night sounds would surely make her jump. And so they absolutely had to stay with her.
Though the idea that she had probably gotten used to all the sounds heard in the night hours during the journey around the whole of the O.Z. was more likely, DG held her tongue and lead the other three to her room. Despite the most comfortable chair was to be found here, Cain took the floor space on the opposite side of the bed from Raw. Glitch, too, had abandoned the couch. Instead, he lay three feet from DG on the bed.
"A good three feet," he insisted at Cains glowering look.
(Cain would glare so, even though DG had offered each of them to share the bed and Cain didn't have the sense to comply.)
The fourth night, all three companions fussed and fretted over Raw.
"The burns from the cattle prod are still visible"
"And what if the zipper head needs to remember something'
"Or a bed bug bites Cain"
(Glitch wondered vaguely if Cain had practiced that glower in the mirror...maybe it was part of tin man training)
Although the bed in this room was sufficient to support them all , while leaving a good five feet between each, Midnight found all four snuggled on the floor without an inch to spare.
One more night, they promised a fifth time . And then they'd go their separate ways.
On the sixth night, Azkadellia bunked between Cain and DG. She feared waking them and finding them all angry. Instead, all she found was acceptance. For a while, four was five.
On the seventh night, Jeb came. And stayed for the eighth and ninth. And five was six.
Every night, the empty promise was repeated.
One more night . And then they'd go their separate way.
But the unspoken fact remained every time they said the empty words; they were inseparable, and could only sleep when they were in the safety of their friends company.
The four friends would never part. And separately they each revelled in this secret.
