Disclaimer: Don't own it. Sorry.
Author's Note: You know, when I sat down to write this, I was feeling a bit bad for Cain. It seemed to me that he'd been spending enough time around Gulch (albeit in a different 'verse) to pick up some of his luck – not really a fair trade for the badassery the cop's been learning meanwhile. As I rewrote the end of A MERE FICLET for the fifth time, however, I realized it was more a case of Cain Only Muses When Least Convenient…that or the Tin Man wants me to rip open 'Reverse Psychology' again. What say you Cain? Are you going to behave or do I have to employ some operant conditioning?
PS Part of the Game Night Series, new readers please check profile for preceding stories.
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Wyatt Cain remembered a time when apologizing was easier. Well maybe not easier, but certainly more straightforward. Sure there'd be the obligatory acknowledgement of Having Done Something Wrong (he hated that part), the making of amends, and (in truly heinous cases) Dealing With Tears (he was a Tin MAN after all), but Cain was, in his heart, a just man. He recognized the relation between action and consequence, the necessity of owning up to your failings. And if he happened to enjoy the fact that his fierce, though somewhat exaggerated, new reputation meant that people didn't generally ask him to apologize anymore…well, he was only human.
And then some Papay bitten headcase had gone and made a game out of the whole painful process. If Cain ever found out whom, he was heading straight over to the Otherside to shoot him. Or her (if DG was allowed to melt witches, he ought to be allowed to shoot one).
Of course, there was the slight complication of who had introduced the game to the O.Z. in the first place…
The Tin Man considered the card in his hand very carefully. It was the right word, even the right sentiment – at least coming from him – hell, he'd even hinted towards the selection of the blasted game for the sole purpose of making up for certain bottle exploding incidents. He just hadn't expected the limited strategy of the game to glitch the whole works. Surveying the board with the forlorn expression of the doomed, the Hero of the Eclipse wished wistfully for the game that had those nice get out of jail free cards. He was in enough trouble for, ah, inadvertently turning game night with the youngest princess into a perceived life or death situation (it's not like he shot at anyone) without…
…knocking her last game piece off the board and back to the beginning. For the sixth time. That game. And people thought his glare was scary…
"Sorry?" Cain tried.