Title: Scream
Rating: R (ish?)
Summary: Cain comes home thinking it will be just another uneventful night...
Notes: They're just normal Othersiders in this one. For the prompt "Scream" from Nosferatu. I'll probably make a little Part 2 later.
Cain pulled up to the driveway, parking the car without much thought to how close it was to Ambrose's flower patch in the yard, and turned the engine off with a tired but pleased sigh. He had been taking extended shifts for far too many days now and would have to do so something about it soon, especially since today that extended shift had kept him away from his husband on one of his rare days off. He and Ambrose had simply been too overworked lately. But for now, Cain was just glad to be home after a long day at work. With thoughts of a warm dinner and a kiss on his mind, he got out and headed up the steps to their modest but comfortable two story house, where there were no nosy neighbors for miles.
All the lights in the house seemed to be on, putting it on display to an inexistent audience and making it seem like the inhabitants were up and about. But once he stepped inside and tossed his keys on the table by the door, he saw the post-it note with Ambrose's choppy sentences and scraggly handwriting; the one that meant he was writing fast and unfocused.
I'm turning in early tonight.
Not working, I promise!
I made pasta. There's a plate in the microwave.
As impersonal as that might have seemed to anyone else, Cain was just getting used to Ambrose getting used to them not seeing each other much when they got home at night; and he really needed to do something about that soon.
Rather than go look for Ambrose, who was supposedly asleep, he made a quick trip down the hall to his study to check that the engineer was indeed "not working". Then he turned back, and was just past the stairs on his way to the kitchen when a startling scream blared from upstairs. Cain's head snapped up in shock and he stopped in his tracks. Ambrose.
A moment later he heard the sound of glass shattering and then he was racing up the stairs, his heart slamming against his chest in dread. "Ambrose!"
He dashed to the second landing and almost froze when he saw the scarlet fluid streaming out on the floor from their bedroom door. But he had no time to panic now, no time to beat himself over running without thinking and leaving his gun downstairs, no time to imagine what might await him inside the room. With one swift movement he kicked the door down and barged in, ready to face whoever had hurt Ambrose.
The only problem was that what he saw did freeze him where he stood.
There was Ambrose, standing in the middle of the room, perfectly fine except for a venomous glare he was directing at his laptop; his chair had been blown away to the other end of the room, and a shattered glass of red wine lay scattered in countless tiny pieces at Cain's feet. In that moment, Cain didn't know if he wanted to scream in frustration or relief, so he settled for shrugging off his jacket in the most stoic fashion he could manage—and then left all pretenses at the door as he ran to Ambrose and pulled him into a tight hug.
"Wyatt!" he cried out in surprise when Cain all but lifted him up and twirled him around, as if he was only just noticing him, "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
"Am I okay," Cain scoffed as he dropped his head on Ambrose's shoulder, "You're going to give me a heart attack someday."
"I'm sorry?" Ambrose looked honestly confused, sliding his hands up Cain's biceps as Cain tightened his arms around his waist, "What happened?" For a genius he could be truly clueless about some things.
"I come home and hear you scream, glass shattering, and see red liquid on the floor?" Cain raised an eyebrow and fixed him with a pointed look.
"Oh."
"Jesus, Ambrose. Why were you screaming like that in the first place?"
"Oh!" he turned his head sideways to glare at the open laptop again, his face taking on that unfairly adorable pout as he gave his explanation, "Ernest Raynz just patented something way too similar to my T.D.A.S.S.D.L.! I swear one of his slimy lackeys stole it."
"So you scream bloody murder, destroy a glass, waste our good wine, and almost give me a heart attack? You're unbelievable."
"Well I do pride myself in being able to surprise you from time to time." Ambrose shot back with an impish grin,
"Not a very nice surprise though..." as horrible as that last minute of his day had been—because really, it couldn't have been more than a minute between hearing the scream and kicking down the door—he felt himself relaxing against Ambrose's body, still pressed closed to his. He lowered his head again to the crook of neck, kissing and nipping at the pale soft skin there and drawing a pleased little sound from Ambrose. He missed this; their usual quips at each other over silly things that they ended up laughing about in the morning, instead of feeling like they didn't even have time for a joke; coming home and having a conversation face to face instead of through post-it notes; touching each other in all the places they had claimed, with ardor and shameless need, without worrying about work in the morning... instead of climbing into bed with inches of space between them like they had for far too many days now. Cain would have to do something about that.
He slipped his hands under Ambrose's silk pajama top—he hated this one, so slithery—and occupied them with the much more pleasant texture of the creamy warm skin underneath. One hand traveled up to Ambrose's chest where it ghosted over his nipple before slipping out again and making quick work of undoing the gallingly glossy shirt. The other hand made its way down, disappearing under the rim of the matching pants.
"Well this," Ambrose gasped at his wandering touches, "is certainly more interesting than Raynz's sleaziness..."
"Hmm, it better be," Cain muttered and pressed a kiss to Ambrose's lips. "Wait—Why were you looking that up? We agreed we wouldn't work on days off, Ambrose, unless—"
"Unless there was a missing child or someone was dying." Ambrose rolled his eyes as he recited their old deal, "I wasn't working, I was just... Keeping up on current events."
"It's still work related." Cain countered in a low voice as he pushed the unbuttoned silk shirt off pale shoulders and let it fall to the stained floor; he stepped forward slowly, coaxing Ambrose backwards to the bed. "You broke the rules. You know what that means?"
"You're going to penalize me for my actions, officer?"
"Over and over again, sweetheart."