(The increasingly misnamed) Small piece of Cain fanfic

[tenjou_sama]

You're hopefully going to give us a detailed report on Cain choosing those maternity dresses, right? Right? [img]biggrin.gif[/img] [img]biggrin.gif[/img] [img]biggrin.gif[/img] I wouldn't want to miss fun like that =D Great job on the writing!

And completley off topic...but the little birthday cake next to my name says that Crisis has just turned two...Wow! Young and beautiful! [img]graemlins/devil.gif[/img] Hyuk Hyuk!

[Risu-chan]

I was a costume design double-major in college. How could I *not* give the gory details of the shopping spree? ^___~

And yeah, I was wondering about the birthday cakes too! ^__^ I assume that means the board's been here for 2 years? (Otherwise Crisis has got a LOT more birthdays to go before we should let her back at the yaoi...)

[Risu-chan]

'Nother little snip (I should've been writing my Japanese essay but I've been procrastinating all night... well, I guess I get to find out Thursday night exactly how fast I can write 1,000 characters of kanji! ^^;;; Anyway...)

-----
One of my duties for the day was to go and assist Althea with moving to the cottage at the edge of the woods; it surprised me when Master Cain blithely followed me out to the stables.

"Sir, I'm going back to Miss Althea's camp."

"Of course you are," Master Cain said. "And, of course, I'm going with you."

"Sir...?"

"There are already half a hundred whispered rumors about me, but you are quite an upstanding citizen," he said. "If you were to be seen settling a pregnant woman in a house off away from the village, they might begin to whisper about you; whereas I could hardly care less what else is whispered about me. I dare say it would be no stranger than the truth, at that. So." He pulled on his riding-gloves, and grinned up at me. "Shall we be off to add grist to the rumor mill?"

"Sir, I... we... Miss Althea and I -- we were also to go to the market, to buy clothes more suitable for -- for her condition's continuing increase, and for the baby..."

"So? The last time I checked, no one had issued a ban prohibiting me from entering the place."

The image in my mind of Master Cain selecting a woman's maternity dress was rather appalling, since it involved the application of his own preferences in outer garments to something feminine, and since his own criteria for selecting outer garments seemed to include only two: "black" and "sturdily woven so as to turn a casual thrust of a knife."

Although he had displayed more suitable taste in frills and lace when shopping for Miss Merry, he tended to dress Miss Merry as a type of large doll; for another adult, I was concerned that he might be -- to put it delicately -- overly practical-minded. The image of Althea's reaction to Master Cain's preferences was just as vivid and uncomfortable.

I opened my mouth, closed it, reconsidered what I had been about to say, reconsidered again, and finally managed, "I had thought you might find it rather dull, sir."

"Since there are no toxins readily for sale, you mean?" he asked, with a brow quirked sardonically.

"That will do for a reason, yes," I said, perhaps sounding a bit too relieved.

He looked at me for a long minute; I bit the inside of my lip hard and worked on keeping my face straight.

"Well, then if there are no toxins for sale," he said, "I shall simply need to be more creative to entertain myself, shan't I. Come on, if you're still planning to come."

Althea was just as startled as I had been, but since she knew him less well, she had fewer reasons to be concerned. All that concerned her was the carriage which would take us to town, and finding a way to settle herself less uncomfortably in it. Her face and hands were slender; it was apparent that she was far from accustomed to carrying such girth, and so roundly thrust forward. I took care to steady her as she stepped down from the carriage, because her balance was clearly affected by the weight and prominence of her enlarging womb.

"Thank you, ox," she said, with a challenging glitter in her dark eyes.

I sighed to myself, and said gravely, "You're welcome, wench."

Althea laughed and slapped my arm. "So: the ox hasn't been gelded after all. I like that." To Master Cain, she said, "You like your pets fiesty, young master witch-boy?"

"I like my pets well-behaved," he replied, dry as winter ice. "With you, I can see that there is quite a bit of domestication still to be done. The last man to master you was rather lax."

She bristled at that, and then realized it was exactly what he had intended. Irritated both with him and with herself, she jerked away from the support of my arm and stalked up the road toward the market.

Grinning darkly to himself, Master Cain followed; so did I, completely at a loss for what else to do. I could hardly speak to him about misbehavior, let alone for a well-deserved comeback to deliberate baiting. On the other hand, asking her to mend her behavior would be like asking a thistle to come up velvet instead of prickles: both a waste of breath and completely unnatural.

So I resigned myself to a highly spiced afternoon of shopping. If nothing else, I could console myself with the thought that Master Cain was hardly likely to find himself bored.

[tenjou_sama]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> I was a costume design double-major in college. How could I *not* give the gory details of the shopping spree? ^___~ </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yippeee!!

I read your R-rated fic too...Good stuff [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] [img]cool.gif[/img] The whole 'newlywed' scenario had me rolling. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

[rev.tsukiyama]

Hey...I just finished costume design at college...Spooky. Or maybe not.

Well for starters you're a fucking fantastic writer, if you'll pardon my french. Lovely characterization and pace.

:gives cain a big hug:

Nice little reference to my all time favourite crazy eye-fixated dr in the mix too! I'd love you for ever and ever if Jezebel put in appearance, but dont worry about it, I'm sure you've got a big plot thing going on.

I've been trying to write 'cain fic myself for ages, but everything I touch turns to smut. :shrugs:

One point - why is lief, sorry, riff so not interested in cain's poisons? I always got the impression from the manga he was always pretty au fait with cain's collection.

[Risu-chan]

^^;;; Why? Well... mostly to have an excuse for dramatic tension and/or comedy as needed, and to make Riff more of the straight-man (the normal one whom people identify with in a story about a really unusual main character like Cain).

I took some liberties with his reactions, trying to keep him stoic on the outside and more complicated on the inside, just because the manga automatically doesn't let you into his head... my take on it is "if Cain likes it, Riff goes along with anything he likes, but his own opinions could be a little different than what he admits to as the perfect servant..." Don't know if that makes sense or not, but I wanted another pulling-point to illustrate the tension between what he does as a servant and what he thinks as a person...?

[crisisdreams]

Hehe...Risu-chan's stories are just so funny, and in a witty way too. I adore witty humour. [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

And...what birthday cake? Sakura-crisis.net has only been online for a year.

*gasp*

OHHHHH no, you found out my secret. *shhh* Don't tell anyone. If you do, they'll tear me away from my boy smut! Noooo!

Oh, and this sucks. If I look like this at my age...*sigh* I'll look 80 when I turn 18. *sniff* The horrors of not looking your age...

[Risu-chan]

(sweatdrop) thank you, guys! ^^;;; I don't think of myself as particularly witty, I just think I'm a born style-sponge. I spent a long semester with people smacking me upside the head for speaking iambic pentameter extemporaneously in the cafeteria and in the dorms.

Honest to God, though, I *couldn't help it.* I was taking theater history of the Renaissance (basically "Shakespeare and occasionally someone else"), Shakespeare's comedies, Shakespeare's tragedies, and playwriting in the same semester.

I dare anybody to try spending about 32 hours a week surrounded by iambic pentameter and then come out of it and try to speak anything else... @_@ I'm really glad that little habit has worn off... now I just have to remember not to speak Japanese to people on the bus when I'm getting back from class to work! (Anybody else have that problem after language classes, or am I just weird (again)?)

[tenjou_sama]

You spoke in iambic pictameter 0_o I can't even write in iambic pictameter!! Good thing we never went to the same school...I would have hounded you for help when good ol' Shakespeare came around in foreign litereatures class. We had to get with a partner and write a 5 minute scence in the same style as him.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> now I just have to remember not to speak Japanese to people on the bus when I'm getting back from class to work! (Anybody else have that problem after language classes, or am I just weird (again)?) </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Heh! Well considering the language I took was Latin...I still have nightmares about all those verb forms T_T

[Risu-chan]

As promised, the gory details of the shopping spree! ^__~ (going to have to brainstorm about the 'everyone showing up on Cain's doorstep' scene so more people can jump into the Yami/Cain fic setting too...)
--------------

The first order of business was finding Althea some clothing better suited to her condition, and to its further advancement. Despite her best attempts at concealing it, Master Cain and I had noticed why she wore a shawl about her shoulders: not because of a chill, but because she'd torn a strip out of her skirt and patched it into the back of her bodice, in order to try to close the gap caused by her changing figure.

As I held open the door of the shop he'd chosen, I couldn't help myself. "Please, sir," I said, "no black."

"There's nothing wrong with black," he said, somewhat irritably.

"But for-- for a woman, in such a state--"

"Whyever not?" he asked, clearly baiting me now. "I've been told that black is slimming."

"Sir--" My next recourse was going to be begging, and I hesitated to do so in the middle of the street, under the eyes of a dozen passers-by and the ever-sarcastic Althea. "Sir, please..."

"Yes, yes, fine. Trust me."

And so I trusted him... largely because, when it came down to it, there was nothing else I could do but trust him, watch, and pray the scene didn't become too bloody.

Much to my relief, Master Cain showed better taste in women's garments than I had been afraid he might; but to my dismay, Althea's taste was somewhat less tasteful than his. To my further dismay, Master Cain had no hesitation in debating with her on any point she cared to choose.

Althea kept trying to pull him toward clothing that might have fit her a year ago, but could never fit her as she was then; aside from her rather hopeless yearnings for dresses with tiny corseted waists, she was also drawn to bright floral patterns touched with painted glints of gold and silver.

"You're buying clothes, woman, not upholstery for a throw-pillow," Master Cain said, and reached toward a different sort of dress entirely.

Much to my relief, it wasn't black; it was a solid dark wine color which would set off her complexion quite nicely. And it was of an old-fashioned cut, likely considered outmoded these days; but the high empire-waisted design left room in front for a certain roundness to increase.

Since it was neither floral and gaudy with gilt nor designed for a woman with an eighteen-inch waistline, Althea was bitterly disappointed, and stalked off to look further.

After much searching and much vocal debate, they came up with three candidates. One of them had a plunging neckline and sharply pointed waistline and a gold-tipped rose petal print, simply because she insisted, and Master Cain rather bluntly informed her the waistline would have to be removed or raised half a foot in order for the dress even to approximate lacing closed over her abdomen.

Another was his burgundy-colored, empire-waisted selection, simply because he insisted; Althea just as bluntly informed him that she had no desire to go about dressed like an accident with a bulging winesack.

The third was of a solid, pale green fabric, thickly embroidered with flowers about the collar, but cut in the old high-waisted fashion, and with an inset of lace at the throat which covered more than she wished to cover; I silently prayed that that one would fit, because it was as close as they had been able to come to a compromise, and I dreaded the thought of beginning the search anew at the next store up the road.

The shop-girl showed Althea to a private alcove in the back of the store to assist her with trying them on for their fit. From her expression, I suspected she also felt as though she ought to do anything short of tearing a hole in the back in order to get that one to fit, and to get us out of her shop.

The argument was distantly audible, or at least Althea's half of it was; but it seemed that the rose-gilt dress truly couldn't have its seams let out sufficiently to permit one in her condition to wear it. The burgundy one might have fit, if she hadn't loudly refused to set foot in it. So, a few minutes later, they re-emerged, with the shop-girl looking rather battle-haggard and Althea stubbornly holding her chin up, in the spring-green dress with the embroidery.

What clearly dismayed her the most was that the drape of the dress fell against her enlarged abdomen so that her roundness was still made visible; and so she was determined to find something else to criticize.

Tugging at the neckline of the bodice, she complained, "Can't you take off the lace? If I've got to put up with aching like an unmilked cow, at least let me get some use out of showing off the cleavage!"

"No one puts lace around a cow's udders," Master Cain retorted crisply. "Even if you have no intention of behaving like a lady, I expect to dress you like one." And he reached over and tugged the neckline back up into place.

She slapped his hand; his eyes narrowed, and he slapped hers right back.

The shopkeeper's eyes were enormous. She looked up at me with question marks floating in her pupils; with my face burning, I said, "I think I'll wait outside."

I had only managed two steps toward the door when Master Cain reached over and hooked the handle of his cane under my collar to keep me still.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I... er... it's rather a small shop, sir... and... I thought... a little more space... perhaps...?"

He simply looked at me, with the imperious, unwavering stare of a hawk.

Defeated, I mumbled, "I suppose I'll just sit over there, then..."

While his attention was elsewhere, Althea had been readjusting the collar of the dress. He turned around, and noticed, and his eyes narrowed again. This time, rather than touching her, he took a step forward and tilted his head down a bit, to fix his scalding gaze on her deliberate display; his eyes glittered bright in the half-shadows in the shop, as hotly gold as molten steel.

The battle of wills lasted longer this time, because Althea didn't have to deal with his gaze so directly. It was the poor shopkeeper whose nerve broke first; she fled around to the back of her counter, and busied herself in looking for something.

Master Cain turned the focus of his irritation on her, for disrupting his silent lesson; Althea made a disdainful sound -- and surreptitiously tugged the bodice up a little, while he wasn't looking, letting her palm rest against her bare skin for a moment, as though the scalding he had given were almost physical.

I pitied the poor shopkeeper, who kept her head and shoulders buried in the shelves under the counter as she said in a wavering voice, "A corset -- we should find a more proper maternity corset; one must support the, er, the middle, and constrain it, so that one doesn't permit too great an increase..."

"No," I said, startled despite myself; she hit her head on the shelf when she flinched, and then backed out, and then I had all three of them staring at me, which was quite uncomfortable. "Your pardon, please, but -- no, you mustn't. I mean... I understand the fashion, but please, for the child's sake -- you mustn't bind her abdomen. I've seen too many children who were born with their bones twisted before birth--"

"Nonsense," the shopkeeper said, a little light-headed with the relief of being freed from Master Cain's regard. "Everyone says that it is far more dangerous to permit the middle area to grow without restraint, and of course anyone of sensitivity would be ashamed to be seen in such a state..."

"Which 'everyone' says this?" Master Cain asked, far too softly for my comfort; he hadn't yet found a sufficient target for his pent-up irritation. "Couturiers and seamstresses, and the most fashionable people, one would presume?"

"Yes, of course..."

"And doctors?"

"Doctors...?" She blinked a little. "What would doctors know of dressmaking?"

"I see." He scrawled his signature onto a cheque, flung it onto the counter, and took Althea's arm firmly. "Thank you for your time and services, madam; we've decided upon the one she's wearing at the moment."

"Let go of me, you--"

"But the lady's corset--"

Master Cain's suggestion as to what could best be done with the corset in question was sufficiently unprintable as to shock even Althea into a few moments' silence -- not many, of course, but enough to get her out of the shop still mute and staring at him in bemusement.

He was in a considerably improved humor after that; he steered Althea into a store where we'd often bought clothing for Miss Merry, and turned her loose with a comment about cows in china shops that got her temper up. She poured a torrent of creatively-worded abuse on his head; he took sly delight in baiting her into verbal duels which, in my estimation, he clearly won through finesse, although in several instances she fancied herself the victor because she hadn't understood his highly-educated and rapier-sharp use of the language.

It amused him to run her through her full repertoire of insults, curses, and berations, which was quite a bit more extensive than the rest of her vocabulary; he corrected her grammar
upon more than one occasion, which inevitably produced another spate of invective -- with both mockingly improved grammar and considerably greater heat.

Two shops, several children's garments, and a cradle later, I was quite bemused to realize that she had begun to enjoy herself just as much as he had. Althea started a debate with him over how profanity held its weight better when delivered as a natural speaker would, and too much education and grammar simply made a person sound as though they didn't know how to swear properly. His attempted linguistic analysis of the best way to structure a string of profanity was met by a fluent example that frankly defied any analysis.

I began to have concerns that by the end of the day, Master Cain would have decided either to kill her or to propose marriage to her. I was uncertain which prospect unnerved me more deeply.

I saw to securing the cradle to the carriage, because Master Cain's injured arm would have protested the treatment, and Althea was panting for breath after a particularly virulent round of insults. Her fatigue came from more than the ongoing tete-a-tete, though; we had walked quite a way, more quickly than we might have otherwise because of the heat of their argument. She was leaning heavily on the frame of the carriage, although sheer stubborn pride had egged her on to that point; I was certain that the same pride would cause her to laugh off any suggestion that we might rest for her sake.

"Master Cain," I called, "could you hold something still for me for a moment?"

"What?" he asked, coming around to the end of the carriage.

Much more quietly, I said, "Miss Althea, actually." I knocked my knuckles against the carriage so as to sound occupied for her.

Master Cain looked over at her again, more sharply this time; his eyes widened for a moment when he realized that her breathless, frustrated exhaustion was due to more than a lost battle of words. "Why didn't that stupid woman say something?"

"Would you have admitted to weakness in front of a rival, sir?"

"That's different!" A moment later, he sighed, and said, "No, it's not different, is it... Fine." And he marched back around the edge of the carriage, opened the door, and pushed her toward it firmly.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Lunch," he said. "Unless, of course, you'd prefer we eat without you?"

Althea caught up a handful of skirts and scrambled with ungainly haste into the carriage.