And again, tin man.

[icarus_chained]

 I promised Raw!fic. And I deliver.

Title: Home
Rating: PG-13
Characters: the main four, plus Kalm and the Queen. But Raw-centric.
Summary: How could he explain what they meant to him?
Disclaimer: Not mine.

Home

The day Kalm went back home to Viewers, with the thanks of the royal family, the Queen had turned to Raw and asked him if he'd rather go with him. She said she was sure DG and the others wouldn't mind if he wanted to stay for a while with his people. He hadn't known what to say, how to explain why something in him rejected the suggestion with an adamant 'no' that resounded silently through him. How to explain what being here, right here, meant to him. Because how could he?

How could he explain what it had been like to run, to feel the sharp shock and rage and betrayal of Lylo and the other Viewers. To feel their emotions, which had bumped against him mercilessly all his life, turn hard and bruising with bitterness and pain, even over a distance. To know that they considered him removed from them forever, in that one moment. Cut off, and abandoned as he had abandoned them in his terror. To understand, once and for all, that he was a coward.

How could he explain reeling out of the black influence of the tower, choking on the miasma of pain and fear and evil it emitted, staggering out into an O.Z. rife with bitterness and terror. How he had been buffetted from place to place by the predatory chill of longcoat patrols, the squalls of suspicion and anger of villages, the small storms of terror that came with raids. How he had flinched from habitation, ripped raw by his birth-talent, exacerbated by the hole the witch had begun to drive into his head to channel it for her own gain. How he'd run for the least populated area he could find, dived uncaring into the fields of the papay. And paid the ultimate price for his cowardice, which by then he had welcomed with a kind of despairing humour.

And then ... to feel them coming, taut and edgy with nervousness and determination, each raw with their own pains and fears, and yet gentle. He had shrank in his acidic prison from them, recoiling from the presence of their emotions, but unable to stop the moan, the hope for help. And ... they had given it to him. DG first, surest, and for that he would always be grateful. The other two had been uncertain, Cain abrasive, but they had still helped him. That was his first sign that he might belong with them.

How could he explain it. Them. How could he explain DG, stubborn and hot-tempered, carrying sadness and later the familiar heaviness of guilt, but determined to stand against the darkness, and warm with compassion. How could he explain what her welcome, her trust, had meant to him. How she had accepted his presence, believed despite all the evidence that he had courage within him, how she had given him courage. How she had shown him faith, and strength, and how to stand against the darkness and the burden of guilt with pride. How much her smile meant to him.

How could he explain Glitch, the strangeness of his presence, a jagged, tattered rainbow of bright thoughts, hope, sadness, and incredible courage. How could he explain how much Glitch's forgiveness of his cowardice had meant, how the headcase's sympathy for his fear had calmed him, how the bright flare of protectiveness he exhibited whenever Cain's patience threatened to snap had lifted his heart. And how could he ever hope to explain what that terrible moment of touching the man's memories had done to him. How the sheer courage of that scene, standing firm and protective in the face of a terror so crippling Raw had nearly sobbed with it, had ripped through him, shown him what courage in the face of fear meant, shaming and inspiring him in equal measure. And then, the baffled joy of knowing that Glitch had never held that intrusion against him, no matter how terribly it had echoed that older violation.

How could he explain Cain, the uneasiest of his friendships. When he had healed him after the fields of the papay, he had driven only by the sense of duty. He hadn't wanted to touch Cain, hadn't wanted to feel the disdain the man so obviously held for his cowardice, but Cain had saved his life. And the strength, and pain, but even more the goodness of the man had stunned him. Cain was honour and duty and courage incarnate, Tin Man to his bones, and in that Raw had seen something that he'd never encountered before. Cain disdained his cowardice, his fear, but if it had come to it, Cain would still have died to protect him. That knowledge had made him want to earn the Tin Man's respect, made him want to be worth the potential sacrifice Cain had carried so naturally within him. And when Cain had shared a smile with him after the witch had fallen, had given him that respect at last ... there were no words for the pride Raw had felt. There were no words for any of it.

And now? How could he explain what they were now?

How could he explain the meaning DG had given to the words 'honour, serve and protect', how by simply existing she made the three of them want to stand for her against the world. Their princess. Their friend. How they went out of their way to make her smile, to bring lightness back to her heart in the face of the world of responsibility that had opened up before her as a member of the royal family. How they hid how Azkadellia still made them tremble, just to make her happy.

How could he explain how he and DG had taken to wandering over to Ambrose's workshop on the thinnest of pretexts, just so they could stand outside the door and listen to his happy grumbling and snarls of frustration as he was finally able to wrestle with his inventions again, how the feeling of his obvious joy sent echoes threading through their hearts. And that day when they had arrived to see Cain already there, the warmth of his caring and embarrassment a soft cloud around Raw's senses. The Tin Man had resolutely refused to meet their gaze, but he had been the first through the door when Glitch's invention chose that particular moment to explode, sweeping the bewildered inventor out, snarling at his stupidity, and looking away from Glitch's smile of gratitude, and the smiles neither Raw nor DG could resist sending him.

How could he explain how they had begun to keep an unobtrusive eye on Cain's son, how DG started taking riding lessons just so Cain, as part of her protection detail, could have an excuse to keep an eye on both of them. How Ambrose had started approaching the ex-rebel for mapping assignments, and for the network of rebels to bring updated information on the kingdom, when he could have gone to Cain, or official channels. How Raw himself had taken to spending time near Jeb's stables, soothing the animals, just in case. How they didn't have to do any of it, but Cain had lost his son once, and to do so again would destroy him, so it was simple instinct for them to act.

And how could he explain what they did for him. How could he explain that the swelling seas of their emotions filled him, strengthened him, bore him up instead of dragging him down to drown in their depths. How DG reached out to him with a smile, and let her caring flood into him with a hundred small touches. How Ambrose, in a fit of redemptive fury, had allowed him to join in supervising the ripping apart of the witch's labratories, where they had both suffered so much, and put his arm around him while they let their pain pour out into the wreckage. How Cain, in his gruff way, had taken to greeting him with a firm handshake, or a clap on the shoulder, unashamed of their friendship. How their hearts held and warmed his, the connection between them a solid, irrevocable part of who he was.

How could he explain that he hadn't known who his people were, until he'd met them?

But he didn't have to explain. No sooner had the Queen said it, than Ambrose raised his eyebrow in confused surprise, and asked with absolute innocence why he'd want to do something like that? He'd given Raw a very Glitch-like wink as the Queen turned to him distractedly, allowing DG to dart over to him and squeeze him into a hug, which Raw returned gratefully as she smiled at him and told him not to worry. Then Cain had stood up, tipped his hat to the Queen, and offered to escort Raw and Kalm to the colony, "so the fuzz-ball won't be alone on the way back."

And Raw had smiled at the three of them, his friends, his people, and nodded.

He would bring Kalm home. That was his duty, the last he owed to those who had been his people. And then he would come back, with Cain at his side. Because this was his home now.

And these were his friends.