Disclaimer/Translator's Note: Code Geass belongs to Sunrise and the original "Ocultar el intercambio equivalente" belongs to Sorcia Abattage aka Lena O. I merely translated the story from the language of Cervantes to Shakespeare's. And I would also like to thank my wonderful beta, Aki, and recommend you to read her "Trial and Error" (and other works too, of course). Both are on my fav authors list~~
Background theme: Brahms Hungarian Dance №5;)
To cover up a fair trade.
Gino couldn't remember how he had received the wounds detailed in the medical report – the one that Anya handed him, when he opened his eyes and demonstrated being able to recite the first few letters of the alphabet, the actual date, and what kind of work he did for Britannia. Gino signed it clumsily, using the hand that wasn't bandaged, and shifted his carefree smile from the girl to Suzaku, who was a few centimeters away, looking half-worried and half-burdened, seated next to his bed.
"And who are we? "Anya asked, with that thoroughness of emotions on her face which, perhaps, was speaking of a concealed interest. Gino liked to search for those little united fragments of sympathy in that child-woman. Unlike other people, he actually believed that they existed, under a cement mask, waiting to receive sufficient warmth to break the mold and emerge with all their shine. A flash from her camera-phone that she took with her everywhere, now enjoying a break from typing on the hem of her skirt, illuminated the ambience; she was looking at him, thinking, maybe, of what to write in her blog.
Gino extended his hands as far as possible, as if he were in the middle of a field on a summer day, in the best of the moods in spite of the pain in his stomach and the IV-line.
"My precious Annie and Suzie, for whom I thank heavens in which we fly every day!"
Gino heard a snort, before looking over his shoulder to realize that Suzaku had just covered his face, ashamed, and that soon he would make up an excuse to retreat. Though he did come and that said much. However, a little smile painted itself on Anya's lips when Gino settled back with as much care as his body, clumsy for this kind of maneuvers, permitted. And Suzaku also gave him a tap– affectionate, from his distant world, on a frozen planet where nothing could ever flourish –on his right arm and proceeded to inform him that they would visit him the next day, because they were still on duty at the headquarters and needed to plan a counterattack.
It was when Gino saw them at the threshold that he saw a "bubble" of excessive friendliness that was floating between the two. The duo had always gotten along, but the Knight of Three supposed that during the battle or even after it there must have been some special interaction. Something crucial, that soured his parting smile slightly on seeing them moving abnormally close to each other towards the exit. One of Anya's little and slim fingers slid with discretion (not sufficient to escape an attentive and slightly desperate gaze) until rubbing Suzaku's waist; the latter responded with a nod of his head, like a turtledove, and waved goodbye to Gino, who pressed the bed sheets to the bandages on his chest until his finger-pads almost burst.
Only then did he also hear the irritatingly demanding voice of Luciano Bradley, his roommate, who apparently had been sent to the hospital of the conquered city as well. It was such good luck that they were placed together, as if the two had been through something more than a pair of most awkward moments together.
Gino tried to be friendly to all of his comrades, but it proved to be rather difficult when the object of his kindness often responded dryly via radio with his surname, adding that his last attack had been indecent and plebeian, and then ended in a bloodbath what would have been a peaceful surrender of the enemy otherwise. Nevertheless, Gino would have lied if he said that he didn't respect Luciano Bradley: when the order was harsh and difficult, he was the first one to advance to the front line, often with a sardonic smile, crowning his presence amongst the images transmitted from other cockpits of the Knights. Because he never hesitated to kill. Because he was the heart of the Empire, maybe too enthusiastic, but at the end of the day: an enviable circumstance.
But Gino also would have wanted this to be the rule, rather than the exception: a Luciano Bradley capable of sparing a life or offering a smile that wasn't sharp, dark, menacing and devious. If Gino had known him better, he would have asked his fellow Knight for at least one childhood photograph in order to see if Luciano then with his knees still skinny and dirty, was capable of trampling on ants as easily as he did on civilians, twenty years later.
"Those two are going to sleep together. How does it feel to lose your girlfriend to a Number, Weinberg?"
Even though the second half of the question was already a direct assault, Gino focused on the first seven words, which struck a sore spot. (Perhaps the drug in the IV was of oxytocin, and not a sedative or a substitute.)
"Anya has problems with remembering what is happening and needs to "make memories" in her diary to feel alive." While speaking, Gino knew he was saying something that wasn't worth saying aloud at all, but his head was spinning. Bradley let out an energetic smile, for someone who was still on a hospital bed due to a concussion.
"Surely it costs her a lot to write to herself in a place she can see : My boyfriend is a blond Italian that makes bad jokes, not an Oriental twenty centimeters shorter that shouldn't have been worthy of kissing the ground beneath my feet."
Ignoring the racist comment, Gino was left with nothing else to say. Anya is not my girlfriend. We've been engaged since late the last year. He wasn't in a condition to get up to punch Luciano, as he deserved, in response. Nor could he take it upon himself to vent his anger on someone who was also injured.
"Lord Bradley, can't we get along while we're here?"
Luciano responded with a raised eyebrow and a tilt of the head, as if something absurd like Zero dressed in an Arabian dancer outfit had just entered the room, waddling, and so deserved to be nailed by a dozen daggers with Bradley's best aim.
Gino tried to smile, before reminding himself that it was futile and that the steam from the sedative (if that was it, and he wasn't generating it psychosomatically to free himself from this situation) began to rise anew: ideal to bury any resentment. He turned around on his bed, ignoring the pain from the needle of the IV, and forced his eyes shut until sleep came. He ignored the videos with the recordings of the battle that Bradley made one of his subordinates bring and put on the hospital TV, despite the fact that the nurses were so disturbed that, had they not been on the Imperial service, they would have been tempted to let both men die from exhaustion. Because it was very difficult to appear human while being the permissive comrade of a character that watched blood spill in ecstasy, celebrating each unanswered emergency call, captured forever thanks to his Knightmare's memory.
The drug-induced dreams in these types of places were heavy, absorbing, like drowning in a swamp. The smell of medicine was narcotic as well. Submerging in the darkness, emerging as if not a couple of hours had passed, but only a few minutes. He actually felt more tired. Gino saw Anya and Suzaku in the quarters of one or the other. He would have been able to tell from the size and decoration, but the colors were opaque and blurred, imbued with the air of the nightmare in which the two lovers were spinning, mixed, as if their skin had been fused during the act of pleasure, noisy and vulgar. For some reason it was important to know where exactly they were. Gino wouldn't have been able to tell after regaining consciousness (for various reasons) but the pain would be different (the nature of it, but not the magnitude, which was always immense) whether Anya had taken Suzaku to her room, or vice-versa. He was jealous and hurt, but couldn't decide for which of them. Because Suzaku had never taken notice of his many insinuations, a thousand times more straightforward and daring than simply rubbing his hips; he'd gone as far as kissing Suzaku under the hot rain of their shared shower, receiving every time "leave me alone, no more" (although his body was saying the contrary)? Because Anya didn't want to play husband and wife before having a photo of their wedding ceremony in her "memories"? Immense frustration and heat, terrible heat.
When he woke up, he was sporting an erection and gasping, with a hand atop of it. Maybe, shamefully, he had been touching himself for only a few minutes now. The room would have been submerged in pitch-darkness if not for the light percolating from the chink of the closed door; for the TV screen (interrupted static, and without sound) and for a moon covered by milky clouds, hovering over the city in which far away pieces of destroyed building were visible. He tried to fall asleep once again, when (maybe) he should have preoccupied himself with resolving the lines of Bradley's body on his bed, where they should have been. Gino had almost forgotten that he was there.
Gino remembered about him suddenly when his blankets were thrown back and a mouth (warm, wet, dangerously sharp teeth, biting playfully) and cold hands wrapped around his raised flesh. Gino heard his laugh and a pair of jokes as he was shuddering; he first tried to push aside their owner, whose grip was firm and resolute, before giving up and arching humiliatingly, asking for more. Fingers with large nails took the opportunity to slip into his entrance, and caused so much damage that he couldn't suppress his groans with a hand that wasn't probing for the identity of his benefactor-attacker. His cheeks were burning and two thousand sensations were propagating from the tip of his cock, causing even his legs to tremble. An everlasting moment of vexation to throw back the blanket. Luciano, the darkness, Luciano, his eyes that were made of it, a post-modern Vampire indeed - like in the movies or gothic books, like Death from the novels of Edgar Allan Poe, like dreaming of horrible things that were half-truths; or like being on the brink of death, out of control because of the whim of a madman who had killed thousands, maybe millions of innocent people for entertainment. Another kind of desecration. Like doing it on the battlefield covered with blood: an experience that had only occurred to Gino in bizarre and thoughtless fantasies, which he had never put into practice, maybe, merely because he didn't have anyone to share it with. Gino had never been so excited. He had never lost control of his own body. He had never begged and craved for something. Never, not even when Suzaku finally waited for him at the end of a training session, from which Suzaku himself was absent in order to attend classes at Ashford; the Knight of Seven returned smelling of that Japanese alcohol that was so strong, colored the cheeks and rubbed in the old wounds easily. That was the only time when Suzaku got in Gino's pants to jerk him off without even finishing undressing him, afraid of himself, (because evidently, he only dedicated himself completely when the partner was a Crown Prince or the Emperor himself, according to the rumors to which Gino only listened when he was particularly mad at the other) especially when he was only kissed at the tip of his cock, without taking the risk of allowing him to go any further. Or when Gino spent a night in Anya's quarters, putting his hands under her skirt, always pulling them off wet without being able to convince her to join their hips, out of piety. Never that much. Maybe, because sex was frustrating with those to whom it should have meant something more than just that or emotional frigidity, like with prostitutes. Boring, methodical and absent, with empty closeness and frustration in the end.
He tried to clear his mind, foggy from the suddenness of the occurrences and, first of all, the disturbing pleasure resulting from it. Options:
1) Bradley is sucking my blood. He really is a man-eating creature. He finally decided that my noble origin is good for nothing and decided to make a better use of me by devouring me. The rumors of him descending from Vlad Dracul are true or at least he thinks so…
2) Lord Bradley is a somnambulist. He isn't aware of what he is doing to me. Apart from hitting his head during yesterday's battle. Definitely he is not being himself while he is turning me around and shoving his tongue into my…
3) Something between these two options that mix with each other and turn into a detail of no importance, because no one had ever made him feel so good while doing something so dirty. Denigratory and pleasurable.
Gino buried his head in the pillow, damp from his sweat, and arched. A tongue, bifid, large, coarse, daring. Bony fingers with sharp nails. One, two, three and Gino pulled at the IV line, aware that if he continued tearing like that at the needle, he would end up breaking it and it hurt, hurt a lot. But there was another thing there, and much heat, goose bumps, the yearning for it to go on, despite how it was forced at the start and even that wasn't taken seriously.
Lord Bradley only laughed as he grabbed him by the hips, before descending on his neck:
"I have done something good for you, no? And now, Weinberg, you'll do something for me. Willingly or not." A shaking laugh came out, perhaps, full of desire, as much as Gino was full of fear in his silence. "Or are you holding out for someone special?"
He hadn't been able to say "but..." nor cry out "NO!" or quietly beg "Wait… a… moment… Bradley…" - the only thing he could have managed, out of breath and trembling. A mild discomfort under the bandages that had started with tensing his abdominal muscles, injured during the battle (his reason for being here in the first place) intensified, and Gino asked himself if he would run blood at this point. But it was clear - if the act took place - that in the morning there would be various fluids betraying it on the bed sheets.
"What does it matter? No-one will come to see you. They will be sick of fucking until dawn, while you are letting Lord Bradley…" A voice, husky and horrible, even more so than the one that was hissing obscenities into his ears, whispered to him from some shadowy part of his brain, before all of his mental processes were interrupted by a different kind of pain, substantial, a latent pleasure. The cotton of the pillow spared him. He was gasping and moaning without control. Biting his lips, forcing his eyes shut: useless. He attempted to adapt himself to the violent movements, finding a small oasis in them. Luciano Bradley's modulated laughs engulfed him and they calmed down only when sharp teeth sank gracefully into his jugular, now doing justice to their owner's name, and Gino didn't know what he was complaining of anymore: the pain in his stomach, the constant penetration, the rhythm, the suddenness, those fangs, or the blurred moon.
The vigor of Bradley's thrusts subdued slowly, but without stopping to plunge deeply each time, as if for the last time. That bifid tongue, which was equally pleasing and frightening Gino, licked the zone of his neck that was surely bleeding. Cold fingers traced the line of his spine, caressed his back and, finally, clawed at his nipples.
The dream, now not necessarily because of the drugs (everything apart from the act had vanished; even the prospect of that Anya and Suzaku passed the night together wasn't as terrible and painful anymore as knowing that sooner or later he would have to face them once again and he had no idea how, having lived through something like this), engrossed him when Lord Bradley pulled out of him, giving an indifferent slap on his muscles like a farmer who had just finished milking a cow. The sensation was humiliating, but Morpheus was more powerful than that, and more powerful than Gino's desire to look into the eyes of that cruel man, who only knew how to act on his most brutish instincts without considering the consequences. Gino wasn't sure which part of his desire to take Luciano's hand – absurdly – and ask him to stay, in a place like this, at this hour and these circumstances, resulted from reproach and which from other thing, equally unfocused. It was like having had sex with the boogeyman.
Lord Bradley didn't even look back at him. He just sprawled out on his own bed, facing the ceiling with his skin slightly colored by the glow of the sunrise that was slowly displacing the moon, which finally brought sleep to, perhaps, only Gino, with that kind of dreams that wouldn't let you sit still (in more ways than one) for who-knew how long.
It was past two in the afternoon when he was awoken. His bed sheets had been changed while he was unconscious (and snoring, according to the cheerful nurses) and two familiar faces were in front of his bed: Suzaku was looking absent-mindedly out of the window; Anya was leaning over to him, taking a new photo for her diary, most probably. The "click" of the button had concluded his return to consciousness. He thought vaguely that maybe, contemplating out of the corner of his eye the empty side of the room beside him, that the vivid events he remembered of the previous night were nothing more than a dream under the full moon, after all.
"Lord Bradley left a little before we arrived. We ran into him at the entrance. He sent you his regards. He seemed to be in a good mood..." Suzaku said that without looking at him and his tremulous tone led Gino to understand that maybe Luciano had dropped the details of the story. The Knight of Three didn't tempt his imagination, even though he nearly burst out laughing at imagining himself explaining and showing on a doll - with a serious look on his face - to Lord Bismarck where and how Lord Bradley touched him. It was better not to say anything.
"Know what, Gino? Yesterday Suzaku and I went out to buy you a nice present in one of the few shops that weren't abandoned." Anya gestured accordingly, with her face undaunted, at the bedside table: on it rested the medical forms to discharge him from the hospital on that day (with luck), beside a plush lion that was wearing a carefree and relaxed expression; it was quite similar to the one that Weinberg displayed in photos, which they took almost every time, of the festivities with their circle of friends. "But now we're worried about this mark on your neck. Gino, I've compared it with other photos from my diary. It looks identical to the ones that were left on the cattle by bats in one of my parents' estates..."
Only now, fleeing from the feigned blankness of Anya's eyes, he encountered Suzaku's, which were harboring great bitterness. Quite justified, Gino thought, rubbing the bruise and deciding to change the subject to call a nurse and ask her if, perhaps, it was time for him to be discharged from the hospital. Maybe, with enough pizza and beer, praises as a present and the fidelity of his friends, this little incident would be forgotten soon. Or at least until he procured a base make-up, suitable for concealing the details of this adventure.