Of S'mores and Heliopolis

by SlvrSoleAlchmst1

Some shounen ai: Dearka x Yzak. The night before the attack on Heliopolis, Dearka sets up a campfire in the middle of their ZAFT base. He and Yzak anticipate the battle and learn that in times of war, the only thing they have is each other.

"Wow Yzak – you actually showed up out here. Didn't think you would."

Dearka's voice drifted to Yzak over the ocean breeze, wired with excitement. Yzak's hair rippled in the same gust of wind, and he tossed it back impertinently as he crossed the asphalt to meet his teammate. He didn't like the wind that hissed across the seaside base day and night, like a never ending whistle low in his eardrums. He didn't like the way his curiosity had made him agree to an impromptu assignation with a fellow soldier.

He definitely didn't like Dearka Elsman.

"You hungry at all?" Dearka asked. When Yzak didn't respond, the blonde merely shrugged. "I know I am. Damn mess hall staff thinks we're a bunch of dieting girls or something."

The blonde was feeding bits of scrap into what looked like the bottom half of a dented tin trashcan. It blazed with heat. Yzak didn't bother to ask where Dearka had found the curious vessel, or how he had managed to start a fire in their present location without attracting the attention of higher authority. He held back a snort of disgust. Dearka rarely missed a chance to play the troublemaker.

Yzak settled for a frown, and he glowered into the circle of licking flames. "Explain something to me, Elsman," he demanded, arms clamped over his chest in a straitjacket fold of fury. "What exactly are you doing out here? I hope you realize that in less than ten hours, we're going to be launching in the Vesalius and attacking the Heliopolis space colony."

The friendliness faded from Dearka's face, leaving lines of frustration etched on his brow. "You don't say. Gee, Joule, thanks for alerting me. I'd have been screwed if you weren't around to announce the totally obvious." He leaned back in his spot on the ground, and for a moment Yzak wondered if the retort ended their consultation.

Dearka's face stayed sour for a long moment. Yzak fast grew weary of their siege of glaring. He spun on his heel to leave, but Dearka jerked in protest.

"Yzak - just stick around for a bit. You've got nothing else to do and we both know it. You've already fine-tuned the wires on your bomb packs twice – I watched you double checking them in the hangar an hour ago. Sit the hell down."

Yzak's arms came loose to sway stunned at his sides. Then his hands formed fists. What the hell gave Dearka Elsman the right to order him around like some rookie cadet? He narrowed his eyes into laser slits and positioned himself stiffly on the other side of the makeshift fire.

"You conceited bastard. If the enemy doesn't maim you tomorrow, I will when the battle is over."

For a moment, Dearka looked surprised. Then he melted into a grin of relief. "You say that, but you still sat down, didn't you? I'll never get the hang of it. You're cold as ice for sure, but you can't be frozen all the way through if you're willing to humor me."

Yzak ignored the blonde's observation. It gnawed at the base of his skull like a toothy animal. He resisted the longing to massage the aggravated spot.

"You're a tough nut to crack, Yzak, but I'll figure you out eventually. Who knows? Maybe you'll even like it."

Dearka's smile was handsome, Yzak noted flatly to himself, even as he opened his mouth to protest. "Like it? Hardly. You should stick to chasing girls," he spat. "Why are you so set on learning what makes me tick?"

The russet-tinted waters of the Arafura Sea lapped at Carpentaria's landing docks, reflecting the sunset onto the pavement. The sun was dying, sinking low onto the horizon, but the fire stole its light and cast a greater glow onto Dearka's features while they exchanged tentative glances. Long shadows from the surrounding mobile suits striped everything in rows of darkness. It was then that Yzak realized the wind had stopped.

He leaned back onto the massive foot of the GINN that Dearka had chosen to situate the fire beneath. A breath of appreciation escaped him. Dearka Elsman might have been obnoxious, but at least he wasn't stupid.

"You bug me, Joule, because you put up some pretty thick walls," Dearka said. Then he rolled up the sleeves of his red uniform and tossed another chunk of broken crate into the flames. "We've been partners during training exercises for almost a year now. Maybe you scare the shit out of everyone else, but I'm starting to learn. Doesn't mean you can't get to me with all your insults, but… War is about teamwork, and you kind of suck at it. If you can honestly sit there and tell me you hate me, we're going to have problems. Whether it's tomorrow at Heliopolis or some time in the future, I can't really say, but you've got to learn to trust me. Aren't you used to me enough to stop hating me yet?"

"I'll never get used to you, Elsman," Yzak delivered scathingly. "You're cockier than Athrun Zala and your sense of humor matches that of a four year old."

Dearka's laugh grated on Yzak's nerves. "That's a bit harsh, don't you think?"

"No." The silver head prayed his stare was charring Dearka's eye sockets.

Dearka said nothing. A horn wailed somewhere, tangled with the sound of a hatch rolling open and a mobile suit thruster engaging. The clang of laboring armor echoed along the lane lines that painted the pavement. Yzak dragged his gaze away from Dearka long enough to scan the tall garages where the custom mobile suits were docking for the night. Le Creuset's machine would be nesting inside. And Miguel's. If they were lucky, five more suits that now belonged to Morgenroete would take their places there in the near future. Yzak ran their serial numbers through his head. GAT-X102 Duel, X207 Blitz, X105 Strike, and the Aegis and Buster as well…

The fire popped sharply, but Yzak remained motionless. He looked down at the crimson of his formal ZAFT uniform. In less than ten hours, he and Dearka would be donning the matching red flight suits that had come to mean so much to them. They would infiltrate Heliopolis – Heliopolis that hadn't been so neutral after all – and they would plant explosives around the newly constructed battleship that Commander Le Creuset had briefed them about. Yzak squinted hard into the firelight, the thought of combat ricocheting around his mind like random bullets. They were going to fight, the same way Yzak and his elite teammates had fought through their short time in ZAFT's Military Academy. They had gripped their diplomas with iron fists of pride on the day of graduation. Now they would grip automatic rifles and mow down the enemy on the day of their first true exam.

"Yzak, you're sucking the fun out of our rendezvous," Dearka announced flatly. "Can't you forget about hating my guts for a bit? Quit staring at the fire like you want it dead and ask me why I called you here in the first place. Kind of like a regular person would have ten minutes ago."

Yzak's attention snapped onto the sound of the blonde's voice and stuck there like a fierce magnet. The silver head fixed the tanned Coordinator with a level stare. "Go ahead, Elsman. Talk. And it had better be good, considering that I could be going over our strategy again right now."

Dearka's violet eyes glittered when he smiled. "You know the battle plan inside and out already," he revealed. Yzak felt his stomach lurch with something foreign – something like content, or a ring of satisfaction at being recognized for his achievements. There was a pause that only the seawater broke when it lapped and gurgled.

"So," Dearka exclaimed, untouched by the sarcasm that had previously dripped from Yzak's mouth like crude oil. "I got us a treat. Figured we could use it, considering that our lives will never be the same after tomorrow when we go into battle."

Yzak squinted at the opposite Coordinator. Uncertainty zipped through the wires of his nerves; hesitancy short-circuited his system. "Us?" he repeated, while Dearka calmly fanned the fire to keep the smoke from blowing into their faces. For a moment, he thought he felt a thrill shake him. Then irritation took over, and he scoffed aloud. "There's no us, Elsman. There's me, and there's you, and we're nothing but two soldiers that happened to be assigned to the same elite team."

Dearka was watching him with a smirk of amusement, and Yzak swallowed at the contrary implications that the glance held.

"Nice try, Yzak," the blonde announced, reaching down to pull something from the pocket of his red coat. "But you and I have stuck around each other all through military school and training, plus we've been matched as roommates on the Vesalius. I might not know you that well yet, but there's definitely an us."

Yzak fumbled to catch the small packet that Dearka tossed to him. "You're full of shit," he managed at last. His heart raced when Dearka laughed.

"We're always close by each other," Dearka went on. "Kind of like Zala is always only a yell away from Rusty, and Nicol's always with the piano in the music room when we're off duty."

Yzak examined the item in his hands.

"Admit it Joule – you and I have become friends. Hence I thought it'd be a nice gesture to ask you to my humble campfire this evening."

The little gift crinkled when Yzak turned it over. Dearka had tossed him a package of emergency ZAFT rations. "What a wonderful token of our so-called 'friendship,'" Yzak sneered. A second rectangular object came flying at him after that, and only swift reflexes prevented it from connecting with his eye. "Will you watch where you're throwing things?!"

"Don't put it too near the flames just yet," Dearka ordered, ignoring the silver head's wrath as if it were of no consequence. "It'll melt."

The strange statement caught Yzak off guard, and he looked down. It was a bar of chocolate. Dearka chuckled, and Yzak assumed that the blonde must have witnessed his change of expression.

"It's the cheap kind," Dearka told him, "but it'll have to do. There's just the one, too, so we're going to have to share."

Yzak rolled the chocolate over in his hands, staring at it with a feeling of odd nostalgia. "How'd you get something like this?" he asked, interested despite himself. He had never been keen on sweets, but something like candy was a rarity in a military facility, and he felt removed from time and space with the curious thing clutched in his hands.

"I convinced Captain Ades that he didn't want it because it was the cruddy kind." Dearka grinned. "He knew I was messing around, but he gave it to me anyway and told me not to tell Le Creuset. Poor guy. Captain of the Vesalius and even he can hardly get his hands on any luxury stuff. Kudos to the military life, right?"

"That's just the way it is," Yzak responded automatically, and his voice sounded wistful when he spoke. He cursed himself for daring to be affected by the blonde's maneuvering. "It's a war, you idiot – what were you expecting?"

"Aw, come on, Yzak. Give a guy a chance."

"Just what are we going to do with a bar of chocolate and a campfire in the middle of a line of GINNs, when we could get caught at any moment and taken off the mission as punishment?"

Dearka stared at him. Yzak's insides writhed in discomfort; he wished the blonde would change his point of focus. A moment of silence passed, and then Dearka exploded into laughter.

Yzak boiled.

"Y-You thought I was breaking protocol by setting up here?" Dearka asked, doubling over and nearly singeing his hair in the fire as he wrapped his arms around his stomach for support. "Why would I light a fire if I was going to get in trouble for it? First off, none of the officers even come this far down the runway. There's only mechanics and petty guys in this block. I could light sparklers and holler if I wanted to. Secondly, this is Carpentaria, Yzak, not a secret camp in the middle of enemy territory, so it's not like the light matters either…"

Dearka's laughter continued, and Yzak felt his face flush with embarrassment. Hadn't he been inwardly praising his teammate for his intelligence just moments ago? He should have expected that the blonde would take precautions against getting thrown off the mission. Dearka made everyone's teeth ache, but he was certainly no idiot.

Dearka chuckled a bit longer before reclining lazily on his elbows. "Did you really think I'd jeopardize my chance to go to Heliopolis?" he asked, and the firelight illuminated his locks in shimmering gold.

Yzak didn't answer. He lobbed the bar of chocolate back across the flames, and Dearka caught it deftly.

"If anything," Dearka went on, while the silver head averted eyes, "You just proved for yourself how close we've really gotten."

Yzak sat stricken. "Wh-what?" The word rasped raw at the back of his throat.

Dearka's voice dipped low as he cast Yzak a significant nod. "You came out here when I asked you to, without knowing what I wanted, and you stayed. If that's not enough to prove that you might care, you did it even though you assumed we would both end up taking the heat for my carelessness. Since when does Yzak Joule put himself on the line for others? Maybe you're not as hopeless as I thought."

The GINN may as well have toppled down atop them. Yzak's mind fuzzed white, a blanket of confusion that engulfed his brain. Was Dearka trying to anger him, or was he simply being objective? Yzak bit his lower lip. Why had he so easily agreed to venture outside and join Dearka? It wouldn't have been difficult for him to turn the offer down. Instead, he'd trekked the runway like a fool, to sit before a campfire and risk his military status with a blonde idiot that he wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

It seemed an eternity before clear thought returned. Dearka touched his shoulder. Yzak jumped. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Trying to get you to hand me that package of ZAFT rations back. But since you seem to dislike responding so much, I figured I'd take them myself."

Dearka had shifted from his spot across the fire and moved to Yzak's side, where he now crouched to retrieve the item. One hand rested on Yzak's shoulder for balance. The other was extended into Yzak's lap, smooth fingers wrapped around the rectangular package as if they'd always belonged curved there. As Dearka moved, his hand brushed the inside of Yzak's thigh. The scene stilled like a freeze-frame inside the silver head's mind, and without warning, he lost a little sanity.

"Take your hand off me and get back on the other side of the fire, damn it!" he panted, wriggling out from under the weight of Dearka's touch and back a few inches.

Dearka stayed where he was. "What's the matter - can't stand the heat when you're this close to my gorgeous figure? I'm almost hotter than the fire, after all." Dearka used his teeth to tear open the ration package with a tiny grunt of exertion.

Yzak analyzed the remark, struggling to quell the wild beating in his chest. Dearka was always releasing reckless asides - he constantly made a philanderer of himself and taunted whoever would listen with his exaggerated innuendo. Yzak had learned to look the other way when they were together. Some people laughed and egged Dearka on. ZAFT girls did all sorts of things when confronted with Dearka's odd charm. They giggled, or they exploded into bouts of high-pitched scolding, or they let Dearka continue to flatter them. Yzak himself had never gotten involved. It was disgusting.

…He'd also never been the object of the blonde's urge to seduce.

"I'm going to try to make s'mores," Dearka announced. Yzak barely listened – he felt himself wind up and tighten, as if from full-body lockjaw. If Dearka was trying to…

"Geez, Joule, you'd think it really is my sexiness that's throwing you off." He raised his volume a notch. "S'mores, you know? Graham cracker, marshmallow, chocolate? Ever made one?"

Yzak wished he were capable of shooting darts with his voice. "Of course I know what they are, idiot. But I fail to see what's so great about them."

"That's where you're missing out," Dearka delivered, leaning forward suddenly to whisper deep and husky next to Yzak's ear. "S'mores are great. Hard on the outside, gooey white on the inside…" He ran a hand up Yzak's thigh, slow and intense. "Sometimes when you do it just right, the marshmallow comes oozing out, sticky and sweet…"

Yzak had gone rigid like a wooden board. The blonde's lips were murmuring directly against his earlobe now. He was dizzy with their proximity.

"And the name, the name alone," Dearka released a wanton breath, and his hand crept higher up Yzak's leg, "S'more? It begs for more…"

Yzak elicited a tiny gasp as the fire popped loudly. He strained to break free of the spell that the devious blonde had cast, but warmth had seeped into him like balefire. When Dearka withdrew, Yzak sagged in relief.

"You're supposed to play along or something," Dearka grunted, unwrapping the chocolate next and placing half of it onto the top of a ZAFT ration. The cracker-like food bar crumbled pitifully.

Yzak, thankfully distracted by the strange combination of snacks, raised an eyebrow. "What - are we consuming chocolate coated ZAFT rations? Those things aren't even close to graham cracker, and last I checked, we have no marshmallows. We can't make s'mores, Elsman."

Dearka put another ration bar on top and held the awkward sandwich near the fire to soften the chocolate. "We're soldiers," he said. "We work with what we've got. And you changed the subject."

When the chocolate had melted to Dearka's liking, he offered it to Yzak with an extended hand. Yzak stared at it skeptically.

"In any case, I can think of something dirty right now that would taste even better than marshmallow," the blonde divulged with a wink.

A flush of heat that did not come from the flames infused Yzak's cheeks with red.

When Dearka realized that his makeshift s'more was to remain unaccepted, he placed it aside and moved swiftly back into Yzak's immediate vicinity. Mischief tinted his features with amusement.

"I've never seen you blush like that, Yzak." Dearka's knuckle came up to stroke gently over Yzak's burning cheek.

Yzak tilted into the touch before he could think. His body seemed to move without his bidding. There was a short hitch of hesitation in Dearka's movement, but not enough to halt him entirely. Yzak swore aloud upon realization of his too-eager actions – they must have been what caused Dearka to falter - but the blonde only chuckled again and shifted to Yzak's hair while Yzak grew more irate.

"Could it be that the reason you didn't play along a moment ago was because I really am seducing you?"

Dearka's profile was sharp and defined in silhouette against the firelight, and Yzak easily detected the twitch of his mouth. A feeling of curiosity coursed through him. It splashed over his insides like a monstrous wave. It threatened to wash away whatever sense still clung to driftwood in his mutinous body. Then Dearka clasped his wrist and neared again, until their noses hovered only centimeters apart.

"Let go of me," Yzak managed to exhale, but to his horror, it sounded more like an invitation than a reprimand.

Dearka knew it. "You don't sound like you mean it," he said. For a split second, Yzak desired to crash their mouths together, to toss away convention and recklessly taste the lips of his teammate. The hand on his wrist tightened, and the hand in his hair began to massage slow circles against his scalp that tingled and sent shooting desires to somewhere deep inside him. A moment later, he'd shaken the yearning from his mind.

"Elsman, get the hell away from me before I power up this GINN to trample you and your stupid s'more-fest."

Dearka stayed close a moment longer, violet eyes flicking to Yzak's lips and back again before retreating to where he'd left his snack. "You've got more problems than I thought," he reflected, after taking a bite of his creation and making a face. "Uggh, gross. Let's just eat the chocolate by itself." He handed Yzak the second half of the candy bar. Yzak took it, but hardly spared it his attention.

"What do you mean I've got problems, you bastard?" he asked shrilly.

"Well," Dearka chewed as if the experimental s'more were made of melted asphalt and metal shards. "You might be all right with working on a team…"

Yzak exploded. "Of course I will, you idiot! I don't have to want to marry Zala and the others to be able to do what a soldier has to! I only have to do my part, and I know how to do that. I especially know how to do it better than you." He didn't know why his defense mechanism had clicked so swiftly into overdrive, but he was glad that he had a new topic to focus on, rather than that of Dearka's muscular body pressed tight against his own…

"You're wrong," Dearka answered immediately. "There's more to it than that, but you didn't let me finish."

Yzak didn't like the glint in the blonde's gemlike eyes.

"You're way too sexually frustrated, Joule. Don't you think that'll also be a hindrance at some point?"

Yzak hissed a dictionary of curse words and took a swing at the blonde's face.

Dearka caught his fist mid-flight and tisked. "Temper, temper. There's melted chocolate on your fingers."

Yzak faltered. He looked to his fingers, which were indeed coated in chocolate. He tore his hand away and ignored it, aiming for another shot at Dearka's smug face, but to his surprise, Dearka had retreated back to his own space and sat gazing at the dancing flames.

"It reminds me of the campfires I used to set up with my dad as a kid," he hummed quietly. "We used to pile sticks in the backyard and light them after dark to roast marshmallows. Sometimes my mom would come outside and bring us chocolate and graham crackers, and the three of us would make s'mores."

The firelight cast an ethereal glow around them both. Full dark had descended, and everything shone in shades of red, orange, and yellow in the hot flames. Dearka had his arms draped across his knees and his chin perched on them, reminiscent and removed. Yzak found himself monitoring the blonde coolly.

"I never thought then that I'd end up here," Dearka went on with a dry laugh. "It's not the same anymore, but I guess I didn't really expect it to be. Sometimes I wish I could go back, that's all. Live life again from those days in the past, before the Naturals started this war. I'd have treasured those campfires a hell of a lot more if I knew I was going to end up in the military."

Yzak studied the chiseled lines of the blonde's shoulders and back. "But you'd probably be sick of s'mores by now if that were the case."

Dearka didn't laugh, but one corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. "Yeah, probably."

A whistle sounded somewhere away in the dark. Yzak focused on the sound as best he could, but his mind wandered elsewhere. He took to watching Dearka again. For the first time since they'd met, Yzak felt he could read the blonde's mind. It was pathetic – they were; everything was. They sat before a false reconstruction of times gone, soldiers green as fresh cut grass and on the brink of a pinnacle battle. All they could do to dull the anxiety was joke around like they were still at the Academy. But it wasn't funny anymore; it was real, and the pathetic attempt at making s'mores was their reminder. Neither of them could afford to live like normal teenagers.

"Hey, Yzak."

"What?"

"All the flirting – sorry."

"Damn right you're sorry, Elsman."

Dearka shifted. "I didn't think you'd take it the way you did."

"Exactly what way are you talking about?"

"…I wasn't joking when I observed that you were sexually frustrated."

Yzak sputtered. "Stop drawing senseless conclusions! What are you trying to suggest?"

"That I turned you on and it made you angry. Therefore, I was apologizing. Don't want to piss you off before tomorrow's battle. With my luck, you'd shoot at me instead of the Earth Forces."

"Y-You did not turn me on, Elsman!"

"Oh? Well if I didn't turn you on, then you can't have gotten mad, either, because you obviously would have known it was a joke. Must have read you wrong."

"Wha…?!"

"You've still got chocolate on your fingers."

Dearka was upon him before he could blink, one hand clamped hard over his lower arm to pull the chocolate-coated fingers forward.

"D-Dearka…" Yzak's blue eyes lapped up every minuscule motion as Dearka began to lick his fingers clean one by one. He felt dizzy again. Why was Dearka able to draw such a reaction from him? His brain flicked off; his carnal desires flicked on.

Dearka's tongue extended to run warm and slick up his ring finger. "That, Yzak Joule," he murmured, still working deftly to remove the chocolate from the inside of one knuckle, "Is the first time I've heard you call me by my first name. And I'll be damned, because I think I like it."

Yzak's breathing hitched when Dearka wrapped his mouth around the digit, sucking there lightly. "What you're doing is a really bad idea, Elsman." He swallowed. "As soon as you let me go, I'm going to kill you." He felt himself go weak as Dearka made eye contact and tugged him closer.

"Then I won't let you go," he said cheekily. "Oh, gee. Would you look at that?" He motioned to Yzak's hand, held there between them in Dearka's insistent grip. "It's like our bodies are the graham cracker, and your chocolaty hand is the chocolate bar in the middle." Faster than lightening, he seized the back of Yzak's neck and hauled him forward for easier access. He nibbled at the silver head's earlobe as he delivered his next line.

"Care to provide the gooey marshmallow?" he whispered, heavy, hot and wanton.

Yzak moaned aloud.

"I told you that you were too tense, Joule," Dearka muttered, running a hand underneath the long front flap of Yzak's uniform and up his thigh in a manner that was far more seductive than the first time he'd done it. "If this tiny amount of contact and my cheesy innuendo is enough to make you lose control, then we've got an issue."

"Then you know your innuendo is cheesy, at least?" Yzak gasped as sardonically as he could, while Dearka attacked his neck. The move was more feverish than the silver-haired male had anticipated. He fisted the blonde's uniform at the shoulders, tilting his head back on instinct.

"Easy on the insults," Dearka mumbled against his skin. "I'm trying to help you out, here." He undid the clasp at the high neck of the jacket's collar and pushed it away from Yzak's throat.

"H-how is this supposed to do anything of the sort? Ahh – Elsman, not in that spot, you bastard! It's…"

"What, good?" Dearka sucked at the place where Yzak's neck and shoulder met, and Yzak cried out without warning.

"Dearka, you're an idiot if you think that this is doing us any good!" His brain was telling him to shove Dearka's enticing body back to the other side of the campfire, or to bash the blonde's face against the foot of the calmly observing GINN. He hated Dearka Elsman – hated him – and no amount of physical anything ought to be changing his mind.

Unless, just maybe, he had never truly hated Dearka in the first place.

"Don't take it the wrong way, Yzak." Dearka had stopped, and Yzak was left panting. "I'm not trying to do anything except for relieve some of the stress, all right?"

"Wh-what the hell does that mean?"

"It means that we're supposed to be there for each other. The whole lot of us – we're like a team of ingredients, the same as a s'more. Rusty and Nicol are the graham cracker, because they're the ones keeping us all together and marking boundaries. Without them, we'd all be arguing and breaking each other's noses. Athrun's the chocolate – everybody friggen likes that guy; he can do no wrong. They always want to call on Zala when things get rough. So what are we, Yzak? What are we? We're the only ingredient left. We're the marshmallow, and they need us to make a full s'more. You see how awful a s'more is when you leave out the marshmallow?" Dearka jerked his head toward the remnants of his chocolaty ZAFT ration sandwich. "Tasted like shit, but even if it was never meant to be perfect, it would have been okay with the marshmallow."

Yzak lost his breath as Dearka pinned him down with his deep violet eyes, and he gritted his teeth. "Why can't you be the god damned marshmallow by yourself?" he snarled in an attempt to school his own fluttering heart.

"Because, in a rough set-up like this, where the graham cracker is all crumbly and the chocolate is the lousy cheap kind…"

Yzak snorted as he thought of Athrun Zala.

"…then you've got to have extra marshmallow to make it okay. We have to stick together, Yzak, don't you get it? Both of us. If we're not there for each other tomorrow at Heliopolis - in the future, in the PLANTs, anywhere – then what's left? The Le Creuset team will fall apart." The fire cracked like thunder. Dearka appeared deaf to it; he locked his eyes on Yzak. "So shut the fuck up, relax a little, and stop hating my guts already. It's not just about you."

Yzak, stone-faced, struggled to grate out his response. He boiled with fury and the leftover heat that had been Dearka's lips on his neck. "And the licking and kissing, Elsman? Tell me again what the hell that was for?"

It was Dearka's turn to study Yzak. His gaze went from pensive to playful and back again. Yzak shivered.

"A second ago, it was because I just wanted to help you loosen up." He shrugged. "Like a favor, I guess."

Yzak nearly hollered his response. "And that's supposed to benefit the others and get you on my good side?" Ire warred with understanding; the violent urge to tear out Dearka's lungs grappled with the lust to let Dearka do with him as he pleased. But wrath won out. He wanted to burn the blonde alive in the campfire.

Instead, he held his breath and said levelly, "And?" He might as well allow Dearka to dig himself a deeper hole and make the murder worth something.

"And somewhere between that notion and this conversation, I think my mind changed," Dearka finished. "Before, I just wanted to be a nice guy. Now I think there are some very real desires of mine getting in the way, and you would have killed me if those came through."

It wasn't the explanation that the silver head had expected. His lips barely moved as he whispered his next nagging inquiry. "And what desires are those, Elsman?"

Suddenly Yzak found himself pressed to the blacktop, his head coming to rest between the tin base of the fire and a thickly painted road line. He groaned and squinted upward in the dark to see the space between the GINNs giant legs. Then Dearka filled his vision.

"I can't help it. I'm not just attracted to girls," Dearka revealed. "Even so… I've got a feeling that this is one of those weird nights that people talk about, before a battle when you don't know if you'll live to see another sunset, so you do crazy things…"

Yzak heard the string of raw desire twanging in the air between them, and he ceased to care about the psychological side affects of war. "Funny, Elsman – that must just be you. I don't remember being cautioned against anything of the sort. Not in training or while we were at the Academy…" He gasped when Dearka's thigh slipped between his knees. "This doesn't mean I don't still hate you." The blonde slid a hand under the front of his jacket and unbuttoned it to reveal his teal and blue undershirt. Yzak cursed the protocol that dictated the extent of their uniforms.

It didn't hinder Dearka for long. Yzak sat up long enough to shed his outer layer, and Dearka hurriedly aided in pulling off the undershirt before pressing him back down. Yzak wondered how many hours had passed since they'd lit the fire, and how long they had until they would have to draw weapons and attack Heliopolis. He wondered if he'd regret this moment of weakness when he woke up the next morning and donned his flight suit.

Dearka sucked one of his nipples in that instant, and he stopped wondering. His back arched, and he groaned.

"Damn it, Joule, I really do want to do this… I didn't think I did…" Dearka tore off his own jacket with reckless abandon. "Shit." He paused. "This is going to come back and haunt me, isn't it?"

Yzak fisted Dearka's hair and tugged him back down. "Not if we forget it ever happened," he said, feeling pleasure shoot to his groin when Dearka groaned and straddled him involuntarily. Yzak moaned at the friction – he hadn't meant to do it, but he'd thrown the blonde off balance when he pulled him close again. He tilted his hips up, and the sensation he felt made him see white for a dizzying moment.

"You can't forget it happened," Dearka protested. "Not all of it. Damn it, Joule – I go and say something serious to you for once, and you want to forget I even said it…"

Yzak melted into the blonde's talented hands as they ran over his chest. "I'm not that wretched, Elsman," he responded, gripping Dearka's hair tighter. "You were right – no one's made of ice all the way through, not even me. The marshmallow thing… Ah, Dearka!" Dearka was licking a steaming trail down his abdomen.

"Come again, Yzak?" Yzak could sense the humor in the blonde's tone. "Ah, wait, but you haven't come for the first time yet."

Yzak rolled his eyes. "You idiot! I'll be the god damned marshmallow with you, I was trying to say." He flushed. "I… you're right. We're a team."

"Speaking of marshmallow," Dearka said, and Yzak detected the pop of a button coming undone in the lower half of his uniform, "Want to go ahead and get on that?" He licked his lips. "Sticky, gooey, tastes like—"

"ELSMAN!"

"Whoa, and that's the first time you've ever yelled my name like that. I've barely started – am I that good?"

"I'll kill you!"

"Not until we finish making our s'more."

Yzak threw his head back when Dearka gripped him with his hand. He couldn't help but think they'd taken an awkward step in some wrong direction, and yet he was too aroused to care. His mind was a blur of motion and desire and smooth, tanned skin, but somehow he felt more rounded, as if he had a solid sense of what was to come in the future, and how he'd face it.

…As if he knew that Heliopolis wouldn't be a perfect s'more, but at least they'd have all the ingredients.

A/N: This is the contest fic for Tobi Tortue. We had to use food to make innuendo. I have no idea how I did. BAD. The whole thing was harder than I thought…

I gotta credit Ms. Tobi, though. She made me really want to use the s'mores. The whole, "hard on the outside, gooey white on the inside, with a name that begs for more," thing was hers, hehe. I tried to expand that, but gah.

I think the problem was that I was too into the other aspects of this story. I ended up wanting to write more about mobile suits and battle and Heliopolis and Rusty than I did about slashing Yzak and Dearka. Whoops.