Lighting Arc Side Stories – FOOTBALL

Fandom: GW
Pairing: Zechs and Treize
Warnings:
Rating: T. Male-male affection.
Disclaimer: My fanfiction is not for profit. None of the anime/manga characters belong to me.
Summary: A game, a battle, heat and vodka; Zechs gets a glimpse of Treize in battle mode.

xxx

Breaktime. Crowds of young men and a few women were bursting from the stark lecture theatres and seminar rooms at the Lake Victoria Military Academy to storm out into the blazing sun. The heat was stifling. The computer network had been unreliable, the servers overheated, the air conditioning broken down, the technicians unable to fix it before a spare had been ordered and flown in from overseas. A disgrace, Treize had noted in writing to High Command, that funds had been depleted to an extent that the accountants at the Alliance Headquarters were haggling over that kind of detail, essential for the wellbeing of their future star soldiers.

It worked; he got his request approved – the spare part had been a welcome excuse to negotiate a larger budget, earmarked for maintenance. It didn't specify what kind of maintenance, and Zechs was sure Treize hadn't been thinking of housekeeping. Treize had shown him the file. There was enough money in that budget line to build another two mobile suit units.

"How do you do this?" Zechs asked, glancing up at Treize who was smiling as he tapped a code into the safe in his office.

"Strategy," he said, taking the file back to lock it up. "And tactics."

"You asked your uncle to approve it."

"The end can't always justify the means." Treize wiped sweat off his brow with his sleeve. He looked flushed, his nose peeling from sunburn, his skin an unhealthy lobster-red. He never tanned, unlike Zechs who was as dark as a hazelnut, a striking contrast to his blue eyes and fair hair that the sun had bleached to almost white.

"But it is also true that history is written by the victor. This time, I won." His teeth gleamed as he gave Zechs a glittering look. "Aren't you pleased? It means you can do more test flights, more research."

"Build better weapons," Zechs replied.

Treize paused, then nodded. "Yes. To help our soldiers win this war."

"There is no war yet."

They were gazing at each other. From outside wafted dust-dry heat, the fan in the window turned sluggishly, beating the air like syrup.

"No," Treize broke the uneasy stillness at last. "But we need to be prepared."

xxx

Before he could reach the large glass doors that led out onto the wide yard of the main building, Treize had been waylaid by one of the senior lecturers to discuss a technical problem that had emerged with a suit prototype; two of the engineers from the development unit joined to argue with the lecturer; a group of curious students gathered in a small cluster around them to listen and throw in the odd remark. They were starry-eyed, but Treize soon drew them into the discussion, and their rather rigid admiration of him thawed, melting into something much more like devotion and fierce, hot commitment.

The flame was burning, Zechs thought, and Treize was carrying the torch.

Treize picked up on the noise first. Craning his neck, he smiled at the sight of a bunch of cadets and junior officers kicking about a football. In various states of regulation-breaking undress in the baking heat of the yard, they were yelling and laughing, taunting one another, shouting increasingly daring bets about which team would win.

Treize, tired of the learned dispute, shook his head. "Red wins," he remarked, with a relaxed nod in the direction of the game that occasionally resembled a tousle, a knot of arms and legs and feet angling for the dirty ball. Not all of those moves were within the rules of a good game, a fact enforced by swearwords and blackening bruises.

"Blue," said Zechs, who had quietly joined the clump of students.

"They're useless," Treize laughed, "just watch…"

"They're my crew," Zechs retorted.

"Well Treize shrugged. "Are you prepared to put money on them? I wouldn't."

"Why not? There's no risk in it."

"Loser buys drinks," Treize retorted, raising his eyebrows.

"Yessir," Zechs snarled back.

So bets were placed, amid laughter and arguing; one of the lecturers was charged by Treize with keeping track and the cash, and then they began to cheer the teams whose game grew more heated when they realised what was going on.

A couple of cadets dropped discarded garments into the corners to mark the playing field more clearly – a boot, a jacket, a uniform shirt, the second boot of the pair. Goals were marked in the same fashion. A noisy crowd began to gather around the makeshift pitch, along the edges of the yard, the reek of sweat and dust lay heavy in the flimmering air.

Zechs edged close to Treize. "You realise that this is your doing?" he growled into his ear, head lightly inclined towards him.

Treize just laughed. "You're losing… ah, no!"

Zechs grinned. "Losing, huh? We just scored."

Treize bit his lip, his cheeks reddening, and suddenly, he pushed through the watching crowd, tore off his jacket, and joined his team.

xxx

"Bad loser," he teased Zechs later, at the bar of the cadets' club.

Zechs shook his wallet upside down. "So what?" he shot back crossly. "My entire pay for the month is gone, and I have drinking debts chalked up here."

"That'll teach you."

"You know that you're being mean."

Treize shrugged and took a drag at his drink – a double shot of plain vodka, no ice. The fifth or sixth one – Zechs had lost count. He should have been drunk, Zechs thought, but he showed no sign of intoxication. "You didn't have to join in," he said angrily. "No one's wants to lose against you."

"That's one of the perks of having a reputation."

"As a bully?"

"Oh?"

"C'mon, Tre. Sir."

"I understand what you're suggesting, and I'm telling you it doesn't bother me as long as it doesn't hamper me."

"You knew they'd cow?"

There was a gleam in Treize's eyes and, behind the amusement, a glint of steel. "Yes."

"They you've been damn unfair."

"So what?"

"I didn't think…"

Treize drank his vodka and clanked the glass back onto the counter. "Re-think, Miliusha. I warned you. You might not like what you see." He checked his watch. "I have some work to do. Have fun."

Zechs watched him push through the throng of men that were packing the club. One of the cadets jostled closer to Zechs. "Sir, we collected money for a drinking cache." He held out his cap and shook it. A handful of coins and a few crumpled banknotes, along with a couple of betting slips with names and numbers scrawled on – money owed. Zechs dug into his pockets. Paper rustled between his fingers. From the chestpocket of his tunic he pulled a paperslip and a large bill. Surprised he stared at it.

I bet we will win.

Treize's generous handwriting. The money smelled of his aftershave. Zechs felt heat rise into his cheeks. He rolled the slip into a tight little ball and flicked it onto the floor. "Here." Angrily he slapped the bill into the cadet's cap. "Next time we'll do better. Now lets get hammered."

xxx

The End