You I Us We
Ch 01 - First and Second
by APs
A/N – I realized I don't really write peripheral characters much and that it's a crying shame since they are incredibly interesting, for the most part. In the spirit of self preservation, have no set update schedule and length may vary. Writing between school, work, and sleep tends toward the unpredictable.
Attention!! - Though this fic focuses on Zechs and Noin, pairings will fluctuate.
Thank you for reading. Please enjoy! Reviews of all kinds are treasured!
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Tomorrow would be graduation. They were fourteen and foolish and neither wanted to die a virgin. Honestly, both had had too many close calls, seen too much death, already in their young lives to let this opportunity pass. Years of competition and hardship had brought them close, made them lean on and against each other. No one could say when, or if, they would next find a true ally, let alone a kindred spirit. Regulations be damned. Tomorrow they went to war. Tomorrow they belonged to the Specials.
"Are you alright?" His voice was soft and dark with concern as he watched her dress from where he was reclining in the closet's corner. Their blanket was draped over his gangly form in much the same way his pale hair fell about his shoulders. Buttoning her slacks, she smiled and the awkwardness that had been threatening evaporated. That smile belonged to him.
"I'm fine," there was that omnipresent note of humor, "I don't break so easily." She bent down to kiss him and he pulled her down on top of him into his arms, chest against barely developed chest, holding her close, savoring another heartbeat.
"You're too strong for that," he agreed with a smile. She couldn't see it, but she knew. Smiles on him were always ironic.
With a sigh, she snuggled closer, "Father always wanted a boy."
"You're the top cadet in Academy history," he reminded, absently brushing soft dark hair from sharp dark eyes.
"Salutatorian, remember," she chuckled, rumbling through both their bodies. "Not that first was ever enough for the Old Man."
"Some rebellion," that ironic smile, "letting me be first."
"It's just a record," dark humor glittered in dark eyes before he smothered it with a kiss. She yielded, melted for him, only him. He had been the only one to accept her first as a soldier, to consider her not only an equal, but a real threat. She could have had her pick of cadets, but he was the only one she let see her, let have her. There was a connection there, he was sure, even if he couldn't quite grasp it. She smiled at him, his smile, the only thing truly soft on her.
He touched their foreheads, breathing her in, "Lucrezia…"
That aquiline, roman nose wrinkled, "Milliardo."
She felt him stiffen at the name spoken, like it hit him with material force. His arctic eyes shifted away even before he disengaged their arms and sat up, leaving her rapidly cooling on the floor. She shifted onto one of her bony elbows to watch his back and sighed. Between his cold exterior and hot anger it was so easy to forget how deeply he was broken. Too easy. Sometimes she wished the scars he endeavored to hide had been simply external. She shifted to shrug on her over shirt, but stopped short of buttoning it, picking something up off the floor and prodding him in the back with it. He turned, platinum strands sweeping out of ice blue eyes to see her holding out his mask. That soft, sad smile gracing her lips, eyes closed. He took it slowly, gripping it in both hands, "I don't know if I can do this, Noin."
She came around and knelt in front of him. Taking his sharp featured face between her hands, she combed hair away to plant a kiss on his forehead and both eyelids before searching out his mouth. Her hands slipped away, reclaiming the mask and once they parted she gently settled it on his head, "I'll be right there next to you. Just like always."
"You won't always be there," he corrected, voice going hard, bitter. Anyone else might have been hurt by the sudden change. The mask always hurt a little, so much loss and anger coming through as cold aloofness.
"Yes I will, Zechs," she smiled, that smile that belonged to him, with that understanding that belonged to her. "Always."