GW Lightning Arc – SIDESTORIES – Downtime
Fandom: GW AC
Warnings: References to male-male affection.
Summary: Zechs and Lucrezia Noin back from Mars on leave, but are they making the best of it?
Thanks to KhalaniK for the inspiration. I love her stories. Check them out - she's in my fav authors links. If you like GW AC stories centred on Zechs, you might also want to look at stories by karina001 (she is on fanfiction net too). Lots to read!
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He couldn't get used to it, not even after all those years. The return from ragged plains of copper-red dust, terraforming biomes like blisters in that parched, storm-ridden landscape, to dive into the hay scented summer heat of the Khushrenada estate. The trip across the starry blackness of space, the flight in his private jet from the Baikonur space port, the landing and the jeep bumping along the shady road through the forest.
It never ceased to hurt seeing the shard of rainbow-coloured Gundamium, three times the height of a man, that marked the entrance to the driveway leading to the great house. Like a scorched finger it rose from the ground, rooted in weeds but glistening in the sun, or covered in ice. A sentinel, all it had witnessed buried in stillness. Once Zechs had seen a bird sit on it, singing. But the sounds died away in his mind for the shard was shrouded in silence.
Memories. Ghosts.
Zechs avoided coming to the place in winter.
He had just checked that his bags had been brought to his room – the same he had lived in as a boy – and gone to the bathroom to shower when a discreet knock on the door disturbed him.
"What?" he snapped, reaching for the faucet to turn the shower down.
And then a woman's voice, dark and energetic, "Zechs! I heard you're back!"
"Jesus," he hissed, gathering his hair to wring shampoo and water out of it. "Lucrezia..."
"Since when do you lock the bathroom door?"
"Since I've left active service," he bawled, irritation scraping at him.
"Okay, I'll have to stay like that then. Sweaty and smelly."
"Use the washhouse."
He heard her laugh and her steps – fast and firm – fade down the hallway. Perhaps she would do just as told, go to the outbuilding that held the washhouse and the steam bath, and clean up there. Or she might decide to go for a swim in the river that passed, wide as a lake and teeming with birds and fish, a half hour drive in the jeep. The landscape was different there, forest fading into low, wind-bent shrubs and gnarled little trees that reached no higher than Zechs' hips. Lichens and low grasses, yellow in summer and frozen beneath tons of snow in winter, when the river would glaze over with ice so thick, a helicopter could land safely.
Wrong move, wrong turn of thought. Troika races on the band of ice, ice-needles pricking reddened skin, noses numb with chill. The smell of furs and horse-sweat. The exhilaration of speed as the fragile sledge sped along, cutting a perfect parallel of tracks.
Even then we were chasing each other. Fighting as if it wasn't just a game...
He shook his head and towelled himself down, pulled on a bathrobe and went to his room to search through his bags for something to wear. Jeans, a grey tee, cheap stuff, not entirely clean – water was scarce on Mars and he had refused to take privileges. In the walk-in closet further down the hall would be his other clothes, pristine shirts crisp with starch and perfectly pressed trousers, expensive woollens and designer denims, but he didn't care enough to go there and choose.
Barefoot, he went to what had been Treize's room. Books from floor to ceiling, every wall covered. A desk, buried in papers and more books, a pencil, sharp but chewed to the lead on one end; an office chair, a heavy wooden bed, not quite double but large for a single. Dust had settled on the desk because Zechs had forbidden anyone to clean it up, but the bedlinen was fresh, the downcovers aired, the window open. The heat of summer wafted into the dusky calm, and with it the thick aroma of roses.
He dropped onto the bed and sagged back into the thick pillows. Closing his eyes, he let himself drift.
A sharp click startled him. Before he knew it, he sat, the familiar surge in his mind, singing through every fibre of his body, until it filled him, making him complete. He had stopped fighting Zero a long time ago, when it became clear that nobody would be able to help him.
"Zechs! You're wasting time! You can sleep later!"
He groaned as the tension faded, and pulled himself up to walk to the window. Lucrezia stood on the meadow, hands on her hips, and looked up to him. He could see she was clutching a small stone or a nut in one hand. She was smiling, teeth gleaming, and something struck him as odd. He realised then that she wore a dress – a flimsy thing of white cotton, printed with poppies. It set off her tan and her jetblack hair and showed her shape without looking crude. She was barefoot too, her legs and arms looking wiry and tough, unfeminine by some standards.
"You look like sleepy beauty," she laughed, "c'mon, let your hair down already!"
"I hate that," he said. "Those stupid hair jokes. And they get tired."
"You got no idea."
"I'm not... I'll just spoil your mood. I need some time, that's all. I didn't realise you'd be here so soon."
It was no more than the statement of a fact, and she would get it. She always did, he thought when he settled back on the bed and closed his eyes. He could feel Zero withdraw, like ebb pulls back from the shore, leaving a prickling in his fingertips and toes, and an odd, heavy emptiness in his limbs. His head hurt, temples throbbing, eyes stinging, but he waited patiently. It would stop sometime soon if he was lucky, and if he wasn't, he'd drown it until he could sleep.
What if I torched the house? Raze it to the ground, wipe it all out... perhaps that's it. Ashes, piles of sooty stones. In a few years, there'd be nothing but new grass, a few shrubs perhaps. No more ghosts.
A halfsmile curved his lips. He folded his arms under his head.
As if you'd ever given in that easily. Where was I... winter. The only time you got mad at me, that one time it wasn't just theatre thunder. You hadn't been perfect, you were about to lose the race. I had been able to spend more time training my horses, and you... you'd been away at the Academy, your head full with plans already. But you still needed to win that race, to prove... what the hell did you want to prove?
Outside the window, the small life of summer buzzed in the climbing roses, their scent mingling with the aroma of drying grass on the meadow that stretched from the house to the edge of the forest. Birds were chirping, and he could hear the purring of the doves that had been Treize's.
Even they had a purpose. Satellite phone or not, we could communicate. And I wondered why you told your staff to cull the pigeons roosting in our compounds and to catch any new ones for inspection. It's so old-fashioned, nobody had even thought of it. Nobody but you. There's paranoia for you.
Sleep would not come to him. He rose, tired and nervy, out of synch with summer and the world around him, as if still stuck in a glorified glasshouse, duststorms howling outside, sand gritting between his teeth. His eyes were inflamed, oozing reddish goo. It would be days before his body had cleansed itself from the residues of Mars, the dust that seemed to creep into the skin itself, the smell of sanitised air and chlorined washing water that had been recycled more times than he cared to think about.
Lucrezia had spread a blanket onto the grass and lay on her stomach, legs crossed at the ankles and up in the air. Propped on her elbows, she was reading a large, slim softback book. Her shoulderstraps had slipped, revealing paler skin, sharply defined and at odds with the shape of her dress because they had been drawn by her issue vest and the artificial sunlight of the biomes. The soles of her feet were dirty and stuck with little stones and stalks of hay.
He sat down next to her. "Advanced terraforming strategies. Implementation tactics. Monitoring and evaluation processes." He found an elastic band in his pocket along with a few fluffs, two stainless steel screws, and more red sand. He wound the band around his still wet, clumpy hair. "Is it good?"
"You wrote it," she said, without looking up. "Were you sober?"
"Probably."
"That's why it took so long."
"Ouch."
"Anytime."
"It's only soundbites anyway. Political blah." The kind of stuff you were good at, Treize.
"People want reasons."
"The engineering issues are treated in Appendices E to G."
"Cool." She put her finger into the centre and pressed down on the glued spine as he looked up at him at last. Her eyes, large and dark, were reflecting her smile. "What are you drinking? Vodka?"
He raised the tumbler in his hand. "Want some?"
"A sip." She sat up, smoothed her dress out and put the book, face down, in her lap. She drank and pulled a face. "It's disgusting. You need ice. And it's too early."
He shrugged. "If you consider the real issues, like how to build on Mars, how to keep the water supply safe, how to grow food, work out the costs of maintenance and all that, there should be enough reasons, but I don't think people are reasonable. It's all gut-feeling, knee-jerk reaction, that sort of shit. When did anyone on Earth last make a reasonable decision?"
"Look who's talking."
"Stop badgering me about this." He raised the glass, stared blankly at her through the clear liquid that almost filled the tumbler, then saluted and drank deeply.
"Sometimes I feel like hitting you to make you snap out of it. That's gut reaction. I don't do it. That's reason."
"So what?"
She huffed, blowing up her cheeks and letting go of the air in a quick stream. "Tell me a story."
He scowled and tensed, ready to get up and run.
"Who won?" she said, catching him out.
Lazily, he sagged back. "What?"
"You or Treize? You were always competing, everyone knew that. Then he got his promotion, and another, and you... didn't you hate trailing behind like that?" A small pause, and then, "You know he had... a word with me after we graduated? I'd applied for tranfer to a combat unit."
Zechs clutched the glass. "You said you wanted to be a training officer."
Her expression lost some of its warmth and her lean features darkened. "After finishing second best cadet in the year class and third in the history of the Academy? And you believed that?"
"Can't you stop digging?"
Lucrezia shook her head. "I wanted to fly one of those machines. He wasn't good at sharing, was he?"
Zechs turned the glass in his hand, systematically scanning it for smudged fingerprints.
Right. You weren't. You ran your sledge into a hole in the ice because you had to win, you risked too much, the ice was too thin, it was the end of winter, things shifting, the river waking up. Dashing past me, I can still see your face, laughing, red with chill, hair flying because you'd lost your cap. And then this horrible sound as the ice cracked, and the sledge caught, a crash, things flying everywhere, the sledge turning over, you were gone. I didn't know horses could shriek like that, thrashing like mad in the icy water, all three of them going down, dragged by the sinking sledge, soggy furs, heavy felt rugs... I was shouting, by the time my troika stopped your's was half gone, I couldn't hear you but I could see your hand clutching one of the steps, there was blood, the horses...
He felt her hand on his shoulder and lay down, his head against her thigh, her hand still there.
"I pulled him from the river once. Ages ago. His sledge had overturned. He yelled at me for not saving the horses."
You didn't even wait until we got back. Crouching in the back of my sledge, shivering like mad, naked and wrapped in furs, you were shouting abuse at me like never before and never after that. I was shocked. Cold under the blankets I'd wrapped around me, exhausted. We were nose to nose, short of beating each other up. You were bleeding from a gash on your forehead. You threatened to stop me from getting anywhere near you, from enlisting, from doing anything at all. You looked like you hated me.
"He wasn't the grateful type, was he?"
Zechs said nothing. The sun looked blurry through the lens of the vodka. A veil of midges drifted past, their whirring making Lucrezia shrink back and swat at them with the book. It swirled through their chaotic little swarm but did nothing to disperse them, and she gave up, wrinkling her nose in displeasure. He could feel the warmth that radiated from her body and her scent of clean skin and plain soap. He thought that in spite of everything, she had an effortless refinement, a natural confidence, that Treize could never have matched. Something Zechs felt familiar with because it reminded him of his childhood, of his mother and a little of his sister.
What a drama. Your mother made us sweat in the steambath. They had a doctor fly in to check you out, then me. When he confirmed we had just a few nasty cuts and bruises, she shouted at you about the cost of the troika, about your conduct and responsibility. That evening, you had her hand imprinted on your cheek. Behind her back, your grandmother filled us up with elderberry liquor instead of elderberry tea. The stable hand was crying about the horses. I know he was cursing you, too. At that point, I hated horses. I hated you because I thought you were blaming me when you'd been stupid.
"Perhaps we should go and eat something." Lucrezia closed the book and leaned forward to look down at Zechs, who closed his eyes. "In all those oldfashioned fairytales it's always the prince who kisses the princess first. And they always get each other."
"I screwed up."
She laughed. "Big time."
xxx
They ate beetroot soup with homemade butter on freshly baked white bread because Zechs couldn't get used to the black bread Treize had favoured. A thick fish stew was followed by pelmeni with berry filling and soured cream, all served on white china and table linen. But onto the cool European style table, the samovar had been placed next to a laquered tray with little bowls of rose petal marmalade, honey and sweet cream. The brass feet of the samovar had made small greenish marks on the linen. Zechs had also insisted on cups instead of the cut glass, filigree-encased tea glasses Treize had loved, but it had done nothing to change the memories that swamped Zechs every time, with everything he did at the old house.
No point struggling. One day, it'll eat me alive. Like you. After all that upset, I was ready to up and go, just leave, make a fresh start anywhere but here. How could you know? I'd not said anything but that night you turned up on my doorstep, begging. Telling me you needed to know. Whether I still loved you, no matter what we were, what we'd become. It was the year you'd found out I'd enrolled at the Academy, against your will, against your hopes. I'd done something beyond your control. Why did I do it? Ah, yes. Revenge.
"Are you drunk?" Lucrezia asked when Zechs went outside to smoke and watch dusk sink over the forest.
"A bit. Not much."
You were, that night. Smashed, plastered, completely shitfaced in this sly, quiet way... You stank of garlic and vodka, and it still took me a while to realise why you couldn't get it up. I told you I loved you, that you couldn't mother me, that I would be a soldier like you. You said something about duty of care, and I laughed at you. You wanted to know if I liked torturing you. Told me I could have drowned, and for what?
He shrugged. "I'm never sure why I bother coming here."
Lucrezia leaned against the open French door and cradled the teacup in her hands. "It's different. A breather, after Mars."
"I like Mars."
"I like the pay."
Why not. Even you, Treize... You said how odd it was that all those small things can weigh us down so much, more than anything else. You were flat on your back, eyes glazed over, on half-mast, and I was lying on top of you, just to feel your heartbeat. You told me you loved me. Forever, deeply, with all your heart. For eternity and beyond. In Russian. You called me your prince and you put my hand to your lips to kiss my palm in this tacky way that back then didn't seem tacky at all. And then you fell asleep, my hand on your face, and you were snoring.
"Zechs?"
"Hm?"
Lucrezia smiled. "I think I'm going to go to bed." There was a small break, a tiny pause. The glow of light above the forest was fading fast, the sky darkening. The scent of the roses grew stronger as the chill of night brought with it dew and the smell of damp earth.
She pushed herself away from the door and leaned against him firmly. He bent down just a little so she could kiss his cheek. She put her hands around his neck and kissed him on his forehead instead. "Good night," she said and let go.
"Good night." He watched her leave the room, the familiar way she moved – with long, confident strides and without hesitation. He thought that she had to know how good she looked yet there was no trace of teasing or vanity in her. He wondered briefly, listlessly, about his options, and then decided it was better to leave things as they were.
That night, I could have done what I liked with you. But I just lay there, clutching you close, listening to your snoring. And I went nowhere, not then.
He went to sleep in Treize's room, giving in to a childish impulse. Buried himself in down and the scent of roses, and as he turned away from the familiar image of the desk that looked as if its owner had just taken a break, he fell asleep almost instantly.
xxx
THE END