A/N: Well, somehow, The Angelic Demoness coerced me into writing this. I think it was because I said I might do it anyway. Then somewhere along the line it turned into a standoff – she swore not to give me a copy of her Matt/Mello roleplay with anja-chan until I posted. (Or wait, was it THAT you were promising me, or the edited copy of the roleplay WE did?! Either way...) So here it is. I call truce.

All that aside though… Man, do I ever feel rusty with these two. Thanks, Death Note.

Drowned. Drowned, for the love of ZAFT, and Yzak Joule was responsible. He reached up a hand to feel his silver locks; they were still damp from the ordeal.

Oh god. Damp.

Yzak squinted his eyes shut and buried his face in his towel. He was in the locker room, droplets of chlorine water dripping down his legs to make puddles at his feet, but he might as well have been in the middle of a Supreme Council meeting for the way his nerves were jumping. His fault. All of it was his fault, and he was sure that such a mistake would ruin him.

No, wait. It was all Dearka's doing. That stupid blonde. That clueless, swaggering idiot and his too-lax attitude… Yzak bit back a curse. Dearka should have helped to save the drowning cadet. After all, he was the one closest to the water at the time. Yzak had been standing farther away from the edge. The silver head specifically remembered ordering Dearka to jump in and save the drowning boy. Yzak was the commander, wasn't he? Dearka was supposed to follow orders! But the blonde hadn't followed any orders at all. He'd watched Yzak flounder at the poolside and then strode off to see his higher-ups about food pilfering….

The locker room door opened with a bang.

"Yzak, are you in here?"

"Shut up, Elsman. That's Commander Joule to you while we're still on duty."

Dearka's responding grin was everything it always was, but this time with a dash of coy and a twist of condescension that Yzak deemed all too sneaky. "In an emergency situation when a cadet of yours drowns, I didn't think protocol would still be up there in the list of priorities."

A string on Yzak's fretboard snapped. "I could lose my position for something like this," he hissed, the prospect of facing the Council suddenly very real and threatening.

"Maybe you didn't hear the guy yelling. You could claim temporary deafness due to waterlog," Dearka offered.

Yzak scowled fit to pull a facial muscle. "I. Wasn't. Swimming," Yzak stressed, leaping up to seize the impertinent blonde by the scruff of his collar. Then he realized that the tanned male was still shirtless. He stopped mid motion, and if Dearka felt the least bit fazed, he didn't show it.

"Oh yeah," the blonde recalled instead, one finger at his chin in thought. "It's just – you being dripping now, diving in to save the kid and all… You kind of looked like you'd been swimming. I got confused."

Yzak didn't think it was funny. "If I get demoted, I'll be taking you with me." He was livid. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so ready to gut his subordinate. "Or maybe I'll send you even lower down the ladder, Elsman. Like all the way into Hell."

"If so, you might consider coming too. A fire would dry you off."

"You imbecile, I swear I'll—"

But Dearka had already closed the gap between them and laid a finger carefully over Yzak's lips. "Easy there, Commander Joule." There was a twinkle in his deep, violet eyes.

It didn't take long for Yzak to remember why he'd drowned someone in the first place.

OOOOOOOOOOO

"All right," Yzak called to the line of cadets in their ZAFT issue bathing suits, "Into the water and straight to the deep end. Tread for thirty minutes. Now."

"Without any warm-up laps? But Commander—"

"Do you think you're going to have time to warm up if you're tossed overboard off a battleship? No protesting – just go." Yzak watched the brown-eyed boy grumble beneath his breath as he swam the side-stroke to the deep end.

The silver head didn't like it either, really. Swim training for the cadets as a part of military initiation? It was all because of that wretched legged ship the Archangel – the one that had been able to float across the ocean like some two-pronged dingy. Yzak shot Dearka a sidelong glare; he hadn't forgotten that the blonde had spent time on that ship. Eventually, ZAFT had gotten ideas as well, and the Minerva had taken to docking in an aquatic bay space. Damn her designers to hell. Now swim lessons were a part of basic training. Yzak Joule was picking up a shift to cover the procedure, as numbers were limited and he'd had the credentials. He was stuck by a poolside because no one knew when a battle might move from space or land to the godforsaken water.

Yzak hated water.

"Tread harder! You won't stay afloat if you keep that lazy pace."

"Belay that order, mates," came Dearka's voice as he winked good-naturedly at Yzak's cadets. "Commander Joule's just jealous that you can swim. If you tread too hard, you'll get tired too soon." When Yzak looked at Dearka sharply, he was relished with a sheepish shrug of the shoulders.

"I know how to swim, Elsman," the silver head spat.

Dearka shrugged again. "I know. I was just trying to lighten their spirits. Sir," he added last second as Yzak took a menacing step forward.

"If I wanted you here for that, Elsman, I'd have given you a string bikini and pom poms." Dearka lifted an amused eyebrow, as if to commend him for a dirty joke well executed, but Yzak only graced him with a cold shoulder. "They need someone in the water to monitor them as well as me on the sidelines. Let's make that someone you, Elsman, shall we?"

The humor was wiped from Dearka's eyes and replaced with something that said although he was not pleased, he would take the order like a man. "All righty then, Commander." He shed the shirt he'd been wearing with his swim trunks and climbed down the ladder, tight lipped. Yzak rolled his eyes.

"Keep up the treading, all of you. Twenty one minutes to go." His gaze was drawn to Dearka's head as it broke the surface, and the blonde pushed the hair from his eyes before stroking his way to the cadets with precision. Yzak folded his arms. "Just make sure they don't slack, Elsman."

"Aye-aye."

And so they watched the cadets. Dearka treaded water too, calm and detached, as if he were sitting at a bus stop waiting for his ride. Yzak brushed at the starchy white material of his uniform and silently thanked the fates for the blonde's presence. His cadets were usually rowdy and obnoxious, and perhaps Yzak was too stiff-necked and exacting to will them to cooperate. But with Dearka in their midst – one of their own in terms of audacity, as Yzak saw it – they seemed content to quietly tread.

Lost in his thoughts, Yzak barely felt it when a lower officer tapped his shoulder. "Commander Joule? Dearka Elsman is wanted outside. There have been additional reports filed about his taking more than a single share of rations in the mess hall…."

Yzak glanced at his watch, irritated. "We have ten minutes left here. Elsman will be down when we're through."

"They want him now, sir."

"Fine." Yzak hoped his icy stare froze the messenger's retinas.

As the man walked away and Yzak followed his path, he called to Dearka. "Elsman, get out of the pool. You're wanted."

"By you or the Council Chairman?" the blonde joked.

"Very funny. By the people in charge of mess rations."

Dearka's mouth turned down at the corners. "Shit."

When Yzak glanced in the blonde's direction, Dearka was halfway out of the water and pulling himself over the rails of the ladder. The silver head caught his breath.

Oh, dear sweet Voltaire. God had created water so that Dearka Elsman could step out of it and look like Heaven on the PLANTs.

Droplets cascaded over the muscular curve of his shoulders, and the ripples of his arms in motion only made the beads of light slip and slide more enticingly down his frame. Dearka shook his hair – additional water dripped down his brow and into his eyes, clinging to his lashes until he blinked to clear his vision. Yzak's gaze flickered to the tanned male's lips. Dearka licked them absently and rolled his shoulders. He bent down to squeeze water out of his swim trunks first at one leg, then the other. Gave his foot an experimental shake, to make it a little less sopping before stepping onto a patch of concrete that had not yet been darkened by wetness. Every contour gleamed with the reflection of water; his dark skin shone with a glaze of something almost carnal in its seduction.

A wet Dearka Elsman was spellbinding.

"You got a towel?" the blonde asked, and Yzak wordlessly handed him his while struggling to determine why his mouth was so dry.

Dearka ran the towel over his hair and neck, coming away with a ruffled mane that suggested a multitude of scenarios decidedly inappropriate for Yzak's mind. Dearka wasn't glistening wet anymore, but he was damp. Still with a look of moistness about him, but not soaked.

And god, damp like that was almost better.

A voice rang out from the pool beside him. "Commander Joule?" The query of the cadet didn't register. "Commander Joule, we're past the thirty minute mark."

Dearka was toweling off his back and torso more thoroughly now. Yzak tried not to appear interested. "Tread an extra five minutes. If you're stranded in the water, there's never a guarantee that ZAFT rescue will be able to come within the thirty minutes they estimate upon alertion."

"It's just that Hanz looks a little worn out, sir…."

"Tell Hanz to hold out longer." Dearka quirked an eyebrow at that – Yzak could see it in his peripherals – but he didn't change his mind. He didn't want to go back to the cadets just yet. One more minute of bliss with a wet Dearka in his sight would be an appreciated relief after four straight days of paperwork and training sessions and—

Yzak was only vaguely aware of a commotion going on in the pool. Someone was calling Hanz's name repeatedly, and there were splashes echoing up to the ceiling of the pool house. Yells, curses, panicked calls. But now Dearka was making his way toward Yzak, and Yzak was swallowing to stifle the moan that he wanted to release.

"Yzak, I think you should pay attention to the cadets," Dearka said, with no trace of his usual humor as he handed the silver head back the towel. "That kid isn't making it."

"Go save him if you're so concerned," Yzak responded, preoccupied.

"I've been called away, and you're the commander. It's not funny. You should help him."

Yzak felt himself grow warm as he noted the proximity at which they stood. He felt indignant upon hearing his subordinate telling him what to do, and irresponsible at his own blatant neglect of duty, but…. Now there were stay droplets, trailing from Dearka's hair to the back of his neck and downward, wetting the previously dried skin on his shoulders and making Yzak ache to follow the paths with his fingers….

Dearka walked away with a shake of his head, and Yzak turned with loathing to survey the scene in the pool. "God damn it."

"I think he stopped breathing," one of the cadets cried. "He's dead weight – we can't get him out of the water."

An iron rod rammed itself into Yzak's stomach as reality hit, and within seconds he was in the water. Full uniform be damned.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Dearka was laughing, his finger still held over Yzak's pursed lips.

"I hope your green coat rank didn't stop them from giving you seven shifts of cleaning duty for swindling food, Elsman," Yzak seethed, pulling away before his face could turn any redder. Then, "What did you see out there when you came back? After I turned it over to the paramedics—"

"He's fine," Dearka interrupted.

"What?"

"Hanz – he's fine. He came to just a minute ago. You didn't drown him, Yzak."

Yzak's mouth worked like a silent hinge for a long time, and then he stared at Dearka afresh. "I… Who said anything about me drowning him?!"

By the look on Dearka's face, the silver head wasn't sure he wanted to know. Dearka could see right through him. "It was kind of your fault Yzak, wasn't it? For being distracted?"

"Even if it were my fault, who ever said it was because I was distracted?" Dearka said nothing, but threw him a condescending smirk. "Y-you're an idiot, Dearka."

Dearka's smirk split into a grin. "Well. That proves it."

"What? Nothing I just said proved anything!"

"You like it when I'm wet, don't you?"

The floor nearly tilted to knock Yzak down. "I… you… god damn you," he sputtered, and Dearka only sauntered to the locker room door and held it open for him.

"I'll remember that next time, Commander Joule. Wanna go apologize to Hanz?"

Yzak snarled something incoherent. He came to a decision, wringing his towel in frustration.

No more pools with Dearka Elsman. Ever.