GW Lightning Arc – SIDESTORIES – Flesh and Bones / The Impossible
Fandom: GW AC
Characters: Zechs
Warnings: References to male-male affection.
Summary: Zechs bare to the bones.
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It was a bunch of dishevelled youngsters, faces like fresh from highschool, sitting around a campfire and singing. Loudly, off-key, someone squeezing an accordion and another strumming a guitar. There was laughing and joking, swatting at the mosquitoes that buzzed around, dizzy with smoke and the smell of sweat. It could have been boy-scouts camping out, or an end-of-year school trip.
It was the end of the selection course for the next batch of Specials officer cadets. It was the group that didn't talk in English or Spanish or Chinese when off duty, and where Treize – as their chief instructor – would spend most of the time he could spare. Zechs sat in their midst, as dirty as the rest of them, his ponytail tucked into the collar of his uniform tunic, but he didn't sing. Absorbed in trying to understand, studying and soaking up the language he had grown up with, wrapped into the rolling sounds that had whispered words of deepest intimacy into his ears. He had never managed Russian without a small accent even when he spoke with absolute clarity. Perfect, Treize had laughed, you speak better than the rest of us. It had left Zechs puzzled and oddly hurt.
Treize, only a couple of years older than the cadets, rose slightly from his cross-legged stance and used a charred stick to poke at the potatoes that were, unpeeled, roasting in the ashes. "Almost cooked," he said, a wide smile on his face as he lifted one of them into the air. He showed it around, then picked it off the stick. He hissed as it fell into his palms, and he tossed it until he could rub ash and soot off the shell. The singing stopped and everyone helped themselves, and soon a bottle made the rounds, followed by a loaf of rye bread, a knife stuck in it, a small jar of salt gherkins and a fat slice of smoked lard.
Treize, hands and face smudged, the stripes and stars on his shoulders shimmering dull in the changing light of the flames, got up and raised the bottle. "To the best! To our homeland, our Mother, our Victory!"
He looked very young then, Zechs thought, and as sharp as a blade. Could they see it too? Those eyes, that smile, the determination that would turn him into something nobody had foreseen – not the Alliance, or the Foundation, not the Colonies, and no-one on Earth.
The falcon was soaring, the falcon became their emblem, among the constellations of the Zodiac. It was all very meaningful and filled with the fire of ideals, the bluster of ideas, glossing over the horrors that were yet to come. But nobody thought of that then. Soon they were singing again – about evenings in Moscow, the wide steppes, about Mother Volga and the endless, cruel beauty of Siberia, and Zechs could hear Treize's smooth, schooled baritone, the joy of living and the driving, relentless, unceasing power of his ambition. It was a heady mix.
xxx
He propped his hands on the edge of the sink. It was spattered with white paint and streaked with dirt. The tiles had been torn off the walls of the bathroom, the large bathtub hacked out of its pedestal, the plumbing dangled from naked walls. Zechs stared at his image in the cracked mirror.
He saw eyes deep in dark sockets, unshaven cheeks, matted hair that for days had been kept in the same greasy ponytail. His skin was grimy, his lips cracked from the cold outside. Since Lucrezia's last visit, he had spent nearly two weeks in the woods and steppe-like plains cradling the river, without returning to the house, without fire or rest, until had grown tired of it at last. He wanted to feel warm and clean, he wanted to eat something other than hardtack, raw fish and whatever mushrooms and wild fruit he could find. He had arrived back as if nothing had happened, shouted for the stable hand who was shocked to see him, and left the filthy horse with the man. He went to the kitchen to order food – ignoring the startled faces of the women who had gathered around the table to gossip.
They all seemed wary of him, of his demands, the latent anger and whatever else was simmering beneath that moody, unreadable surface. They didn't understand him, and he made no effort. In an attempt to follow his instructions, the contractors had all but torn the house apart, stripped it of books, music, furniture, paint, plaster – everything that was a reminder of the past. The roses had been chopped back to just above the roots and the first broad layers of whitewash covered the freshly sanded walls. They contrasted oddly with the ornate carvings of the shutters and eaves. Zechs had told the staff to get rid of the pigeons and clean the rotting muck out of the stables, leaving the yard still and empty, the only sound coming from the creaking pump and the clonking of wooden buckets when the stable hand watered Zechs' horse.
The desk in Treize's room had been left untouched beneath its sheet.
He paused on the threshold. Denuded of everything, painted plain white, with bare floorboards and the windows thrown open, it was crisp and cold. It could have been any room, anywhere. A stained ten-litre drum of paint stood by the door.
xxx
Perching on the windowsill, Treize half-turned and winked at him, then beckoned. "Come, look!"
"What am I looking at?" Zechs asked, crossing the room so he could hold on to Treize's shoulder and lean out of the window. Rain was drifting across the faded meadow, layered with mist that blurred the outline of the forest beyond, turning the house into an island. Thick foliage of the roses slapped against the outside of the house, showering it with wetness.
He felt Treize's hug, and then his body, pressing against him from behind. "This," Treize whispered into his ear before kissing him, hands sliding lower. "I missed you."
Zechs gasped, then turned, bent awkwardly against the windowsill and flush against Treize from knee to chest. He could feel exactly how much Treize had missed him. "Then... why... don't you just..." He clutched Treize's shoulders when Treize slid down against him until he was on his knees before Zechs, kissing everywhere he could reach, shoving up Zechs' loose, long shirt and swiftly unbuttoning his jeans. Zechs let his head loll back and clawed into Treize's hair when Treize's lips touched his middle. "Jesus... Treize, please, dammit..."
Treize let go and buried his face in Zechs' groin, his arms wrapping around Zechs' waist. Irritated, Zechs glanced down at him, about to snap-
Treize swayed back and got up, raking his hands through his hair. He was blinking, his fingers trembling. He smiled. "Sand... there's so much sand up there, it gets everywhere. Takes ages to come out." He pushed past Zechs to hang out of the window. "You hear that? Thunder. There'll be more rain."
"Sand?"
"On L3," came Treize's laconic reply, a throwaway, significant Zechs thought because he tried so hard to make it feel unimportant. "They have to replace the seals of our ships and suits every time after a trip up there."
Zechs touched his side. Treize winced before he could control the impulse. Zechs chewed his lip, staring at him. Treize studied the rain. As if, Zechs mused, he was willing it all away. He leaned in, his breath touching Treize's neck.
"Take your shirt off."
Treize glanced over his shoulder, his smile a little off-centre. "What?"
Zechs tore at the fabric. Treize jumped. The shirt ripped, baring white bandages, scarred flesh, oozing, raw little holes scattered across his back and flank.
Treize stepped back from the window. The smile was gone, his expression blank.
"When did this happen," Zechs burst out, "a year ago? What was it, shrapnel? Did they try to shoot you? Did you need to be a hero so bad?"
Treize didn't look at Zechs as he pulled the shredded shirt together to cover the wound. "A molotov cocktail. It broke against the armour of my jeep when I tried to get out to talk to those people. Cuts, burns, glass embedded in the wound; an infection because there weren't any supplies in the hospital where they took me." Treize paused, looking up to meet Zechs' eyes. "Can you imagine that? No supplies. Nothing. Somebody brought a field kit. They told me later they'd taken it from a dead soldier."
There was a small, heavy break before Zechs said, "Why did you bother talking to them?"
There hadn't been much talk when Cinq was taken.
xxx
Zechs stepped in. The desk, under its dusty, grainy sheet, seemed out of place. It reminded him of other sights – the blue flag draped ceremoniously, a last farewell to those whose remains could be found. He stroked across the folds of discoloured fabric, feeling its texture, the crumbs of dirt and stiff folds, and he swallowed hard at the lump swelling in his throat. His hand was trembling when he peeled the sheet back. For a moment, he stood still, looking at what had remained: Swathes of paper. A book on mobile suit engineering, a fat pocket compendium of tables and formulae, an advertising brochure for hunting gear, a political magazine folded open on an article about the Colonies as troublespots.
Zechs pushed the drum towards the desk with his foot and sat down. The pencil was there, laying across a chequered writing pad with the beginnings of a technical sketch. It was surprisingly clumsy and messy, but the giant central joint of Tallgeese and its power jet were as unmistakeable as the obscene little caption hidden beneath a few hasty scrawls. Zechs bit his lip. He put the pencil into his shirt pocket and pulled open the top drawer. He rifled through it slowly, taking stock of its contents that apart from a slight musty smell were pristine. A small radio, a handful of cheap pens, a thin volume of songs and poetry in Russian. A few sheets of much-used grey blotting paper, a notebook scribbled with telephone numbers without names. He slipped the notebook into his pocket too and closed the drawer. There was nothing in the pedestals of the desk.
He lit a cigarette and smoked in silence. Then he took the drawing to shred it – and felt weakness rush through him, making him drop back onto his seat. There, framed by the outline of the paper in the thin layer of dust on the polished table, lay a photograph. In colour, of him, reaching out for something behind him. He was unclothed, with soaking hair, his head half-turned away from the onlooker, his body lined with light and shadows, fully exposed to the gaze of the camera.
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Hunched on the riverbank, a line and hook in his hands, Treize had watched him swim out into the river. He had tried to protest but shut his mouth the moment Zechs shed the last rag and pushed through the muddy reeds, sinking in to his knees until he gained the free current. He splashed in and moved, with long, even strokes, his hair splaying around him in a dark-gold flow.
Treize had looked small and distant when Zechs turned and, paddling to stay afloat, glanced back. He stood, a pair of binoculars resting against his chest, and waved. A thread of smoke rose closeby where he had made a fire. Zechs didn't wave back.
Treize would have snapped that picture when Zechs dried himself, unaware of the camera if not of Treize's gaze. He could still feel it, a heated caress, even after the eternity that lay between them now. Treize hadn't caught any fish but he had brought a bottle, some bread and smoked lard and two ripe apples. They ate, Zechs cloaked in a blanket, his hair drying slowly. Later that night, he had been all over Treize, with his lips, his hands, his touch, his gaze, until Treize caught him in an embraze so strangely yielding that Zechs paused.
"You're unsatiable," Treize said, an exhausted smile on his face. "I'm worried."
"About what?" Zechs murmured, settling by his side.
A small pause, then, "Never mind." Treize pulled the blanket up over both of them. "Look at all those stars..."
And Zechs, his eyes wide open, sagged back and tried to find the light that marked L3.
xxx
The desk looked naked without the picture. Zechs swept the rest of the things into the drawer, tossed the sheet on the floor and took the picture downstairs. The drawing room was as bare as the rest of the house, paint drying on the replastered walls. If the work carried on at this pace, Zechs thought, and with a little luck, it would all be finished by the time the first snow would fall.
The doors stood open to air out the fumes of floorvarnish and paintstripper. The fireplace had been dismantled and replaced with a hearth of European slate and a mantel of plain birchwood. Someone had made a fire whose warmth laced into the frosty air. It smelled of woodsmoke and apples.
Zechs hesitated, turning the photograph in his hands. He crouched by the fire and held his hands out towards the warmth and stared at his broken, black-rimmed nails. He was still dirty but the steambath would be ready soon.
He couldn't decide whether the picture fell or he dropped it but he scrambled the moment the flames painted a rim of fire on one corner, eating away and blackening the curling paper. He snatched it back, it burned his fingers and singed his lips as he hastily blew away the glowing bits and ashes. He brushed the soot off the paper. His pulse was racing. Folding the picture, he put it into the pocket with the notebook.
xxx
"Wow," Lucrezia said as she stepped into the vestibule. It had started snowing when she climbed out of her jet, and melting snowflakes glittered on her padded uniform jacket and winter cap.
Zechs took her jacket. "It's almost finished, apart from two rooms upstairs, and one of the gables needs replacing. You missed a great bonfire." The desk, heavy and solid, had provided fuel for the steambath. It had burned for hours.
The house was white inside and out, clean walls, scrubbed beech and birchwood floors, blue carpets, the thick winter curtains complemented by white sheers draped across the large windows. It felt fresh and new and impersonal.
Lucrezia turned. Zechs looked tired and subdued but in his eyes she didn't find the dragging agony of the past months, or the haze of alcohol. His gaze was clear, his smile without bitterness.
"I'm trying," he said. "I'm not sure it's working."
xxx
THE END
Music: youtube - The sound of rain w/o music 2; Подмосковные Вечера; Ах ты степь широкая; Чёрный ворон / The black raven; Бродяга - Russian folk song - Brodyaga