Orders

by peachandbetty

Bit by bit, he got back to what he knew. He wasn't a solider, and he had no firearm at his side for his hand to hover over when something didn't feel quite right. He didn't have an enemy to face, nobody at his heels pushing him to succeed and survive. But what he did have were orders.

Wufei had warned him.

There would be no place for them, redundant soldiers in a world so foreign to them it may as well be another entirely. He ate breakfast, and listened to the morning news and the lack of panic, severity or warning in the news anchor's tone was eerily incongruent with everything he knew.

He chose to live in an apartment in an undesirable neighbourhood. His neighbours longed to leave but for him, everything outside of it felt fake. Because the world he'd grown up in and the world out there cannot be the same thing. At least, with one light-bulb flickering and scratching behind the plasterboard there was a decay to his immediate surroundings that felt sane. Like home.

When she showed up at his door one day, he wasn't surprised. She made no pretence about the odd way she cared for him. She wore her heart, her head and everything in between on her sleeve and while part of him dismissed it as foolish, another envied her darkly.

He'd felt no shame about his living quarters until the moment she stepped over his threshold, as though the light of her did everything to expose and enhance every crack, smear and shadow. It wasn't until that moment, he saw how dark everything had become.

"May I sit?" She asked.

Something inside him twisted a little, a dull twinge of something undefinable but definitely uncomfortable at the thought. He pushed it aside; he learned long ago that Relena becoming involved in his life could anything and everything. He hadn't regretted it thus far.

"If you want."

She sat down, gracefully crossing her ankles and smoothing her skirt over her lap. Despite the modest action, it didn't do much to hide his view of creamy, slender thighs. Forbidden thoughts came and went, little sparks in the back of his head that barely registered. He was used to forbidden thoughts by now, and paid them no heed.

"I'd ask how you are but, as they say, the writing's on the wall." He expected to hear pity in the statement. He found none, and instead she leaned her elbows on her lap, leaning towards him, as if to tell him some great and terrible secret. He doubted there was anything she could say that would surprise him at this point in their odd friendship, but he indulged her, and cocked his head to show his interest.

"Heero," she asked softly, the voice of somebody doing a kindness. It wasn't a sound he'd heard very often. "I have a mission for you."

Heero held her soft blue gaze, not quite processing the words so instead focusing on her. The meaning he knew. He knew them well and he'd heard them so often. But, as with all else in this new life, it was incongruent with everything else around it. Her tone, her eyes, her smile…only this time, it didn't serve to exacerbate the twisting in his gut, or press against his temples as something built there and kept him awake.

Nothing else seemed to matter, then. She had a mission for him.

"Accepted."

Bit by bit, he got back to what he knew. He wasn't a solider, and he had no firearm at his side for his hand to hover over when something didn't feel quite right. He didn't have an enemy to face, nobody at his heels pushing him to succeed and survive.

But what he did have were orders.

Relena was a naturally obliging person. Heero suspected that if it were possible she would serve tea at her own funeral. It was just the sort of person she was, and it was the sort of person that made people champion her as their chosen representative. She wasn't made for giving orders, at least not in the way he was used to. But, orders they were, by any other name.

Her first request of him was made as she was trying to push her foot back into an impractically tall shoe, something he knew she often wore to combat her lack of vertical progression. Carrying a box almost as heavy as she was in the middle of her umpteenth futile attempt, he appeared from the top of the stairs and she shot him a pleading look no man could rationally ignore.

As he set the box down at her instruction, she extended her heartfelt thanks but the contents of the box caught his eye. Garlands.

"I should expect guests to start making appearances now advent has started. Even if it is just an apartment, I figured I should probably make an effort."

He watched her fetch the step ladder and raised an eyebrow at her still impractical pumps. The woman as an accident waiting to happen.

"You…don't fancy helping me do you?" She looked over her shoulder at him as her fingers fumbled on the latch to secure the ladder. "Of course, if it's no trouble. Only, I can never quite get these straight."

That night, he'd followed her instructions to the letter. Left a bit. A tad higher. Make four bows instead of two.

And he was content, in a way he hadn't been since pulling his final, defunct trigger on Mariemaia Kushrenada. He was useful, even if it was only to her and only for the small things that collectively weighed her down.

And so, bit by bit, he took his orders. He made her tea, more times a day than he was sure was healthy. He brought her books and papers from the archives. He did background checks on prospective associates. He checked over her paperwork for errors. He arranged her security detail for large events, booked her flights and accommodation. He consulted with her about worthwhile engineering projects space-side.

Nobody was ordering him to kill, and despite what his prickly fellow pilot had believed, that was somehow fine. Orders were, after all orders. Only this time, he chose to take them from her.

"Heero? I think it's nearly tea o' clock and I've been aching to try that dark Assam blend from Calcutta."

He put down his pen onto the pile of papers he'd been correcting, and the corners of his lips quirked slightly at her tone. The tea had been a gift from a senator she'd been dating for a few months now and every time he bought her a gift back from his travels something awoke in her that, were it possible, seemed to make her glow brighter. She didn't ask for much from people, almost as though she was afraid to, in case she was left disappointed. So every time the man showed up at her door when he said he would, kissed her on the lips as though it was all he needed in that moment, and gave her a tin of tea from whichever place had briefly taken him away from her…she floated. She was easily pleased by small things.

As he flicked the switch of the electric kettle on, he looked through to the lit doorway of her home office where she was scribbling away with a smile on her face.

Small things, he mused. They were much the same in that respect.

She sat on the cheap plastic chair that had been there on the balcony the day she moved into this trendy mid-town apartment, leftover from the ritual chain smokers that inhabited it before. It was dirty and cracked in places but he often found here out there, sitting and thinking as though no other place in the world could induce her to sit and think. She had the feet up on the rail and chair tilted back to look at the sky. It was clear that night, but life was not a novel and the clarity of the night sky was far from metaphorical of her mood.

"You can come out. I'm fine now."

She had a slight tremor to her voice that betrayed the conviction in her words. Heero approached cautiously, as though the woman in front of him was someone he barely knew at all.

He'd seen her hurt before. When her father was killed, he saw the raw grief in her eyes even as she stared him down over the top of his own barrel. But that hurt was a thin veil worn by the strength behind it, and he'd always associated that look, that consistency that was present always, with her.

But he had never seen her like this. There was no layering of hurt and strength and pain and conviction over her unending and flawed core of kindness. He'd never seen the red swelling on her cheeks from where she had cried without restraint. Or the way he chest tremored when she took a breath because her lungs and throat and entire body were sore from simply feeling. She had always been small, but the way she held herself made an entire planet forget she was young and fragile in ways she'd yet to experience. Until now.

He didn't like it.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He offered, only somewhat genuine. He had no idea what she needed right now, but he was entire uncertain of his capacity to do anything that could help her. He could only feel anger on her behalf. He felt, once again, redundant.

"No," she answered weakly, pulling her cardigan around herself against the midnight chill "it's alright. You can go to bed if you want. It's late."

He moved beside her, crouching down to lean his arms on the rest and peered up at her. When her eyes met his, they were dull. Some man that he'd barely known, but she'd given herself to wholeheartedly, had managed to take Relena from herself. Heero found it strange, that when years ago he stood in front of those eyes and could not bring himself to snuff them out someone else had managed to make such a very different decision so easily.

"You should sleep," he suggested, not entirely comfortable with the reversal in the roles they had established over the last year. He tried to build some form of framework for her to climb out of the mess she'd been violently shoved into. Heero had been happily and selfishly relying on her for the just that for far too long, and when she didn't stir he felt the weight of that debt in his stomach, twisting in a way he hadn't felt in a year. Unable to offer anything else, he stuck with what he knew. "I'll make you some tea."

"No." She interrupted, coming out harsher than he was sure she intended. "No, it's fine. I think I'll drink coffee for a while"

He nodded, understanding. Her tea collection was extensive and she arranged her favourites meticulously in a chintzy wooden box. She'd spent hours arranging them, and made a show of picking her night time brew.

All because that man had given her every last bag and tip.

"Heero," she moved her hand over his and played with the watch on his wrist. She was always fiddling with that watch, even when he wasn't wearing it. "Thank you."

"For what?" he asked. He'd only offered her tea, and even that was a misstep.

"Just..." and then she smiled at him. It was a shadow of a smile but it was there, hopeful of something a smile once remembered, "…being you. Being you and being here. I don't know how I would have coped this week alone."

Heero stared at her, not quite sure what to say. He'd never been very thankful for being him. He had no reason to expect anyone else to. He felt his face burn and when she gave a light chuckle he knew she'd seen it.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, "I guess you don't take compliments well."

"I've had compliments all my life," he responded, not sure why he was saying anything but he said it regardless, "my scores, my performance, my academia, even my looks. You're the first one to compliment me."

Relena smiled at him, letting him know with just a look that she'd meant every word she said and every word she hadn't before her eyes once again flickered, and he knew the raw memory of recent events had resurfaced against her will. He wondered how long it would take for those memories to bury themselves deep enough for the light in her eyes to glow at an ember.

"Heero, if I ordered you to kill him, would you do it?" She clutched her fist to her chest, fighting tears he didn't think she still had left in her, and her lip trembled in the attempt. It was a question Relena Darlian would never ask. As far as he was concerned, the woman in front of him was merely her shadow.

"Yes," he answered, honestly, indulging her. If this was what she needed to pull herself out of the mire, then that was what he would give her. Everything made simple, he would obey her orders.

"And that," she pushed herself up off of her chair, taking a large breath that would have ached between her ribs and held down a hand to him, "is why I would never ask."

He saw it there, then, the dimmest sheen of something familiar in the depths of her sapphire orbs and he held her gaze, as if he could blink and it would disappear, a will o' the wisp.

He took her hand and stood before her, a soldier to his queen. She would never ask, and he reaffirmed his position, secure in his simply being.

He accepted her mission, when she came to him on a dying colony over a year ago, because he needed orders. He'd known nothing else, and he needed nothing else.

And after fight after battle after war and after victory, with peace in sight with this woman at helm, it was only natural.

Hers were the only orders he could trust.

"I'll take my coffee now, please."

He stood in the doorway as she worked, curled up on a weathered antique love seat that had once been her mother's.

Papers were strewn across every available surface, in an ordered chaos only she understood. Her fifth cup of coffee that evening was going cold on the small table beside her as she focused intently at the screen of her small laptop, tapping her pen against her teeth as though to resist the urge to bite it.

It was getting into the ungodly hours, and Heero knew she would be tired. He was tired.

But there was nothing he could do to help her along with this one. It was an interesting dilemma, to be sure, but something far away from his areas of expertise. Diplomacy was all her.

She sat up suddenly, but just as quickly slumped back down, a eureka moment lost.

"They all have good points," she mumbled over her pen, not speaking to anyone in particular before fishing around for a document hiding behind a cushion.

A busy night wasn't unusual for her. It was part and parcel of having one of the highest points of office available and actually caring about what is made of it. But this was excessive.

Ever since a vast majority of L2 officials had been uncovered as part of a child trafficking ring, the other colonies, Earth and the newly forming Mars Federation acted quickly to make an example of them.

Their trade routes had been closed, and without provisions soon it wouldn't be the crime rings that flourished in the traditionally poor L2 going without, but the everyday citizen who just wants to make a living and feed their family.

Relena wanted to lift the sanctions as soon as possible but her peers had a problem with doing so without sufficiently starving out the remains of the greedy and corrupt, lest the L2 cluster simply start over again, business as usual.

And she couldn't make that point without be labelled as an overly liberal sympathiser. She certainly couldn't make it without supporting the idea that an armed police force would first need to cleanse the colony, as the opposition were suggesting.

She was between a rock and a hard place, and all he could do was pick up her cool mug, and fill it with another batch of hot liquid energy.

"Don't worry about that," she dismissed, as she reached for the water next to it, "I'll probably go to bed soon."

"You said that two hours ago, when that one was still warm." He reminded her, and took the mug anyway. At least he could wash it up.

She looked over at her father's ornate wall clock and fell back against the arm of the seat. "Is that really the time?" She asked, frustration and tiredness seemingly hitting her all at once. "I wonder if father ever looked at that same clock and felt like he was running his head against the same brick wall?"

"Probably. He also probably spent most of the time hiding it so you wouldn't get stressed on his behalf." He said, pointedly. "You need to sleep. You're useful to nobody tired."

It came out harsher than he intended, but it seemed to do the trick. He saw her move to sit up, before immediately giving up and staying where she had laid herself. There would be no more of this tonight.

Still, it would all be there tomorrow, and even with her head down and her eyes resting he could see the small muscles in her face clenching subconsciously, worry dotting her every feature.

"Can I help?" He asked, knowing that he couldn't. But maybe it would ease her a little, just knowing that other people were there if she needed them.

She sighed sleepily, before turning her head to him in a lazy smile. "No. it's alright. Just keep the coffee coming again tomorrow. Believe me, if I could order you to make this constant headache go away, I would. Just…make my mind go blank for a while." She closed her eyes again, and he knew she had every intention of sleeping there.

Having had a month already of feeling pretty much useless, her statement lingered with him. She'd said it in jest, but it was laced with an honest need for exactly that. She needed to just…stop. But she couldn't because the world would be forever moving without her. Even that man, who she was so enamoured with, couldn't drag her again from it all for too long. Only for a moment, here or there, enough to lift her out of the mire than dragged her down, to give her a fighting chance back on the surface.

Maybe a moment was all she needed.

"Do you trust me?" He said, not sure if it was in his head or if the words had actually left his mouth.

Her eyes flung open again, hearing the uncertainty in his tone, and met with his own. "Of course I do." She answered, with all the will she held to make him believe that. "Why would you ask that?"

He wasn't sure himself, and so he chose not to answer. Things were simple. She gave orders, he followed them, and he was happy with that. She had given an order, and he knew he could comply. Surely, that meant he should comply. But was it really that simple?

"Then let me do as you ask." He said, confidently. If she saw him falter, she would do so as well. If she saw him hesitate, she would question him and he needed her to simply trust him.

He felt her eyes searching his for something, a clue as to what he was thinking, but he wouldn't let her. She once told him that she would never order him to do something he would disagree with. If she knew what he intended, the goodness of her would release him of his orders on that assumption.

Seeing nothing, she nodded, and he put the mug on the sideboard next to him.

"Stand up for a moment."

Brows knitted in confusion, she did as he asked, gripping the arm in support where she hadn't moved from that spot in so long.

To her surprise, he took her place, leaning against the arm of the seat and putting a cushion in front of him.

"Now sit." She faltered slightly at his blunt request, wondering if he knew what sort of position that would put them in before realising that, yes, he knew just that and for some reason didn't care. She should trust him, and not care either.

He held out a hand to help her back down into the seat, legs still creaky from crossing them all evening, and she fell back against his chest.

And immediately sunk back into him. It had been nearly two years since…him. The feeling of someone simply holding her was more powerful than she remembered, and she felt the sting of tears threaten to prickle at her eyes.

"Are you okay?" Heero questioned, sensing her change in demeanour. She nodded, shoulders releasing the sob she was holding in.

She was crumbling, and Heero knew he had to take control.

"Unbutton your blouse." He asked softly, and while she initially tensed at the idea she complied, pushing pearlescent buttons through their loops one at a time with uneasy hands.

He pulled at the collar lightly before pushing it down over her arms, folding it meticulously as he had always done and putting it on the coffee table to their side.

He saw her skin prickle slightly with the cold and placed his warmer hands on her shoulders.

She didn't mean to make the sound she did as she sank back into him, his thumbs finding a spot between her shoulder blades and pushing firmly upward towards the back of her neck. But when he did it a second time, she guessed he didn't mind.

He gently coerced her forward, and he worked his thumbs down her spine, pushing in places she didn't know were tense until they slackened slightly, and she felt her sleep hazy state mix with a feeling of budding contentment. Like a good bottle of wine.

It wasn't until she felt the chill of the air against her front again that she came back into the room, dazed and muscles limp. She felt a sudden pressure release from her back, as white straps came down her arms. She saw him place her bra, folded, on top of her blouse and stared at it for a while.

She knew she was now topless, and by all logic she should feel exposed and vulnerable and object in the strongest possible terms. The words formed in her mouth to command him to stop, to give back her clothing, and leave her be for the night.

She should, and he would.

And yet, in the lingering memory of his hands on her skin and the world melting away under then, she could not compel the words to leave her.

Instead, she moved to lean back against him, not daring to open her eyes to see his beautiful blues staring down at her.

Content that she had given herself over to his care, Heero smoothed his hands over her shoulders again, skin smooth and slightly cool to the touch, only this time travelling down the length of her arms.

He lightly trailed his fingers up her stomach, soft and far too slender where she'd been neglecting her meals. He traced the lines of her rib cage, counting them absently and distracting him from the unbidden reaction forming beneath his beltline.

His fingertips caressed the underside of small, pert breasts and a gasp caught in her throat. Feeling bolder, they fit nicely in to his hands, warming them as he gently palmed the soft flesh.

She arched her back into the sensation with a sigh, and the movement made the small of her back rub against his hardness. He bid himself to ignore the sensation. This wasn't meant for him.

He rolled her nipples firmly between his thumbs and fingers, and the sombre silence that had filled her office over the last month was broken with a surprised "ah!" She gyrated her hips as he rolled them, as though trying to relieve the pressure that was building between her legs with something that wasn't there.

One hand still on her breast, the other slid up her leg, coercing it over his own where he rested it off of the edge of the seat and leaving her splayed open. Her hips still ground against the cushioning beneath her as his hand played dutifully with her mounds, a delighted whimper with each pinch of her hardened buds. The air from the room hit the damp patch on her underwear and made her shudder.

Dipping his hand under the elastic where it hugged her hips, he pushed them downwards, his real goal being exposed to him.

She didn't attempt to close her legs, all thoughts of protest having left her and he knew he was doing the right thing.

Just…make my mind go blank for a while.

His other hand slid up her leg again, this time his fingers dancing on her inner thigh, playing with the sensitive spot at the juncture with her sex. Her hips bucked with a heated gasp, and he looked down at her, pale skin flushed pink, pretty breasts heaving with her heavy breath, and legs openly exposing where she was pink and swollen. He willed himself to put the thought aside; he could take care of himself later.

A probing finger ran up the length of her slit, parting her open and smearing dampness up and over the hood of her clit.

"Oh fuck!" She cried, and his hand left her break to keep her hips still. If she kept doing that, his goal would be impossible.

She rarely cursed, unless she was very angry or very drunk. He guessed this was closer to the latter.

"Stay still." He asked her, as though he wasn't fingering her sex. She felt his chest rumble at the sound of his voice, and somehow it added to the sensation.

Willing herself to let him do as he needed, she hooked her legs around his and gripped the cushioning beside her. From her position she could see everything.

He parted her swollen lips with two fingers before they dipped down, shallowly probing her entrance and coming back up again, swirling around her throbbing clit with her own lubricant. The slippery sensation had her breath catching in her throat, as a steady rhythm of dipping and swirling thrummed through her blood.

All she could focus on was that feeling, of trying to reach for something spectacular because it was so good and so beautiful that her body would explode with it.

His fingers reached down again and this time, she felt them push bluntly against her opening and she was being filled for the first time in so very long.

He pushed them in slowly, giving her time to adjust to the intrusion, and feeling her clench appreciatively around him. She was drenched, and the sounds only served to make his own arousal throb.

When she started moving against his hand again, begging to continue his stimulation, he ground his palm against her overly sensitised clit, and each movement inside her served to rub it over and over again.

"Oooh," she sobbed, her head rolling back against him, "Oh, God."

He felt her flutter around his fingers and he knew she was close. He'd had more than his share of women, back when he could think of very little else to fill the void, and he knew the way that movement felt around his own cock.

He curled his fingers inside her, hitting a spot he knew would drive her mind to the edge, pressing it firmly as his other hand rubbed her clit fast and hard.

"Ah! Oh, fuck. He…Heero!" Her nonsensical cries echoed as she came apart. He saw her tummy spasm in time with her sex, heard her throat catch as she tried to breathe, and felt her grip his forearms as the sensation washed over her every nerve.

When her head lulled against his chest, breath still shallow and heavy, he brought his legs back onto the seat, bringing hers with them.

And so he let her lay there, content, the worry lines that were there early gone, her mound leaking onto the upholstery.

Thoughts of anything beyond the sensitive aftermath of her orgasm far from her mind.

"Relena?" he asked softly, but not knowing exactly what he was asking for.

She peered up at him from her position in his arms, and smiled. He hadn't seen that smile in a long time, the one she used without restraint and with all the kindness she remarkably kept within.

"I think I'll start my morning with tea tomorrow, Heero. And…you may need to call the upholstery people about my mother's antique."

I initially started writing this for another author when she told me she had a thing for a submissive Heero, which nobody seems to write in the 1xR fandom. At first, I dismissed it, because I couldn't imagine a scenario in which that could be both in character and plausible. But then I realised that maybe all he needs to be happy in a post-war life is the right person to give him new orders.

This is a three part fic. This part focuses on both parties establishing the nature of their relationship and the rules within it. The next will be about how it fits in around everything else.