Wild Roses

Chapter Nine

Mid-October AC-190

Kampala City - Uganda

Treize froze in place, staring at his two students in shock.

Not six hours before, he'd been reassuring Zechs that there was nothing wrong with his being gay, operating on the assumption that it was a recent self-discovery for the younger man. Now he was watching the blonde indulge in fairly heavy foreplay with his roommate, and it obviously wasn't for the first time.

This boy – who danced in nightclubs with men he didn't know and kissed well enough that his partner had to pull away for air, panting, as his roommate was having to do – was not the same one as had so shyly confessed his sexuality to Treize, afraid of being rejected. He couldn't be.

And why hadn't Zechs told his teacher what was going on between himself and Otto?

As the older man watched, Otto took a deep breath, fanning himself theatrically as he spoke to Zechs. The blonde laughed at whatever the other boy had said and was rewarded with a wicked smile before Otto reached out and pulled Zechs into another kiss.

Treize felt his feelings roil in him, flashing past so quickly he couldn't name them, as Otto's arms came up to coil around his classmate's neck and Zechs's hands, in turn, traced a slow path down the dark-haired boy's spine until they were resting on his hips. They stayed like that for a few moments, pressed together and shifting slightly.

Treize jumped as someone put a hand on his shoulder and shouted into his ear.

"Khushrenada? What on Earth are you doing here?"

The instructor turned to look at the owner of the voice and came face to face with a fellow member of the Academy's faculty, the young Major who taught Engineering.

"Sir?" Treize asked, surprised.

"I thought it was you! Aren't you straight?"

Treize blinked and fought the blush he could feel threatening. "I… yes, sir."

"What are you doing in here, then? And, for God's sake, quit calling me sir! It's not a good idea in here. My name is Julian."

"Thank you… Julian," Treize responded automatically.

"So?" the other man demanded impatiently, and Treize remembered he'd been asked a question.

"Oh! I was tracking down a couple of cadets."

Green eyes flashed as the older officer grinned. "Little Marquise and his bunkie? I'd been wondering how long it was going to take you to find them in here."

Treize raised an eyebrow. "Do they come in here often?"

"Once a week or so, from what I can gather from the regulars. I've seen them a few times now, occasionally with a group of their friends. I keep an eye on them when I do and try to stay out of their way." He shrugged. "I figure they're as entitled to their fun as the rest of us, as long as they don't get into too much trouble."

"I imagine so, yes. You said something about regulars…?"

"What? Oh, right, you won't know much about this kind of thing." Julian smiled coldly, a hint of the officer he was on-duty. "Any gay scene has its regulars – a group of men, usually, who come into the same clubs night after night. They get to know people, they're always on the look-out for fresh meat, and your protégé, Khushrenada, has been causing quite the stir recently. There are a lot of men in here who would love to get at him."

"Zechs?" Treize spluttered. "Why?!"

"Oh, come on!" Julian began to laugh. "You might be straight, man, but you aren't blind! The kid looks like something out of a wet dream, and that…" he flicked his head in the direction of Zechs and Otto, "… is unbelievably hot!"

Treize took a slow step backwards. "Excuse me?" he asked. "I don't think that's an entirely appropriate sentiment for you to be expressing."

The older officer raised an eyebrow. "It was merely an observation, Captain, nothing more. I'm entitled to acknowledge the obvious."

"Perhaps, yes."

They looked at one another for a moment and then Julian shook his head. "You have nerve, I'll give you that. I wouldn't dream of touching the boy, Khushrenada, he's a cadet! I'm not Vlad the Impaler!"

Treize coughed in surprise, flushing guiltily, and the other man began to laugh. "That's right – you were one of her little conquests, weren't you?" Julian flicked another glance at the two cadets. "I'll leave you to keep an eye on them, since you're here. Don't be too hard – it is half term, after all. If you do let them know you're here and you want to do them a favour, tell them to ease up on the poppers before they make themselves sick." He began to walk away, waving just before he vanished back into the crowds of people.

Treize stared after him for a second, then shook his head.

He turned his attention back to the two boys he'd come to find, having to search a little to locate them again. He was in time to see them pull away from each other, both flushed and breathing hard, grinning madly at one another.

Otto leaned into Zechs to say something into his ear, and the blonde shivered.

The older man watched closely as the dark-haired cadet shook his head, and brushed back a lock of mussed blonde hair with gentle fingers. Zechs said something to him, and got a reply and then they both turned to leave the dance floor and headed deep into the shadows of the lounge area.

Treize gave them a moment and then followed them, weaving between the chairs until he came to a closed, black-painted door and then he stopped, puzzled. There were no markings one way or another on the door, as there were on all the other rooms he'd seen intended for patrons of the club to use.

Presuming that the door led to an area intended for employees only, Treize turned round and began to wander the little lounge space, wondering where Zechs and Otto could have gotten too. He hadn't been that far behind them and they hadn't been out of his sight for that long. With ten minutes of thorough searching, he drew the conclusion that they couldn't be amongst the groups of men in the lounge, involved in everything from casual chat to heavy petting, and he let himself sink into a free chair to collect his thoughts and decide on a next course of action.

A few minutes later, the door opened and a sweaty, dishevelled looking Otto came through it. Treize sat up straight as he caught sight of the cadet, and then got to his feet as the boy spotted him and went pale in the bad lighting.

"Oh my God!" Otto spluttered. "Sir!"

"Good evening, Mr Maxillian." Treize closed the gap between himself and the trainee. "Might I ask where Zechs is?"

The boy swallowed nervously before gesturing vaguely back at the door he had come through. "In there, sir," he answered slowly. "He'll be out in a minute…"

"Will he?"

"Uhm… yes, sir. He should be…"

Treize shook his head and began to step past the younger man. "Oh, he will be, because I'm going to go and get him." He tossed a freezing look at the cadet. "Neither of you should be in here, Mr Maxillian. In fact, neither of you should be off-base at all, and I'm not about to wait around for you any longer." He moved towards the door, pace swift.

A moment later, Treize felt a strong hand catch at his arm and pull him to a stop, preventing him from pushing open the door he had just reached. He turned his head to see Otto looking up at him with a mix of fear and determination on his face.

"Excuse me?" Treize asked coldly.

Otto cringed. "Please don't have me cashiered for saying this, sir," he pleaded, "but please don't go in there! I'll get Zechs! Just… just stay here, please!?"

Treize jerked his arm free and levelled the full force of his coldest glare at the trainee. "I don't think so, cadet."

Otto wilted under the gaze and reluctantly, slowly stepped out of Treize's path to the door.

The instructor threw it open, stepping through into the blackness beyond without hesitation and let the door close behind him.

"Oh, shit!" Otto whispered, as the door swung shut.

****************************

If Treize had imagined that the lighting in the lounge area of the club was poor, it was nothing to how weak it was in this hidden room. As the door swung closed behind him, the room was plunged into darkness enough that Treize had to stand still and close his eyes for a few seconds to force them to adapt.

As he waited, he found that his other senses were working perfectly well. The room was hot, the music – different to what was being played out on the dance floor – still far too loud. Treize had the sense that he was far from alone in the room, that there were other people, though no-one was touching him. He found that if he stretched the limits of his hearing he could make out, in spite of the blare of the music, soft sighs and moans and the sounds of people moving, rubbing against one another.

Realising abruptly that he was holding his breath, he exhaled, breathed in again, and almost choked on the raft of smells as they hit him all at once. The room reeked of spilt alcohol and sweat, a variety of chemicals – sweet and cloying and enough to send him dizzy – and, faintly, the musky tang of sex.

Understanding hit him hard. The state Otto had been in suddenly made perfect sense – the reason for the door being unmarked, and the cadet's insistence that he stay in the main part of the club were explained far too well.

Praying he was wrong in his conclusions, Treize opened his eyes to look around him.

Even with his eyes night-adapted the room was still badly lit, but the instructor was grateful for it now. A quick glance around showed him men scattered about the room, leaning against walls and in corners, plastered across the few bits of furniture. Mostly in pairs, occasionally in threes or, in one case, four, they writhed against one another, working each other's bodies in any and every way Treize would have thought possible, and one or two he wouldn't have.

Convinced he'd stepped into some mediaeval version of hell, the instructor reached behind him, groping for the door handle and the relative sanity of the dance floor, before he remembered why he'd come into the room in the first place.

Somewhere in this extract from a nightmare was Zechs. Treize suddenly had to fight down a wave of images he didn't want as his agile imagination tried to supply him with the possibilities of what the younger man could be doing.

Steeling himself, Treize glanced around the room again, flicking his eyes over the hair and faces of the men in his sight, searching for that distinctive mane and the familiar features.

When he didn't find them, he didn't know whether to feel relieved or distressed. Taking a deep breath, he stepped away from his frozen position by the door and began to make his way deeper into the darkness of the room. It was no small source of relief to Treize that the men he walked past were too engrossed in whatever activity they were indulging in to notice him – either that, or the room operated some sort of odd privacy policy. The idea of being touched by any of these people was enough to make his skin crawl.

As he neared the back wall of the room, a familiar laugh caught the edge of his hearing. Treize turned his head sharply, in time to see white hair shimmer in the darkness as its owner shook his head, laughing again.

Zechs was hiding in one of the furthest corners of the room, leaning his body heavily into that of the red-haired stranger he'd been dancing with earlier. The man said something to the boy and passed him something. Zechs grinned, and pulled away enough that he could fiddle with whatever it was he'd been handed.

Treize took a step or two closer, stopping when Zechs twisted the cap off a small glass bottle and then lifted it to his nose and inhaled deeply. The effect of whatever it held was obvious almost immediately. A deep flush rose under pale skin and Zechs began to giggle uncontrollably as he swayed against his partner again.

The red-head caught him, kissed him hard, and then pulled away to push the cadet to his knees in front of him. Zechs went willingly, reaching out with both hands as he did so to loosen the trousers the man was wearing and slide one hand inside them.

Treize stared, utterly unable to move, as Zechs caught the man's erection in his hand and pulled it free of the confining fabric. He paused for a moment, his hair blocking whatever it was he was doing before the cadet leaned in, ran his tongue over the length he was holding and then closed his mouth over it completely, swallowing repeatedly as he began to work up and down.

Treize shivered as numbing shock gave way to an onslaught of other feelings – a whirl of outrage and betrayal, repugnance and, to his horror, the first pangs of arousal. He shook himself from his daze and, revulsion churning his stomach and fury boiling through his body, crossed the gap between himself and his cadet.

The red-head staggered, hitting the adjacent wall with some force as Treize back-handed him across the face. At the same time, the instructor reached down with his left hand and yanked the stunned cadet to his feet. The older man's grip on the boy's collar was vicious, and if he was catching and pulling strands of Zechs's lengthening hair, Treize couldn't, quite, make himself care.

The red-head uttered one faint squeak of protest and shut up again as Treize glared at him, choosing to sag back against the wall rather than challenge the officer.

"Treize?!"

Zechs's gasped, disbelieving exclamation barely registered on the instructor as he flung the younger man towards the door. "Move, cadet!"

Zechs staggered from the force he was propelled with and shook his head as he tried to get his balance back. Treize's hand in the middle of his spine, shoving him hard, prevented both that and the questions he'd been about to ask.

"Treize, what…?" he got out eventually.

The look Treize turned on Zechs was frigidly cold, showing every ounce of the disgust the older man was feeling. "Don't speak to me, cadet," he snarled and shoved the boy towards the door again.

Zechs felt the ice in that look wash through him as though he'd been poisoned, freezing him. Never, even in his worst nightmares, had Treize looked at him like that. His throat tightened as his emotions roiled and Zechs all-but ran for the door to the room, not knowing whether he wanted more to please the older man in any way he could so Treize wouldn't, ever, look at him like that again – or whether he just wanted to be away from this version of his friend who was scaring him so badly.

Zechs stepped out into the lounge area without looking where he was going and smacked hard into the warm body of another person. He tried to pull away, to turn to wait for his teacher and firm hands caught him and prevented the movement.

"Let me go!" Zechs gasped.

"Easy, love, easy. What's the panic about?"

"Otto?"

"Yes, hon… Did Treize find you…?" The other cadet trailed off as the door to the room banged again and the instructor came through it, his face like a storm. "Never mind."

Treize raked his gaze over the two cadets waiting for him, far from missing the way Otto was holding onto his roommate, or the stunned and frightened expression on Zechs's face.

Feeling more out of control and angry than he could recall feeling for a long time, Treize gestured sharply at the steps that would take them out of the club. "Move, cadets… and not a word!"

Unsteady on their feet, pale with fear, Otto and Zechs turned for the steps and crossed the dance floor, Treize hard on their heels.