10. Onwards

All warnings and disclaimer from chapter 1 apply.

xxx

It was quiet in the dining room, the talk and laughter from the library muffled by two solid doors. Zechs put a bottle and two glasses onto the table while Alex was taking off boots and coat. He came into the room rubbing his hands, in socks, rollneck jumper and corduroys, his cheeks and nose flushed from the cold. He sat down and waited for Zechs to pour the drinks.

After a moment, he cleared his throat. "Are you angry?"

Zechs glanced at him. "You did your job."

"I didn't want to lie to you."

Zechs thought that he wasn't his usual self. "I've been in the business for too long," he said, surprising himself at how calm he felt. "You got yourself the position here. You'll handle the estate and keep track of Marimaia; I'll go back to the project. It's a great fit."

"I'm sorry," Alex said miserably.

"Did you know?"

Alex shook his head. "I wanted to see you. They offered me a chance." He paused, as if looking for the right words. "Is that it?" he asked at last.

Zechs met his gaze. It didn't hurt as much as he'd feared, but it hurt more than he'd expected. "Trust," he said quietly, "It would have helped."

Alex broke away to stare into his drink. There was a long silence before he spoke. "Will you marry her? Lucrezia?"

Zechs dropped into his chair and reached for the bottle. "I'll do whatever is necessary."

One night, he thought uncomfortably. Twins. Is that why she wanted to sleep with me? And you, Tre – did you really not know about Marimaia? In any case, I want to do this differently. Better.

Alex raised his glass, and tossed the drink back in one gulp.

After the third drink, Zechs glared at him. "You never ask."

Alex shook his head. "Should I? Does it matter?"

Zechs wrapped his hands around the glass. "Why not?"

Alex glanced out of the French doors. Around the bird fountain on the meadow, a few crows were pecking in the snow for crumbs. "Well, perhaps it does. The rumours… I had a crush on you ever since getting close to you. Endless lectures, field work, exams… the whole Mars thing…"

"Maybe that's all there's to it."

That environment, the pressure, the stress – no privacy, no real break, and always on the brink of an emergency… yes, perhaps that was it.

Alex shook his head. "I had to get drunk to have the balls to ask you out. And then…" He turned back to look at Zechs with a subdued smile. "This revelation, you know."

"Revelation?"

Alex leaned forward and refilled their glasses once more. He set the bottle down with a hard clonk. The vodka sloshed against the clear glass like water caught in ice.

"That you were quite normal."

Zechs stared at him.

Alex leaned back, glass in hand. "You need to move on."

"And what would you know about that?"

Alex saluted him. "My family have thrown me out. Perhaps time will help."

There was a long pause before Zechs drew a deep breath. "It doesn't."

"Yes, it does." Alex drank, then set his glass onto the table with the careful gesture of someone who had drunk too much. "Where is the bathroom?"

xxx

They took a plate with black bread and butter from the kitchen, and a plastic bowl because Alex felt queasy, and Zechs unlocked Treize's room. They put bowl and plate down by the bedside and left their clothes where they fell.

"I can't do anything," Alex grunted when they dropped into the down bedding.

"I'm too drunk," Zechs said, and they both chuckled.

Alex turned his back. His words were slurred when he said, "This is the first time I've seen you like that."

"Like what?"

"Not… unhappy."

Zechs hesitated, listening to Alex' breathing, and pushing through the fog of drunkenness he felt a strange mix of loss and reassurance.

And why would this be?

He slid his arm across Alex' arm until he could lay his hand against Alex' chest to feel his heartbeat. He put his face against Alex' hair. It smelled of coarse tobacco, soot and a bit of sweat – a warm, homely smell, and suddenly longing tore at him, ripping into his mind with breathtaking force. He pressed hard.

"Ouch," Alex gasped quietly, and then Zechs felt Alex' hand settling on his. It was a firm touch, confident without being possessive.

It confused him, and he pulled back. Alex rolled onto his stomach, pulled the pillow under his shoulders, and soon he was snoring quietly. Zechs watched him.

Why does it have to be so complicated? Is it? And was it like that with us? No, scratch that. We were in a different league, weren't we? Complicated to the power of ten. And yet, it's all quite simple when you forget about thinking… all this thinking… wanting to know… do we really have to know everything? It's so tiring.

xxx

Zechs stared at Treize who, still in Zechs' morning gown whose sleeves were a touch too long for him, was sitting in the cool sunlight of the early morning. The French doors of the drawing room stood open, the ashes on the hearth were cold, and the smell of cold apple wood smoke suffused the room. Treize had arrived after the funeral of his mother was over1, the family and visitors had gone, and the house was silent. It hadn't stopped word to go out that he was back, and a steady trickle of visitors disturbed the quiet he was seeking. He had not complained but dealt with every plea for help, money or comfort with apparently endless patience.

"Sometimes I feel as if I didn't know you at all," Zechs flung at him.

Treize glanced up. Zechs wore a sloppy grey tee and jeans, arms crossed, hair unkempt and wound into an untidy knot at the nape of his neck. His face was drawn and haggard, his posture resembled a living exclamation mark, but the impression was softened by the bunched blanket he clutched against his chest.

Treize smiled. "And I? Do I know you?"

"Yes." Prompt, like a bullet.

Treize shook his head, his gaze slipping to the line of trees at the edge of the meadow. "Sometimes…" His voice faded, he cleared his throat and started again, "I love you… so much that sometimes-"

"It gets in the way?"

Treize looked up again; for a moment, they glared at each other, then Treize swallowed. "Yes," he admitted reluctantly.

Zechs dropped an envelope into Treize's lap. "I kept this for you."

Treize opened it. A dry rose was inside, and in the faded yellow tones he could see darker speckles and stripes on white petals. Red and white.

"It was the first one that year you didn't come back."

"I am back."

"Are you?" Zechs paused, unfolding his arms. His fingers dug into the blanket. "Why won't you let me-"

"Last night," Treize cut in, closing the envelope over the rose, "I tried to kiss you."

It had been a tender, yielding kiss and embrace, it had felt oddly soft, unlike Treize – and Zechs, irritated and anxious, had stoked him until it had been as always – fast, heated, rough, a few moments to forget everything else.

"Why do you want this?" Treize went on. "To prove something? To change something? What if you don't like the change?"

"Nothing will change because I screw you once in a while."

A small, lopsided smile curved Treize's lips. "No?"

"No."

"Then what's the point?"

"This isn't something for your logic," Zechs burst out, feeling tricked. "It's no big deal."

Treize shrugged. "Then why does it bother you so much?"

Zechs reddened. For a moment, he looked ready to explode, but then he only sagged a little. "I don't know. It just does." He roughly draped the blanket around Treize's shoulders. "Somehow, it doesn't feel fair."

xxx

Zechs woke from the busy dripping of water onto the wooden window ledge outside. Vague light filled the room, without reaching the corners. He turned his head until he could see: Frost still patterned the window panes, but it was becoming transparent. He guessed that the icicles dangling from the carved eaves were finally starting to melt.

An odd thing, forgiveness. And trust. What a grand concept. You could forgive, Tre; I'm not so sure about trust. How did you make it look so easy? Is that what you meant by love?

For a while, he lay still under the soft down duvet. Alex was close and warm, and Zechs closed his eyes for a moment to will away everything but the sensation of skin to skin. Alex's breathing was even and slow. Zechs shifted until he could watch him sleep. Alex lay half on his stomach, half on his side, the pillow-corner bunched into a roll under his neck. His mouth was slack, expressionless, drooling a little. Zechs slid his arm across Alex' back and around, against his chest. He pressed against him as he started to stroke Alex' nipple until it perked. He let his fingers wander down Alex' flank, slip across the back of Alex' thigh and between his legs. He listened to Alex' breathing hitch, then a soft sigh, almost a groan.

It made… makes me feel small, all that resentment, but without it, what would be left of me? Perhaps I can forgive you now. That would be… nice, I guess.

Zechs shifted until he was on top of Alex, and pushed his legs apart. Sleepily, Alex groped for purchase and grasped the edge of the bed. Zechs shoved the pillow under Alex' belly to raise his hips, and leaned down until Alex bore his full weight.

It was slow and hard, wordless and laced with grunts and panting, until Alex tensed with a belly-deep, shuddering groan, and Zechs bit him on the back of the neck, holding him fast as if to crush him. Spent, they fell apart. For a moment, Zechs lay still, catching his breath, eyes closed as the aftershocks of release throbbed through him.

Alex pulled the pillow from under his stomach and bunched it under his neck again. "It wasn't about the job," he said into the sudden stillness. His voice was muffled and unhappy.

"I know." Zechs sat up. The bare, waxed floorboards felt cold against the soles of his feet. He curled his toes. "I know how it works."

Alex rolled onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows. "I was in a squeeze."

"Yes." And I'm in no position to judge anyone.

"You and the General – did you trust each other?"

"What, you want me to discuss hearsay?"

"They showed me a file."

"And that proves what?"

Alex shook his head and fell back into the pillows. He stared at the ceiling. "I didn't want a one-night stand. I wanted to live with you."

Zechs half-turned and leaned down, hovering over him. For a moment, they stared at each other, until Zechs said, "I know." He kissed Alex. "We should have left it with a quick screw."

"Is that all you want?"

"We can't always have what we want."

"How is it, to have that… thing in your head?"

"What?"

"The system. Zero."

Zechs pushed back and bent to fish for his socks among the clothes that lay in a messy pile by the bed. "I don't know what kind of rubbish they fed you when they scoped you out."

"That's the problem, isn't it?"

Zechs got up to tug his trousers on and close his belt. "What problem?"

"That you keep looking over your shoulder, all the goddamn time." Alex pushed back the warm duvet and rose. He shivered in the cold room – so cold that his breath formed a faint plume and his skin went prickly with goosebumps – and began to dress quickly: long flannels, a thick woolly jumper, corduroys.

Zechs paused to watch him move. Alex looked homely, Zechs thought, in a nice, grounding way. Knowing that there was a twist, that he was most but not all he seemed, added a certain spiciness. It made Zechs want to forget everything else and just stay in bed and do it all over again, feel the skin under all those layers, feel muscles shift and tense and push back, hold on, until he felt firmly, securely rooted – like a tree in the rich, black earth of what had become his home. A tree that would grow and spread, no matter how many storms might shake it…

He reached out, touching Alex' hand. "It comes with the job, doesn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," Alex said bitterly. "I wish I'd said no when they asked me. I had no idea…"

"Really?"

Alex bit his lip. "You know, I can see your point. Perhaps in the end we all turn out like that. What do you want me to do now?"

Zechs slipped into a long-sleeved, ex-issue tee, pushed his hand behind his neck and under his hair and flicked it out with an absentminded, routine gesture. "I don't know," he said, "just… let it rest."

"I could wait. If there was a chance."

"I'll be in touch," Zechs said, not quite as sure as he wanted to be. "The estate…"

Alex gave him a faded smile. "Sure."

There was a small break. Zechs took an elastic band from his jeans pocket and tied his hair into an untidy knot at the nape of his neck.

He let Alex lean against him. For a moment or two, there was nothing else. It felt good to be like this, in this cold, silent room that held nothing but their breathing and their heartbeat, filling with the first light of a late spring.

"I wish you'd stay," Alex said. "Or that I could come with you."

Zechs pulled back and met Alex' gaze. "You can't."

Alex sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on thick, knitted socks. "I know."

Zechs bent and touched his brow to Alex' forehead. "Take care. And whatever you hear, don't believe it until you hear it from me."

And that, he thought as he left the house to sling his backpack into Une's jeep, had to be enough. Lucrezia sat on one of the backseats. She avoided looking at him but stared out at the snow-dusted meadows and bare forest, the first hints of green adding a touch of spring to the wintry browns and greys and whites.

Zechs looked back as Une started the engine. Alex stood in the door, his arms folded. Only when the jeep was almost out of sight did he raise his hand. Zechs laid his hand against the windowpane.

There would have to be trust.

Trust meant waiting.

And waiting meant there had to be hope.

xxx

The End

1 Lightning Arc 1 - Burning