Damn, I wish I was your lover

By RaVen0us

Note: Yesssss---some terms I coined from fic inspirations. You guys know who you are ;) This part has a lot of OC's too just to add a little spice for the story line AND the bizarre love rectangle. Man it's getting uber complicated. Mwahahaha. Oh. Please bear with me---I haven't update my other titles yet =_=

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Part three: Am I mistaken?

"Fuck, Irvine, HOW dare you!" Karl cussed, and jumped back a good 4 feet.

Stunned, Irvine gaped at the outraged colonel and braced himself to be smacked with a fist. Karl Schubaltz didn't impress him as a person who would take to having his person fiddle with, and certainly Irvine isn't a man who wanted to fiddle it, anyway. And the colonel looked outraged, but the fist didn't come. The bewildered wide green eyes just stared at him, looking mad and shocked. No more shocked than he felt, Irvine was certain.

"I didn't know it was you." he whispered, his tanned face was actually hot. He glanced around to see if anyone had witnessed their encounter, but they were alone.

"Oh, so you make it a practice to sneak up on ANY man in the dark you sick son of a---a-" Karl sputtered in a low angry buzz, unable to finish his sentence. But his meaning was clear.

"No, I thought you were--- well, someone else---"

"You mean you thought I was my younger brother, Thomas."

Irvine folded his arms over his chest, feeling guilty and defensive, like a kid caught stealing candy. He couldn't very well confess that Karl was right. Well damn it, he never worn his hair like he wore it tonight. Someone must have given Karl's boring look a make-over somehow. His hair was sleeked back, and the supposedly sharp tresses seem to take a natural curl. He never wore it that way, but Thomas did. Irvine made a quick going over, and he knows damned well too, that Karl's basic wardrobe consists of either an imperial uniform or a black long sleeves and gray slacks. The colonel is wearing muted earth colors and pastels, just like what Thomas will be wearing. Irvine guessed that the young lieutenant might have lent some clothes to his socially inept older brother :P

God, this is awkward. Why had he ever come to this stupid party?

"Look, Colonel Schubaltz, sir. I thought you were someone else and I'm really sorry I bothered you. Let's just leave it at that." Irvine started to walk away when Leon approached. He was a sincere, mysterious man, and despite Karl's starched exterior, he didn't seem like Karl's type.

"Karl, I've been searching for you." Leon said, "We've been looking everywhere for you. I've sensed your presence here somehow--" he stopped and peered at Irvine through the darkness, then recognizing him, extended one hand. "You must be Irvine. I'm glad to see you've made it to this gathering. I heard that you came to the Colonel's 'rescue' this morning."

Karl jabbed Leon lightly with an elbow.

Irvine glanced at the astringent colonel, and then shifted his weight from one foot to the other; uncomfortable with the phrase 'came to Colonel's rescue'. Karl didn't look happy about it, either.

"Not really---" Irvine replied, "I just heard one of the female attendants scream."

Leon pressed on, "Well, come on inside. We're about to have supper, and if you haven't tried Moon bay's fried chicken, you don't know what you're missing."

Irvine shook his head. There was nothing he wanted more than to get away from the situation. "No thanks, Leon. I have some work to finish." he nodded at Karl, "Colonel, sir."

Karl watched him walk away with a sense of relief. That kiss----besides being shaken, he felt oddly winded and dizzy, as though he'd been holding his breath ever since he first touched him.

"Let's go in Karl," Leon said, and pulled on his arm.

Karl glanced at the moon, longing more than ever to spend a few minutes alone with him. "Leon, wait---"

He turned back to him expectantly, "What is it?"

He sighed, and shook his head... "No--never mind."

Leon smiled lazily, "Well okay, let's get there first before Thomas and the others finishes the whole supper then."

As he led the way back to the hall, Karl glanced over his shoulder at the full moon. He had his answer. If the silly amulet had any powers, Leon wouldn't be thinking about fried chicken. :PPPP

***

"Bro, you've hardly eaten anything of your supper." Thomas said worriedly, "Are you feeling alright?"

Around them, conversation buzzed and silverware clinked. Leon was on the other side of the room. Next to Thomas, was Ruth Watson, one of the few women who danced and clings on the lieutenant, lingering in helpless infatuation for having the honor to dance with a Schubaltz, and now hoping for a morsel of the blonde's attention, and Thomas cannot refuse her.

"Yes of course," Karl answered, a bit too quickly. "The chicken is delicious; Moon bay is an excellent cook." He tried to act as if nothing had happened, but it only made him more edgy and restless. He wished he could just go back to his headquarters.

"How do you know? You haven't even tasted it." Van exclaimed, stuffing a mouthful, and was seated just a chair apart from Thomas.

Karl looked at his worried brother, and to the eating Van, then down to his plate. The chicken sat on his plate, untouched. "Sorry, it's so hot in here. I guess I'm getting a headache."

"I thought it was really good, Thomas." Ruth said, piping up and snuggling close to the lieutenant. Karl can hear a mewing sound coming from the young woman and shivered.

"Ruth," Thomas said sweetly, "I'm just about to be parched. Would you do me a big favor and get me some more lemonade?"

"I'd be happy to, Thomas," Karl eyed the woman strangely, and the woman stammered, "--uh, I mean Lieutenant!" The woman was nearly beside herself with eagerness; she grabbed his punch glass and sprang from the chair to get some lemonade. Thomas watched her until she was gone, then leaned closer. "Thank heavens! That woman has been buzzing around me all evening! I wish I never told her that I'm a Schubaltz."

Karl poked his chicken with his fork. "I've heard that Ms. Watson is a very nice young woman with good prospects and her relatives have active connections with the imperial forces." he said, "Much BETTER involvement, than some other people you know BACK at the Guardian Force."

Thomas blushed mildly and frowned, shyly bowing his head as he stabbed a piece of his potato salad. "Ruth is just a girl. I want someone who's---er, well--- with much more attitude and more grown-up. I guessed some one with more experience and being really down to earth." He looked around the crowded hall as though searching for someone, then brought his green gaze back to his brother's. "I saw you outside."

Karl's heart nearly stopped, "Outside? What are you talking about?"

Thomas gave him an impish, satisfied smile. "You don't have to play coy with me, bro. I saw you and Leon in the moonlight, and I'd guess that's what has you so unsettled. I was looking for Irv---I was getting a breath of air myself." He primly dabbed his mouth with the table napkin. "Naturally, I came back inside before I saw anything between you, but--- you're blushing. Just like a red tomato, Karl! You NEVER blush!"

Karl swore the others in the table have heard it loud and clear. Van starts to choke in a piece of his chicken and Moon bay nearly bursts the lemonade out from her mouth, Fiona--well, she seems just to stare as usual, like she have heard an alien language.

He can't tell Thomas that Irvine had changed that. Karl's face burned hotter, but despite his embarrassment, he was relieved. Better that his younger brother think he'd been sparking outside with Leon than guess the truth.

Thomas stared across the room at Leon, "I guess Leon isn't a completely hopeless sobersides after all."

*****

Irvine walked down the center of the main street. Except for the rustle of night creatures in the brush, it was quiet. Almost everyone had gone to the party. He looked up at the moon. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen one so bright and full. It was a lover's moon. The rest of the sky was filled with stars, twinkling bluish white, and they seemed so close for a minute he thought that if he stood in the roof of his quarters, he could touch them. The air carried the whispered scent of crushed lavender making him think of----

He shook his head. Damn, where did all that sappy hogwash come from?

He hasn't even planned to go to that dance. What had happened tonight? How could he have gotten the two brothers confused? It had to have been more than just his hair. He only knew that he'd been watching Thomas long enough for him to notice him, too. Then he disappeared and something---a compelling force, he couldn't say just what---had pulled him outside. The first thing he'd seen was that moon. Then he'd seen Thomas waiting for him, standing there looking dreamlike. Except it wasn't him.

It might have been the beer, he decided. He'd just have one but even now he felt a little drunk, a bit lightheaded. That had to account for his error, and for the powerful arousal Karl stirred in him. A mug of beer, the sight of Thomas Schubaltz dancing, some moonlight, a little loneliness.

An iceberg of a man like Karl Schubaltz is not definitely his type. But the longer he considered it, the more he was inclined to admit that something about him had seemed different. The way the moonlight caught in his short, strawberry blonde hair was enough to make a man/woman look at him twice. When he kissed him, he'd been soft to the touch, with a frame that he imagined would mold to his very well. But it was his younger brother he'd gone in search of, not him. All at once his attraction to Thomas had slowly simmered.

He unlocked the door to his quarters. In the gloom, the long barrels of rifles hanging on the wall gleamed dully. It was all too mixed up for him to figure out tonight. He'd probably work on those tomorrow, but that didn't matter. It wasn't as though he had a family to spend Sunday with. His hopes for that life had died more than five years ago in some heathen colony somewhere in the side of the republic.

He struck a match on the rough wall to light his kerosene lamp and carried it up the dark narrow stairs to his room where he pulled off his clothes and flopped naked on the bed. Damn, but it was like an oven up here. The lamp flame made it seem worse. He reached out to turn it down. A soft night breeze lifted the curtains and ruffled the fine hair on his body.

He fell in the world of half-dreams, remembering the look on Sarah's face when he'd gone to tell her about her little brother. She'd called him a cold-blooded son of a bitch and had flung her engagement ring at him. After that, everything in his life had gone to hell, and in the years that he'd had to think about it, he wasn't sure that Sarah had been wrong.

That thought faded when Karl Schubaltz's image rose in his mind's eye again. Restless and hot, he rolled over, trying to shut him out. He even tried to envision him as he'd looked this morning when he complained about him lying in the sun trying to dry his slacks: the stiff, disapproving military-ethical marm. But as he began to drift off again, the picture faded.

Instead, Thomas stood before him under an oak tree on a spring afternoon. His cheeks were flushed with color, and his green eyes gazed up at him, half-shy, half-seductive. The sun dappled his hair with yellow fire, highlighting its deep blonde tresses. The lieutenant leaned closer and put his hand on his chest, his soft lips parted in offer to his. Sweet. His skin and hair smelled sweet, and earthy. He was impossible to resist.

Irvine covered his hand with his own and touched his mouth to his, full and warm. That touch went straight to his head. He pulled him closer. The kiss grew stronger, more urgent-more demanding. Thomas never struck him as the aggressive type---and yet,

Under his hands, he can feel that his shoulders have become broader and firmer to touch. He does not wear his protective gear and his chest pressed against his own. It wasn't the lithe slender figure from Thomas that he felt, it was something much bigger, much muscular---and when Irvine opened his eyes, he saw the widest green jade orbs staring at him.

Karl?!

"Irvine," he whispered, when he released his mouth. "Liberate me----"

Irvine lurched back to wakefulness, sweat-soaked and painfully aroused. Looking around the room, he was frustrated and relieved to find that he'd only been dreaming. But god, it had seemed so real. He'd felt his arms twined around his neck, heard his whisper in his ear. Even awake, he swore he could smell the faint, delicious fragrance of him. He was all wrong for him, he reminded himself, and he was with this 'Leon' guy to be with after his leave.

He turned over and punched his pillow. He knew he shouldn't have gone to that goddamn dance.

*****

It was a day meant for the two of them. The spring afternoon was mild and new, and the birds twittered over head in the branches of the oak.

Karl pressed a hand to his lover's chest. He smelled of leather and soap. He was the most handsome man he'd ever known, he thought proudly. His white shirt was unbuttoned to the breast bone, and he longed to put a kiss in the hollow of his throat, just there, where his shadow fell. A light breeze ruffled his sun-streaked hair, brushing it back from his eyes. He gazed up into his eyes---when had he ever seen eyes that gray? ----and beheld unmistakable, powerful desire, and love. Even though he wasn't as warm and sociable or as glowing like his brother, he knew he thought he was attractive, and he had chosen him for his own.

His lips parted as if of their own volition, and he lowered his face to his, taking them in a moist, lush kiss. No one else had kissed him like this. He'd never felt ANYTHING like this. Hot and breathless, aware of every heartbeat. He pressed him against his long torso, enfolding him in his arms.

"Karl," he said, his voice low, intense. "Let me liberate you----please."

The ashen blonde colonel's eyes flew open. Then he sat up with a jerk, his head swiveling around as he picked out the dark shapes of furniture. It wasn't spring; it was a sultry summer night. He was in his own room, in his own bed, not in a green meadow. His heart pounded from what? Fear? Shock? Or was it something else?

Anxiously, Karl rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. A dream, it had been an insane, embarrassing dream, full of vivid, wanton images of himself with IRVINE? He pushed off the sheet and got up to stare out by the open window. The moon had set, leaving only the stars to light the low, dry scrub beyond the yard. Perspiration struck his thin pajamas to his body.

What had he been thinking of to cause such a dream? Truth be told, he'd been unable to thing of anything or anyone else since that episode outside the dance hall. He had trouble just putting a name on it, even in the privacy of his own heart.

Carefully, reluctantly----it was like lifting the lid on a box of snakes---- he went over the dream. Instead of Irvine, he tried to imagine Leon holding him, kissing him, but his mind recoiled from the image. And when he gave Leon's voice to Irvine's words he shuddered despite the heat. He slammed the lid down again and guiltily locked it. He's an imperial colonel finally taking his leave from his duty, and journey with Leon a little more than a month's time, and here he was, having unchaste, sweaty dreams about the pilot. A MAN who have kissed him because he had mistaken him for Thomas.

If he had only stayed inside with the dance hall with the stupid punch bowl. How would he be able to look Irvine in the face when they next meet? And it was inevitable that they would, for his quarter is just near where he is taking his office. He considered and discarded two or three different scenarios, before deciding on his only possible course of action. He would be his stoical self. After all, he was just a pilot and he is an officer of the imperial army. He is just slacking off at their military fort, just because he had connections with Flyheight and the others. But still he is still within his jurisdiction, which gave Karl some advantage. He'd simply pretend that none of it had ever happened.

If he could