The setting of a departure date for the convoy sent Yzak into a frenzy of work, driving Dearka and the mechanics along with him. It soon became apparent that damage to both the mobile suits from their high-impact landing had proved more extensive than first thought. Duel had also suffered a lot of systems damage due to the overcharging of the thrusters during re-entry; Dearka grew very thoughtful indeed, when he discovered just how much.
There was no way they could have been finished in time to meet the original deadline. In the event, they had another nine days. The convoy was postponed, while Transport Command struggled to find the replacement BCOWs that Waltfeld requested. Yzak had come back from the TC Office with the announcement, and drawn Dearka into a quieter corner of the busy hangar to tell him.
"Well, that's good news for us, at least," said Dearka bracingly.
"I'm not so sure. If Waltfeld's losing BCOWs like that, he's really struggling to contain the Strike. The Legged Ship could break out of there, and we'd miss our chance. That bastard in Strike could get away again, dammit!"
Yzak's face was flushed with anger. He looked as if he was working up to one of his tantrums, when he would have to lash out at something to unleash his feelings. Dearka short-circuited the process by placing his hands on Yzak's shoulders and giving a loving squeeze. This had become their private signal: the nearest they could come in public to an embrace or hug. Relax. It's going to be all right. Calm down. I'm here for you. It worked this time, too.
As Dearka's gloved hands slipped from the shoulders of the rather grubby overalls that Yzak had borrowed from one of the slighter mechanics, Yzak gave him a ragged smile, but at least looked less wound up. "You realise why they're having trouble getting Waltfeld's BCOWs, though? The big operation that's coming up must be pulling in a lot of the available ZAFT resources here on Earth. If they're that far along with the preparations, then Commander Le Creuset will be coming down soon. We'll loose our chance for an independent attack. He's bound to bring Zala and Amalfi with him. I want to do this while they're not in the picture!"
"Yeah," growled Dearka, nodding emphatic agreement. He felt the same way, but all they could do was complete the work on their mobile suits as quickly as possible, and then wait on events.
The days passed in a blur. What little waking time the boys didn't spend in the mobile suit hangar, was grudgingly divided between meals, showers, and going over the rather scanty reports which had come in from Waltfeld: movement of local Resistance vehicles in and around Banadiya, and a Blue Cosmos incident quickly resolved by Waltfeld's men. At least there was no evidence of the Legged Ship going anywhere, yet.
Their nights were spent exploring each others bodies and getting just enough sleep to survive on. Dearka had never been more physically content. The tentative boy/girl relationships and occasional one-night stands, which had fallen to his lot in the past, had never really met his needs. He now appreciated just how deprived he had been before Yzak.
Yzak was a revelation. Dearka had always thought of him as being extremely inhibited. Exactly what kind of sexual inclinations Yzak had been repressing had been one of the many Yzak Joule mysteries; one that had now been fully resolved. He took to learning the techniques of lovemaking, with all the single-minded attention he brought to weapons-practice.
Dearka had smiled dirtily to himself at the Freudian overtones of the thought when it occurred to him, and decided wisely not to share it with his sometimes cranky lover. The delay in getting to grips with their quarry was definitely wearing on Yzak's nerves, despite the release from physical tension that Dearka was able to give him.
Barracks Room (late afternoon)
The reappointed day for the convoy's departure had at last arrived. They finished their final preparations, with enough time for a decent meal and some sleep. They were due to take off in the early hours of the next morning. Yzak went directly back to their room from the final checks in the mobile suit hangar; Dearka detoured to a couple of vending machines he'd found in the corridors, where he bought a quantity of packaged cookies and candy bars. The thought of a long flight in a lumbering mobile suit transport plane, with only ZAFT emergency rations to nibble, definitely did not appeal to him. He bought enough for Yzak, too; he knew he would never condescend to admit to wanting anything like that, but some of them would still disappear while in his immediate vicinity during the journey.
When Dearka came through their door, he heard the com-unit in operation. From his position, he could hear but not see Ezalia Joule on the screen: "….and this would be invaluable. Not just for the present advantages, but after the war as well. A lifetime of favourable publicity can be garnered from having that sort of story associated with one's name."
Yzak heard Dearka walk into the room behind him, and turned half way round to greet him with a wave. "Ah, Mother, Dearka just came in. Sorry, I'll have to go now."
His mother smiled fondly. "That's all right, Yzak. I quite understand."
Dearka was outside her viewer range, but she smiled vaguely into the middle distance by way of acknowledging his presence: "Hello, Dearka. You will be pleased to know that your father is quite well. Do you have any messages for him?"
Dearka spoke loudly so the com-unit mike would pick up his words from across the room: "Uh, thanks Ms Joule. Just say hello for me, and tell him that I'm fine."
"I'll do that. Very well, I'll be in touch again soon, Yzak. Be careful. End communication." And she was gone.
Dearka raised his eyebrows quizzically at Yzak, but he knew better than to put his question into words. Sometimes one got more information out of Yzak by giving him a silence to fill. Such proved to be the case on this occasion. Yzak looked vaguely annoyed, though his face still had the softened look it usually got in his mother's presence.
"Mother was just dishing out a little advice about my hypothetical future political career. She feels a victory against the Strike or the Legged Ship will create a 'legend' about whoever achieves it; the sort of thing that stays in voters' memories."
"War-hero stuff, eh?" offered Dearka, dumping his junk food on the bed and sorting it into two piles.
"Apparently there have been rumours circulating widely in the PLANTs, about the Strike, in particular. Censorship has prevented any real information getting out, but it's amazing what the grapevine can do. Mother thinks it's a great opportunity."
"How do you feel about that?" said Dearka, tossing Yzak a candy bar of a type he knew he liked. Yzak plucked the flying candy bar out of the air with a snake-like snatch, without even missing a beat in their conversation.
"You know how badly I want to take down that fucking Strike… For me, it's strictly personal. I don't share my mother's sense of political calculation." He shrugged, "Don't get me wrong. I take after my mother in a lot of ways; I understand her perspective, but …" Here he seemed to get suddenly lost in thought.
"Try the candy bar" said Dearka, hoping to jog him loose from whatever thought-loop he had got himself stuck in.
It did the trick. "What the fuck are you doing giving me candy, when we haven't had our meal yet? Do you want to spend the rest of the evening hyped up on the sugar in all that crap?"
Barracks Room (later that night)
They'd had their meal, showered, packed their few things in a couple of small bags, and climbed into bed. They always shared a bed now, just as by unspoken agreement, they always left a desk lamp at one of the computer terminals turned on, with its shade adjusted to give mellow background light to their part of the room. Two big brave ZAFT pilots who both feel better with their night light thought Dearka tiredly, lying there looking at its glow.
They had assumed their now regular position, with Dearka on his back, cuddling Yzak face-down against his chest. Dearka's mind drifted over the work they had put in on the Duel these last days. So many of its systems were fried, Yzak. You must have known how close you came to killing yourself for me. And I daren't say a word to you about it. I know how you'll react…. Dearka abandoned the thought and started to stroke Yzak's back.
Yzak gave a soft sigh, appreciative of the caress, though his thoughts prevented true relaxation. His chance at the Strike was coming at last….I should've told her I didn't give a shit about publicity. I just want to see that bastard go down. But what would be the use…Damn you Mother dear, for breeding me as your political candidate….
It had been like that as long as he could remember. His mother's political ambitions for him had been the thread that ran through everything in his childhood. At least it brought me Dearka…the thought drifted into his mind. With it came memory of his seventh birthday party. An event arranged by his mother to entertain a glittering array of her political friends and contacts, while a select group of their similar-aged offspring attended a children's birthday party, in another wing of the Joule mansion.
The problem of course had been that Yzak didn't really like other children. He had no friends at school and was only slightly acquainted with the kids his mother had summoned to the charade of a birthday party. A couple of them were complete strangers in fact, including a slightly chubby blonde boy, with brown skin and laughing violet eyes. Yzak had disliked him on sight.
"Say, Dearka. Do you remember when we met?"
"Yeah, sure. Never forget that day. What's suddenly made you think of that?"
"Oh, I don't know. Just floated into my mind for some reason. I didn't like the look of you at all, you know!"
Dearka laughed. "Yeah, well, I can't say I was impressed with you, either. More puzzled, I guess."
"Puzzled?"
"Well, I'd never seen another kid with your coloured hair, plus you were wearing a black velvet bow-tie. It made me want to pull it off your neck to see what it was."
"Bastard. I remember you did, later, during the fight."
Dearka nuzzled his face for moment in the top of Yzak's soft hair. "Yzak, you can't get angry with me retrospectively after ten years! I was six, for pity's sake."
Yzak couldn't remember what started their fight. There had been an escalating series of childish insults, irritation fuelled by too much sugar and noisy surroundings, and then they had been rolling around on the floor flailing at each other.
"Who first threw the food? It was one of the girls, but I can't recall her face now."
"Beats me, Yzak. I just remember from fighting one another, we were suddenly in the centre of a circle of other kids, yelling their heads off, and throwing food at us."
"And then you scooped some of it off your shirt and threw it back."
Dearka grinned. "And you just stood there screeching, 'it's in my hair, it's in my hair!'"
Yzak smiled. "It was, too. You said, 'Scrape it out and chuck it back. Let's get 'em!' I remember you were grinning all over your face."
And that's how the party had wound up. Two little boys standing back to back, firing all the food scraps they could lay their hands on, while the group around ducked and yelled and dived for more ammunition of their own from the now wrecked party table.
Nannies and servants had come pouring into the room and broken up the melee.
There were tears, recriminations, forcible baths, parental apologies, the whole messy aftermath. But somehow through it the two little boys had stayed allies, even going through their bath together. Yzak remembered the giggling while his nanny scrubbed with a heavy hand to get cake icing out of his hair. Ordinarily he would have screamed the place down at such treatment, but suddenly with the blonde kid there hooting with laughter, it had seemed funny….He remembered later standing in the driveway watching the Elsman car depart, with Dearka smiling and waving through the back window. He had experienced a sense of emptiness at that moment that he couldn't put a name to at the time. He'd had no vocabulary to describe loneliness.
But the succeeding days brought visits from Dearka, a trip to the park together with their nannies, a life that had slowly built up around companionship with Dearka. Within weeks, Dearka suddenly showed up as a transfer student at his school, and Yzak's new world had clicked into place.
Strange that, about the school; he'd accepted it unquestioningly at the time. But looking back, how had that happened?
"I've never thought about it before, Dearka. But I wonder, how come you transferred to my school not long after that party? Did your father organise it? Was Mother's hand in it somewhere? Seizing on the chance to acquire a politically useful friendship for her son?
Dearka chuckled, and ran his fingers deliciously down the groove over Yzak's spine.
"Nah, it was me. I badgered him into it. I wanted to go to the same place you did."
"You never told me that!"
"Yeah, well. I guess I was reluctant to admit how much I wanted to hang round with you. Didn't think it would look cool, I guess."
"Arsehole," said Yzak lovingly.
Their conversation leaked away in dribs and drabs as an uneasy sleep gradually claimed them. Yzak's last coherent thought was of the Strike. And it was his first thought some hours later when they awoke to the com-unit's alert…..It was time: the planes were waiting.