Chapter Fifteen
Warm hands came to rest suddenly on his shoulders.
Zechs glanced up from the jewel-tipped cufflinks he was fastening into his shirt to his reflection in the mirror, and answered the smile it showed Treize wearing with one of his own. The older man reached around, taking a little step to one side to help himself, and brushed his fingers over Zechs's as he took the stubborn fastener out of his hand and slid it into place, tweaking it to lie perfectly, and then twitching the stiff material of the shirt cuff. He repeated his actions with the second cufflink before reaching for the soft, silky material that would make up Zechs's cravat and fastening that equally perfectly into place. The pin that secured it came not from the box that had held, until a moment before, Zechs's cufflinks, but from a smaller box that Treize produced from somewhere, and turned out to be a match for the one tucked into the snowy folds of material around the general's own neck, save for the colour of the stone cut into the shape of a rose.
"Treize…" Zechs murmured, and had the rest of his question cut off by the first brush of his commander's lips over his own. The pilot felt a little shiver pass through him and pressed back, deepening the contact between them until he felt Treize's strong, agile hands slip from his collar to close around his body. He could feel the smoothness of the skin against his face that told him the other man had taken the trouble to shave a second time that day – without his help, this time, it seemed – and could taste the chill mint flavour of the mouthwash he knew Treize preferred.
Having allowed, in respect of the time it took to dry Zechs's curtain of hair, the younger man to shower first, Treize's own curls, not yet brushed into place, were still damp at the ends and tickled the pilot's skin as the two of them made the subtle shifts in position that kept them locked together.
As gently as he had started it, Treize pulled away from the embrace and put a little distance between their bodies. "Did you think I wasn't going to give you a birthday present?" he asked, keeping his voice soft in deference to the feeling hanging in the air between them.
Zechs gave him a smile touched with bafflement. "I had thought you'd already given me two?"
"Two?"
"The book this morning, and this weekend…"
Treize glanced away for a moment, but when he looked back his eyes were warm. "Ah. The book this morning was scarcely a suitable present, Zechs. It was simply something to give you in company and you know it."
"Do I? It's a lovely volume…"
"Of course it is, but certainly not fitting for the occasion." The general gave a soft sound of amusement. "As for this weekend, it's hardly a present to you when I did it as much for my own benefit as yours, and when Lucrezia and Lady Une are here as well."
"I wouldn't have minded."
Treize smiled. "I know you wouldn't, but I do. Besides," he continued, taking a second step away as he turned his attention to his own dress. "Lady Une's necklace bothered you. I thought you might appreciate this."
The pilot's eyes widened a fraction, and his hand moved to touch the cool metal of the pin. "What?"
"I realise that it isn't as obvious as the necklace, but I hope you like it."
Zechs frowned slightly – ostensibly, it was just a pretty, if obviously expensive, bit of jewellery; perhaps more skilfully crafted, but not really all that different than the dozen other cravat pins Zechs already owned, half of which had also been presents from the older man. Something in Treize's voice, though, and in the way he was carefully avoiding looking at his friend as he fussed over his appearance, suggested that something more was going on.
"Of course I like it – it's lovely. May I ask where you got it?"
"It was my father's." Treize glanced up long enough to flash him a brief smile in the mirror, and then he turned to go into the bathroom. "The Khushrenada men seem fated to have roses as some sort of personal heraldry it seems – the summer house in Vienna even has it in the name, Rosenau."
Zechs acknowledged the truth of that statement to himself – he did associate roses with his friend; couldn't look at the flowers without thinking of him – and he knew from his reading into his family history that the connection didn't begin with Treize. A love for the things seemed to be bred into the Khushrenada genes along with blue eyes and tactical genius.
The pilot realised suddenly that he'd nearly fallen victim to that tactical genius – had permitted his mind to wander along the thoughts it had exactly as Treize had wanted it to – and only his nickname-earning reflexes allowed him to reach out and catch his commander's arm before he could make his retreat into the other room.
Treize stopped at the touch on his sleeve, turning with a smile on his face. "Zechs?"
"Your father's?" the younger man asked softly, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes. Don't you like it?"
"Of course I do, but…"
Treize shrugged. "I gave Lady Une my mother's necklace – I thought it was appropriate. Besides, it's a better match for your eyes than mine. I have my mother's eyes – yours are a lighter blue."
"Treize, I can't…" Zechs let his words trail off as he tried to phrase the thoughts in his head. Carefully, he used his grip on the older man's arm to pull him back until he could hold him and draw him into another kiss. "It's beautiful," he continued when the kiss ended, "And I thank you for the thought – it means a lot to me – but I can't take this from you."
Treize tilted his head. "Why not?" he asked, puzzlement setting two small lines into the skin between his eyebrows.
"I… Your father?" Zechs asked helplessly, still unable to explain what he was thinking. Though the general had tried to make light of the gift – had pointed out that he had given his mother's necklace to Lady Une, so why shouldn't he give this to Zechs? – the pilot knew full well that the two bore no relation to one another at all.
The younger man had spent years watching Treize interact with his parents, in a dozen different settings, using what he saw as a model for childhood fantasies of his life without the fall of his Kingdom. Though they weren't especially close, Treize had loved his mother as much as any boy ever did, and had drawn from her his love for music and poetry, his grace and poise – all the touches that made him the elegant, almost effeminate man that he was.
Her death almost eighteen months previously had saddened him, left him melancholy for a time – the restrained and private grieving anyone would have expected from him. Duchess Anna had died peacefully in her sleep, at the end of a progressive illness: her passing had not been unexpected, and Treize, an adult, and an Officer for almost half of his life by that point, had taken the loss in such a light, showing it most in a tendency towards quiet and introspective reflection when he and Zechs were talking alone.
The pilot scowled, remembering the few days surrounding her funeral, and Treize reached out, reacting to his expression.
"What about him, Zechs?" the general asked, and the younger man just shook his head.
In a sharp contrast to the graceful, understated way he had taken his mother's loss, the death of his father in combat in AC 187, a few months after Treize's graduation from the Academy, had devastated his friend. The bond between father and son had been particularly strong – Treize had idolised his father and used him as a model for the course of his life and his career. It had been Tristan's decision to transfer over to the newly formed Specials and place himself under the command of his cousin-by-marriage, General Catalonia, that had prompted his son's obsession with the mobile suit in the first place, and his growing reputation as an ace pilot that had caused Treize to join the military himself rather than applying for the Diplomatic core, or to one of the private schools that specialised in turning out the next generation of political leaders. Ten year old Zechs, who knew, only too well, what his fifteen year old friend was feeling, hadn't known what to do to help him until the evening after the funeral when he had found the young officer, still in full Dress uniform, standing in his father's rose garden, pale-skinned and trembling from the effort of holding onto his control all day.
Something about Zechs's hesitant touch and whispered 'I'm sorry, Treize,' had shattered his hold on himself. It had been the only time Zechs could recall seeing the older man break far enough to give way to tears.
The pin Treize was trying to give him had been one of his father's favourites; one Zechs, now that his memory had been jogged, could recall the man wearing on any number of occasions. It was true that the hue of the gemstone rose had been picked to match Tristan's eyes – like the pilot's, a much lighter blue than his son's – and it was equally true that Treize himself almost never wore it, arguing, with his usual meticulous sense of dress, that the stone was too pale to sit well against his colouring, but that didn't change the fact that it was one of the few truly personal things of his father's that Treize still owned.
The soft, sad smile that sparked first in those sapphire eyes before touching his lips, told Zechs that Treize understood completely everything that he was struggling to say.
"Milliardo, he would have wanted you to have it," Treize told him, voice still soft. "I want to give it to you. I won't wear it, it looks wonderful on you, and it's too beautiful a thing to be left in a box for the rest of my life, to be given to some nephew at some point who won't appreciate it nearly as much as you will."
The use of his real name, the tone of his lover's voice, the expression on his face told Zechs that Treize was serious about this and he conceded the argument with a simple nod and another gentle kiss.
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Noin grinned at Zechs as the two men came into the restaurant of the lodge and sat down. Very rarely did she get to see her classmate in anything other than his uniform, and when she did, it was usually his Dress livery, or the very casual clothes he wore in the gym or in his rooms when he was off-duty. Until Christmas, she had seriously wondered if he even owned any other clothes – she had other male Officer friends who didn't; there were very few occasions that couldn't be covered by one variation of uniform or other, so why waste the money? – now, she realised that someone who had grown up with Treize Khushrenada as an 'older brother' simply wouldn't be allowed to have so simplistic a wardrobe, especially when they looked as good in civilian formal dress as Zechs did.
She wondered, as Treize politely began ordering wine from the waiter who had appeared, as if by magic, at their table as soon as the two men had seated themselves, if they had consciously chosen to dress as a couple or if it were something that had happened by accident. There were discrepancies, variations in the styles and the fabrics chosen, in the cut of their coats; the little details necessary to account for differences in build – though they stood at almost the same height, Zechs still showed a touch of boyish slimness that Treize lacked, regardless of the fact that he was the more slender of the two. Neither were they wearing the same colour; Treize's fair, fine skin would have looked sallow in the silvery–blue of Zechs's jacket, though it was the perfect foil for the white mane of the pilot, and even if Zechs's hair and faintly golden skin could have taken the midnight blue coat that had turned their commander's hair to fire and his complexion almost fragile, the deep colour would have overwhelmed the icy paleness of his eyes.
None of that changed the fact that the overall effect was one of unity.
In one of the moments that were becoming more and more frequent, and which were making her start to question if she needed help, Noin found herself hating her commanding officer for a split second – before she looked at her own vibrant violet dress and Une's deep indigo, and realised that, not only could the same thing be said of the two of them, but, in fact, all four of them looked as though they had compared notes before dressing.
The thought made her laugh and her sudden giggles drew the attention of all three of her dinner companions.
"Lucrezia?" Treize asked, making her name his question.
"Sorry, sir, it's nothing important."
He smiled at her for a moment longer and then turned his attention to asking what Lady Une would like for her first course.
A flash of something caught the corner of Noin's eye and she turned her head to look at her friend, searching for the source. Her gaze landed on the pin holding the snowy folds of his cravat in place, and she frowned as she wondered if Zechs had forgotten his own pin and had borrowed one of Treize's. Roses weren't something she'd ever seen in her classmate's dressing case before, but she had the feeling that the general's contained nothing but.
Zechs seemed to catch the direction of her glance and he smiled as he explained the story behind the pin.
Noin's frown set all the harder. For a man reputed to be one of the most politically skilled in history, Treize was being remarkably careless about keeping a secret that could ruin both himself and his lover. Three or four times today she had walked in on the two men sitting or standing together, including once when they had been in the middle of a kiss.
Either that or he was more of a bastard than she gave him credit for being, and was playing Zechs and Une off against one another in a game Zechs was winning, for the moment, because he wasn't going to demand legally binding promises of marriage before he hopped into bed. Just what was he playing at, to give Une his mother's necklace at Christmas and Zechs, his father's pin not a month later?
The reappearance of the waiter drove the thought from her head, and she allowed herself to trust that her friend knew what he was doing. After all, if he didn't and Treize did throw him over for Lady Une, then there was every chance that Noin's own dreams would come true.
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The light from the candles at the centre of their table sparked in the depths of the liquid, turning it to the rich ruby hue that good wine of this type should be as Treize tilted the bottle to refill Zechs's glass, deftly twisting his wrist as he stopped pouring to prevent the wine from spilling over the side of the neck and staining the tablecloth.
As the general was intending him to, the pilot picked up the glass and took a slow sip, letting the rich, slightly bitter taste wash over his tongue in appreciation whilst he fought off his smile of appreciation.
He was being seduced, and he knew it – however skilfully and subtly Treize was going about it – and this wine was just one more sign of it. Whilst he loved it, it was heavier, drier and altogether more acidic in taste than he knew the other man preferred, and since Treize had done the ordering, he knew it was no mistake.
He was also aware that the wine not quite being to his taste probably wasn't a concern to the older man at the current time. Treize had drunk very little all evening – scarcely finishing the one half-glass he was pouring for himself from each bottle – but he had made a point of watching exactly what Zechs drank and had topped his glass off with enough regularity that the world had taken on a slight haze around the edges.
It was, he had realised before they had finished their first course, exactly where Treize wanted him to be – aware, and in control of himself, but relaxed and amenable.
Slowly, Zechs finished the glass of wine, and watched as Treize got to his feet to pay the bill, taking Lady Une with him when she made it clear she wanted to talk to him about something.
Noin's chuckle brought his attention back to the table, and he looked at her to see her leaning her chin on one hand and grinning at him mischievously.
"Yes?"
"You know what he's up to, don't you?" she asked, and Zechs felt himself flush slightly.
"Yes, I know. Why?"
"Just wondering if you'd spotted it. I wouldn't want you getting caught off guard!"
"Not likely," Zechs replied, his voice layered with amusement as he thought back to the week after Christmas. "If I know Treize, he'll talk through every last thing he does with me, before he does it."
Noin blinked at him, then she giggled. "He talks? He doesn't seem the type to talk in bed… I'd have expected him to be one of those that gets it all exactly as you want it, and seems to do it through telepathic communication, or something." She giggled again, and Zechs had the sudden thought that this conversation was well past the bounds of acceptable. Perhaps he was more drunk than he had thought…
"He is. He talks so he can explain things to me, so I know what's going to happen. I'm sure he'll stop once…" He trailed off, realising what he'd just said, and felt the flush deepen. He was definitely more drunk than he had thought.
He thought for a moment or two that she might have missed it, but then her eyes sharpened and she leaned forward. "Sorry?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter."
"It does. Did you just imply that you haven't, actually, slept with him yet? Or am I coming to the wrong conclusion?"
"Noin…"
"Oh, my God…"
They stared across the table at each other.
"I thought… I thought you'd been a couple since October?" Noin asked quietly.
"We have."
"But…"
Zechs looked away, wanting, and not wanting to talk to her about this. "We had two days before I had to leave for L2. I got back on Christmas Eve. I've been in three different countries since then; Treize has been in five. We simply haven't had the time…"
"You had almost a week after Christmas."
"We did." He sighed. "There's such a thing as Age of Consent. I know it gets ignored by most people, but Treize is older than me…and… what?" he demanded, when she began to laugh at him.
"I'm sorry! It's just… that's so sweet!"
"What?"
Noin glanced over his shoulder, saw that her commander was returning to the table and got to her feet. Making her way round the table she stood at his side and smiled down at him for a moment. "I'll keep Une busy till you're ready to get up in the morning." She dared to lean down and drop a quick kiss on the top of his head. "Have fun tonight," she instructed, and saw him flush a fantastic shade of scarlet before turning away to head Une off and coax her into accompanying Noin to the restroom.
Treize watched her leaving from a few paces away, lip-reading what she said to the younger man and smiling to himself.
"Are you ready to leave?" he asked, resting his hands on the blonde's shoulders.
Zechs tilted his head back to look at him for a second, and then nodded and stood up.
Treize smiled at him gently, and let his hand rest against the base of his spine as he guided the pilot from the restaurant.
As they stepped from the main lodge into the chilly night air, the hand resting against Zechs's spine shifted, brushing the ends of his hair, as Treize slipped his arm round the pilot's waist and drew them together as they walked.
"How are you feeling?" Treize asked quietly and the breath behind the words clouded in the chill air.
Zechs turned his head to look at the other man and smiled. "That rather depends how you mean that question. If you meant – how do I feel generally…?" He stopped as Treize lifted gloved fingers and rested them across Zechs's mouth.
"You know what I intend to happen tonight?" Treize asked, and waited for the pilot to nod his agreement before continuing. "How do you feel about it?"
The younger man dropped his gaze to the path beneath their feet, watching in apparent fascination as they left almost matching footprints in the powdery snow. "How am I supposed to feel?" he asked. "Somewhat… apprehensive, I suppose. I don't…"
Again, Treize stopped him in mid-sentence. "I would expect you to be nervous. Zechs…" He stopped walking abruptly, and turned so that they were looking at each other without letting the pilot go. The unexpected change threw the younger man off balance, making him catch at Treize's shoulders to keep from falling, and the general smiled at him as he used his free hand to steady the pilot. "Zechs, it occurred to me last night that we've both been so busy concentrating on the fact that we couldn't do this before your birthday, that I've completely neglected to ask you whether you want to do it at all. It's an unforgivable assumption for me to have made. Simply because you now can, doesn't mean that you have to, or even that you want to."
"I should have thought that was obvious." Zechs replied, frowning. "I've given you more than enough indication."
Treize nodded immediately, but his expression didn't change. "Perhaps," he agreed, "but still, I shouldn't presume. If you don't feel ready, I'd rather you say so now, before we begin."
Zechs smiled. "Treize, its fine. I want this."
He allowed his voice to trail off, and leaned forward, catching one of his hands into the older man's soft hair as he kissed him lightly. Treize murmured softly and used his hold on the pilot's slim waist to draw them together and deepen the kiss.
Zechs broke it after a moment had passed, opening his eyes to meet the other man's questioning gaze.
"Are you certain?" Treize pressed.
"Absolutely."
Something caught in the back of the general's eyes and, suddenly, there was a confidence in his gaze that hadn't been there before – a surety and a hint of the darkness that had been explained the week before.
Zechs swallowed and Treize smiled at him, slowly. "Come on – it's cold out here," he murmured.