29 Dec 2000
A baby chapter eight - disclosure.
DISCLAIMER: All Gundam Wing characters are property of Sunrise, Bandai Visuals, Sotsu Agency, and Asahi TV. This work is not written for profit, but for entertainment purposes only.
PAIRINGS: 6x5/5x6, 13x6/6x13, some very mild 4x9
WARNING: AU/modern day San Francisco; implied yaoi will turn to yaoi and eventual lemon in later chapters
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: To Alfred Hitchock who directed the incredible film, "Vertigo."
"Dreams are the Royal Road to the unconscious."- Sigmund Freud
"This is the wing of the house we use these days," Cathrine told him as the toured the library and a large sitting room fitted out with a television, stereo system, and several large comfortable sofas and chairs. "This is the west wing. The east wing was used when my brother and his wife were alive. That's where their bedroom was, and Zechs's and Relena's as well. After the accident we moved everything to this wing." She paused and glanced over at him. "Would you... like to see it? The east wing, I mean?"
"Yes. Yes I would," Treize replied, "if it's not too much trouble for you."
"Not at all," she said, her expression unchanging.
Walking down the hallway, Treize glanced over at the serene woman. "That must have been a very difficult time for all of you," he murmured. "How did the children take it?"
"They're both very strong, and they bore up amazingly well, considering." Cathrine said, opening the double doors that led into the east wing of the house. "Relena, of course, has always been delicate, so she suffered much more than Zechs did, but she rarely showed it. She's remarkable that way."
They had come to a room with a carved wooden door, the wood of it crafted into delicate flowers and vines. Cathrine opened it and inside was bedroom almost exactly like the Treize had seen Relena in. There were the pale pink walls, the glowing wood floors, even the rose colored draperies - just the furniture was missing.
"It would seem that Relena wanted the same style of room," he said to Cathrine as she closed the door. "Was Zechs the same way?"
"No, not at all," the woman said, opening another door. "Zechs only stayed in his west wing room for a couple of months before he moved out of the house. He left everything in here the way it was at the time of the accident."
The room behind the door was not the one Treize had imagined Zechs might have had as a boy. It was cool, as opposed to the rosy warmth of Relena's former bedroom, and whereas her bed was large and luxurious, Zechs's had been narrow and plain. The most striking things about the room, however, were the walls. They were covered from floor to ceiling with sketches - of the house, of the grounds, the view of the city going down to the bay. Each one was a study in precision, the buildings rendered in exquisite detail. There were a few portraits, as well, mostly of Relena, but a few of a young man Treize had never seen.
Behind him Cathrine cleared her throat. "I should get that tea," she said softly, "feel free to look around. Do you know your way back to Relena's room?"
Treize had to tear his attention away from the sketches to look at her. "Oh - yes. Yes, I can find my way back quite easily, thanks."
Cathrine inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment and left.
Standing alone, surrounded by his client's past, Treize wasn't sure what to look at first. It was decided for him, really, by the mere fact that his eye happened to fall on one of the sketches, a self-portrait it seemed, that pulled him over to it and captured him instantly. It was just Zechs's head and shoulders, with one lock of hair falling softly onto his chest.
The expression he'd captured on his own face was unreadable, but the eyes were the truly amazing part. They were the only part of the sketch that was colored and Zechs had matched that color to his own perfectly. The shading he'd given them made them seem deep pools of icy water, fathomless and full of unspoken emotion.
Treize put a hand up to the paper and traced the lines of the cheek with the back of his finger. "What a teenager *you* must have been," he murmured. "I wish you'd been at *my* school..."
"Treize?"
He turned around to see the subject of the sketch himself, standing in the doorway.
"Cathrine said you were down here - are you going to come and have tea?" He glanced at the sketch Treize had been studying and made a face. "Oh, that. Horrible, isn't it. In my senior art class the teacher made us do self-portraits. I hated it. In fact that sketch is an elegant testimony to the notion that I should stick to buildings."
"Don't be ridiculous," Treize said, half-amused, half-serious. "I love this sketch - it's very expressive."
Zechs walked to where Treize was standing and took the sketch off the wall. He handed it to the other man and said, "Then by all means, take it. I don't know why Aunt Cathrine never had all of these taken down." He waved a hand at the walls. "I told her I didn't want them, but she said she wanted to keep them up."
"She likes to visit the past, perhaps?" Treize said, taking the sketch and trying not to seem too pleased about it. "Was you father's death hard on her?"
Zechs frowned. "She's not the emotional type, so it was kind of hard to tell. I think she kind of buried herself in taking care of Relena. That seemed to become her purpose in life." He hesitated for a moment and then murmured, "How about that tea?"
They walked back to Relena's room and spent a pleasant half hour in which Relena told Treize every embarrassing story she knew from Zechs's childhood. It was troubling, but not surprising, to Treize that he loved everyone, all though none were in anyway clinically significant.
Relena began to tire as they finished their tea, so the two men said their goodbyes and moved to go. "Oh, Treize," Relena called when Zechs had already left with Cathrine, "may I ask you something privately before you go?"
"I'll be right there," he called down to Zechs and then came back into the room and shut the door.
"Ask away," he said, smiling at the woman in the bed.
She smiled back, a slightly mischievous look on her face and said, "Are you in love with my brother, Dr. Khushrenada?"
Treize felt his as though the bottom had just dropped out of his stomach. In a voice struggling for confidence and control, he replied, "Of course not. I'm his therapist. Why ever would you ask such a thing?"
"Oh, no reason, really," she said, her own voice teasing. "You just look at him a lot... and you seem to really like him."
"Well I *do* like him," Treize agreed, "but as I said, I'm his *therapist.*"
"Okay," she said, "never mind. Thanks again for coming to visit. Come back any time you like."
"Thanks," he said, managing a smile. "It's been a pleasure meeting you."
He had turned and taken hold of the door handle to leave, when he heard her say, "Therapists, patients... it *has* been known to happen..."
When he looked back at her, she was giving him a wave and a teasing smile. He was about to protest when she ducked under her covers, and pretended to be fast asleep.
Pulling away from the house, Zechs gave a small sigh of relief. Treize looked over at him. "Are those visits a bit tiring for you?" he asked the blond. "You sister seems quite energetic, at least from the conversational standpoint that is."
"Oh, she can talk with the best of them," Zechs said, "and she's always been the cheerful sort - just a mood occasionally, you know, like everyone. Do you remember how to get back?"
"Yes, yes I do..." Outwardly, Treize's answer seemed simple enough, but inside he was fighting a battle. /I should just drop him off and say good night. That's what any self-respecting therapist would do in this situation. Tell him to have a nice weekend and leave it at that... yes, that's what I should do...
/But that's not what I *want* to do!!! We're here, we're together, it's dinner time - why not just ask him if he wants to get something to eat. Where's the harm in that?
/Because he's a *client*, you idiot!! Rule number one learned from graduate school: don't ask clients out on dates. Really, you shouldn't need me to tell you that.
/It doesn't have to be a *date* - it *wouldn't be a date! It's just two guys, having dinner. That's all.
/Right, two guys, both gay, one of whom is finding himself extremely (and inappropriately) attracted to the other. This is not the time for dinner. This is the time for calling Anne and telling her you're beginning to experience "boundary issues" with a client.../
A blast of horns brought Treize rudely back to earth, and he accelerated a little too quickly, throwing both of them forward. His arm shot out to stop Zechs from hitting the dashboard and then they were both sitting, panting, off the side of the road.
Looking down, Treize saw his hand resting on Zechs's thigh and jerked it back, not wanting the blond to think he was groping him. That apparently wasn't what Zechs was thinking, because he looked over at the older man and murmured, "It's not contagious, you know."
"What?" Treize said, still catching his breath.
"Being gay," Zechs said softly, staring intently through the windshield, "or HIV - whichever it is you're afraid of. You won't catch it just by touching me."
Treize turned his head sharply to look at his client. "First things first," he said, somewhat sternly. "I didn't take my hand away because I was afraid of touching you - I just didn't want you think that I was being too familiar. And second..." He hesitated, feeling an unexpected shiver of fear run through him. "You're not positive, are you?"
"HIV?" Zechs said, still not looking at Treize. "No - no I'm not. You don't have anything -"
"I'm *not* worried about *me*," Treize said loudly, "it's *you* I would be worried about." He watched as the blond man turned to look at him, and saw doubt in those wintry eyes. "All right," he said at last. "All right. Zechs, I'm going to tell you something about myself. Now be aware that normally self-disclosure of any kind by the therapist in the therapeutic relationship is thought to be a hindrance to the patient's recovery. The risk of transferance is strong, as well as -"
"You're gay, aren't you?" Zechs asked simply, looking at him.
Treize raised an eyebrow and then, in a somewhat disappointed tone, said, "Yes. I am." There was a moment of silence and then he added, "How long have you known?"
"I haven't 'known,'" Zechs said. "You're very good at being closed up. If that's considered a skill in the therapy world, congratulations. I was just... hoping... that it *might* be true." He stared at Treize for a long time without speaking. "I just thought it would be cool to have someone like me that I could talk to. Someone who could really understand what it means to lose a lover that the world doesn't really acknowledge. So I hoped." He ducked his head and then smiled up at the other man . "Don't worry - you didn't give away a thing."
Treize had to smile back. There was no way he couldn't - Zechs's expression was too endearing. "Would you think me a bad therapist if I suggested we get some dinner?"
"No," Zechs said, looking out the windshield again, "I would not. How about classic, corny, North Beach Italian?"
They both looked at each other and then said, in unison, "Martinelli's." As Zechs smiled, Treize put the car in gear and headed northeast.
End of Chapter 8
(:./kumiko/rr8)
