13-Dec-2001
Title: The Slightest Bondage
Author: Lilias (Liliascrescens@cs.com)
Archive: GW Addiction - http://www.gwaddiction.com
Category: Drama
Rating: R
Pairing: 9+R
What to expect: Shoujo-ai/not-quite-yuri, mild lime, even milder angst. This is set around Episodes 26-29 (when Relena has picked up the reins of the Sanc Kingdom, and Noin has come to help), so there are vague spoilers for that stretch of the series. It doesn't fit with later events, though, so it'd probably be best to think of this fic as slightly AU.
Disclaimer: GW belongs to Bandai, the Sotsu Agency, and Sunrise, and I intend no infringement upon their rights.
Notes: This is a Christmas present for mine own Draco-spousey--look, dragon-koi! I wrote shoujo-ai for you! (And it's my first try at this--the first time I've ever tried to write Noin, too--so please forgive my utter incompetence. >_<;;)
The title doesn't mean what you might be thinking it means, btw--it's a reference to a sonnet by Robert Frost, which appears at the end of the fic. ^__^
You're supposed to be my little sister.
Isn't that what I wanted? To be with him forever and ever, white picket fence and a cat curled up by the fire, which means being your sister. Whatever that means. Not having any sisters, I wouldn't know--but I was pretty sure I could make something up, out of greeting cards and tearjerker movies and pastel mugs with sentimental verses painted on. Plenty of resources. How hard could it be?
Damn hard. But then, nothing's easy with you, is it? Infuriating baggage, the Oz generals call you--and that's when they're watching their language. Little menace, says Colonel Une, and there's both reluctant admiration and a twitching trigger-finger in her voice. But none of them knows how dangerous you really are. None of them knows you at all.
I do. I do now, anyway.
Back to the beginning, 'Zia.
Ever since I came to Sanc, you'd seemed so--I don't know. Numb? Detached? As if you'd cut yourself off from the world, and only made contact when you got mad enough to tell somebody off. It made me wonder if you're always like this, or if it's some strange kind of traumatic stress. Anti-battle fatigue, or terror, or just plain despair. Hard to tell.
And that made me realize that I have no idea what you're really like. I've seen an angry little girl nearly kill herself hanging out of an airplane, and I've seen a shrewd politician face down a room full of generals three or four times her age, but still I had the feeling I've never seen _you_.
I think you like it that way. I think it started as self-preservation, but turned into something more like disgust: if this is our idea of a world, you don't want any part of it.
I'm not saying I blame you, exactly. The world isn't pretty, and it's getting uglier by the minute. But I know--I _know_--that you're one of the people who can change that, and you won't do it by walling yourself up inside your pain like a hermit in her niche.
So I wanted to drag you back into the world, kicking and screaming if need be. Actually, kicking and screaming would be a big improvement over the ice-maiden act.
Which is why I was so angry when I came to your room last night. Who the hell do you think you are, to have such power and wield it with such dead eyes? Who said you didn't have to care anymore? _We_ care, damn it. I care. And I won't let it all end like this.
I wanted to grab you by both shoulders and shake you silly, or maybe I wanted to take you in my arms and rock both of us to sleep. I ended up compromising--grabbing you by your shoulders and holding you close, listening to myself make a motherly crooning noise I didn't know I could produce.
Because you cried, horrible coughing sobs that sounded like they were tearing you apart. Your nose got red, and your eyes got even redder, and you were shaking so badly I thought maybe you _were_ coming apart, and what the hell was I going to tell Zechs if I let you cry yourself to death?
Nobody ever died of crying, my mother used to say. Mostly in the context of babies wailing in their cradles--I think it's supposed to be reassuring to frazzled new parents, to think of all that screaming as exercise. Pain equals gain? Whatever. Your sobbing didn't sound like any kind of progress; it was worse than the stressed-metal noises I'd taken so long to get used to when I started piloting mobile suits. I would have done anything to make that noise stop.
What I didn't realize, not until I had stopped crooning and started kissing you, was that 'anything' included--well, everything.
I thought I was just being nice, offering a friendly shoulder. I didn't know it was going to feel so good to have you turn to me, cling to me, hiccup into my shirt. And when I took your face in my hands, I really thought I was just going to wipe your eyes and tell you to toughen up. I honestly didn't know that I was going to want to touch those tears with my tongue, or to taste your mouth--or that you would go so still in my arms, thinking it over before you parted your lips and let me in.
It was scary, all right; there's something frightening about that kind of surrender, and I didn't know how to handle the power you were offering me.
A horrified voice in my mind wasted no time in pointing out the obvious: she's a child. You're in love with her brother. You're not even _wired_ this way, for god's sake.
But most of my brain was busy wondering if you were that sweet all over--and _that_ scared me enough to trigger every flight instinct I've got. I was almost across the room when you caught up with me, hanging on to my shirt with white-knuckled insistence.
"Don't go," you said. "Please."
I'm still trying to figure out what I saw that made me stay. There isn't much of him in your face--a superficial resemblance, certainly, but then all blue-eyed blonds look pretty much alike to me. But even I can tell that your hair is darker, and your eyes are, too: honey and seawater, where he's all white-gold and ice.
So--no, I wasn't pretending you were someone you're not. And I don't think you mistook me for a teenaged terrorist, either--you knew who you were holding, all right. Eyes wide open, looking straight into mine the whole time. So brave, I thought. Or maybe she doesn't know enough about this to be scared--it wouldn't be the first time that was true of you.
"I've never done this before," you said, and looked surprised when I said I'd never done it either. Well, how was I supposed to know I wanted to? I can count my female acquaintances on one hand, and they're hardly the type to inspire hot fantasies, let alone actions. And as far as men are concerned, I was saving myself for--never mind. It doesn't matter now. Two virgin sacrifices went into the fire last night, and now the unicorn boys can go elsewhere for their purity fix.
I've never been good at being first--always waiting until someone else was done with the exam too, so I wouldn't be making the trek to the teacher's desk alone. Always hedging, hiding, trying to look inconspicuous. But last night, I was happy to be the first--greedy to explore, mapping soft hills and valleys and sailing all the oceans in your eyes. Last night, I wanted you to see me, almost as much as I wanted to see all of you.
Nobody ever called me beautiful before.
And you called me by my name, too. Not 'Noin,' which makes me think of barracks and calisthenics; and not 'Lucy,' which reminds me of my great-grandmother's least favorite cartoon character. You called me Lucrezia--and you made it sound delicious.
Someday I'll probably have forgotten what it feels like to curve my hands around the steering yoke of a mobile suit; if I try, I'll probably be able to forget the names on my last class roster at Victoria, if not the eager faces of those cadets. But if I live to be a very, very old woman (which isn't especially likely), I don't believe I'll be forgetting the gentle urgency of your fingertips against my skin, or the surprised ecstasy on your face when you finally stopped worrying about what I was feeling and ran ahead to meet your own pleasure. Or the way we fit together--hand in glove, peas in a pod, all those smug little declarations of likeness and belonging that never made sense until I lost myself in you.
All of which is how I ended up here, in the biggest bed I've ever seen, with your head heavy on my shoulder and your damp hair cemented to my arms. You're not crying any more; your breathing is deep and even, feathering against my collarbone in slow ripples. A gentle current, now that the storm is over. It's like contentment--except that you're walking your fingers up and down my stomach as though you can't stop double-checking my reality.
I'm exhausted. I'm exhilarated. I've just had the best sex of my (admittedly sheltered) life, with the woman who was supposed to be my little sister. It feels like I spent my whole life waiting in line, patient as anything, only to discover I was standing in the wrong queue. Oh, I keep thinking, so _this_ is what I wanted, all along. Just this. A big-eyed, high-strung, completely infuriating little menace resting on my shoulder, with her completely bony little elbow poking me in the ribs.
I don't know where we go from here, but I don't think I want to be your sister any more. Or maybe I do: sister, mother, lover, everything at once. A whole spiralling web of connections to hold you to me, to us. To remind you why you're doing all the things you do. To hold you together until you can do it yourself, and then go on holding until--forever and ever? We'll see.
-end-
And here's the poem (it's reminded me of Relena for quite a while--I just never found an occasion to use it):
She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when a sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut,
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightest bondage made aware.
--Robert Frost, 1942
(:./lilias/bondage)
