17-Nov-2004
Title: Leave-Taking
Author: Psyche
Pairing: Noin/Une
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Warnings: Library smut.
Note: Written for the GW Back-to-School Smutathon, for Dreamdweller.
Noin knew exactly how it had started.
They got a new instructor. Treize Khushrenada -- Just call me Treize. Heir to not one, but several of the big families -- mainly because so many of these warrior aristocrats were getting themselves killed in the wars, and they were all related somehow or other anyway. He was exactly like every other man of his type the young girl had ever seen, except more so, more perfect, so that there was no trace of the faint air of ridiculous the others had all carried in Noin's eyes. He was a better fighter than any of the other instructors, too, in a mobile suit and at fencing; he defeated them all, easily, in the beginning-of-term exhibition matches. That, Noin's friend Cassie -- two years older than Noin and now in her second-to-last year -- said was somewhat unprofessional; but Noin thought, Why hold back? In short, she was impressed.
Not as impressed as Une, though, who spent each lesson gazing at the new instructor's face, and had started spending even more time than before studying and training. Noin didn't care much for Une (whose first name she'd never found out), but it was impossible not to notice; the few girls at the Academy were all in the same dorm. "Nasty little swot," Noin commented to Cassie, who shrugged like she didn't care, and challenged Noin to a duel on the simulators. Noin, at that age, could never turn down a challenge.
Things got complicated when it became evident that Just call me Treize was in turn rather impressed with Noin. He was there when her duel with Cassie ended, looking over what the computer had recorded.
"That's a nice style," he said; "Ever been in the real thing?"
"No, never."
"We'll have to do something about that."
Noin hadn't know that a standard mobile suit could be adjusted to allow operation by a twelve year-old. The control, of course, suffered, as Treize observed--
"Still," he said, smiling, "you ought to be able to feel what it's like."
She did. It was incredible. And nothing like the simulators.
As she was climbing out of the cockpit, still a little high on the heady feeling of really flying, Treize helping her, his hand on her side, she saw Une watching, face twisted in an ugly little scowl. Noin laughed.
"What is it?" Treize said. Once Noin had her feet on solid ground again, he looked back, following her gaze. Une ran off as he did, presumably back to the dorms.
When Noin got in, in the small hours of the morning, after several more rounds on the simulators, and then a mad session in the Academy library after dinner writing the essays she'd completely forgotten -- until Zechs reminded her -- were due in the following morning, Une was still awake. The lamp on her bedside table was on, and she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, head bent over a book, hair still pulled back in a complicated bun, as it had been that afternoon. Noin shoved her book bag under her bed and took off her jacket, trying not to look around to see if she was being watched. On her way to the shower, she was stopped by Une's voice:
"Why you?"
Noin turned. Une was standing a few feet away, looking angry but also faintly ridiculous, with small fists clenched and pretty mouth pursed. She glared at Noin.
"Why you?" she said again. "The best at everything, the best the Academy's ever seen -- I'm sure I don't need to tell you. I asked him -- I asked Instructor Khushrenada -- why did you get special treatment -- and that's what he said. The most talented cadet he has ever seen. And you don't even care about it, do you?"
Well. Not as much as you, Noin thought.
"You really like the new instructor, then," she said; and Une stepped forwards and shoved her, hard.
Noin barely stumbled, quickly catching her balance. Then Une threw a punch. It was a good punch: nicely controlled, and too fast to properly see. By Academy standards, Une didn't have much natural aptitude for physical violence, at least as far as Noin could tell, but she did work hard. Noin, however, saw the blow coming in Une's eyes if not her movements; she took it on the arm, and then delivered a quick jab to the shoulder in repayment, enough to knock Une down.
If for a moment Noin thought that was an end to it, she was quickly proved wrong: Une picked herself up, dusted herself down, and took a stance. She was ready and waiting, it seemed, for more. Feeling a little more hesitant, Noin took an opposing stance. There was a brief pause -- Noin wondered, feeling a little mad, or perhaps just tired and confused, if they would stay like that, posed and grimacing at one another, until morning came and they had to leave for lessons -- before Une attacked again, with fierceness.
One of the first things they'd been taught at the Academy was to know when you were defeated, and how to be graceful in defeat. Students from the top year were brought into one of their early hand-to-hand training sessions and, as Noin later learnt, instructed to show no mercy until they were properly asked for it, just to make sure that the lesson sank in. As a result, very few Specials cadets had any interest in fighting losing battles. Une, it turned out, was one of those few. "I like that about her," Treize would later say.
Noin was stronger, faster, and with better instincts; but Une kept on fighting, regardless. Noin realised, a little before their dorm mates pulled them apart, that Une wasn't aiming to win: just to do as much damage as she could. She didn't do a bad job of it, either.
"Shit. Did you have to go all out like that?" Cassie asked, the following morning over breakfast, after they'd seen Une, body spattered with colour from freshly forming bruises, washing herself briskly and wincing now and then in the showers. "I know you don't like her, but--"
"She didn't give me a choice."
Cassie looked as if she doubted it, and Noin shrugged. "She's not weak."
Noin was taken by surprise -- although perhaps she wouldn't have been, had she been better at understanding people -- when Une attacked her again one afternoon after lessons, round the back of the gymnasium. They ended up with scraped knees, palms and elbows from the grit on the floor, as well as further bruises, and Cassie again looked disapproving; but this time, at least, Une gave in when it became obvious that she was losing again.
The next fight took place on the roof, the two circling, wary of getting too close to the edge, about three weeks later; the next a fortnight after that on an isolated spot round a corner on the field; the next, upon their return from the holidays, they two both a day earlier than the other girls, in the dorm again; and so on. They never faced off on the simulators, and carefully avoided being paired to spar with one another in lessons. They simply fought, rough and dirty, on and off as and when Une seemed to take it into her head to attack. Noin always came out best, but the margin, initially not insubstantial, closed somewhat: enough to make her worried, on a couple of occasions.
Their instructors probably knew. The fact that they would so often both be looking a little worse for wear at the same time was probably something of a clue; and they were never exactly discreet. This being the Lake Victoria Academy, however -- not exactly the sort of school likely to refer to itself as a 'caring community'; though support was excellent if you managed to get yourself seriously injured, mainly because a cadet who received training, only to end up unable to go on to join the Specials, was something of a wasted investment -- this sort of scuffling between students was if anything quietly encouraged. Good experience for the field. It was possible Noin could have got an instructor to put a stop to it, had she wanted to. Zechs, who she suspected might have a bit of a crush on her, actually told her she ought to:
"It's not the same as just one, one-off incident," he pointed out. But--
"I can handle her," Noin said.
In truth, she'd somehow got used to it -- even to the point where she half looked forwards to each next fight with Une. It was nice to be able to completely lose it once in a while, to not think about training and tactics, and know that the person opposite you was doing exactly the same thing. It was freeing. And it had become an ordinary, consistent part of Noin's life.
Other things, however, were less consistent. Treize took Noin away on several missions along with the eldest students -- special treatment indeed -- for her to get some extra experience; but in spite of that, she found herself beginning, by the time of the second of these, to find herself feeling slightly less dedicated, less convinced, with regard to her future career; and to find herself concurrently wanting to draw back a little from Treize himself.
Zechs became steadily more serious, more fixated on his own big, personal dreams, and with less and less interest in anything besides. He was still Zechs, of course -- still her partner in training, her friend, someone who knew how she worked and how to work alongside her -- but he had less broadness of spirit than he had seemed to when younger: in her mind, he had become a person painted in fewer colours. Perhaps he was just growing up. Noin, seeing that he cared more for the top spot than she was now able to, allowed herself to slip, slightly, to let him take first place. She knew he wanted it. Perhaps she was the one with the crush, now.
Cassie finished her last year at the Academy and left, to join a unit in the L1 Colony Cluster -- as Noin had known must happen, but it was still a blow. In spite of the difference in age, they had been very close.
And then, Noin herself was on the brink of leaving. A sixteen year-old soldier, just completing her fifth year at the Academy, having gone through all the training, passed the tests, performed exemplarily well in the field assignments, about to be despatched to head a small unit of ordinary soldiers in Eastern Europe. To give her a feel for command, Treize said. She still liked him -- he was probably her favourite instructor -- and he still seemed to like her. Zechs and Une, however, had become his stars; and Noin, thought occasionally wistful, found she didn't envy them the position.
Zechs was already gone: Treize had found him some special place, to give him a big kick start, in the unruly L3 cluster. Noin hoped he wouldn't get himself killed.
Treize, too, seemed to be going to leave Lake Victoria that year. He had murmured something about having achieved what he had come there for -- something Treize-like. There was a rumour that he would be taking over as head of the Specials. Noin had done a little research, asked a few people she knew or had acquaintances in common with, and discovered it was probably true. He had been offered the position, certainly. The opinion seemed to be that she'd be more likely than most to be able to guess correctly as to whether Treize intended to accept.
Join us on the council for these things one day, my dear, Marquise Weyridge had written.
Noin sat alone in the Academy library, on the top floor, in the late evening, a selection of possibly highly astute articles she'd collected on Eastern European politics unlooked at on the table before her, as all this sat and swirled, in a heavy, thick sort of way, in her mind.
The door from the staircase opened, and Noin looked up. Une came through the doorway, looked about, and set eyes on Noin. Noin wondered when it was that she'd stopped looking so much like a little girl, so unfitted for her cadet's uniform. Now it fitted as if it had been made for her -- smart and crisp, with just a suggestion of stiffness, as if an extension of Une's personality.
Une approached, and Noin stood, ready to dodge or block the first attack, but it never came. Instead, Une looked about again, as if concerned about being overheard by someone, and said,
"He's taking me with him."
"Instructor Treize?"
"Colonel Treize."
"So, he accepted." Noin didn't feel surprised, and wondered if those people who'd said she knew how Treize worked were right.
"We're leaving next week," Une said; "I'll be at his right hand, for everything. He's going to change everything, and I'm going to be there, right at his side."
Why are you saying this to me? Noin was about to ask; but then it struck her that Une probably had no one else to tell. Her parents were dead, everyone knew, and she'd always been an odd, solitary sort of girl.
"I'm leaving this place," Une said, and Noin thought, We're leaving this place. She closed her eyes, leaning gently against the table. For this reason, perhaps, she missed any visual clues there might have been for Une taking hold of her by the shoulder and pressing her mouth hard against Noin's.
Noin's eyes opened, and then shut again as she found that Une's face was far too close for Noin to see anything but blurs. She ought by all rights to have frozen in shock, but instead she felt a jolt of electricity as Une bit at her lip and gripped, hand sliding down to Noin's upper arm, pinchingly hard. Noin kissed back because she couldn't help it, pushing Une's mouth to open and then sucking at her tongue, lifting the heel of her hand to press against Une's cheek.
Une's free hand came up between them and squeezed at Noin's breast, and Noin twisted and pushed Une back into the table, so the edge was digging into the backs of Une's thighs -- which probably hurt a little, but this was the girl Noin had been fighting with for the last three years: neither was about to be squeamish about causing the other a little discomfort.
We're going to fuck, Noin thought suddenly, wildly; she tipped Une's head back and thrust her own tongue inside. We're kissing and we're about to fuck, right here in the open. Not that many people came to the library at this time in the evening, but they might. Une started to fumble with the buttons on Noin's uniform jacket. Noin had been with a girl before, last year over the summer; she wondered if Une had.
The buttons came undone, and Noin pushed the jacket off her arms, tossing it to one side. She had only a bra on beneath -- the jacket was compulsory, and it got hot wearing a T-shirt as well in July -- and Une soon had that unfastened as well. She prodded Noin back, to give a little more space between them, bent her head and bit lightly at the flesh near Noin's right nipple.
Okay. Probably been with a girl before. Which just begged the question of who? -- but then, if Noin could have a lesbian fling over the holidays, why couldn't Une? It wasn't as if she wasn't attractive.
We're going to fuck, Noin thought again -- though really, by now, it probably ought to have been, we're fucking; one of Une's hands was now at the zip of Noin's trousers, the other, nails scraping down Noin's stomach. Noin's thoughts simplified somewhat when Une shoved Noin's trousers and underwear down around her boots -- fuck, she was still in her boots; Une was still fully clothed, hair still pinned back in a bun; how? -- knelt, and then gave an uncharacteristically playful lick along Noin's inner thigh.
"Oh, god," Noin said. She felt like she might come any moment. Une whispered something Noin couldn't make out. Her mouth was so close to Noin's cunt, and her breath was ticklish and warm. Noin gripped Une's head by the hair, undoing the style a little, trying to push her to get moving, for fuck's sake; the loosened wisps of Une's hair brushed against Noin's thighs; Oh god.
One of Une's hands was now out of Noin's sight, not touching her, and Noin could guess -- an image came sharp and intense to her mind -- what Une was doing with it. If Une's uniform trousers were anything like as tight as Noin's tended to be -- and she was squatted, knees bent, which would pull them even tighter -- and if she was anywhere near as sensitive, she probably only needed to rub, to press, just a little...
Une's tongue found it's way to the junction, right where Noin's inner thigh ended, and Noin said,
"Wait." -- she needed something to lean against, or she would collapse. She didn't want it to be the table, didn't want to switch places, so she backed against the end of the nearest bookcase. She was facing the stairway door, almost directly, here: if anyone walked in, the first thing they'd see would be Noin, topless, with Une knelt down between her legs.
And there was Une, knelt down between Noin's legs, finally getting to business, and still working herself at the same time through her trousers with one hand. Une curled her tongue around Noin's clit -- something Noin had done before but never had done to her -- and now Noin understood why her summer fling had been so bad at being quiet. Her head banged back against the bookcase and she buried her hands in Une's hair once again: Fuck, yeah, just that, just keep on doing that, fuck, please.
In the event, no-one walked in on them. Noin found herself, sat on her naked arse on the rough library carpet, still leaning against the bookcase -- trousers still twisted about her ankles, jacket somewhere on the floor, bra in a small white heap on top of the table she'd been sitting at -- watching as Une emerged from the ladies' toilets, hair once again fastened tightly at the back of her head.
"You should get dressed," Une said, and Noin agreed:
"Soon."
Une looked away for a moment, and then said, "Goodbye." She opened the stairway door, and left; and Noin thought, they probably wouldn't fit in another fight before term ended. The last week was set to be pretty hectic. They might not even see each other again, after they went their separate ways.
I should get dressed, she thought, closing her eyes. Soon.
The End
(:./psyche/leave)
