Based on the song, music by Elton John & Patrick Leonard, lyrics by Tim Rice, © 2000 William A. Bong Ltd.
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.
Author's Notes: This fic is set in the summer of A.C. 195. In the series, it corresponds to the events occurring after the episode when Wu Fei and Treize have thier swordfight. It is written in the third person but entirely from Zechs' point of view as he comes to terms with Treize's growing fascination with the Chinese pilot.
Written for Kat Reitz, in appreciation of her wonderful interpretation of Treize-sama. Thanks, Kat!
Key for punctuation:
"..." - character dialogue
/.../ - character thoughts
italics - song lyrics
Summer, A.C. 197
"Such a glorious afternoon, sir. May I bring you more iced coffee?"
In a small European cafe, a waiter's trembling hand hovered above an empty glass filled with crushed ice. There was a pause as the owner of the glass looked slowly up from his book and regarded the waiter with eyes the color of summer pools. A quick nod of the head and the glass was spirited away into the dark depths of the cafe's interior room. For what must have been the twentieth time that day, those blue eyes lifted to the equally blue heavens to stare at the radiant color, the creamy white clouds, and the way that the golden sunlight slanted into the quiet afternoon of this tiny square in Vienna.
"Treize." Lingering for a moment on the name, also muttered several times that day, the man at the cafe table sighed inwardly and went back to his book.
"Milliard..."
Some day out of the blue
In a crowded street or a deserted square
I'll turn and I'll see you
As if our love were new
Some day we can start again, some day soon
Zechs dropped his book in his lap and sat up abruptly. He turned to see who had addressed him in the name he no longer used, but no one was there. The cafe patio had three other patrons but they were all talking among themselves. The waiter was nowhere to be seen either and no one was on the streets of this small square off the Ringstrasse.
The blond man frowned a bit, and sat back in his chair, taking up the book again. /Damn, this makes three times today. Almost like someone following me.../
The waiter was back. "Here you are, sir. And I brought some of the fresh orange thins that the baker just finished." Putting the glass and plate on the table, the waiter straightened up and looked around the square. "Isn't it *just* a glorious afternoon!" he sighed.
"Yes, you've already noted that. *Thank you*," Zechs said firmly and went back to his book. He was in no mood for overly-friendly waiters and this one seemed to want to attach himself with a particular vengeance. The words that he read, though, made no sense to him. He was lost in his own thoughts, as he often was these days when he pretended to read. It made good cover for brooding.
Here comes the night
Here come the memories
Lost in your arms
Down in the foreign fields
/If only you had survived the war. Perhaps we could have worked things out between us. Such a staggering blow, my love - to realize we weren't enemies at all, at the very end. How could we be? You'd been the other half of me since we met so many years ago.../
A flood of bittersweet reminiscence assailed him then - images of being with Treize at his home in Kiev, of fighting beside him in Asia, of making love with him after the battles were over and they allowed themselves to find a second, sweeter victory. So many countries, so many passionate moments together, stolen from tours of duty and late-night commands.
/And now it's gone... I'll never see him again. No. That just doesn't fit. I can't bring myself to believe it. He can't be gone. I simply won't allow it.... As if I could change it now.../
Not so long ago
Seems like eternity
Those sweet afternoons
Still capture me
/Ah, love. Do you remember that time we met outside of Bremen? You had arranged horses for us and we rode through a linden forest that warm summer day. I spent the entire time just watching you. The way you moved was water through water, and the sun gave your hair sparks of fire that fell and drowned in your lovely blue eyes. I fell in love with you all over again that day. And you gave yourself to me so completely later, in that quiet hiding place among the ferns, with no one to see us but the forest itself. Surely that was a thousand lifetimes ago.../
"Enough," Zechs muttered to himself. Much to his waiter's distress the tall blond paid for his coffee and left the cafe, needing to wander, needing to think.
Sometime later, he found himself on a crowded pedestrian bridge overlooking the Danube. The tourists were out in full force but as the sun beat down on the blond man's head, their voices and footsteps seemed to fade, and he was back in time, looking at himself lying on sun-warmed stone. A battle had just concluded at the Athens base and afterwards Treize had brought him to the island of Mykonos where they would spend the next 3 days doing nothing but lying in the sun, sleeping, and making passionate love to each other.
That memory - of spreading himself out like a sacrifice to the gods, naked and golden in the hot summer sun, was so intense it was as if he were there again. He remembered the way his skin seemed to soak in the warmth and send it downward, as if the sun itself were filling him and making him swell with desire. He'd been fantasizing then, about Treize of course, and was just starting to let his hand wander down when someone had grabbed his wrist and prevented him, Treize - blocking the hot sun and pinning his wrists above his head...
His eyes were closed and now he gave out a long, low moan, pressing himself against the cool stone of the bridge. A few of the tourists gave him nervous glances, but he never knew they were there, so complete was the memory.
I still believe
I still put faith in us
We had it all
and watched it slip away
"How can this have happened..." he whispered to the flowing water below him. /How - when I finally understood; when I saw beyond the bitterness that the war had nurtured in me and discovered that you were not the god I had made you to be, but a man - troublesome and imperfect at times, as we all are. Just a man... *my* man. But there wasn't any latitude for this slow learner. If there had been, I know you would be with me here now. We would have survived our abstract war... and ended up in each other's arms. I just know it..../
Zechs closed his eyes once more, but directly as he did a scent came through the air to him. Roses... always roses, and the scent of... Treize. So unique, so powerful, he'd never been able to forget it. His eyes flew open again, and he looked around wildly, searching the crowd for a tall, ginger-haired man. A flash of sapphire blue caught his attention on the left and he turned quickly towards it, seeing nothing. But then the scent, the rose scent came again from the right and he turned again, then stood there, lost, in the middle of the bridge.
Where are we now
Not where we want to be
Those hot afternoons
Still follow me
Another street, leading to the hotel he was staying in. He looked up it, far down the block, and felt an involuntary shudder go through him. /Don't go. You know you don't want to be there. Alone, in some damned impersonal hotel room with nothing but pain and regret and a sense of never being able to atone./
He had helped to fight off Dekim Barton's challenge to the fledgling United Earth Sphere government and that had gone far towards redeeming him in the eyes of Earth. But there was another redemption, to him more highly prized, and that one, he had realized, would never come. Because Treize Khushrenada was dead.
/NO!! You remember him - he was too vibrant, too full of life to be that way! Just as he was all those times we were together.../
Back in time once again - a side trip to Mexico after a run in with rebels stationed in Mexico City. He and Treize had run off to the Yucatan for three days afterwards, finding a secluded house on a private beach where they could spend their days alone and naked, sleeping when they wanted, and coupling when the desire struck. There had been one amazing afternoon... wrestling for top in the shade of several palms on the beach, exhilarating sex, and then walking up to the top of a small cliff that overlooked the deep water. He had grabbed Treize's hand and whispered, "Come with me," and the next thing he knew he'd pulled them both off the cliff and they were holding hands, yelling at the top of their lungs, and free-falling, down, down, into the water the color of Treize's eyes. The found each other again under the water and rushed up to the surface to breathe and kiss...
As the reality of the quaint, European street closed over the memory of that time, Zechs thought he almost felt a familiar hand brush his cheek. He turned and as he did he could have sworn he saw someone duck into the alleyway behind him. Stunned for a moment, he collected himself and walked back to look, but whoever had been there was gone.
Some day out of the blue
Maybe years from now
Or tomorrow night
I'll turn and I'll see you
As if we always knew
Some day we would live again, some day soon
"Always nobody there," he murmured to himself. "But he has to be somewhere... even if I never do find him, I have to believe he's still alive... somewhere." He sat down heavily on a bench that faced the street and saw the two of them in Treize's quarters, drinking wine and talking of possible futures. Treize hadn't wanted to talk of war that night. Instead he spoke of what he would do when the war was over. Zechs had been somewhat nervous, uncertain if his lover's plans would necessarily include him. And then Treize had spoken some of the sweetest words the blond had ever heard.
"On the day we celebrate peace, Milliard, I will come to you and take your hand, and we will find someplace to be together, just you and I, for the rest of our lives."
The passion behind that lovely thought, the blessed certainty in the older man's voice, had been a joy to hear. They *did* belong together, and he *would* be by Treize's side after the war ended. There had been no doubts any longer. Treize had swept them away with his silky and decisive voice.
"Just a matter of time," Zechs whispered to the street, "and you'll be here again."
Here comes the night
Here come the memories
Lost in your arms
Down in the foreign fields
The afternoon was fading into twilight as Zechs wandered into the public garden. A guard approached him, reminding him that the garden would close in 30 minutes and he nodded his understanding, heading for the rose garden.
It was an enchanted place in the growing gloom. The day's hot sun had released the fragrance of the showy flowers and now the sweetness had settled in a dusky cloud on the secluded spot. Wandering among the neatly planted bushes, Zechs sought out the darkest, reddest rose he could find and stood before it. Reaching out long, golden fingers to touch the petals, he spun back in time to a summit meeting Treize had gone to, outside of Beijing. Zechs had just completed a sortie over the JAP sector and received an invitation from his superior officer to join him for the night. The Lightning Baron had put in one call to the conference center, then headed towards it in his Aries.
Later that afternoon, after a great deal of reconnaissance, done while Treize finished up his meetings, he had led his companion to a meadow near the meeting place. There had been a slow, seductive undressing scene and then Zechs had produced a large bag that had been given to him an hour before by the concierge at the conference center. "Lie down," he murmured and Treize had done so, smiling up at him in heavy shade Zechs had found under a tree. "I wanted to thank you for the invitation," Zechs had said, his voice soft and husky with desire. "So here are my thanks." Then he'd upended the bag over Treize's nude body, bringing on a storm of soft, fragrant petals, spilling over his lover's smooth skin. And Treize had laughed and held his hands up, catching the silky rain that fell down on him. Zechs had laughed too, picking up heaps of petals and dropping them over the man's chest and thighs.
Not so long ago
Seems like eternity
Those sweet afternoons
Still capture me
When passion finally got the better of them, they had wrestled erotically in the flowery bed they'd made, every thrust and every tensing muscle crushing the petals further and releasing more fragrance. He had been drunk on the scent by the end, and seemed to smell roses for days afterwards, when he and Treize were again far apart.
He came back to the present day slowly, only to find that he'd fallen to his knees before the rose bush, his hand clenched around one impossibly soft bloom. Opening his hand, he watched the petals fall softly to the ground and picked one up, brushing it across his cheek.
"Milliard..."
Some day out of the blue
Maybe years from now
Or tomorrow night
I'll turn and I'll see you
As if we always knew
Some day we would live again, some day soon
He knew what he would find, but he turned anyway, needing to because the voice sounded so real. And there he was - Treize Khushrenada - alive and real, and looking down at Zechs with his clear, blue-eyed gaze. "Am I dreaming?" The tall blond whispered, not taking his eyes off the vision for fear that it would fade.
"No, my friend," the soft, silky voice responded. "I'm no dream, no ghost either. I have found you after all this time... and you have found me..."
Zechs rose slowly to his feet, not daring to breathe so that the man before him would stay. "Then I must be dead, and someone sent me to the wrong place..."
The older man chuckled and reached his hand out to touch Zechs's cheek. "If this is what death would have been like, why would I have fought so hard to stay alive?"
That touch! Zechs drew in a sharp breath and then covered Treize's hand with his own. A flood of tears threatened to overwhelm him and he squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head to nuzzle into that soft embrace. "It... It *is* you..." the blond managed to say, more sure of that touch, that gentleness, the fragrance that was Treize, than anything he'd ever believed.
Some day out of the blue
In a crowded street or a deserted square
I'll turn and I'll see you
As if our love were new
Some day we can start again, some day soon
"I knew you'd be back," Zechs murmured as they explored each other's faces with heated fingertips. Then mouth found mouth and they melted together as they had on all the countless afternoons that Zechs had remembered that day. But today was different. Today they had been given another chanc. After a long moment, Zechs reluctantly tore his mouth away and wrapped his once and future lover tightly in his arms. "I just knew... Treize."
Treize arms slid around the tall blond's neck and he pulled him in just as tightly. "My Milliard... eternal friend, eternal love... This time we'll get it right."
~ owari ~
(:./kumiko/bblood31)
