08-Apr-2002
Title: Fragmentary 4/?
Author: Dan
Archive: GWA (yes, Tyr, you can have this one)
Rating: NC-17
Timeline: Semi-AU, after the series, but EW doesn't happen, Treize and Zechs stay dead, and the thing with the teddy bear didn't happen.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, they just run around my Muse Space (Thank you, Hope, for introducing me to that term) and make a mess of the place. I oughta sue for property damage >.<
Note: The National Library in Tokyo is fucking *huge*. You could wander around in the stacks for days and never see another living soul.
You know all the shit you've heard about Tokyo summers? That they're hotter than hell, the humidity makes a sauna feel like the Gobi desert, and the bugs are everywhere--all of that? Well, believe it. The heat is like a malicious grinning imp with a magnifying glass frying the poor bastards running around in this labyrinth of concrete and glass. It makes everything feel worse. Any slightly scratchy fabric turns into the brillo pad from hell, ready to flay the hide off of you. The humidity turns the air into this thing that you swallow instead of inhale; everything breathes in these shallow little pants. Don't even get me started on the mosquitoes.
I pluck at the flimsy cotton of my summer uniform shirt in misery. I've already unbuttoned my shirt down to my bra. I don't have it in me to care about that fussy little bow I'm supposed to wear; I lost that a long time ago. I sprawl across my desk and whimper. I hate being hot.
Something cool and a little wet touches the back of my neck, so cold it's almost painful. I yelp and slap my hand over the condensation-slicked aluminum pop can. I hold it against my skin and sigh in something close to ecstasy. Relena gracefully sits down in the chair that Sylvia has vacated.
Relena's thick blonde hair is held up from her neck in a high ponytail. She's taken all that hair and wrapped it around the rubber band holding her hair up, and then pinned the two sections to her head. The lose ends brush over her shoulders, managing to look cute and elegant at the same time. Her shirt isn't unbuttoned as low as mine, and she still manages to look comfortable. For a moment the jealousy almost makes me cry. Then she presses her soda can to her throat with a low sound, and I find my mouth suddenly dry. The smallest of the things she does moves me.
Duo makes a whining sound from where he sits next to Heero, pulling at the shirt that he's unbuttoned down to his navel. If the heat hadn't sapped the strength from me I'd be drooling. "Datte, Heero... "
Relena twitches in irritation. Duo's been pestering Heero for the majority of homeroom to skip class with him. Heero seems to think that school is just a new mission, and refuses to abandon it. Duo's incessant whining and pleading is very obviously annoying the hell out of Relena, who doesn't
have much patience as far as he's concerned.
I wince when Duo starts up again; Relena makes a sound suspiciously close to a growl. I sit up and blink when she pushes away from the desk. Neither boy pays any attention to her as she rummages viciously through her bag. She pulls something out with a small, rather pleased look. I chew on my bottom lip as she walks towards Duo with a determined air.
Duo yelps when she grabs his braid with one hand, and tries to pull away.
"Sit down and shut up, Maxwell," she snaps, and to my utter amazement he does just that. With quick and practiced movements she gathers the long fall of his hair and wraps it into knot at the back of his head, then she uses the two industrial strength clips she'd pulled from her backpack to pin it there. Taking one of Duo's hands, she places the cold pop can in it and leads him to press it to the back of his neck. Duo makes a low sound of pleasure and his eyes drift shut. Heero looks at Relena as if she's grown a second head. I watch as Relena's eyes go dead and cold in reply to his shocked look, and start chewing on my bottom lip again. Could be worse, I could be chewing on my nails.
"I'll want those back," she tells Duo in her typical flat tone.
He nods, still in the ecstasy produced by a chilled can applied to the back of an unbearably hot neck. Something in the tense set to her shoulders softens.
"Duo," she says quietly, and her voice is still enough to command his attention with just that quietly spoken word. "If boys don't cry, then they don't whine either."
He cocks his head to the side, as if seeing her for the first time, then gives her a little nod. Relena suddenly becomes aware that she's the center of the class's attention. Her features settle into her normal mildly disdainful expression, and everyone quickly finds something else to hold their attention.
I blink at her stupidly as she stalks towards me. She picks up her bag with a tiny tremor in her hands. I'm the only one who sees it.
"You coming?" she asks over her shoulder as she stalks out the door.
"Eh?" I say with my sparkling intelligence, and then scramble after her. I pause for a moment at the door and shrug one shoulder in bemusement at Duo.
Relena is waiting for me at the school gate. The idle wind moves her hair like it knows that it ought to make her stand out somehow. Not that she needs the help. I dash to her, panting just a little, and more than a little confused.
"What's up?" I ask.
"I need to go to the National Library."
"And I'm here because?"
"You're coming because I don't want to go alone," she doesn't look at me when she says that. Although her voice leaves no room for disagreement, her shoulders are hunched as if to avoid a blow.
"Nice of you to ask," I mutter teasingly.
"It's air-conditioned," she says slyly.
"Oh, well, in /that/ case... "
"I thought we weren't supposed to abuse our post-war status," I say as I sort of trot alongside Relena. As I have noted before, the girl has amazingly long legs; sometimes that makes it a little hard to keep up with her.
Relena arches one aristocratic eyebrow. "You want to wait in that line until the end of eternity?"
I step into the elevator with mild apprehension and distaste. I hate small-enclosed places. Piloting a mobile suit was different; there was the illusion of space, which made everything okay. "Well, no, but the Lady will be all over our case if she hears about it."
"She won't." The confidence in Relena's voice makes me nervous.
"I hate to ask a stupid question, but--how?"
"The same way she never finds out about our little stash of assorted alcoholic beverages."
"She doesn't find out about our booze because I've told Apu that if he breathes a word to anyone about it, I'll cut off his balls and feed them to the pigeons."
"Well," Relena blinks at me for a moment, and then shrugs a little. "I just made a similar type of threat to the young man at the counter in regard to his continued employment for any governmental agency."
"Anyone ever tell you that you're a vicious little bitch?" I ask as I hold open the door to the stacks for her.
"Vicious, yes. Bitch, yes. Little, no." Relena gives me a small, smug smile as she steps through the doors. I follow her with that automatic quietness that I always get in libraries. I lean against the doors for a moment and inhale that dry smell of old books reverently cared for. It is a rare smell, in my experience. I'm still more used to the smell of oil, burning things, and blood. The smell of books I have always associated civilization and people smart enough not to have to kill for what they want. People like Relena.
I watch her stand in the small glow of one of the overhead lights. She frowns at the slip of paper in her hand and then up at the old system of Dewy Decimal numbers emblazoned on the sides of the wooden bookcases. Most countries had their libraries electronically categorized so you just punched in the book you wanted and then waited for the little person at the front desk to call you forward. Japan and England, for reasons of their own, refused to follow the trend and maintained their old, poorly-lighted stacks. I love it.
The National Library's stacks, especially the reserved section that we're in, are labyrinthine system of bookshelves that top nine feet and seem to go on for an eternity. The National Library, like most of the national libraries of major countries, is almost part museum, part library. The Japanese in particular are partial to their old buildings, and so just continually build new sections as demand decreed. As a result the Library is full of dead ends, forgotten rooms, and next to no one goes into the upper levels. It's too much of a pain in the ass to navigate them.
Relena walks down the aisle between two rows of stacks, looks up at the Dewy Decimal numbers, then turns around and walks back. I play with the idea of letting her figure it out for herself and getting to watch her pace back and forth until find her books, but she looks so cutely distressed and irritated that I cave in and come to her rescue.
"Here, let me see," I say quietly, and hold out my hand. I'm more reverential in libraries than I am in cathedrals. Relena doesn't say anything, just places the slip of paper in my hand, her fingers running over my palm. I have to close my eyes to keep myself from shuddering.
Relena brushes the tips of her fingers along my jaw before kissing me so softly, like she does when she thinks I'm asleep. "You're good for my ego."
I open my eyes and scowl a little, disturbed that I might be that obvious. I've learned to keep my emotions close, hidden, but with her I always seem to be an open book. It scares me just a little bit, as if there's something inside me that I'm always hiding. "I don't like to think that I'm so transparent."
"Only because I know to look." She smiles at me, sweet and almost happy. She pulls back from me with that slow, deliberate grace. "So, where is it?"
I look at the numbers written down in her neat handwriting and have a flash of memory so sudden it makes my hand tighten around the slip of paper, crushing it. I remember hiding in the library because the older kids refused to come into the decrepit rooms. Especially the older boys, and they were the ones you couldn't let find you. I shake the memory away from with an impatient shake of my head. I'm no one's victim. Not anymore. Relena places her hand on my wrist, the question in her eyes. But there is patience in them too. I don't need to tell her if I can't right now, and we both know I can't. Not yet.
"It's over here," I whisper as I take her hand to lead her between the towering stacks. I'm aware of her moving quietly beside me, even though most of my mind is preoccupied with finding her book. It's almost as if I have a cellular awareness of her so that no matter what my mind is doing, some part of me will always know when she is nearby.
"Why are you talking in whispers?" she asks. Her head is cocked slightly to the side, and amused smile threatens to peek through that polite mask she always wears.
I blink up at her and then shrug. "Habit, I guess. Libraries have that affect on me."
"A reverent Hilde," she muses and then smiles glowingly. "I think it's sort of cute."
I scowl at that; I hate being called cute. I don't argue with her about it, though; that only provokes more comments about how cute I am. I just shake my head in exasperated helplessness before walking down the appropriate aisle. I run my fingers over the backs of the books as I look for the numbers. I like the feel of covers across my skin, sort of dry and rasping--like the skin of snake.
Relena walks behind me just watching. I can feel her amusement at the situation, and I almost blush. I don't know why, but I feel like I'm doing something slightly childish in her opinion. Not that Relena would ever say something like that, not to me. When I stop she walks up to me and stands so close that I can smell her faint perfume. The lilac scent seems at home in smell of the books. Maybe it's just me.
"Of course your book would be all the way at the top of the stack." I jerk my thumb towards the top of the bookcase and give her a look of mock annoyance.
Relena reaches over and rolls one of the rack-ladders towards us. "That's what these things are for, right?"
"Exactly, Captain Obvious."
She sticks her tongue out at me before climbing up the ladder towards her books. I just want to know how she manages to look dignified and elegant climbing up those rickety little ladders. I tilt my head just a little and get a perfect view right up her little bell skirt. Under the pretense of holding the ladder steady I stand there and watch her tight, white panty-clad tush move in wonderfully enticing ways.
"Are you looking up my skirt?" Relena asks laughingly. She leans towards me, precariously perched on the ladder with one hand on an upper rung.
I grin up at her unrepentantly. "Of course. Do you really think that I would pass up such a great view?"
Relena makes a great show of looking around before turning back around flipping up the back of her skirt in a flirtatious, teasing way.
"Well, aren't you a naughty thing," I tease her, even though my mouth has gone dry. Maybe I should start lighting candles for Duo's god. He keeps answering these small prayers of mine.
Relena finds and nabs her book in one deft movement. She slithers down the ladder and into my arms. I inhale her faint lilac sent and then give into the urge to nuzzle the side of her neck. Relena sighs softly in a contented sort of way, and her fingers wander along the waist of my skirt. I wonder when we got so comfortable touching each other. It seems like things are moving so fast between the two of us, like time and events are just whipping past me in a confused blur. I can't keep up with all the changes in my life; I can't see where I'm going. Then Relena's nibbling at my earlobe, pulling at it with her teeth, and I don't bother with the little details like the future of our relationship anymore.
"So, are you going to punish me?" Relena whispers. Her voice is sort of breathless and husky. She has a good voice for phone sex, and, somehow, even the image of Relena doing phone sex is kinda classy.
"I guess I'm going to have to, huh?" I murmur back as I nibble along her neck. Did I mention that she has nice skin? Really, really nice skin--all smooth and creamy under the faint light. She moans and wiggles against me in ways that make my higher cognitive capacities shut down. I spend so much of my time around her not being able to think straight, not being able to think of anything but the way she makes me feel. Just because she lets me touch her, lets me in, I feel like someone who just might matter.
Relena leans back against the bookshelves as I start to unbutton her shirt, and for one crazy moment I have a vision of us knocking over all the stacks while making wild whoopee in the library. Her fingers underneath my skirt, along the backs of my legs, quickly make me forget that silly thought and concentrate on far more important things. Like making Relena moan. I slip my knee between her legs, spreading her just a bit as she braces herself against the bookshelves.
She looks at me with those big blue eyes, her mouth soft and bruised from our kissing. I touch her bottom lip tenderly. As much as the she amazes me, it amazes me more that she lets me do this. I have to stretch, just a bit, to be able to kiss her. She places her hands on my hips to steady me against her. I nibble a little on her lower lip before deepening the kiss. Relena responds by sliding her fingers under my skirt, under the elastic of my underwear, making me gasp and shiver.
Relena laughs at I swear at my own clumsiness, and I'm always just a little clumsy with her. That low, husky chuckle makes my legs shaky. There is something so delicious, so utterly perfect in the way she stands there against the bookshelves with her shirt undone and her hair mussed and her skirt pushed up to her hips, but over all that is her unshakable dignity. Looking at her, knowing I could touch her anywhere and she would welcome it made me catch my breath. I kiss her lightly, chastely because she moves me, and will always move me.
Relena wraps her arms around me, snuggling me closer to her before opening her mouth under mine, making me moan. I sink against her, letting her wrap herself around me. We knock the books off their shelves trying to keep our balance and still be able to touch each other everywhere. It makes us both giggle softly at the situation and ourselves. Relena sighs as I let my hands wander over her skin. Thanks to Dorothy's belief that fencing can excise some of the demons in our heads Relena has a wonderfully tight stomach that I love to touch. Of course, I love to touch all of her. As I smooth my hands over her abs, along her ribs, and over the undersides of her breasts, she kisses my forehead, cheeks and neck--small gentle touches of her lips to my skin.
A small sound, like a half strangled whimper, catches my attention, manages to make me pay attention to something other than Relena. I look through the gap in the bookshelves to meet Heero's stunned stare. I don't think he could get any more surprised if a herd of pink elephants trot by. The opportunity to show him exactly what he's missing is too perfect. I smile at him sweetly while Relena's eyes are closed, her breath coming in these lovely little pants. I watch as he places one hand on the bookshelf between us, his knuckles slowly going white as he holds on, but he doesn't look away.
I want to laugh, cackle with glee, as his eyes get bigger when I start to kiss Relena's neck and she moans so sweetly. I know I shouldn't do this; I know she'd be absolutely mortified, furious, and hurt, but tormenting Heero like this is something that I just can't stop. The look in his eyes, the way his hands tighten around the thick wooden shelf until it creaks, gives me the biggest rush. I've never known myself to be an exhibitionist before, but with him it almost seemed right. It seems like I'm just sharing this with him rather than putting on a show. I don't understand it, but I decide not to question it either. I'm having enough problems figuring out my fucked up relationships as it is already.
I smile at him, slow and sly. Heero leans his head against the bookshelf and closes his eyes as if he's trying to compose himself. I fully intend to make that completely impossible. Relena unbuttons my shirt the rest of the way and strips it off me with a little growl. I love it when she does that. When she gets all domme. I moan despite myself as she kisses her way down my neck, down the valley between my breasts, and then down my stomach. I bury my hands in her hair and sway against her just a little. I look up into Heero's eyes and wink. He looks so confused, so unsure of himself that I just want to cuddle him and tell him it'll be all right. Even though I know that if Relena ever found out what was going on things would be very, very far from all right.
I place one hand on the bookshelf between Heero and I, and then beckon him to me with one finger. I can't help but chuckle just a little when his eyes get even wider and he shakes his head. I sigh, half in frustration with him and half because Relena's doing things to my stomach with her mouth that feel better than just good.
"Lena... " I moan, but she tugs my panties away and replaces them with her mouth--which makes me completely unable to do anything besides whimper and pant in desperate passion. I don't know what I was going to tell her, maybe that Heero was there--that maybe we should stop--but there is no way that I could tell her to stop now.
She places one arm around my hips so I can lean back against it, so that I'm locked against her. I fist my hands in her hair and just moan.
Another gasp echoes mine, and I know it's not Relena. She's way too focused on making me sway against her. When I manage to get my eyes to focus again, I meet Duo's bright blue, and very wicked gaze. Duo's eyes travel over the scene Relena and I make with an expression that I just can't quite discern before whispering something in Heero's ear that makes the Boy Wonder close his eyes and shudder. He winks at me very deliberately before pulling Heero back against himself.
Heero arches back against Duo's body, head resting against Duo's collarbone, one hand going to bury itself in Duo's hair. Duo keeps his eyes locked on mine as he lowers his head to kiss Heero's neck. I have no idea where Duo's hands are, but whatever he's doing its driving Heero nuts, but it's a very quiet crazy. I never though I'd see the day when Heero was not in control, but he's definitely not in control right now.
Never losing eye contact with Duo I pull Relena back to her feet and push her against the bookshelves, and she goes without question, her eyes closed, head lolling back against the books to show the showing the slender line of her neck. One of her hands goes to rake through my hair and drag me closer to her. I obligingly leave a line of tender bites down her throat. She doesn't argue when I tug her shirt out of her school skirt and strip it away from her skin.
I look up into Duo's eyes and see something that makes me pause: envy. I'm not sure what about, but I know the look. He closes his eyes very slowly and smiles a bittersweet smile that will haunt my dreams. Relena opens her eyes, mildly confused as to why I've stopped. I smile at her because something about us makes my heart ache, but I never want that ache to stop. If I ever look at Relena, and don't feel that pressure around my heart then I know I've died.
I sigh as she reaches out to trace my cheekbones before kissing me again. I sink into her kiss, hands sliding up her legs to make her writhe and gasp. I stop thinking about the two boys on the other side of the bookshelves. I stop thinking about the incredibly fucked up relationships that we have between the four of us. Hell, I stop thinking at all, like I always do when I touch Relena like this.
Relena arches and shudders against me, which makes me moan. Her hands spasm on my shoulders. She pants a little as she fights for her remaining control. I love being able to push her over that edge. She fights that loss of control so much, fights right up until the very end that makes the expression that she gets when the pleasure sweeps over her a wondrous thing.
She holds onto me as she shudders from the force of her orgasm. I lay my head against her breast as I move my hands through her hair, letting it spill through my fingers and fall against her back. She straightens in that slow sensuous way that I love so much. Relena gently presses her forehead to mine with a lovely, dreamy smile creeping over her lips.
"I love that look," she whispers.
"What look?" I wonder.
"That fascinated, incredibly-pleased-with-yourself expression," she replies with her eyes still closed.
"I like making you feel good, or at least better," I say, incredibly flustered for a multitude of reasons. Not in the least of them is the abashed shame that I just let Duo and Heero watch one of our most intimate moments. But it just doesn't seem wrong to share this with them. It should, but it doesn't. Trying to figure out how I feel about her is difficult enough, but now trying to figure out how I feel about the two boys in the middle of our relationship is worse. I sigh, frustrated and annoyed with myself.
Relena smiles, completely misunderstanding the reason for my sigh. She pulls me closer to her, almost cuddling me. I can hear her heartbeat as it slows down from that thundering rush. Sometimes I forget how much taller she is, that I barely come up to her nose.
"You make me feel so much more than just better," she murmurs. A sudden sound makes us both tense. I close my eyes against the impending sense of doom that crashes over me. Relena pushes me away from her with excruciating slowness, and turns to look through the bookshelves like one turning around to a catastrophe. Her hand on my upper arm tightens painfully.
"Duo."
I pray that he won't joke around right now, that he'll understand. I keep my eyes closed because I know--I /know/--I don't want to see her face right now. I don't want to see the betrayal, the confused rage, and the pain.
"It wasn't intentional, Relena." It was and it wasn't intentional. We all know that. But the apology and, well, sorrow in his voice makes me open my eyes.
Heero has his face pressed against Duo's shoulder, his arms wrapped loosely around Duo's waist. I can't even begin to fathom the thoughts running through his head. Duo just stands there with one arm around Heero, the other one holding onto the bookshelf. With his shirt open and untucked he looks like a seme from the cheap doujinshi Sylvia likes to read. Duo doesn't flinch from Relena's gaze, doesn't look away, but he's not defiant. He's just ... fucking inscrutable again.
"How long have you been there?" Another version of the important question: 'How much did you /see/?'
"Does it really matter?"
"Yes."
That one word falls like a death sentence. Relena doesn't let me go, but she doesn't look at me either. And I know that fragile line holding us together just shattered; probably beyond my ability to fix. I close my eyes again. Heero and I have just become silent actors in all of this, and whatever is going on, whatever tragedy is unfolding, has become something soft and violent between Relena and Duo.
"Long enough." He leaves the rest of the sentence unsaid. --Long enough for the damage to be done. Too long--
She turns to me and we can only stare at each other. I want to reach out and take it all back, to take way all the pain between us. But instead I can only stand there, mute, frozen in place.
"You knew?"
I nod silently. I want to explain, but I have nothing to explain with, no words with which to assuage her hurt rage.
"Why?" She stops herself, her hand falls away from my arm. "No, I don't want to know."
"Relena... " I manage to choke out her name, but she steps away from me without meeting my eyes. She picks up her book and shrugs her shirt on, hugging it to herself.
"I'm leaving." She doesn't look at me still.
I watch her turn on one heel and walk away, her back very straight. I want to race forward and grab her. I want to hold her close to me until she understands. I want to beg for her forgiveness because I know--I know--I've done her a terrible wrong.
I stand there until she's gone, until I hear the doors to the stacks open and shut with horrible finality. Duo comes to stand in front of me and I can't read his expression. Heero picks up my shirt and hands it to me. I don't remember when she got it off me, and I can't even feel embarrassed about it. Heero says something, but I can't hear the words over the ringing in my ears.
Duo gently places his hands on my shoulders, and I can feel the calluses that he still has on his palms. "Hilde?"
I can only look up at Duo blankly. I can feel my eyes start to fill with tears, and can't do anything about it. Duo slides his hand down my shoulder to pull me to his chest. He doesn't tell me not to cry. He doesn't tell me anything.
For a moment it's just me and Duo, Like we were in the war--holding onto each other when everything else was going to shit. Well, me holding onto him while everything fell apart. Heero hovers next to us, and I get the distinct impression that he's confused and uncomfortable with everything. It makes me realize again how tied together the four of us are; how utterly fucked-up we are.
I let Duo hold me softly. "I screwed it up, Duo. I really, really screwed it up."
End Part 4
(:./dan/fragment4)
