Duties of Power, Gundam 00 (Graham/Marina)
Title: Duties of Power Author/Artist: shiegra Rating: PG13 Word count: 470 Prompt: Gundam 00 - Graham/Marina - it could happen - unexpected circumstances
He was more polite than she’d expected.
A soldier, of course, a man in a uniform with death on his hands, but no blood, the way they all did. She watched them sometimes, trying to discern what made them different, what each one individually thought gave them the power and judgement of God, how each one found deliverance (did any of them believe they did?) from the weight that did not show on their immaculate fingers or shoulders. Even their monsters (the monsters under the bed, the golems risen from earth in sleek metal and brand names) were untouched, no human gore staining their surface. Sometimes they were damaged, the screaming tear of metal or the cleansing incineration of fire, but they didn't touch the ground; they didn't touch the mortal fragile bodies they tore apart.
Some call the Gundams a blessing.
Marina was young enough, then, to trip when he pressed oh-so-politely, and surrender to the sharpness of her feelings, the chilly blade tearing free of her ribcage and at her mouth. She hurled the words at him, faltering slightly over the still awkward language. How do you stand it? She was really asking, bearing the weight of their lives on hands that don't show your guilt?
Because what was her office but another construction of power that didn't show its effect, the same symbol as their armor, the same impact. Sometimes she feels like every step she takes breaks bones beneath expensive slippers.
He didn't lash out back at her; there was no anger in him, but his eyes flashed. The sky opened around them in a wash of red and yellow, deep amber tones spreading against the sand swept dusky horizon. Here, his Flag damaged and leaking smoke and she bereft of her throne, only a girl in torn silks and cloaked by anger, they are both only human.
"You don't deny it." He said, and he caught her arm before she fell, pulled her against the warmed metal, held her upright long after she needed his hand. "Don't lie to yourself, Princess, and you aren't lying to them."
Her hair fell over his hands like silk, as warm as the smooth surface beneath them, her pale skin flushed with the dying sun. There was age in her eyes, and wisdom beneath the pain of a trapped animal forced to perform.
She put a hand on his wrist, fingers brushing the starched edge of uniform, curling against the warm rise of bone and the line of veins, beating a steady rhythm. He kissed her first, but there was no passiveness in her, only the inexorable grace of the tide, her eyes closed as she leaned into him, cool hands on his skin, her heartbeat thick and echoing in the shell of her body like the frantic, doomed beat of wings.