cozzybob (cozzybob) wrote in cozzybabbles, @ 2008-02-25 19:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | 6xd, dorothy, smut, zechs |
[GW] Paceatur
Paceatur
by cozzybob
Rated: Rish
Pair: 6xD, refs to onesided 9+6, past 13x6
Warning: some bad words, het sexual situations, sex over a grave (lime), angst, sap, minor Noin bashing... takes place between the end of the series and EW.
Note: For Ederyn, because she had a very bad month. Paceatur is a legal term in Latin meaning: let him be freed or discharged.
Summary: The last time she had seen him, he had told her that he was going to die, and she said she knew it. And yet here they were a half-year later, both alive, and both wishing they weren't.
The grass was like a sea of emerald, its color so vivid that it might have come out of a dream. Sometimes Dorothy dreamed like that, with all the colors too vivid, romantic metaphors she'd never dare use in her waking hours waltzing on her tongue--just last night she dreamed of the pale yellow white of his hair, and how it compared to the sun on a cold winter day.
There were words about that hair, of course, words slipping from her lips to kiss itself upon his skin that she could scarcely remember, but they had been spoken in her dreams, and on his flesh, and in her thoughts, time and again, like every other time she dared dream of the colors of his body; the red, the pale golden white, the blue, the black, and the colorless.
But she was not dreaming.
He was standing there at his own grave, the windswept sun-kissed strands not tucked behind his ears dancing in the air like silver strings of smoke. He was standing there reading his own epitaph, fists digging into the shallow pockets of his jeans for a rose that he did not bring to give to a lover that he had not loved for the last year and a half because he had forgotten in the wake of his hatred for that death, that madness, that war.
He was standing there, and she knew she wasn't dreaming because she could smell him. She could never smell in her dreams, she could never smell him--but she now could, and he smelled like the colors of his body. He smelled like war.
She inhaled it in, and then cursed herself for being so damned romantic, and told herself that even though Noin had been right, that didn't make her right, and that didn't mean Dorothy couldn't have her obsession back where he belonged.
In her lap. Begging forgiveness.
Noin had stopped coming here a month ago because she was lost in the notion that her one true love was not dead, and she should stop mourning him. Dorothy found it ironic that for once, the woman had been right--but she was wrong to think that Zechs would go back to her. The poor man was still suffering the loss of his own apparent life and that of her cousin's, and the last thing on his mind was the relationship of a woman who worshiped him.
Maybe a little later, when he came back to himself... maybe then he would want to be worshiped. Noin was young, and Dorothy could hardly fault her for choosing him to follow--one couldn't deny her good taste, the man had an ass that belonged on a god. But the only thing Zechs wanted was to be left alone.
And here, in this place, there was no competition. Treize was dead, and Dorothy would have what was left of his lover's flesh. Noin would not. And that was that.
She stepped beside him on silent heels, arms folded across her chest tightly in an uncharacteristic defense. Her guard was up because she knew the words written on those grave stones better than she knew her own mother's death date, but she couldn't read them. The silence distracted her, his corded tension tearing her open--hell, she knew she should say something, but what was there to say? The last time she had seen him, he had told her that he was going to die, and she said she knew it. And yet here they were a half-year later, both alive, and both wishing they weren't.
The last time she had seen him in person had been in that room on Libra, the Zero system shielded over her eyes as she rode him, and fucked him into the floor. It wasn't the first of their sexual exploits on the ship--they had started in his quarters, and it evolved into her own, and then the mess hall, the bridge, the random closets, the decks...
At first, it had only been about sex. The first time, she had let him take her like he must have done any other woman--agonizingly gentle, treating her skin to be made of precious china. But the second time, she bound him with wire and a ring and she rode him until he begged. Not to teach him a lesson about who Dorothy really was or what she wanted of him, but because she could. And because she liked it.
It was by the sixth or seventh time that she had stopped calling it fucking, and started calling it sex. There was a line that they had crossed by the tenth time, and on the eleventh, he had even told her that he loved her.
She had never returned the favor, but somehow she felt this notion had fallen into his mind, and it thereby found its way back to her, where she began to believe it against her will. When he died--or rather, when she thought that he'd died--it was all she could do not to chop up Noin into little Aeries-like pieces to eradicate the sudden emptiness lingering in that place where he used to be. It was foolish to take it out on Noin, she should have been more intelligent--surely Dorothy Catalonia had the balls to face facts when she'd fallen for the hottest man in the galaxy?
There were worse fates to suffer, after all.
Oh, her mother was proud as she rolled over in her grave--Trowa Barton had made her cry, Quatre Winner had forced the truth from her, and Zechs Marquise had let her fall in love against her will. Dorothy thought it was pathetic, and would much rather go back to the fucking if it meant shattering another second of awkward silences that accomplished absolutely nothing... this simpering and circling of mindless psychobabble was not her at all.
But she couldn't speak, because she couldn't think of anything to say that would make Zechs drop on his knees and beg to touch her body. Dorothy had plans, she had needs, but there was something to that forbidden l-word that called for precision. Something that made her nervous, made her think stupid things, and made her so happy to see him alive that her tongue had fallen from her mouth to leave her speechless like a dumb idiot.
She knew she was staring when he crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the stone, smiling something small and bitter, his eyes shielded behind that mass of beautiful hair. It was a warm summer day, but he wore a jacket and jeans, black leather gloves over his hands, heavy boots to hide glorious feet, so that the only glimpse of skin on his entire body was his head, half-covered by the hair falling into his face. Was he hiding his body from her or from Treize? She wondered what kind of new scars he'd gotten, from this last dare-devil dance with death.
She wondered what it would take to get those clothes off of his body so that she could find out.
"Dorothy," he said. Too calm, too cool, too collected for a dead man leaning on his own tombstone.
"You're overdressed," she said back. Phase one: try the obvious.
And then he gave her a real smile, and some part of her stone cold heart melted into the ground. Again.
"So I am."
Phase two: try the sap. "Zechs--"
But what to say?
Nothing.
No. No, don't get emotional, Dorothy, that is the path of no return. If you want to survive the night, think about his dick and how to turn it on.
She smiled. Something old. Something not turned on at all.
"You look well," she added, lamely.
Actually, he didn't look well at all, but he looked good for a dead man, and she knew how to be satisfied under special circumstances.
But this... thing... was not part of the deal.
"No," he said.
"No." Repeating his words because he had spoken the truth. "No, you don't."
"Dorothy--"
Fuck phase one and two.
Phase three: grab his collar and kiss him into submission.
And don't. Let. Go.
He shocked her when he kissed right back, hand slithering into her hair, threading through strands only slightly paler than his own. He was rough about it, fists making gnarls, fingernails digging into her scalp, but a little pain only ever made Dorothy more hungry. She had grabbed him by the open jacket and yanked him across to her waiting arms, holding him firmly into place while she forced her tongue into his mouth and proceeded to kiss his breath away. His own tongue had joined hers in that dance, their mouths lingering somewhere in the middle, breaths shared and inhaled, his taste and scent caught in a small part at the back of her throat.
She made a hungry-woman noise and hands crawled up to his neck, digging into the base of his hair and pulling him into her, mouth open and panting, teeth gnawing on his bottom lip, desperate to eat him alive. His hands went down to her hips and they switched positions, her leaning against the stone while he kissed down her neck and into the curves of her chest, teeth scraping over the fabric that shielded a soft nipple.
He had always been fascinated by her breasts, and she let him study them to his own ministrations because it rarely ever failed to give her pleasure. She did not know if he had ever done to Noin what he had done to her--or any other woman, for that matter--but sometimes she was sure she'd been his first woman. Just like sometimes she was sure that her cousin had been his one and only man.
To Dorothy, it felt like he was still a virgin, but sometimes it was hard to forget that he was still young and she was far too active in the various worlds of sex at her age (younger even than he) to be of any judge in the matter. She couldn't even say when she'd had her first, man or woman--either she'd blocked it out or forgotten, or it hadn't been worth telling at all. It didn't matter.
Right now, she had Zechs, Zechs had always been the best lay of her life.
He had not disappointed her.
There is something entirely pure about sex in the presence of death--their action brings forth life, and here of anywhere, in the place where it rests, even symbolically. He had not used a condom, and Dorothy had unknowingly gone abstinent in the wake of his death, so she had not bothered for any kind of pill. Tomorrow, she would take a morning-after, but there is a risk every single time she does it with a man, and she knows full well and she wouldn't regret having his child. She'd had several abortions in the past, but... not his. Not those beautiful genes.
She knew it was foolish to get sentimental over a man and his child, and especially that one, however handsome, who had the uncanny habit of dying--eventually, there would be a time when he would not come back, and she would not stand by and mourn him. But if it came, if there was a child, she would have it to remember him by... because she did love him... she did, and people who loved didn't kill their children, she was positive. Not his, anyway. Not that one.
And if there wasn't one, well, she had today and the next and yesterday until the day that she died. Because it was doubtful that she'd ever forget, no matter the reminder or not.
The sex itself was glorious, though unimportant for the details. In the end, it was about the aftermath. She, leaning against the back of her cousin's stone in her summer dress, and he, with his head in her lap, eyes to slits and distant with memory, the gloves back on, the jacket forgotten, and the shirt still there, long sleeved and dark, hiding his beautiful skin.
She'd made him take the gloves off before they'd gotten very far, but afterward, he'd put them back on again. He wouldn't remove his shirt, even for her, and he hadn't even taken off his pants, opening them only as far as he'd needed to satisfy the both of them. She'd let him, of course, in her own need for release, but he wouldn't do that again. She would make sure of it.
She stroked his hair, fingers curling around the strands that hugged the shell of his ear, and he out a small, shallow sigh at the contact. It wasn't nearly deep enough to exorcise the demons inside of him, or even enough to relax--despite his obvious enjoyment of their actions, he was still tense, and it was the kind of tension that ran bone-deep. He would need time. He would need patience. Neither were things that she was very good at.
He lay sprawled in the grass, one arm resting on the pedestal of her cousin's stone and the other gracelessly draped behind him, fingers touching hers, thumb drawing small circles into her hand. His hair was all over, and she combed it with her fingers, knowing how it irritated him to leave it in such a state of disarray. He was breathing soft and deep, though his shoulders were stiff and his jaw was set at a line of some determined misery--his eyes spoke of distant nightmares, and the tension spoke of the fact that he had not yet managed to forget they existed.
She had a duty to him, in this moment. She couldn't leave him like this, affection or no affection.
So she removed her fingers from his hair, gently grasped his left wrist, and lifted it, pulling the glove off. He fisted his hand instinctively, but let her do as she wished in the submissive way that he'd always done whenever she decided to take control of the situation. His breath hitched and he met her eyes, speaking a fear he'd never dare voice into words. There was something to this act of clothing every part of his body, she knew. There was something about the hiding of his scars, and there was something about his fear. She didn't know what it was, but she didn't think it mattered. She was going to remove it, make him face it, and then they were going to move on.
Slowly, the glove was released from his left hand, the bare fingers curling and then relaxing. There were no scars that she could see--none new, that is, to warrant hiding his hands. She stroked the back, and brought it to her lips, kissing each finger in turn to taste. His expression relaxed by the third finger in her mouth, but when she pulled it away to take his other hand, he tensed again, and the process started over.
Second glove removed, he turned to his side and sat up, pulling away. His left hand, bare, itched for the glove again, but she shook her head and took it from him, putting it into a pocket in her dress.
"No," she said. "You have beautiful hands, and why hide them on a hot summer day like this?"
He wouldn't meet her eyes.
He rubbed them, his hands, and scratched at the backs until they turned red with irritation. Looking closer, she could see old scars, faint, on the backs where he scratched, and she knew they had been caused by his own fingernails. A part of her was sick to see it.
She reached across and stopped the movement before it grew worse. He jerked, then stared up at her warily, before looking away again, closing his eyes, green with sickness. She saw him shiver and she knew he was worse than he let on. Much worse, in fact, than even before he'd died back on Libra. At least then he had a computer system to blame for his madness--here, he had nothing but the past, and his inability to move beyond it.
When he began to look a little lost, she stood and offered a hand to help him up. He took it, his grip bone-crunching... and it wasn't until he was standing again and staring at that grave of her cousin's name that she realized why.
There were things left unsaid--things never resolved, things that had hurt Zechs, and confused him. But Treize was dead, and there was no more making amends... and to have sex over his grave so shamelessly, without regard to memory or honor... Zechs had missed the point entirely.
Dorothy had liked her cousin very much--more so, even, than she'd enjoyed her more immediate family. Treize had understood her where no one else had bothered to try, and didn't even think to judge her when it was discovered of her sexual preferences on all ranges of the gender chart. Who was Treize to judge, after all? The man had slept with more men and women by the age of twenty than even Dorothy cared to understand.
In a way, she was only picking up where her cousin had left off. If Zechs had been hers, Treize would have not left him alone, so why should she, for him? To do it here and now of all places was not sinful in her eyes, in fact, it was one of the few great spiritual moments she'd ever felt in her entire life.
She took his chin and made him look her in the eye. He was still tense, even nervous, but he glared straight on, waiting for whatever judgment she would deliver to him like a man. He wanted her to punish him for the wrongs that he'd committed--he might be free, he might be forgiven, he might even be dead, but he wouldn't get anywhere in this sudden peace of the world unless someone whipped the darkness from him. It was like confessing to genocide and being let off with a slap on the wrist for good behavior. He had very nearly killed over eleven billion people. Just because he didn't succeed didn't mean he hadn't tried do it, and wouldn't again, given another chance and another reason.
It was one of the many aspects to him that she'd fallen for in the first place.
"You won't hide your body from me," she said, firmly.
He glared back in challenge, but said nothing.
"If you want to be forgiven--"
"I don't want to be forgiven." A biting remark, too harsh to be true.
"You want to be punished."
He wouldn't dare deny that.
"Now punishment, that I can do," she added. Then, "But I won't."
Again, he stared, waiting. He knew there was more, with Dorothy, there was always more.
But she remained silent.
So he asked her, "Why not?"
Indeed, why not?
As she considered him, the colors of the day invaded her eyes--the pale gleam to his skin, the vicious red arc of the dying sun in the sky, the blue ice frozen into his eyes, the green sea shivering around them in a dull wind--and she thought to herself, why shouldn't she punish him? To have these colors and more at her hand, under her power, to feel him and need him and want him and have him, to make him beg--
But it wasn't that she wouldn't, no, that had been a wrong choice of words. It was that she couldn't.
She couldn't punish him for what he'd already punished himself. It'd never be enough. And he would never understand that.
So she said, "I won't commit to an unnecessary waste of energy."
"No one said that you should."
"I meant this... affection." She waved a hand at him, face contorted as if smelling something vile. "It's unnecessary."
That small, careful smile. "Of course, Dorothy."
"The next time we fuck, we won't even mention it."
He nodded.
And she laughed for his sincerity.
--Fini