cozzybob (cozzybob) wrote in cozzybabbles, @ 2008-03-04 09:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | 6xd, dorothy, zechs |
[GW] Martian Wedding Rituals
Martian Wedding Rituals
by cozzybob
Pair: 6xD, mention of 1xR
Warning: Fluff! From me. Seriously, if that's not scary, I don't know what is. ;P Hee! Erm. Fluff, sap, romance, pure het, sweetness that will make your teeth ache, happily-ever-afters, not a lick of slash.
Note: For the glorious Princess, by request: “6xD: something sweet; doesn't have to be fluffy, but no angst or unhappiness or bondage.” I know what she likes, and she knows how to give me a challenge. This is actually a stepping stone for me—probably the first *real* romance I've ever done. Isn't that sad, after 100+ fics? xD
Another note: This sort of goes along with another story I'm currently writing, although said story is much, much darker. Hee! When I finally post that, this will fall into the same universe. Not that anyone cares about that now, but whatever. ^^
Summary: Fed up with their long-distance relationship, Dorothy moves to Mars to be with Zechs.
“You shouldn't be there alone,” Dorothy said, although there was a thick undercurrent of without me firmly attached. His entire world was supposed to revolve around her, and it was high time he realized that. So she added, “If you won't leave that awful place, I'm going there.”
“Don't be silly. This is no place for a woman.”
“Excuse me?” Of course she was offended. It wasn't very often anyone had taken to telling Dorothy what to do anymore, and though she loved Zechs, he was the last person she ever wanted to take sexism from.
“I didn't mean--”
“Yes you did. But that's fine. I don't care what you think, Milliardo; unless you tell me you'll return home right now, I'm going to Mars.”
She heard the sharp silence on the other end of the line. It had all come rather suddenly, but she was tired of mere phone calls to that rotten ball of red dust—she couldn't touch him through a phone call, she couldn't watch the way his eyes crinkled around the edges when he smiled at her. She couldn't slap him when he was being a chivalrous git, and she certainly couldn't keep her eyes on his every move to make sure he wasn't sleeping around with some Russian slut behind her back. In fact, how could they hope to have any kind of relationship at all over a phone call, even a very expensive one? She wasn't a phone sex woman, for crying out loud! She was very high maintenance, and she knew what she wanted, and that was Zechs' male body arm in arm with hers as they finally march down the isle. Granted, a Martian wedding wasn't her top choice on the list of Every Girl's Dream, but hey, Mars had to have a Cathedral of some sort. And dresses... and incredible views... and gawking, screaming fans... oh and those cute little hor-dourves Relena had passed around at her wedding. Except that Dorothy's would be better, far more expensive, and tastier, too... err. Anyway.
“I don't think that's a good idea,” Zechs said. He had that overwhelmed-male tone to his voice that Dorothy hadn't heard since Jack's divorce.
She kept her own voice firm, unwilling to budge on what she knew was right. “As I said. I'll see you in five weeks.”
“But--”
“Goodbye, Miliardo.” She lifted the phone away from her ear, but as an afterthought, she added, “I love you.”
His words were choked somehow. “I love you too,” he said.
It didn't matter that he refused to say goodbye, as he always did after a phone call. Soon, he would never have to say goodbye to her ever again, and that was enough for now.
**
Zechs lived the next five weeks in perpetual fear. He hadn't heard a word from her since the call, and there wasn't any communications available on the long inter-planetary flights to Mars to soothe his worries. The fact that she hadn't called him only cemented the fact that she was coming to the red planet in the first place, and that only terrified him further. He lived a bachelor's life—a renegade prince's bachelor's life—and not only was Dorothy going to hate it, but the first thing she was going to do was get them some bigger place in the outskirts of the city so he could—God forbid—live like a real person and not some mechanical test pilot that sprouted out of the Martian rocks somewhere.
The first week, he tried to tidy up his microscopic apartment to suit her fancy, but there wasn't much to tidy and he wasn't at all sure what to buy that make her feel better anyway, nor did he have room to put it even if he knew. The second week, he went on a drinking binge and told the whole story, seven times, to his favorite bartender, who only managed to look sympathetic enough for Zechs to grumble about women and men who didn't understand the shear terror of them unless they were actually in a relationship. With a woman, that is.
The third week he went house shopping. Let's just say that real-estate on Mars? Is not plentiful.
“I'm sorry sir, this is all I have on the market at the moment.” Not that there actually was a market on Mars, at least no legal ones, but whatever.
He'd taken one glance at the run-down shack and glared at the man. “This is smaller than the apartment I already have.”
“Then, sir, I suggest you stay there.”
Everyone loves a comic.
Eventually, by the third week, Zechs had given up all hope of dignity and bought himself a bigger bed that just barely managed to fit in his tiny bedroom. He knew that Dorothy wasn't going to like the idea of sharing a bed before marriage, but he sure as hell wasn't sleeping on the couch (he liked his spine intact, thank you), and he wasn't going to force Dorothy out there either. So, a bigger bed it was, and it was a glorious bed if he did say so himself. It had that Space Foam crap and everything—he'd practically melted into it when he'd finally squeezed the thing through the doorway, sweaty clothes, matted hair, and all.
The forth week, Zechs gave his old bed to a needy family, and then bought (very expensive) groceries to kill his empty cabinets, doing away with the foods he knew for certain Dorothy would not touch with a ten foot pole. He was shocked, really, to find three-year-old Raman in the cupboard, a moldy bag of peanuts growing it's very own colony, chocolate that had gone bad—for one thing, chocolate was extremely expensive on Mars, and for another, since when did chocolate go bad?--a bulging can of peas that he swore had been buried at the back of his cabinet since even before Noin died five years ago, and an entire box of stale food bars that had a strange red growth on them he was sure was the first sign of Martian intelligence since settling on the planet post-Mariemaia.
The fifth week, Zechs had bitten his nails down to pathetic stumps and concentrated on his job as a Martian test pilot for the MP, doing such interesting things as staring at the new ship designs with a fake air of interest, nodding mindlessly when they dragged him into community meetings, flying around the same ship on the same route he'd flown every week since two months ago with the same exact results, and filling out piles of paperwork that said absolutely nothing in fifty plus pages, to sit on a desk that someone else would never read.
When he finally heard her voice again, it came with the brain-melting sensation of blind panic and immense relief at the same exact time.
“We just landed. Are you there?”
“No, I'll be there in ten... fifteen minutes.”
As she hung up, he stared at his bitten nails and sighed wearily. She was going to hate it here. And then she was going to leave, and he was going to stay, and he would probably never see her again. In fact, he hadn't seen her in five years, even before they began a relationship, at least not in person... how much had she changed? How much had he changed? Would she still love him, even if he'd changed too much for her liking?
After Noin's death, Dorothy had called Zechs once a week for the next five years. At first, it was just out of friendly concern for another, but it gradually grew into something more until neither one of them could hope to avoid the swell of emotions that sparked like an electric current between them. They'd tried, for a time, to pursue and continue that relationship through the phone and on the Internet, but Zechs wasn't much of a talker or a typer, and Dorothy, well... Dorothy had standards. Very high, demanding standards that were surprisingly traditional in value. It was nice for Zechs, he didn't really mind... it made her feel like home, in a way he hadn't known since he was very, very young.
So it was with both trepidation and psychobabbling joy that Zechs drove to the port to pick her up. By the time he'd reached the building and had followed the air tram to the gates, he was running his hand through his hair every ten seconds, and his fists were platinum white with barely-concealed tension.
“Don't you look glorious,” she said. Somehow, she'd gotten behind him and he whirled.
She was more beautiful than she'd ever been, and suddenly, he didn't care anymore about Mars anymore—why had he been so stupid? To have this over that was... there weren't any words to coherently describe the vision before him (at least not without waxing bad poetry), but she was all woman, and she only had eyes for him. He was luckiest damned man in the universe.
Then she laughed and pulled on his arm, dragging them back to the parking lot (some things never changed no matter what planet you were on, and crowded airports with loaded parking lots were one of those things). “How is the air so breathable here? It smells kind of... cinnamony. Why is your hair so mussed? And why are you wearing that awful outfit? Your apartment is going to fit both of us, right?”
“Um. Yes?”
She sighed, stopped, and turned to look in his eyes. There was a fine sparkle there, and he returned it. Oh yes, he was lucky.
Her hands pulled away from where she'd grabbed him, then, as if burned... and then she slowly, almost nervously, touched him again. Her other hand warily held his shoulder and she tilted her head, committing whatever expression was in his eyes to memory. Often people had compared the blue in Dorothy's eyes to ice, but Zechs could only think of the blue skies of home.
“I can't believe I'm touching you,” she said with wonder. “I forgot I've never...” She bit her lower lip, nervous.
Zechs ran a hand through his hair yet again, unsure how to proceed. Would she mind if he held her? If he kissed her? If he asked her to marry him right here on the spot?
There was an awkward, “I know...”
And then she brushed her lips with his, sighing something deep and solemn from her chest. “You're a very beautiful man, Milliardo. I can't wait very much longer. Not when this...” Her smaller hand, rubbing his chest as if to soothe his heart. “...is right here.”
He nodded, again awkwardly. But then he smiled genuinely and hooked her by the arm again, leading her as a gentlemen to the car. “Who said anything about waiting?”
**
Dorothy had not, of course, liked the apartment, but she conceded that things were done differently on Mars and that, “If they don't have a palace waiting for us, we'll just have to build one.”
He didn't like the sound of that, but if Dorothy knew exactly what she wanted, he wouldn't dare stand in her path. She wasn't much happy about the bed either, but she also experienced the lumpy sofa and nodded silent consent. Zechs was both royalty first and a gentlemen, no matter what else he happened to be these days; he wasn't going to touch her without her express permission anymore than she was going to maul him into the mattress when he wasn't looking (contrary to popular belief). They slept safely, first each on their own side of the bed, then by morning, in each other's arms.
Dorothy rose from those arms without comment, but she'd taken a good long time doing so. Zechs had cooked her breakfast after they finally rose, and explained the ways of the Martian lifestyle. Things like the horrible price of food, the sometimes-questionable citizens of the colony, the local crime rate and the neighbors next door who were very kind and would love to meet her, soon as she was settled in.
Then he took Dorothy to the gardens, where everything from petunias to dogwood trees grew in a huge, carefully maintained greenhouse. She'd spent hours there, staring at the strange combination of the white-petaled flowers at the foreground of a barren, red Martian landscape.
“The greenhouses provide most of the oxygen we breathe. We have four of them at each corner of the bubble.”
“Bubble?”
“The dome.” Zechs pointed to the barren landscape to the direct west of them. As Dorothy squinted, she could barely make out a catch of the light, and realized they were all encased in glass. Zechs shook his head, reading her thoughts with a grin and took her by the hand. “Come, I'll show you.”
He took her to the very edge of the dome, which was only a half-mile from the greenhouse. Zechs reached out his hand, and Dorothy's eyes widened when the air under his palm sizzled and sparked, blue lightening bolts glittering from his fingertips. He turned to her with a tiny, self-conscious smirk. “Forcefield,” he said. “I helped them invent it myself.”
She knew that he was smart, but it was still rather shocking. “What if the power--”
“Never happen. There are backup cells for the backup cells, and those--” He pointed to giant panels on the other side of the field, pointed toward the sun. “--will keep it running indefinitely. Besides, there are contingency plans. But there's no weather here, no clouds, and the sun is constant. It'll never run out. It doesn't even take that much power.”
She touched it with her own hands. It tingled, but it didn't shock her as powerfully as she was expecting. She'd never seen such a thing, not in all the modern technology she'd witnessed toward the very end of the wars.
That afternoon, Zechs brought back a basket and blanket, and they camped out there on the edge of the force field and had a picnic. They discussed old times (of growing up in Germany—Zechs had lived with Treize, and Dorothy used to visit often as a child), their friends (Duo was still recovering from a bad mission, Quatre was on his second wife, Trowa was still in the circus, Wufei was still in Preventers chasing after Sally's heels, and Heero was still married to Relena), and exhausting all subjects on Mars before Zechs finally laid back on the hard ground with his eyes closed and Dorothy found herself draped atop his solid chest in perfect domesticated contentment.
It was getting dark.
“Aren't we going back now?” He made a sound of disapproval and she tapped him lightly on the cheek. “Milliardo? It's getting quite late.”
He peaked an ocean-laden eye at her, smiling lightly. He shook his head and stared up again. “Not yet.”
“What are we waiting for?”
But he grew silent again and only held her against the gathering cold. The field also kept most of the chill out, but it was still quite cold on Mars, even on the brightest of days. She shivered and he absently ran his hand along her shoulder.
The silence stretched for over an hour, until Zechs finally broke it, never looking away from the gathering night sky. “How is Mariemaia?”
Dorothy shrugged, flicking at a red rock. “Une is still caring for her... she makes a surprisingly good mother. Mariemaia is graduating soon--”
“Already?” He flicked his gaze to her briefly, shocked at the idea. She'd been so young the last time he saw her--
“Yes. She's skipped five grades over the course of her schooling, you know, she's a brilliant girl, that hadn't changed. She's earned a full scholarship to Oxford and speaks of going for a doctorate in political science.”
“God save us,” Zechs muttered, though his tone was amused. The girl was going to rule the world again by the time was she was twenty. Naturally, he added, “How is Une?” It wasn't often that he asked of the woman, but they had been rivals, once upon a time. Few knew, understood or respected her the way he did, and as he matured, he found himself wanting to see her heal and bloom to her full potential, just so that he could do the honors of becoming the better man.
“She's delirious with joy,” and Dorothy sighed, as if jealous. “Still single though.”
“She'll never remarry. Not after Treize.” Zechs knew all too well the kind scars that man could leave in his wake.
Speaking of which. Dorothy stiffened, then sighed again. She nodded very slightly, and he cursed his own lips. Treize was an off-topic between them, along with the words White and Fang. It was bright and red and bold and capitalized and it firmly said DO NOT TOUCH. There were some wounds, he knew, that never really healed.
“Relena and Heero can't keep their hands off each other.” Dorothy was changing subjects for the sake of both their sanities. “They're having their forth child.”
“Really?” He sat up again.
“She's hardly a month pregnant, I believe, which is why she hadn't yet told you. But she said she would allow me to deliver the—what God's name is that?”
Up in the sky, in long flowing penmanship, was The Question. Dorothy watched in horror as Zechs knelt formally on one knee and slipped a small ring box into his palm. He opened it, and she stared at all the karats in that diamond, glittering prisms in the starlight.
Zechs' head tilted to the side with the most adorable pout. “Well, do you?”
The heavens asked, Dorothy, will you marry me?
And of course, she plucked the ring from the box, slipped it on her finger, and laughed something teary, mushy, and overly romantic. “God yes.” They hugged, kissed, and then she slapped him upside the head. “What took you so long?!”
Ow, “I didn't think you'd want it over the phone.”
With a pathetic sniffle, Dorothy tried to pull herself together and failed miserably. She stared at the ring and felt her entire body melt into happy goo. “You romantic bastard. I'm crying.”
A calloused finger brushed the tears from her cheek. Without a word, Zechs kissed them away. They spent the rest of the night there, tangled in each other's arms.
**
Dorothy learned later that the night sky was artificial, created by the force field—apparently, Mars did not have nights and days like the Earth did. In a way, that just made the entire night all the more special to her, because everything special about that night had been on Zechs' hand. She didn't regret a moment of that final decision to marry.
The marriage itself took a solid year of planning, and they decided to hold it at cliff on the edge of the city that overlooked a huge, gaping ravine. Forcefields had been set up, as well as generators to make the air breathable, and provide electricity. Everyone came—members of her family, the last surviving members of Zechs' own (which included Relena, Pagan and Weyridge), all of the gundam pilots, Sally, Une, Mariemaia, Catherine, Hilde, and even Howard showed up in his loud Hawaiian shirts bearing moonshine in a calloused fist. Her family was mostly disgusted with the Sweeper's antics, and they left quickly, but that left Dorothy and her friends to party the night in peace, and she had gotten so drunk she'd even caterwauled the entire Ye Faithful Gentlemen, complete with sound effects. In fact, the only real drama of the night was Duo, who carefully skirted all drinking, partied to a minimum, and remained as quiet and invisible as possible, which only seemed to make him more of a target for scrutiny. While Dorothy embarrassed herself tripping through a tango with Relena, Zechs had sought out the younger man, trying to figure out what was wrong. They didn't know each other well at all, but Zechs knew inner turmoil when he saw it, and it didn't really have a place at his wedding. He'd been within talking distance when he felt an arm pull him back, and Zechs turned, staring into Heero's solemn dark eyes.
“Leave it.”
Two words, and they said so much. Zechs lifted a brow. “What's wrong with him?” Yes, he was slightly offended—it was his wedding, after all. Why should anyone be so depressed at his wedding?
Heero glanced at Duo, and seemed to wither for a moment. Then he firmed himself again, and glared into Zechs' eyes. “There was a bad mission. Things happened. He's spent the last year in a hospital. Just leave it.”
Of course Zechs didn't listen. The next day, while Dorothy recovered from the hangover from hell, Zechs had Relena watch over her while he browsed the bars in search of the man. He'd finally found Duo alone in the gardens, however, standing in the same exact spot Dorothy had stood, comparing the petals of the dogwood to the red desert through the window.
As Zechs approached, Duo turned and smiled at him, a tired, weary smile. “Congrats. You bagged a nice lady, there.”
Yes, the words were crude, but it was the intention that mattered, he told himself. Duo turned back to the dogwood and Zechs leaned against a post in that casual I'm-just-a-fixture-in-the-wall pose. It was some time before the other man said anything again.
He didn't know why, but he waited.
And then, “Why didn't you come back to Earth?”
Zechs found himself shrugging. Duo still wouldn't look at him, but Zechs found that he didn't mind. It was hard to get worked up while still living the afterglow of the best day of his life. “I don't belong there anymore.”
Duo gave a bitter snort, then, and Zechs was a little shocked by the intensity of it. “Believe me, I get that.”
Zechs wet his lips, which were dry and chapped. “If you don't mind me asking...”
“I do,” Duo said abruptly, and finally turned to him again. There was a cold look there, among other things, but the emotion foremost was acceptance. Zechs understood that marrying Dorothy was going to take more than just the willful acceptance of her family; the pilots themselves had come to be her family over the years, and he'd learned very quickly that they were... protective, of such things. He didn't care about the acceptance of the Catalonias and last surviving Dermails, ect—but he cared very much about the acceptance of the pilots. He knew what they were like as enemies.
Duo tilted his head to side and approached him with dark, sinister steps. Zechs saw a shadow move behind Duo's head.
“It's okay, Tro.” Duo clapped Zechs on the shoulder. “Take care of her. If you hurt her in any way, I'll rip your head off.”
He left, moving with the same slow, tired, gait, and Trowa came from the shadows. He gave Zechs a small shrug—we told you, leave it alone—and then followed the other man out.
Zechs took the threat to heart.
**
That night, he and Dorothy made love for the first time. The act... was sensual, and everything he'd ever wanted, but it was the end result that made him realize this was the best decision he had ever made in his entire life. He'd released a breath he hadn't even known he was holding as laid his hand on Dorothy's naked thigh, knowing that for first time in so very long, he wasn't going to regret his actions. Dorothy sifted her fingers through his air, nearly purring with her contentment, and he soaked her warmth and happiness for all that he could. He couldn't stand it if this wasn't real, if he woke up now and found it all to be a dream.
He'd never hurt her, no matter what some unbalanced gundam pilot said, but he would hurt terribly if this turned out to be a lie. And he knew, sharing this quiet moment with her skin, that it wasn't. No dream he'd ever had, had been this perfect.
“Please be real,” he whispered, just to be safe.
He felt Dorothy's fingers swirl in his hair, knew the smirk that curved along her lips as she looked down at him. “After all that, you're doubting my existence? I don't know about you, Milliardo, but I'll be feeling us in a very real way for days.”
He chuckled into her thigh. He reached up and pulled her down for a kiss. It lingered for a century of feeling.
“This is real,” Dorothy said. “I told you, you shouldn't be alone.”
Zechs smiled something radiant. It brightened the room with a flash of sunlight. “Who's alone?”
Dorothy's fingers tightened in his hair, but not painfully. It was almost possessive, a bit protective. Like Duo's threat. He wondered if Relena had said something similar to his wife—she probably had. It was a rite of passage, it seemed.
“You're not.”
“No,” Zechs said. “Not anymore.”
--Fini