cozzybob (cozzybob) wrote in cozzybabbles, @ 2008-02-20 03:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | 13x6, treize, zechs |
[GW] Oh Glorious Father
Oh Glorious Father
by cozzybob
Rated: PG-13
Pair: 13x6
Warning: pre-series, angst, yaoi, homosexual bigotry, rough family relations, language, death.
Note: For admiral_chowder's challenge--she drew a sketch here: http://www.deviantart.com/view/2599
When Treize was young, his father had announced that he'd chosen his son a wife. When Treize asked if he could have a husband instead, his father had slapped him, and told him, "No son of mine will ever be a faggot. Faggots," he said, in what Treize would later call his best bigoted voice, "...are weak. They're worthless. My son is strong, and you will make a fine leader someday. You will not be a faggot."
But later, lost in memory, Treize would smile. He would smile because he had fucked several men in his lifetime, and he had once been King of the Earth while doing so.
But that was later.
For now, Treize was still a faggot as far as his father was concerned, though it hardly mattered at all because Treize did not speak a word to his father upon entering the Academy. This was because after the good Kushrenada had threatened his son over being homosexual, Treize had turned his back and walked out of the room. His father chased him down, threatening violence while demanding answers on just where it was Treize planned to go.
And Treize had silenced him by saying very quietly, "I am love with another boy. I am not in love with you."
He'd left.
He was nine years old.
Where he left, no one was quiet sure, even Treize hadn't been quite sure... he vaguely remembered a cold night, hard gravel, rain, and a warm body underneath him, but the years had passed into a blur that was both pleasurable and agonizing--pleasurable for he was there, there in pain, but there, and Treize had held onto him like body to soul. They were one.
And in the middle, Sanc had fallen. The Peacecrafts died, and Zechs Marquise was born from that terrible fire burning down the walls of his home, a devil with angel-thread locks, blood-stained, hatred in his eyes as he rose from the ashes like a great phoenix soaring into the atmosphere, breathing fires that promised revenge while singing a song that brought all the gods to their knees. Zechs had shed a tear that night, only one, declaring his love for Treize. And in the smoldering ashes and the death that brought rebirth, they bonded, physically, their first time that would not be their last. It was beautiful. Yes, he still remembered...
But then Treize turned eleven. His father had enrolled him into the Academy without his consent, despite the fact that Treize had been missing for two years, and somehow, the military found him. They knocked on the door of the little white house owned by the old woman who lived just a block from the rubble of the old Sanc Palace, and asked for Treize Kushrenada. They had guns, such big guns for men who'd only come looking for a lost heir, a little boy, and the old woman pointed up the stairs, second door on the left... Treize remembered running.
It was ironic. Treize Kushrenada had spent some of the most important years of his childhood running with his soul mate, and yet in his adult life, Treize was a man who stood still above all others. That is, he stood still above all those man who now chased him down--in his later life, he would own those men and their children and their grandchildren, but he'd run because soul mate ran, and Treize was an extension of the other's body. He had no choice. Though if one asked Treize why, why he ran, why he'd left, why he just didn't go back to his father, to his family, to his home, to be happy that he even had a home, he wouldn't have been able to answer. Did love really reach so deep? Was this what love was about, he wondered? Running from the military and kissing the prince of a destroyed foreign land who you couldn't even speak the true name of in fear that a man in black will rise up from hell to take that name, that last thing his prince had left, away, away with the rest of them, where only corpses and crows could walk?
On his twelfth birthday, Treize had stopped running. Milliard was so focused on running that he did not take the time to see that Treize was no longer there at his back, and by the time his prince had finally turned around to look, Treize was gone. Treize had had enough. He'd walked up to Victoria's doors, his head held high, and surrendered like a true man, as his father would say. And of course, when his father did try to say so, Treize frowned in the way only a twelve-year-old really could, and said, "I'm still a faggot, Father. And I'm still not in love with you."
Thus, they never spoke again, not before Kushrenada's grand death in a pointless battle under the glory of the Alliance. It was said by some biographer after the wars that Treize wrote a long, emotional letter that he'd left upon his father's grave to be read only by ghosts, and it was true, he had.
But Treize did not do it for his father. The letter was not about his father at all.
It was about the boy who had made him a so-called faggot in his father's eyes. He had never told his father that boy's name, and his prince, that boy, wanted his father's ghost to know.
The conversation took place exactly four months after Zechs Marquise enrolled into the Academy, and it was the very same day that the news of Kushrenada's death came to Treize in the version of a standard letter-styled envelope, with the Alliance insignia in the corner, and a crude New Times Roman font that read IMPORTANT in the center.
It had been morning. Christmas morning.
Treize and Zechs shared bunks. Treize was already favored among his class and the instructors despite enrolling into the school an entire year late, and he would be graduating at the end with top honors and a high promise for what would later be called OZ. He had used his influence to share bunks with Zechs, and thus, the first half of Christmas morning was spent watching his prince sleep in a tumble of white-blonde hair in the bunk below him, still rumpled in his shirt and pants that he couldn't bare to remove the night before after having completed seven tests--four written, three physical--in one day. It was quiet, because most of the students had left yesterday night for a weekend vacation with their families, and the only ones left in their mass military-styled boys dorm was in fact Treize and Zechs, tucked into a far corner beside a high Victorian window, sparse of decoration for the holiday save the snow that stretched to what seemed like the very ends of the Earth.
It was cold. A door opened at the far end, and a draft brushed the bangs of Zechs' white hair, his lips curled into a frown as he turned away from it in his sleep. Footsteps echoed, and Zechs, sensitive to both light and sound, curled tighter, refusing to leave the sweet dreams that were so rare of him in the years following his kingdom's downfall. Treize tore his eyes away, scowling, but lightened when he noticed the face of his instructor. The man wore a solemn expression in his brow, and marched straight to Treize's bed, hand held tight around an envelope.
He gave it to Treize without a word.
Zechs turned again, muttering, and opened his eyes. They widened when he noticed the instructor looking down at him. "Sir...?"
Treize's instructor glanced back at Treize and bowed his head. His tongue swiped across chapped lips, frowning, breath held to say something, something... kind... but the man simply shook his head and marched away again, leaving in the very same abrupt manner that he'd come.
Zechs leaned out over his bed and peered at Treize above him, who was sitting cross-legged, staring at the letter in his hands. Treize looked beyond the letter to the door that shut with a silent click at the far end of the hall, and then down at Zechs, who lifted a brow in question.
Treize tore the envelope carefully along the seam, but even the tear of the paper echoed in the empty room. He slowly slipped his fingers inside, tugging the letter out even while he dreaded what might be there. But then the envelope was floating to the cold stone floor, empty, and that letter, still folded, sat in his lap.
Zechs sat on the edge of his bed, waiting. "Read it. What does it say?"
Treize unfolded the top flap, but it only revealed an address and a greeting.
To Treize M. Kushrenada,
And the bottom flap.
We regret to inform you that Francis J. Kushrenada has passed away...
"Treize?"
...a great honor to all the Alliance...
Blue eyes. Concerned blue eyes.
...good man...
"Treize. What does it say?"
...condolence and support.
A hand. Treize saw a hand, a pretty hand, a hand that he loved and knew well, and that hand took the letter away. Treize watched as the fingers scrolled over those cruel, delightful words, watched as those luscious lips parted, breath inhaled, blue eyes gone sad, so sad, as Treize said, "My father died in battle. I'm glad."
Zechs stared. Just stood there, staring. And then he raised his hand, high like a bird soaring in the colony rafters up above in space, high, so high, and then down, down across the flesh of Treize's cheek, stinging hard and fast, painful, like lightning.
"Don't you dare say that. Don't you ever say that..."
Zechs shook with rage, holding his hand as if striking Treize had burned him. His eyes were hurt, hurt like they hadn't been in years, and Treize felt the need to apologize. But he couldn't. He took the letter from Zechs' hand, folded it, and laid it his pillow. And then jumped down, never once looking at Zechs as he opened the lower drawer of their shared dresser, and pulled out a red shirt. Zechs, confused, slid down to the floor, and stared a point in space, lost in thought. Treize reached up and grabbed the dog tags hanging over the corner of his bed and slipped them on, pulling the shirt over his head.
And Zechs looked up. "Where are you going?"
"The funeral."
"Treize."
Zechs had a hand on his own tags, fingering them nervously. It was habit he rarely allowed, and for Treize, it spoke his emotions clearly. Treize sighed and sat down on the bed next to him, as Zechs still kneeled on the floor. "He hated you, Milliard. I cannot mourn him when he hated you with such passion."
"He was your father."
"It doesn't--"
"He was your father." Zechs was not hurt. He was angry. He glared at Treize, frustrated, and looked away again to stare out the window. It was snowing now, and Treize could barely see the shivering of cold rippling across his skin. "I love you, Treize, but don't become like me. Make amends." Zechs took in a deep breath, and exhaled. It was just slightly visible, clouds of puff seen through the natural light of the winter sun, and Zechs shivered again, arms reaching up to rub themselves. "He didn't even know me. Did he, Treize?" Zechs turned, slowly, and stared into his eyes. Treize lost his breath. "He didn't even know my name."
"No," Treize whispered.
Zechs smiled slightly, weakly, and shrugged. "You should tell him. Write him a letter. Tell him everything Treize, tell him how you fucked me in the ashes and the rubble of my father's castle, tell him how you kissed me even when the military ran us into the ground, tell him... tell him in detail, tell him why, explain to him what, explain how, Treize, explain how it happened. Tell him. If you tell him, tell his ghost, maybe..."
"I've already tried that--"
"No you didn't. You ran away." Those eyes, so cold again. They were like diamonds flashing a rainbow of colors from a single beam of light, too many emotions to choose from.
"Zechs--"
"He's your father, Treize. Even if he doesn't understand, he'll want to know because you're his son."
Treize tilted his hand, running a hand through his hair, and hummed from deep in his throat. He reached over, and fingered the dog tags resting on Zechs' chest. "He won't like it."
And then Zechs smirked, devilish. "He's dead. He doesn't have to like it."
Treize sighed, fingers still clutched around the metal tags as he bent down to kiss his prince long and deep. It might have lasted centuries or minutes, but when they finally pulled apart again, Treize nodded, and said, breath catching, "I'm a lord now. I have my own castle."
Zechs grabbed Treize by the hair, laughing, pulling him close again. "Maybe someday this homeless prince will steal it from you."
"Maybe," said Treize. "But Father wouldn't like that at all."
And in his head, he wrote the first words of his letter. Oh Glorious Father... you died in battle a sonless man because my lover's name was to craft Peace...