Secret Santa
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A/N: For Vera (salvia_tanima), request no. 2: "Some regular ( i.e. daily) Yzak-Dearka interaction, must contain fluff and they must kiss." I'm afraid the two of them were quite difficult to wrangle into anything vaguely fluffy, however, and so I apologize if this isn't up to expectations. :(
A Story With No Title.
While Yzak had never really seemed to have a problem with it-- working today was like working any other day of the week-- it tended to put himself in something close to a routinely scheduled gloom. It was hard to ignore the niggling voice reminding him that the average citizen of PLANT was out enjoying the sunshine, maybe taking a walk in a park or along the shoreside or just sleeping in a couple more hours for once, while here he was, ass planted on a chair, with another half-dozen reams of paperwork to filter through in an efficient yet meticulous manner.
(Granted,
reams was probably a misnomer for something that theoretically wasn't on
paper, either, but it certainly was a whole lot of
work, and he had no more fondness for this particular variety than any of the hundred thousands of subalterns before him who ever held the unenviably miserable position of a military desk jockey.)
At least the chair was comfortable; might have been plush once, even. He rested his bootheels on the desk and reclined for a moment before picking up yet another datapad and gauging the flow of text on that one with a well-worn stylus.
Tap.
Construction equipment requisition. Tap.
Status report. Tap.
Status report. Tap.
Monthly cadet training roster. Tap.
Status report. Tap.
Request for annual leave...
Screw it, Dearka thought, tossing the pad aside with a snort. It spun a few brisk revolutions on the desk's shiny plastic surface before thudding to a halt against the monitor, still alight and flickering with yet more reports. The stylus followed, skipping once and rolling the rest of the way to catch up, while the boots took their leave altogether. He stood up and stretched his back and shoulders. Something popped in the vertebrae. He cringed.
Outside, a trio of cadets sauntered across the parade grounds, their babble of voices faintly carrying through the one open window in his office. He could make out the grins and the good-natured elbowing between them as they exchanged plans for the day off. Recruits of the early post-Second War cohort; they would be receiving their coats in less than two months.
Remember when I was their age—- which isn't even four, five years ago, maybe, and here I'm talking like an old fart. Probably comes with the black and all. He shook his head slowly, making his way to the window and resting his hands on the ledge.
Days like these... God, I could almost hate the weekend.
***
The eyewitnesses to the incident would later gleefully recount (to both the superior officers and their mates in the canteen, immortalizing it in local army lore) the almost preternatural timing with which the factors involved came perfectly together that fine morning, painting for the benefit of others their own visuals of that exact moment when Sub-Commander Dearka Elthman happened to lean over his sixth-floor windowsill and the large, solid and highly accelerated bottle rocket connected with his face.
***
"Cadet Brackston reporting as requested. Sir."
The young man standing before him quivered, despite his attempt at stiff attention, as many others of his ilk did when face-to-face with their notorious commander. Yzak Jule leaned forward, elbows resting on the desk, chin hidden behind clasped fingers (a posture that usually added to his intimidating air) and scowled as he contemplated his newest problem.
The problem, he decided, being that he was still dithering between court martialling the cadet, throttling him, or offering him a prize.
"Do you have any idea, cadet," he began slowly, deliberately, "why you are standing in my office right now, instead of joining your fellow cadets on their day off this morning? And before you explain yourself—-" Both hands slammed abruptly on the desk. Brackston jumped, his gaze jerking towards his commander, who was narrowing his eyes. "I happen to be down here, not on the ceiling."
He noted more than a few nervous twitches in the cadet's jaw before he answered. Good. "S-sir. This cadet does, sir."
"Well then." Yzak straightened slightly, waved a hand. "Elaborate."
Brackston gulped audibly, trying to avoid the urge to look elsewhere. "Sir. This cadet has, ah, been working on a sort of home-brewed device during his free time, sir, and took it out for a field test at the parade grounds---"
"In the bushes."
"In the bushes, sir."
"Below the sub-commander's office."
"Below the sub-commander's office, sir." He hesitated, then added hastily, "But that had nothing to do with why---"
"And the main purpose of this 'device', cadet?"
"...to, ah, propel a certain class of commonplace object over great distances, sir."
Yzak made no further response for a while, letting the admission hang in the silence to grow thick and uncomfortable. Brackston was just about sweating in his grimy boots by now.
"And it was absolutely crucial for you to be in hiding while testing it," he said dryly. A statement, not a question. The cadet shifted uncomfortably, uncertain whether it would be safer to make a reply or not. "Have you considered at all that this might
just," pause for effect, "about constitute
suspicious behaviour by most standards?"
"Y-yes sir. I mean no sir. I mean--" He took a deep breath. "This cadet had no intentions of targeting the sub-commander with the device, sir."
Yzak's lips tightened into a thin line. "Then who did you have in mind, cadet?"
"...it was meant to fire across the parade grounds, sir."
"Hn." He glanced once at the monitor and reclined, tapping a finger slowly on the desk. A bad habit, really, but he'd kept it solely for its effect on Athrun's nerves. "According to a report, the three people who happened to be directly across your position at the time are also members of your training cadre—-"
Brackston balked at that.
"---with fairly impressive places in the rankings, I might add." Tap, tap, tap. "Not far above yours, in fact."
"Sir, I—-"
"This hadn't anything to do with it either?"
"..."
The tapping stopped. Yzak shot him a glare that made running away seem an appealing idea.
"While we all eventually resort to underhand methods at some point or another in a war, cadet," the distaste in his voice was tangible, "you should be aware that they won't be condoned at this stage of your military career-- which may not last that long if you try pulling something like this again. I suggest you spend less time coming up with ways to sabotage others and more time improving your own performance."
***
Dearka held the coldpack to his aching forehead, wincing. "Tell me you tore him a new one."
"I might have let him off with just latrine duty. Your skull's thick enough that a little knock or two shouldn't matter," he replied, deadpan.
"Ha, ha, ha. Real funny." Pause. "Did
Commander Jule just crack a joke?"
"Hmph. Merely pointed one out." But the corners of his mouth twitched just enough to notice.
"Well, call up the shelters and sound the alarms, 'cause I think the sky's falling in on us—-"
"One more word, and you'll have more to worry about than just your face."
"Right, right..." He laughed quietly. Damn, but that ice felt good. "Tell me why I put up with all the abuse around here again?"
"Because you're an idiot." Yzak's eyes never left his paperwork. "Indispensable, but an idiot."
"You always know how to make a guy feel all warm and fuzzy inside." he drawled. "Also, you forgot 'charming', 'amiable', 'great in bed'..."
"Don't flatter yourself, Elthman."
"It was worth a shot." The couch creaked as he shifted his position. "You know, that kid's gonna fit right in with the engineering teams once he's out of the academy."
"If he doesn't get himself expelled first." Yzak scowled. "Trying to take out rivals before the next performance evaluation… disgraceful conduct."
"Like you never gave it a thought back when
we were cadets," Dearka muttered.
"What was that?"
"Nothing." He winced as he carefully inspected the bump on his forehead. Yzak stared suspiciously at him for a moment, considering, then snorted and returned to his reports.
They stayed like that for a while, the companionable silence broken only by the clatter of keys and the occasional scuff of fabric on faux leather. Sunlight streamed in through the windows.
"Hey, Yzak."
"What?"
Dearka pushed himself up to a sitting position, lowering the coldpack. "You ever miss being a civilian?"
The typing stopped.
"No." Bluntly. He reached for the mouse. "Why?"
All things considered, it wasn't too much of a surprise. His mother had started grooming him for a military career when he'd been little more than a blob of stem cells, or so Dearka reckoned anyway. "I miss having weekends. Like normal people, you know?"
"You've got your allotted annual leave. Use it."
"Would too, but you probably wouldn't."
"I don't see what that has to do with it."
"Damn it, Yzak." Brilliant guy, even by Coordinator standards, but hanged if he couldn't be irritatingly obtuse to the point sometimes. "I'm talking about the last time we had a day off. You and me. When was that again?"
"...New Year's Eve."
"And we're already into February."
He clenched his jaw, something he did when he was unwilling to concede a point. "A lot of work still needs to be done. We can't afford to slack off."
"You're the only guy I know who thinks taking a break more than two days a year constitutes 'slacking off'." He tossed the coldpack on one arm of the couch. "And it's been a year. The reconstruction's at a point where it's not in any danger of spontaneously combusting if Yzak Jule leaves it alone for twenty-four hours."
No response to that, although the typing resumed. Dearka watched him for a time before giving up, taking the coldpack with him as he left the office.
***
He had been laboring over another infernal batch of reports for a good couple of hours or so, the throbbing in his skull compounded by both the morning's fun times and the wall of text he was beating his head against (
for the love of God, why did they have to insist on triplicate everything?), when the door slid open. He looked up at Yzak in surprise.
"We're off. Let's go."
Dearka glanced at his desk clock, then the window, then back at him, fighting an eager grin. "Someone set the time forward on your chronometer or something?"
And there it was, the patented Jule sub-zero glare. "Just grab your damned coat before I get those leave notices pulled."
"You got it, commander sir."
***
They spent the rest of the day driving to nowhere in particular; Yzak named no destinations, and Dearka didn't suggest any. The windows were wound down to let in the breezes, and every now and then one of them would point out a view, or something of interest would catch his eye, and they swung by to check it out. Museums, parks, cliffs over an artificial sea. By an unspoken agreement they avoided the central business district.
For all that they'd lived on the colonies for most of their lives, he mused, it wasn't often that they had taken the time to see what they were like.
When the glass that was their sky grew dark and their stomachs began to gripe, Yzak checked for the nearest ten restaurants the car's GPS would register, and Dearka took one hand off the wheel to jab the screen at random. Ming-tzi's Oriental Cantina it was.
The food wasn't half bad, either, if a little spicy on the palate. He didn't miss the smirk on Yzak's face as he gulped down his fifth cup of tea.
"Shove a load of white rice in. It helps."
It did. "Could've told me sooner," he wheezed.
"You didn't ask." The other man proceeded to deftly pick out the other strips of chili pepper with his chopsticks.
By the time they made it back to their shared apartment, it was still earlier than the usual. There was some old movie on the pay-per-view, the eighteenth spinoff to a B-grade monster movie franchise that just wouldn't die, which made it all the more appealing to Dearka and horrifying to Yzak, the latter not so much in the sense intended by the producers.
Regardless of his initial reluctance, about twenty minutes in he couldn't help but start adding his own share of jeering criticism of the plot. Dearka remarked that that was pretty much the fun part. Yzak did not grudgingly concede (out loud, at least) that he was right, instead snorting as the heroine curiously ventured into the swamp that contained the brain-eating beast that had already, unbeknownst to her, devoured her friends.
Two hours and one and a half bowls of microwaved popcorn later, Dearka stepped out of the shower and examined himself in the mirror. The lump on his head had almost subsided, which was a plus. He wiped himself down before pulling on fresh boxers and heading for bed.
He crawled under the covers in the dark and snaked an arm around his partner's waist, leaning his forehead against the back of his neck. Yzak stirred slightly but made no protest.
"Hey, Yzak."
"...What?"
Dearka shifted so that he could tuck the other man's head under his chin. "Wasn't so bad, was it? This whole taking a break business."
Yzak grunted something that might have been agreement or a mild expletive, either of which Dearka was fine with. He planted a light kiss on his hair and smiled, closing his eyes.
"...tomorrow's another day."
"I know." But this one, at least, made the rest just that bit more bearable.
