Title: In the Wake: Continuation of ‘Running Deep’
Author: Reverand Maynard
Warnings: 6x13; yaoi; Lemon; maybe some WAFF; perhaps some angst; and a bit o’ sap too; NC-17
Disclaimer: Not Mine.

GREAT THANKS to Marilyn, who was not only my beta for this piece, but provided a great deal of encouragement and inspiration.

Special thanks to Dacia for her support. And the same to a few others who, even once (though often repeatedly), told me how much they liked this. Much grateful.
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In the Wake
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Zechs was speechless momentarily, save for heavy breaths, but the arousal that jumped and pulsed in Treize’s hand was nearly question enough--at least until its owner voiced his own.

“Let me make love to you,” Zechs’s request came, harried and breathy as he took advantage of Treize’s position and slipped his hands to an exposed backside, rubbing the warm skin, caressing the backs of thighs, pulling Treize fully atop him until he was kneeling, straddling.

Treize went with the motions. He was still atop, that was good. Zechs’s hands on him, petting his bottom, holding and moving him with unerring command, they were mesmerizing. Zechs was the charmer, and he the snake, moving when prompted, until now, like in the bath, their two arousals touched and rubbed. Zechs had asked him . . . he had yet to say yes.

“Let me take you, Treize,” Zechs continued, running a long finger down Treize’s cleft, lips moving against Treize’s, “May I make love to you?” Finding the divide still slick with his own saliva--“May I fuck you?”--he plunged one very deft finger inside.

“Yes!” Treize yelped, utterly lost now. He could no longer tease, no longer suckle or kiss, the moment had taken him, as had Zechs’s finger, and he could only drop his head to Zechs’s chest, shout that word, and push his backside farther onto that clever digit.

“Yes . . . yes, please!”

Zechs began to prod and play, hooking his finger, pushing it deeper, and when Treize bucked above him it was all he could do not to shout in delight.

“Sit up . . . sit up, love,” he requested gently, sitting up himself until Treize straddled his lap, hands tightly gripped on his shoulders, deep warmth sheathing his finger, and an ache so profound in his groin that he marveled at his rational thought. He reached for the bedside drawer.

“Zechs . . .” Treize panted, trying to bounce in Zechs’s lap, “ . . . deeper . . . push it deeper, Zechs . . . please.”

Treize felt on fire. It was just a finger, one thick digit, but it moved inside him with such precision . . . it was nothing he had known before.

“Lord, Treize . . . I had no idea you would enjoy it this much!” The tube in his hand was momentarily forgotten as he tried to oblige Treize and kissed the face that was twice as beautiful when wanton. Treize’s movements in his lap, the almost playful (but wholly without jest) wriggling, the weight of him, the warmth of him, the glide of bone on flesh on flesh on bone, it was a most excruciating and ecstatic type of arousal. He couldn’t remember ever wanting anything so much as this.

“It was . . . ,” Treize managed, “my worst fear . . .”

Zechs smiled at that, feeling wicked and loving at once. “And my greatest hope,” with that, his hands teased at his General’s backside only a moment longer before he removed his hands altogether, earning more than a small whimper from Treize, and deftly began the too-simple, yet somehow so irksome business of opening the tube in his hand. It held his attention for only a fraction of a moment, but it was enough distraction that Treize’s next movement caught him off guard and he found himself on his back beneath a very anxious, very different Treize than he’d ever encountered.

“Yes . . . that too.” Indeed, Treize had wanted this, more than he would ever admit to himself or another, and now that it had begun, he could not hide his anticipation and zeal. He took Zechs’s arousal into one hand gently, seemingly as an incentive to hurry the other man along.

Zechs took a moment to moan appreciatively at Treize’s efforts, throwing his head back against the now-disheveled bed clothes and wondering distantly who it was that was to be ravished. It wasn’t until Treize eased his strokes that he had the presence of mind to finish his work on the tube and began the gentle task of spreading the cool, slick stuff between and beyond Treize’s divide, careful not to cause too much of that previous pleasure, hoping to make his first entrance as memorable as possible.

“How will this be most comfortable for you?” Zechs asked, and Treize took the tube from him, a little dreamy and flushed but otherwise attentive. Very much so, in fact, as he began coating Zechs’s straining shaft (God, it looked so inviting!) with the same slick stuff.

“However will get you inside me.” He said finally, and could not help but smile when he felt Zechs’s arousal twitch and pulse in his hands. Yes, this was far too long in the coming.

And then, as if an invisible surge had passed through him, Zechs was moving, both himself and his General, rolling, tumbling, with a speed that gave every indication as to why he was sometimes called the lightning count. At the end of the flurry, which lasted no more than a breath, Treize found himself on his side, Zechs snugly behind him, that incredibly hard and slippery length sliding exquisitely just between his buttocks, waiting like an eager servant for its master to permit it enter. Zechs was kissing Treize’s neck, his throat, his ear, shoulder, cheek, anything his lips could reach, whispering words of want and need. He reached for Treize’s upper thigh, pulling it up toward its owner’s chest and held it there behind the knee, preparing himself and his General for the ecstasy to come.

Treize begged bodily for that very thing, pushing backward onto Zechs’s length, but it wasn’t until he voiced his desire, reaching back to pull Zechs even closer to him, lolling his head backward in attempt to catch Zechs’s wandering lips with his own, that his wish was granted.

“Please . . .”

Zechs entered him slowly then, savoring every tiny measure of sensation that ringed his sensitive shaft. While he knew Treize had never received such an intrusion, he also knew the General was not unfamiliar with the particulars of the task (he had, in fact, taught them so well to Zechs), and the welcoming muscles there seemed to swallow him greedily as he pushed his way home. He didn’t want to hurt Treize but he knew some pain was inevitable, and Treize was more than capable of handling any such discomforts. And OH! What heaven!

For Treize, pain was an afterthought. Certainly, there was an initial bite, but the moment Zechs’s slick head had burrowed its way inside, he became too overwhelmed with sensation to notice that trivial thing that was pain. Zechs. His Zechs was inside him, thick and hard, filling him immensely, a boundless flood of flesh and feeling, making his way slowly inside his body just as he had so firmly secured a position within his life. And that was the true pleasure, knowing who moved behind him, cleaving him into halves, making him burn so bright and beautifully. Certainly, no one else could have given this to him.

When he found himself gently weeping at the tremendousness of it all, he began to let loose a single, tiny sob that turned into a moan before it had time to pass his lips as Zechs did something so right inside him. Yes, he found amazement and awe in this act, yes, he was quite certain now of the nature of that ache in his chest, but more importantly, yes! he was being thoroughly ravaged by his Second in Command, and Lord, it felt good.

“Zechs!” He shouted when the man behind him stroked that glorious place inside him once again, voicing his own little pleasure noises and words of devotion and encouragement.

“So tight, Treize . . . ahh! Never imagined . . .” his words trailed off as he continued his gentle thrusts, the other man’s leg still held firmly. It now became part of the act, providing both a grip on his partner and a necessary leverage for the slow, deeply measured movements.

“Harder, Zechs . . . deeper, please . . .” Treize panted wantonly, his impatience finally surfacing. “Fuck me . . . Zechs!”

Those words, those sounds, the rub of Treize’s back against his belly, Treize’s depths indulging every fantasy he’d ever had and a few he’d never imagined, prompted--no, demanded he follow his General’s orders; he wanted nothing less! But the angle of their joining, chosen by Zechs for that thing which he now found so cumbersome, it’s tendency toward slow, gentle lovemaking, would make that objective difficult.

In an instant, with no little protest on Treize’s part, Zechs had pulled himself free from the glorious confines of Treize’s body, pushed the other man to his back, and worked his way eagerly between his General’s knees, almost a mirror of where he had found himself minutes before.

Treize looked at him with eyes half closed, a few recently shed tears dampened the corners, but the absolute desire in Treize’s face and body made it foolish to ask if he should continue, particularly as the General spread his legs wide, lifting his hips from the bed, begging with an intoxicatingly rhythmic tug of his own ambitious sex that Zechs move beneath him and they start the act anew.

“Don’t make me ask again,” Treize said, tugging, lifting, “ . . . please.”

Zechs hesitated not a moment longer, but shimmied on his knees between Treize’s waiting thighs, pulling Treize to him, his ass in his lap, his turgid head poised once more. He realized then that the sweet taste he’d already had of his General heightened his anticipation considerably (an occurrence he thought impossible) so that he felt a surge of ecstasy at the mere thought of entering him again, a wave of pleasure he had never imagined experienceing without physical stimulation. This was incredible to him, not without a touch of wonderment, or, at the very least, greater respect for his partner. He wondered at how Treize could do this time and again without ejaculating before they had even begun.

So lost in sensation was he that he hadn’t heard Treize’s first words, and, instead, only caught the last of the barked (yet still so impassioned) command.

“. . . and that is an order!” Treize was growling, only to finish with a resounding “AH!” as Zechs took his cue and pulled Treize’s backside fully into his lap, filling him again with his considerable desire and an unmatched passion for wielding it.

“Oh God!” Treize shouted, apparently, he too had suffered the same effects that the break in sensation had caused in Zechs, his increased delight evident as he let himself be taken, still tugging at his sex, unashamed by his impetuous wanting. Zechs did his best,then, to obey Treize’s first command (“harder . . . deeper”) and ravaged his General’s body as any good soldier might, with fervor, force, and speedy, deft precision, their bodies colliding like waves upon a shoreline. Treize cried out repeatedly, encouraging Zechs’s newest tactics. It was all Zechs could do not to come with every thrust at this new and certainly glorious sensation.

In their final moments, when Treize gave a last shout (he was never so noisy as this, Zechs had thought) trembling and tensing all at once, Zechs leaned down to kiss his General, slowing their lovemaking minutely so as to have the most pleasurable opportunity of nuzzling the soft skin at Treize’s throat, tasting the tiny beads of sweat there, to feel Treize’s arm (the one not busy at his self-pleasure) wrap around his neck and hold him tightly. In that position they found release, Zechs’s hair curtaining them and sticking to their flesh, Treize bent nearly in half, feeling nothing but joy, lips pressed together, tongues intermingling, Treize uttering a few hushed words as Zechs gave his last thrusts and finally collapsed, pulling them to lay on their sides again. This time they faced each other, noisily breathing the same heavy, wet air.

“Thank you . . . thank you.”
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Zechs awoke without an alarm. He had not found one necessary since his earliest days of adolescence. His inner clock was unerring and profoundly ingrained. Even now, after only a scant few hours of sleep, he woke without grumble or complaint, alert and aware, and ensnared in the loveliest trap a soldier (at least a soldier of his sort) might dream to be caught.

Treize’s legs tangled with his beneath the white sheets and delicate coverlet, a solid arm lay about his chest, another curled beneath his left arm which securely held his sleeping treasure. Soft hair teased his throat and chin.

“I’m not asleep,” Treize’s words, the cool baritone thrumming through his chest, surprised him, as if he’d read his last thoughts. But he had every reason to assume the man’s slumber. It was still dark out, though the forgotten lamps still kept the room bright, and a glance at the bedside clock told him it was three minutes past 5:00 am. This was a soldier’s morning. A General’s morning (and Zechs had this on the best authority, namely himself) did not typically begin until 6:00 a.m.

“A pity we’ve duty today, don’t you think?” Treize asked, knowing that Zechs was fully awake. Zechs made a small sound of assent. “I don’t think I’ve taken a holiday since I was twenty.”

“That’s understandable. A shame, but not unheard of for someone of your importance.”

“I know.”

Zechs grew silent. He was thinking, maddeningly so. Thinking of a holiday, of Treize away from this war, away from duty. Of every opportunity they might have for lovemaking. Life making.

Treize, somehow, knew better.

“Perhaps,” Zechs began, somewhat timid as he spoke, not knowing what their future held, and not only as military figures, but in their personal life as well. Who was to say how deep Treize’s fondness for him ran . . . except Treize, who was not. “Perhaps . . . after the war--”

“Do you remember last night?” Treize leaned up as he asked the question, rolling over his Second to lay heavy atop him and stare in his beautiful blue eyes. He couldn’t help but smile when he saw how mussed Zechs’s hair was. Apparently, he’d not escaped the wrath of sleep either, as Zechs was smiling broadly (for Zechs) at him.

“Of course, quite fondly.”

“There was something . . .” He looked down at Zechs’s chest momentarily, as if shy or embarassed. Neither fit Treize by any measure. He looked up again, “ . . . something I meant to say last night, but did not. Since I’ve woken this morning it’s been my every thought.”

Later, much later, when Zechs would hear the first reports of the battle between the gundam 05 and his General, when he would see the explosion for himself, played a dozen times over on his vid screen, staticky and bright, like some apocalyptic nightmare that never had the pity to let the world slip away, he would not remember the charismatic General that so many admired, nor the charming red-haired boy of his youth. No, instead, he would recall this. This moment. This Treize. These words.

“Last night, I spoke of my fear,” Treize began, his gaze suddenly very sober and penetrating, taking in Zechs as if he held the power to unmake universes, “and that is more I admit to you than even myself.” He touched Zechs’s face, seeming somehow awed by the solidity of it, “You spoke of hope, and I find myself, at once, in astonishment and ecstasy that it is in some regard to me.”

“Treize--”

But Treize would not be stopped. A floodgate had opened at last, and a kiss interrupted Zechs’s protest before he continued.

“I thrive upon deceit, Zechs. I lie to win friends, to win countries, to win wars. I am civilized to the point of barbarism, affluent beyond any far-fetched bounds of neccesity, and as intelligent as I am utterly stupid.” That worshipful gaze was still there, unerring, and not a little frightening.

“So, perhaps, it is not a mere lie when I speak of my fears. Perhaps it is truly just my ignorance, for I have but one real fear, Zechs. One fright that leaves me shaken in its wake and causes those cryptic flights one fancies just moments before they expect their death.” Finally, a break. A smile. “And it’s nothing to do with sex . . . or not diretly.”

Feeling the weight of Treize’s words, Zechs remained quiet. Despite that smile, it seemed difficult, this confession, profession, admission of . . . of what? that Treize was trying to accomplish. He would not make it any harder.

Treize breathed evenly, holding Zechs’s gaze, weighing the options of his next words. Finally, like the climax the night before, the words spilled from him in a gush, and it felt so good to release.

“You are . . . like my heartbeat, Zechs. Without you, I feel as if I’m drowning. With you . . .” a smile, “well, I still feel as if I’m drowning but it’s an altogether different and more wonderful sensation. I don’t want to be without you. Not now, and certainly not forever. And if I should live up to that glorious fate of the pompous, arrogant General that I am and leave you here alone, I do apologize, and wish you all the best, for that is no less than I would have given you.”

Zechs felt a knot growing in his stomach, working up into his throat. He did not fear tears, though. They would not come. They had not for many years. “Treize don’t--”

“And while I cannot promise you life after the war, or a week from today . . . or even tomorrow, I can promise it now, and it is yours for the taking. You are my heart, Zechs. The truth among my lies, the redemption of my soul, and my one and only fear.”

There were no words Zechs could imagine to reply to something so profound. As he watched Treize’s lovely face, tousled hair and all, hover above his own, eyes gleaming with a hint of expectancy, he thought of no sentence, no phrase that would not sound perverse or impotent in the face of such a tender admission. He was quiet.

Treize’s face began to fall. Zechs’s silence was puzzling. Perhaps he’d been foolish to make such a profession of love. Perhaps he was a fool on all counts, to have thought it prudent to be bedding his Second, even if his Second was an old friend and beautiful to a fault. The General was beginning to berate him for his weaknesses. Wasn’t he the cat in all of this? And look how things had turned out. A fine mess you’ve made of yourself, Khushrenada. Indeed.

“Well,” Treize said after several long moments of waiting to no avail. He averted his eyes from Zechs’s at first, and then, a beat later, turned his body, lying beside the other man. The General defeated. “Don’t I feel like an incredible ass.”

Without preamble, a strong hand touched his face, turning it toward the other man in the bed, who kissed him deeply and thoroughly.

“Would it be too reserved and terribly uncreative of me,” Zechs began when they parted mirroring Treize’s last stance above him, “to simply say . . . I love you, too?”

Treize seemed stricken for a moment, perhaps even confused, a look he wore adorably. Another instant brought a wide, uncharacteristic smile. Zechs might have sworn the General to be giddy, but it faded as soon as it appeared and Treize became deep in thought, seeming to debate his answer. “No,” he finally said, smiling slyly, “not so long as you’ve evidence to substantiate your claim.”

“What sort of evidence?” Zechs asked, finding the flutter of delight swimming through him difficult to ignore. He smiled without really realizing he’d done so.

“Physical evidence. ‘Hard’ evidence.”

“Is that an order?”

“It is.”

“Sir. I’ll get right on top of it, sir.”

“Very good, soldier,” Treize began as he noted how Zechs was beginning to demonstrate just how well he was ‘on top of it.’ What a delightful creature. “. . . but first. . . might I suggest a warm bath?”

Be sure to read the companion piece to this fic, Undertow, written by the incomparable WYSTII! :)