This is a demented sequel to a demented story about two people who one day
decide to just ‘take the plunge’. Unfortunately, when the disturbed author
(that would be me) took it upon herself to write this she also just ‘took
the plunge’, so please don’t go too hard on her. I don’t own shit but the
fanfic itself and I don’t think anyone responds well to flaming criticism,
so take the hint and maintain a sense of civility if you feel compelled to
comment. Oh, and all credit for the fabulous lyric excerpt goes to The
Smashing Pumpkins.
. inside the strangest dream .
By ~nanaseven~
//so cry these tears we'll cry as all / we've held so long to fall apart /
as the curtain falls we bid you all goodnight //
For the second time within twenty-four hours, she was awakened by repetitive
bursts of noise.
Noin groaned and grabbed reflexively for the edge of the coffee table,
dragging herself upright, leaving the warmth of the couch behind. Tangled
about her legs was the afghan she had burrowed into the night before, and
she nearly tripped over it during her brave pilgrimage down the hall to her
bedroom. Long strides, a bump of knees against the nightstand, and a hand
slapped swiftly upon the alarm clock. Digital numbers and pulsing sound were
silenced immediately. She blinked once, drowsy, and collapsed onto the bed.
She had never felt so beaten down in her life. There was a weight pressing
down upon her, a grim reminder of what had happened earlier, and part of
that burden was an inexplicable guilt. She had no reason to feel guilty
about rejecting him. And refusing his advances did nothing to categorize her
as an icy bitch. Or did it? She would never be as yielding and desirable as
a woman like Une, or as seductive as Catalonia, that much she knew. Zechs,
in his state of hopeless intoxication, had nearly tried to rape her and she
had merely done what it took to preserve her dignity.
That explanation was solid and strong, but it wasn't going to help her sleep
at night.
Her eyes closed as images seared across her mind. The slide of his hands
against her skin. The sound of her name on his lips. Beautiful, and the word
itself riding on his breath. Did he think her beautiful? Was it so terribly
wrong to hope? Running her tongue over unbrushed teeth, she caught a
fleeting taste of Zechs and blushed vibrantly.
*The son of a bitch should have wasted his time with a hooker instead of
me.*
A sigh. She left her thoughts and rolled over on her stomach, ankles
crossed, chin propped in her hands. Something had to be done.
She had to go see him.
* * *
The last time his head hurt this bad, he had just stumbled out of Wing
fucking Zero. Swallowing, he tasted the bitter ghosts of booze and vomit. He
must have thrown up sometime between hashing it over with Noin and passing
out on the rug. His tongue felt like a goddamn piece of clay. Drinking a
container of mouthwash didn’t seem like too bad of an idea. Going back to
sleep seemed promising too, the more he considered it. He peeled his cheek
away from where it rested against a leather-clad arm, and dropped his head
onto the carpet.
Hashing it over with Noin. Noin!
Milliardo snapped his eyes open to a murderous glare of daylight and
promptly shut them again. But his mind was quite awake. Good God, what had
he done?
He'd wanted to screw her.
*Sophisticated, sensible Noin.*
He had tried to screw her.
*Cool, level-headed Noin.*
He had groped her like they were a pair of freaking sex-starved teenagers.
*Soft, sweet, strawberries-and-cream Noin...*
He jerked violently upright, chasing those thoughts right away. Damn, she
had been pissed. She had screamed, and she had cursed, and she had probably
come dangerously close to yanking out her gun and shooting him. He had never
seen her so furious before, in all the years he’d known her. Had he ruined
every single one of those years they’d had together?
Hell, they’d both be better off if she *had* put a bullet in his head.
“Shit,” he muttered, and fell back against the floor. “Milliardo Peacecraft,
you are *such* a dumb fuck.”
* * *
Light lanced softly from beneath the door, spilling onto thin carpet and a
pair of shoes. Noin chewed on her lip anxiously. A light under the door
meant that Zechs was home, and he was probably awake. Had she anticipated
otherwise? *Well, he was pretty drunk last night...* Hell. She took a deep
breath, steeling herself to just knock on the damn door already...
She had been standing there, right outside his apartment, for what seemed to
be forever—-a good thirteen minutes. And they continued to drag by, giving
her more time to think things over, which was bad because the more she
thought the more she realized that she was a little chickenshit of a woman
who had next to no hope for the relationship she was waiting to mend. It
wasn’t too late. She wasn’t in over her head yet. She could turn around and
drive all the way back to her apartment. She could pretend that nothing had
ever happened. Maybe talking things over with him would be a big mistake,
anyway.
Fuck. Who was she fooling?
For the umpteenth time that evening she raised a hand, curled her fingers
into a fist. For the first time that evening, she rapped on the door. No
trumpets, no earthquakes, no angels descending from the skies. Silence.
Then, “It’s open.”
She slipped inside, closing the door softly behind her. Her hands were
shaking, dammit. She clasped them tightly together at her waist. How was she
going to do this? Noin raised her eyes hesitantly, letting her gaze rest
upon him, and realized she had no choice but to go through with it. Yes, she
had made the right decision in coming here.
Zechs was sitting at the end of his couch, and although he stared at the
open book on his lap, it was obvious that he hadn’t been reading a word of
the text. His cheek was propped against one fist, his elbow leaning on the
upholstered arm and partially obscured by thick platinum hair. Legs
stretched long and slender before him, crossed at the ankles. He looked so
lost. So full of remorse, regret, sorrow.
So damn sexy. Noin swallowed nervously. Zechs was the only man she knew who
made ragged jeans and a simple white shirt look incredibly appealing.
He looked up at her with an expression of slight apprehension, but also
acceptance of what was coming. Or at least what *he* assumed was coming.
“Noin,” he said.
* * *
"Zechs," she replied.
She paused just beyond the door, lingering uncertainly, fingers laced
together. Milliardo took note of the way she trembled slightly and he
cringed. She was scared of him. He scared her. Dammit. Noin, he repeated
silently, desperately.
"You okay, Noin?" he tried, hardly sure where to begin and reminding himself
to breathe as he reached his feet, setting his book aside, shoving his hands
in his pockets and lounging casually against the couch. "...You...you okay?”
“I’m fine, Zechs.”
“You...want to talk about...” He couldn’t bring himself to finish.
Noin gave a timid nod. “I...I’d like to know why.”
Milliardo laughed, short and sharp. "God, Noin, you must fucking hate me
after that..." He ran a hand through his bangs, down the side of his face,
miserable and unable to shirk from her wondering eyes. "...you should hate
me... I can't believe you even want to talk to me after I did that to you.
I'm really fucked up, Noin and you... I don't want you to have to deal with
that." She was just staring at him. It was driving him absolutely nuts. "You
must think I'm some kind of lunatic. Some kind of fucking, horny lunatic."
* * *
Noin tried to smile at him. She took a step forward, placing a tentative
hand on his shoulder, which made him flinch and gaze down at her fingers for
a moment, before she felt him relax beneath her touch. "No, Zechs," she said
quietly. "You're not a lunatic. You're just... highly emotional, sometimes.
You...you scare the shit out of me sometimes."
His voice was bitter when he spoke. "That's a nice way of saying 'crazy',
Noin."
She sighed, meeting his eyes directly. "Zechs, I—I came to let you know that
I'm not angry about it. I..." She drifted, losing her nerve. God, she sucked
at sounding sincere. She was so goddamn anxious she could barely form the
words. "...I don't think we should let something like this come between our
friendship. You were drunk. You didn't know what you were doing." Okay, so
she was spouting lies. At least he seemed to buy them. "It's... well, that
kind of thing happens all the time." Noin drew away and moved around him,
careful not to touch him, and sat down on the couch, folding her hands
between her denim-clad thighs. "People get drunk and they start saying
things and doing things and fabricating all kinds of nonsense that they
don't really mean. Things they would never say-—would never even think of,
when they were sober."
Zechs gazed down at her a bit doubtfully. "And telling yourself that makes
you feel better about it." It was a statement, not a question.
She lifted her chin, soaring on the inside. *Tell me what you were feeling
last night, Zechs. Tell me it was more than lust. Tell me that I mean more
to you than that.*
But the moment had slipped, was no longer hers to control. For a brief time,
silence reigned.
Noin pushed herself upright; there was no reason for her to stay anymore.
She had rescued their relationship. *Mission accomplished, Lucretzia. Good
girl.* So maybe he was denser than she had anticipated. So he couldn't see
what lay behind her words. She brushed past him, their shoulders bumping
together; she ached at the brief contact. It was over. She had done what she
had come to do. They were still friends. Still just friends, dammit. She
grasped blindly for the doorknob, murmuring an indiscernible farewell.
"Wait," Zechs commanded without warning, and seized her by the elbow in a
grip so chaste yet so firm that Noin couldn't have taken another step if she
had wanted to.
* * *
Shit. He was touching her. Shit. She was warm through the wool of her
pullover and the hood hung limp at her back, revealing a tempting inch of
pale neck where cobalt hair curled softly. Shit. She tensed a bit, her hand
frozen to the doorknob, head inclined a bare fraction, blue-black eyes fixed
upon him.
"You're kind of right, Noin, when you say that," Milliardo started, easing
her about so that she had her back to the door and was facing him squarely,
unaware of the bite of his fingers on her bicep. "I mean, about the alcohol.
Yes, sometimes it does make you do things you normally wouldn’t. And it
enhances emotions. But Noin..." God, this was it. He was throwing himself
over the edge and there was no turning back. "Noin, it doesn't bring things
out that aren't already there. It doesn't make a person...feel things that
they don't feel already. It just makes you more honest. It makes it easier
to open up and say the things you really feel deep down."
Noin held his gaze, wide dark eyes locked to his own. Her lips parted
slightly as if to question his declaration, and he placed his fingers over
her mouth to shush her. If he stopped now...
"I can't use alcohol as a fucking excuse for those things I said to you," he
went on in a whisper. What the hell was he whispering for? "It's not fair to
you, and it's not fair to me. It was real, what I said and I'm not going to
hide behind the fact that I was drunk. It was all me and I'm not pretending
it was anything else that made me do it." There, he had said it. He could
shut up now and wait for her to answer. But some unholy kind of fear was
clutching him and he couldn't stop babbling like a fool. "So you see, it
really doesn't have anything to do with anything... it's just about me and
my inability to express my screwed up emotions and you did the right thing,
decking me, because I'm afraid that if you hadn't I couldn't have stopped
myself..." Her lips were moving against his fingers. Milliardo swallowed
hard, drifting off in mid-sentence.
Noin watched him in rapt fascination. She brought a hand up and curled her
fingers clumsily about his own, her breathing soft and quick. "No," she
croaked. "No more, Zechs. Just answer this one thing."
The tip of her tongue emerged, moistening her trembling lips; she seemed
terribly afraid of whatever she was about to ask.
"So you meant it when you told me I was beautiful?”
* * *
Noin pressed further against the door, wanting to shrink back into the wood
and escape the prison of pale eyes holding her captive. It was so trivial a
question, so stupid and petty and shallow. Damn her emotions. She blinked
against the slow burn of tears, wishing he would just say something to her
instead of staring. Damn Zechs, for wielding such power over her. Was he
going to speak at all? Was he going to kiss her? Was he going to tell her
something she did not want to hear? Or worse-—would he lie, and lie to her
again and again throughout the night?
A bead of wet warmth slipped down her face. She was crying. His long,
slender fingers skimmed down her cheek, catching the tear and stroking it
away. His lips were light against her brow. He was making her melt again—not
just her body, but the Noin inside was melting too. A tiny sound escaped
her. She lifted a hand, traced it shaking along his jawline.
“Zechs,” she whispered. “Zechs, please... was it for keeps?”
“Oh, Noin.” He breathed her name against her ear. “I don’t think you want to
know how much.”
She smiled at him through her tears, through her lashes. For once in her
life, Noin was glad that she was so tall, because her arms wound about his
neck effortlessly and she silenced with her mouth anything else he might
have said.
~fin~
