AN:- Those lovely Red Coat boys and a healthy dash of Dearka x Yzak. (As usual). A little dark and twisty this time.

Zaft Fleet Academy teaches a soldier how to be strong. It hones their reflexes, tests their endurance and hardens their muscles. Training prepares the soldier for the rigours of combat, building speed and co-ordination until the sequence of an attack pattern is a part of their blood, as though it were written in their DNA like some terrible blueprint of precise, ordered killing. And they are killers, each and every one of them.

For all their charm, their good looks and their sweet words, the children of the ZFA are rotten to the core. Angels in the flesh and blind with the justice of a promised land where genetic perfection is their Catechism and the double helix their scripture.

Somewhere in the back of their minds they all know they're sick. It's a quiet whisper at the edge of the mind, a shadow that flickers at the corner of perception, gone as soon as they turn to pin it down with a gaze. It's the half-dreamed concept that somewhere out there is a different choice, a different way of life. Someway, somehow, it's not right to do the things they do.

Young men and women who are trained up to fight, trained in all the insinuating ways of a Higher Authority that must ensure that its children Do Not Question, going out and spilling blood in the name of their cause. And their cause, their Cause as they have been led to understand it, is the only true way. No matter the pain they breed, the lives they snuff out, the widows and widowers and orphans they create. No matter the consequences because they are the innocent ones and they are protecting their precious people and Zaft will take away their sins and make it right and clean in the eyes of eternity.

It's a nice dream, a pretty one, and it shines like a sun. It's only afterwards, when the sun goes down and they are left alone without their comrades and without the screaming rush of adrenaline and terror shooting through their veins, that they are forced to listen to the empty silence that falls in its place.

Soldiers do strange things in those dark, empty, times. Anything necessary to shore up the dream and plug the holes that are leaking out the blood of glory in a red and sickening stain all over their feet.

For a favoured child of Zaft, those with the honour of having the fastest reflexes and the greatest weapons – all the best to kill you with – the price is particularly high. Such strength cannot be held unaccountable for its actions. And for all the sweet denial that duty affords them, conscience has not yet been bred out of their blood.

They all have their own ways of coping.

The Le Kleuze squad have an arrangement, a silent pact that no-one except maybe their glass-eyed commander has ever seen. It's a strange thing of quiet understanding and simple acceptance, heartbreaking in its terrible practicality. It was Miguel who trained them into it with his gentle chiding, deft direction and silent acceptance of the shuddering wrecks that crawled back into his care once the guns were put down and the GINNs locked away again.

It was Miguel who made the rounds after the particularly violent encounters, the ones when the training stopped and the five brilliant youths hit the real war and found out that it was the ones that didn't fight back that hurt you the most. It was Miguel with his shrewd eyes and unruffled demeanour speaking in that soft, calm tone he used on them when they were looking particularly fucked up, that saved them when they snapped.

He called on each of his charges in turn. On Athrun sitting in the middle of his room surrounded by tiny, delicate robots that all chirped in unison when he pressed the buzzer. Athrun whose dark eyes glared up at him from under the wisps of his hair, almost furious at the interruption of the tedious, mind-numbing adjustments that stole his concentration and forced the horror away.

On the really bad days, Miguel had to admit that the creations that the Zala boy came up with during those sessions were the most intricate and beautiful works of art and engineering he'd ever seen. Beauty from horror. He supposed it was ironic really. Some dark god with a warped sense of humour had really outdone itself on that one.

Sometimes he found Nichol there with the Zala boy, but not often in the beginning. In the early days of their exposure to the war, he would more likely find the little Amalfi boy in the cafeteria, surrounded by a ring of space that no-one would dare to enter. Miguel would sigh to himself at the timidity of his crewmates and their terrible denial of the obvious, pick up a coffee and sit with the boy as he stared endlessly out into the darkness. Nichol never cried, and he never spoke except when spoken to. For all intents and purposes, he was perfectly calm and composed, a young soldier taking a few minutes to relax after a battle.

But there was something about his eyes, something wrong in the slight smile that crooked his lips that ensured that no-one, save Miguel, dared approach him. And it was only because Miguel knew what he was looking for that he noticed the paleness of the boy's knuckles where bone pressed tight against skin as his fingers gripped the handle of his mug with a fearsome strength. Nichol drank mug after mug of a sickly sweet squash that the drinks dispenser offered, until it made him sick and he was forced to excuse himself to find somewhere to throw up.

Miguel knew the boy desperately, brokenly, missed his piano. But the Vesalius was a battleship, not a pleasure yacht, and the only thing he could do was offer the boy his silent support and company. One day he went on his after-battle rounds and found Athrun sat beside Nichol in the cafeteria, the two of them alone in their own private world. There was a Haro in the space between them, its metal guts spilled on the table as its creator tinkered with it. Nichol sat beside Athrun and stared out into space, just as he always did, but this time he held a screwdriver in one hand rather than a mug, which he periodically handed back to the Zala boy as the other youth requested it.

Miguel simply smiled and left them to it.

Unsurprisingly to Miguel's mind, it was Rusty that cracked in the most obvious of ways. Rusty stayed in the locker rooms long after the others had left, crouched on the tiles with his back to the wall, surrounded by steam and the hot hiss of the shower. It was hard to tell tears from water droplets since he sat directly under the falling water, but Miguel could hear the boy whispering to himself even as he first entered the room. Face carefully neutral, he picked up a towel, crossed over to the showers and turned off the running water. Hauling the boy to his feet he threw the towel around his shoulders, assured him that no, the blood was definitely all gone, waited for the boy to dress and then accompanied him safely back to his room.

Usually he left him then and went to find his remaining two charges who were almost always found together anyway, pre-battle, during battle and after battle. One could almost be excused for thinking that neither the laid-back son of the Elthmans or the fiery, highly strung Jule prodigy were not effected by the horrors of war. It was only because Miguel knew them both so well that he saw and understood their coping strategy. They knew he was coming now and waited for him, wary after the first time he'd walked in on them and found them both on the same bunk in a position that could only be called compromising. To their credit, they'd played it cool and hadn't leapt apart from each other or anything remotely close to that. Dearka had rolled to a sitting position, Yzak had flicked his hair over one shoulder and then they'd both fixed him with dark-eyed stares of appraisal. He supposed they had simply been too worn out to care what he thought.

These days he kept his visits with them short and to the point and they responded in kind. Dearka was usually reading another magazine from his seemingly endless supply and Yzak was sat disturbingly quietly, writing the report that didn't need handing in for at least another two days. He checked their wounds, made sure they were coping and then left them to their privacy.

After that he almost always made his way back to Rusty's quarters where the younger boy welcomed him with wide, pain-filled eyes full of darkness and none of his usual wicked humour. Some people broke more thoroughly than others, and Miguel himself wasn't immune to the horrors of war either. So he took the other boy in his arms and kissed him until colour returned to his pale face and life and spirit crept back into his responses.

Everyone has their own way of coping after all.

oOo

Dearka Elthman would like to say that he is used to war. He might in fact say so anyway, depending on who was asking. He's had almost a year and a half of it now, with all the fury, pain and horror that war entails. He's not seen as much of the glory that he was promised, and he's seen even less of the easy victories, but he's not yet lost the arrogance that tells him that he, as a chosen son of Zaft, isn't completely and utterly in the right. It's one of the only things that keeps him going sometimes.

Today's battle was particularly vicious as all around them Zaft soldiers screamed and died. He'd heard one man call out for his wife as his suit plummeted away into fire and Dearka had screamed in rage and pain at the desperation in that voice and blown the enemy unit that had caused it into oblivion. It hadn't made him feel any better.

Sometimes it made him sick just how easily the Naturals fell before the Buster. He'd found that if he moved fast enough he could be gone before the explosion of their units registered in his view panel. He never quite managed to get ahead of their screams though.

During battle it is simple enough to let the rage and the ingrained reactions take over however – it's hard to feel pity when all you can see is the red rage that comes when you catch some bastard Natural trying to shoot your best friend in the back. It's only later, much later, when the Gundams are stowed away in their hangars that it occurs to you that just maybe your best friend had already killed that enemy soldier's best friend, or his lover, or brother, and the only thing that enemy soldier could hear in his ears was the ringing of the scream their loved one uttered before they died.

After Miguel and Rusty were both killed, blown apart in fire and fury by a man whose face he's yet to see, it fell to Dearka to initiate the old routine. So it is he then that leans on the buzzer to Athrun's quarters, peers around the doors when they swish open and bats aside the Haro that leaps at him from the corner.

Athrun looks up from his place at the desk and nods once, before turning his attention back down to the intricacies of the tiny robot lying prone beneath his tools. Nichol is lying on his back on Athrun's bunk, one hand over his eyes listening to the thunderous music that pours from the speakers set in the walls. It's some rollicking piano piece that sets the tools on the desk to vibrating in sympathy and Dearka wonders how the hell they can listen to it so loudly.

It's no use trying to talk over the noise so he simply crosses over to where Nichol is lying and prods him in the ribs to get his attention. The younger boy jumps and raises his hand away from his eyes to regard his tormenter. Comprehension flares in his gaze and then he nods at Dearka, giving him that strange, oddly worrying smile, before replacing the hand back over his eyes. Dismissed, Dearka gives Athrun a wave that is not returned and leaves, tripping over Nichol's empty mug on the way out.

He's glad to get back to his own quarters because by the time he gets there he's feeling decidedly low and all he can hear in his head is that soldier screaming his wife's name over and over in a never-ending loop. When the door opens he can see that Yzak is already there waiting for him. The other youth's knuckles are bruised and bleeding where he has been punching something, the wall most likely. It's a disturbing habit and one that Dearka has never quite managed to find a way to get him to give up.

Yzak doesn't look up as he enters, and Dearka can see the tension tightening his partner's lithe frame. Kicking off his boots he crosses over and stands in front of the other youth, looking down at Yzak's hands where the boy is wiping each knuckle in turn with the opposing thumb, cleaning away the blood. Dearka reaches down and takes Yzak's right hand in his own, raising it to his lips and sucking the blood away. He can feel Yzak trembling subtly in his entire body and the blood makes him think of Rusty's old obsession with washing after a battle.

Yzak's eyes are still on the floor even as Dearka lowers his right hand and reaches down for the left to kiss. The wounds on his knuckles sting like murder, and the bones in his hand throb like he's almost broken them. Even through the pain he can still feel the frustration roiling at the base of his stomach .

He knows what Dearka wants and what he needs. And truth be told, Yzak needs it too. So he reaches up, his eyes finding Dearka's own, and pulls the other youth down into a fierce kiss. They do make it to the bed this time, if only because Yzak knows Dearka took a serious impact to his unit sometime during the last battle and the collision has left the tall youth's lower back bruised and sore. It doesn't matter, none of it matters, because sometime during their lovemaking, one of them will get fierce anyway despite injuries or pain or discomfort, and their play will turn as rough as it ever does as need and desire consume them.

It's only in the red haze of passion after all that Yzak knows Dearka can lose himself and stop hearing the battle raging in his head. Yzak can take out his rage and his pain and his anguish on some unsuspecting wall or locker and the violence will quiet for a moment the all-consuming fury he's left with after a battle. But Dearka, with his nonchalance and his sarcastic smirk and his cool-guy attitude needs the oblivion of sex to clear his mind. And that's okay with Yzak too because Dearka's gorgeous and skilled and knows too damned much about exactly where to touch to make Yzak beg for him to ever protest.

Later, when their passion is spent, Yzak falls asleep, half-draped across the other youth's chest. For Dearka the screaming has stopped, chased away by the touch and sweet kisses of the man he cherishes more deeply than the teachings of Zaft. Dearka dozes, half in and half out of sleep, waiting. As he lies there he runs his palm in long, regular strokes up the smooth planes of Yzak's back and shoulders, feeling the dull ache in his own lower back from the battle earlier. He's waiting because he knows it's not over yet.

Later, as ever, when Yzak's dreams set him snapping awake all wide-eyed fright and gasping horror, blinded by confusion in the dark, Dearka is there to soothe him. He lies quiet beside him until he feels the other youth begin to tremble and then he takes him in his arms again and whispers in his ear until the shaking stops.

Yzak never tells him what the dreams are about and Dearka never asks.

For all their power and their skill, in the dark and the still, small hours of the night, those most fearsome chosen warriors of Zaft are as fragile and afraid as any Natural. Taken away from the light of day and the radiant glory of the teachings of the Zodiac Alliance, these youths wonder exactly what it is they have let themselves become.

Zaft Fleet Academy teaches a soldier how to be strong. But it doesn't teach its students how to break. That's something they have to find out on their own.