Wrinkles

Author's Notes: Argh, this was such a gigantic pain to write. It kept getting lost and deleted and forgotten, like... twenty times over. That's why it's so extremely late for anja-chan's birthday... and Yzak's birthday. Blah, I fail, yes. Well... I hope you enjoy it anyways, anja!

Also, I have another fic coming soon, as well, for Tobi Tortue. Seriously, it's almost done!

--

Yzak Joule glared at his reflection. The narrowed aqua orbs on the other side of the mirror stared back, blue flames dancing in the irises. His lips were pressed into a hard, thin line, eyebrows lowered and pinched together.

Internally, he was about to take a giant leap, his stomach already plummeting without him. The feeling of unexplained nervousness was causing the youth’s palms to sweat and a strange rush of adrenaline to course through his body, heart skipping several beats. The pit of his abdomen felt like it was being eaten away, a fresh gush of bile rising in his throat.

No, he was not afraid. He was simply anxious that tomorrow, August the eighth, was his twentieth birthday. To the young commander, twenty was a large milestone in a man’s life. It signified that he was no longer a teenager, but a grown man. Twenty meant that he couldn’t rely on anybody, that he was his own person and that his responsibilities were imminently increasing with each passing year. Yzak didn’t mind the responsibilities, of course. He could handle them without complaint. His nervousness was more because of the fact that he hated birthdays with a fiery passion.

Birthdays, in Yzak Joule’s opinion, were a complete and utter waste of time and a calendar date. They were there as an excuse to throw a cheap party, with cheap decorations, cheap food and even cheaper beer in celebration of someone’s age, of all things. The presents were normally generic and thoughtless, chosen only because the guests felt they had to.

A tiny growl escaped the silver head’s throat. He hoped to God that everybody would breeze over August eighth as just another day and think nothing of it. Perhaps if he kept his cool and didn’t think of it, either, nobody would notice his particularly foul mood and wouldn’t question it.

Yzak allowed himself a moment to gather his thoughts. He closed his eyes, letting out a long, slow breath, the moist vapors fogging the mirror in its close vicinity. He was getting angry over nothing. It wasn’t like he gave any previous connotation that he wanted to celebrate his birthday, so why would anyone dare mention it?

He opened his eyes, once again staring at his reflection. He seemed calmer, facial features smoothed over. His eyebrows were no longer curved inwards into a hard frown and his lips were now a straight, full line. He smirked, pushing a few strands of silky, silver hair behind one ear, feeling better having thought over his birthday instead of merely—

Oh, God.

“Fuck!” Yzak hissed leaning against the cold, marble counter even more so that the edge of the hard stone was digging into the skin of his stomach. He squeezed one eye shut and focused very carefully on the skin between his eyes. There it was, right by his left eyebrow, a fine, fine line that seemed all too noticeable close-up.

A wrinkle.

A fucking frown line at age twenty! What were the odds? The aqua-eyed youth groaned audibly and gingerly touched the line. He wasn’t imagining things. It was definitely there. How was that even possible? Old people were supposed to get wrinkles! People just out of their teens were not supposed to have wrinkles. But there, clear as day, was a single, solitary wrinkle marring his flawless white skin.

Yzak slowly moved back off the counter. He was in absolute shock. He shook his head slowly. He had to calm down. It wasn’t that big a deal. Sure, he had a frown line at age twenty, but it was small and hardly noticeable. The young man continued to stare at his reflection, moving back and forth to see if it was perceptible from far away.

“Shit,” he groaned, realizing that all he could do was focus on that singular imperfection and couldn’t see from a third person’s point of view. He once again leaned close to the mirror, nearly going cross-eyed from staring at his forehead for so long. He squeezed his eyes shut, allowing them to rest for a moment before he went to concentrating on that damn wrinkle, willing it to go away.

A sudden rapping on the door snapped the silver head out of his focus. “Yzak! Hurry up in there, will you? You aren’t commander of the bathroom, you know.”

Dearka.

Yzak snarled at the door, gritting his teeth until his jaw ached. He clenched his hands into tight fists, sharp nails biting into the soft skin of his palms. Dearka really knew how to push his buttons, and it vexed the silver-haired man to no end.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he sneered crossly, giving the mirror one final glare before whipping his head away. Metallic strands of hair fell effortlessly from behind his ear, moving fluidly over his eyes and brushing over his lips. He snatched his pristine white uniform from the other side of the counter, first unfolding the starchy, colorless pants with heated, jerky motions. That wrinkle was still nagging him in the back of his mind and having Dearka waiting impatiently on the other side of the door didn’t improve his mood in the least.

Yanking his pants on and quickly pulling on his jacket, he turned back to his reflection. He smoothed down the end of the jacket and the collar, straightening up and inspecting himself. He drew in a slow, calming breath, desperately needed oxygen filling his lungs and clearing the dense haze that had earlier enveloped his mind. He suddenly felt as if he could handle Dearka and the entirety of the Joule team. He put on a confident smirk. Nobody would notice the small flaw and even if they did, they wouldn't dare comment on it.

Although, he did smooth down his bangs just slightly further than he normally liked them. Just in case.

The door slid open with an airy whoosh, causing a drained-looking Dearka's already mussed hair to move just slightly. It was an extremely odd sight, because the blond's hair was no longer combed back and slick, but tangled and messy. It fell into his half-lidded eyes in tangled clumps, causing shadows to accentuate the dark circles sunken underneath weary violet orbs. A green and white uniform hung over his forearm and was pressed into his tanned, bare chest, a pair of black shorts slung low on his hips.

"You are such a woman sometimes." Dearka grinned, white teeth poking out from behind thick, full lips.

Yzak let out a frustrated sound and shoved passed the blond man, storming out and down the hall. He didn't spend that much time in the bathroom, normally. This morning was simply different because of his slight—very slight— skin defect. His hands started balling into fists and a small growl resounded in his throat. He was most certainly not a woman.

A thought suddenly shot through the anger that obscured the young man's mind, like a ray of light through dense, black thunderclouds. He supposed that being a commander did have its advantages...

Oh, yes. Dearka would be getting many an extra push-up today.

--

"Yzak..." an exhausted Dearka groaned, flopping down onto a hard, metallic bench in ZAFT's mess hall. His lunch tray clattered noisily as it made contact with the steel surface of the dining table. The blond has his uniform jacket slung over his shoulder, exposing dark, toned arms, muscles twitching and rippling in obvious fatigue. He rested his forehead just below the plastic tray on his forearm, other arm busying itself by scratching the back of his neck. "You are such a bastard."

The silver head allowed himself to smirk behind a glass of water, taking careful, measured sips. Placing the cup down, he let out a small sigh, licking excess droplets of water off of his lips. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said simply.

Dearka scoffed, sitting up straight and stabbing his fork into a hard-looking piece of meat substance. “Yeah, sure you don’t,” he grumbled, taking a tearing bite of what appeared to be cooked pork, covered in some sort of sour smelling red sauce. “This is because I called you a woman this morning, isn’t it?”

Yzak arched a delicate silver eyebrow, his lip curling in disgust as crimson and brown pieces flew from the blond’s mouth. “Dearka, I treat all of my team equally. You, of all people, should know that,” the young commander sighed quietly, a carefully calculated amount of sarcasm in his voice. He scooped up a small mouthful of lumpy mashed potatoes, chewing on them briefly. At least Dearka acknowledged what he had done wrong and knew he was being punished for it. This made the silver head’s lips twitch at the corners as he swallowed the gluey matter in his mouth.

“Right,” the violet-eyed man sneered, taking long, gulping swallows of his own glass of water. “Say whatever’s politically correct, right, old man?”

Yzak stopped suddenly, body going rigid. His skin started to prickle at the ‘old man’ comment and this only further reminded him of his birthday. He was turning twenty. A tiny growl managed to squeeze its way through his throat and he shot Dearka a dangerous look. His eyes were narrowed into wicked, frosty slits, icy-hot daggers being shot the blond’s way.

Unfortunately, Dearka could read Yzak like an open children’s book with over-sized print and pictures to explain everything there, anyways. “Oh, right,” an impious grin formed on those dark lips, white canines showing through. “It’s your birthday tomorrow, isn’t it, Yzak?”

“Shut up!” the aqua-eyed soon-to-be man snapped, teeth clamping together. “Just because you know doesn’t mean everyone else has to,” he hissed, leaning forward and glaring hard into Dearka’s eyes. “I want you to pass over August eighth like nothing is going on. I want you to forget about my…” his voice dropped into a hushed whisper, as if they were sharing a deep, dark secret, “birthday and never mention it again.”

The blond held his hands up in mock surrender, chuckling to himself. “Yes, sir.” He smirked, raising his eyebrows and giving Yzak a mock two-fingered salute. “Never again, sir.”

The young commander slid back to his spot in front of his tray, fully focused on eating now. “Damn straight.”

--

Yzak awoke the next morning with a terrible, burgeoning sense of dread and anxiety sitting at the pit of his stomach. It slithered slowly upwards, curling around his chest and throat, causing them both to constrict almost painfully. It didn’t register in his mind what it was until the terrible mixture of feeling wrapped itself around his brain. It clicked horribly.

August the eighth. His birthday. Good, sweet lord, he was turning twenty.

The feeling of anxiety coursing through his body like too-hot blood, veins tightening with each heartbeat, made the young commander want to simply melt into his sheets. He didn’t want to get up and face himself in the mirror and accept his age. Is this what people felt like when they turned thirty? Forty? Fifty, even?

The thought of reaching half a century old made Yzak shiver under his warm blankets. He didn’t remember feeling like this when he turned ten. A bitter scowl made its way onto the silver head’s lips, thinking about how many years, months, days had passed since then.

Wait. Not bitter. Bitterness was reserved for the elderly.

Groaning, he rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his face into his pillow. He did not want to get up. He felt like screaming into the white, airy depths of the pillow in sheer frustration. He knew he had to get up. Really, he had no choice. His team was counting on him. Even if he did feel like he was having a mid-life crisis at age twenty, he couldn’t simply abandon his team. They needed his direction.

With this in mind, Yzak pushed himself out of bed. He sat at the edge for a moment, gathering up every ounce of will power in his body just to stand up. Having accomplished that, he snatched his uniform from its place in the closet and stormed into the bathroom. He blatantly avoided looking into the mirror as he dressed, not wanting to see the small—very small, he had to remind himself—line on his forehead and be further reminded of the date.

As he absently ran a brush through his hair, taming the mass clumps of bed head, a thought occurred to him. Where was Dearka? Normally, at that point in his morning routine, the blond would be pounding on the door, demanding for the bathroom and calling Yzak a woman or something equally as insulting. It was odd to be able to take his time in the morning without having a shouting match with the door.

He placed down the brush on the counter and peered out the doorway, suspicions and curiosity having risen to an unbearable level. “Dearka?” the aqua-eyed man called into the hallway. He looked to both ends of the hall, expecting to see a half-naked Dearka running down because he was going to be late.

Nothing.

Yzak knitted his brow together in confusion, pressing his lips into a tight line. He wondered where in hell the blond could have gone. Could he have gotten up early? No, that was unlikely. This was Dearka, after all…. It was more likely that he had slept in. This thought rung odd in the commander’s mind, though, considering the violet-eyed man had always been rather diligent and hadn’t slept in since their Academy days.

What in the PLANTs could have happened to him?

Pinching the bridge of his nose to stifle on oncoming headache, the silver head pushed his way out of the bathroom and began walking down the long, white hallways. He carried himself with memorized ease to the Ready Room, where he would meet his team for a lecture on Theoretical Ground Battle Strategies in Mobile Suits. If Dearka were already there, he would most definitely be surprised, and perhaps even pleased.

Though, the thought of actually rewarding the blond for his effort would be new territory altogether for Yzak. He wasn’t quite sure how he would do it, even he were in the Ready Room, perfectly prepared for a lecture. Which was still unlikely.

He was getting ahead of himself, though. There was still the distinct possibility that Dearka was simply running late. Why was the fact that the blond wasn’t at the bathroom at his usual time bothering him so much? Had his need for routine sunk so far into his mind that even the slightest change got under his skin?

No. Routine change bothered old people. He was most certainly not old.

Yzak threw the hand that had previously been pinching his nose to his side in a habit of sheer frustration. If he kept reminding himself of his age all day, he would never get anything done. He had to keep his mind on the lecture he had planned out the previous day. He had to pick up the Gundam models and demonstrate good ground technique with them. He had to plan out battle strategies with his team, for pity’s sake. He couldn’t—shouldn’t—have the excess energy to gripe about turning twenty.

With a newfound determination smoldering in the back of his head like hot coals, Yzak quickened his steps and made his way to the Ready Room. His mind was starting to sweep away any unwanted thoughts of age or birthdays, quickly reorganizing itself into “Commander Mode”. He stood up straighter, shoulders back, head high and carried himself with an edge of practiced confidence that made him appear almost predator-like.

With an easy, yet authoritative, smirk on his lips, the young man reached for the button that would open the door to the Ready Room. He pressed it firmly, still trying to convince himself that he was feeling confident enough to give a speech to his team. As the door slid open, Yzak took a breath, preparing to tell the Joule Team to sit down—

“Surprise!”

A group of loud voices started shouting as soon as the commander entered the room. The lights were suddenly turned on and—dear god, no—he could see that the entirety of the team was wearing pointed, colourful party hats. The Ready Room was dressed in banners and streamers of every different primary colour on the face of the PLANTs. Rubber balloons stuck to the ceiling, bobbing around gently over their heads. There was a table covered by a plastic white table cloth in the corner, covered in confetti and generic party food—chips, chocolate, candies. The whole room was like a beacon of fat and aging.

And, of course, there was the cake. It was large and rectangular, a generic “Happy Birthday!” written in blue icing on the top. There were bottles of beer surrounding the cake, light glinting off the brown glass from the harsh fluorescent lights like a horribly disfigured woman trying too hard to catch your attention.

Yzak stood there, jaw having gone slack and his order lost in his throat. This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid: the acknowledgement of his age, the reminder that he was getting older, the cheap celebration….

It was all so wrong.

The silver head felt his eye twitch is pure, unadulterated rage. His eyes shifted stiffly from the horrid decorations and scanned the people’s faces in the room. They rested directly on a face he should have seen that morning. Its tanned features were pulled upwards by a wide, bright grin, violet eyes twinkling impishly. Oh. So this is what Dearka has been doing all morning.

He probably expected Yzak to either go with it or yell at them. But, no. The commander stared furiously at the blond for a moment, a clear look of death blazing in his eyes. But he said nothing. He turned around and walked away from that whole scene. He didn’t need that revolting celebration, or Dearka’s odd way of teasing him.

He balled his hands into fists, sharp nails digging into his palms. He stormed away from that room, throat tightening in fury, causing any angry sounds to catch there. Hadn’t he told the blond man specifically that he didn’t want anybody to know about his birthday? Didn’t that imply that he didn’t want the team to throw him a party, of all things?

He stopped suddenly as he heard hurried footfalls behind him. Yzak whipped around, watching as a blur of a green uniform, blond hair and tanned skin ran towards him. A malicious grin formed on the silver head’s lips. Oh, this was the perfect opportunity to tell Dearka off. Releasing the tight balls of his hands and letting his fingers curl at his sides like claws, his appearance took on that of a vicious animal ready to pounce. A feral snarl scraped its way through his still too-tight throat and he prepared to shout something.

But nothing came out.

That certainly was odd. Yzak’s senses were suddenly assaulted with the smells, sights and sensations he wasn’t before familiar with. There was a strange, soft pressure on his lips and his nose was filled with a smell that couldn’t be described as anything but manly. It was clean, but musky at the same time. It was a mixture of the free soap in the public, locker room showers and a peppery sort of aroma that he couldn’t quite place.

As his vision cleared of its previous angry haze, the silver head suddenly registered the sight of a chiseled, dark face in its too-close vicinity. Just as soon as the pressure on his lips had come, it stopped. A small “happy birthday, Yzak” was whispered against his ear, the warm air causing him to shiver. The same soft, moist pressure was on his ear after that.

Oh, god.

Dearka… had just… kissed him.

Yzak licked his lips automatically, tongue darting out to moisten them. An oddly familiar—but altogether delicious—flavor ran across his taste buds, nearly lighting them ablaze with its intensity. It was sweet and bitter at the same time, with a smoky aftertaste that caused the commander’s eyes to flutter. “What… what…” he stuttered, brain seeming to freeze and cease to function in the worse moment possible.

“Well…” Dearka interrupted, warm lips now trailing down the silky, marble column of Yzak’s neck. The blond’s large hands slowly skittered down the aqua-eyed youth’s sides to his hips, gripping them rather tightly. “It’s your birthday, you’re turning twenty… I figured that it would be the perfect time for you to… score.” He grinned puckishly, pulling back and staring at the shocked and confused look on Yzak’s face with a small chuckle.

“Score?” The silver head repeated, shaking his head and taking a moment to soak all of what had just happened in. He took in a deep breath through his nose, trying to calm his racing heart and flushing cheeks. The horrible heat stained the alabaster skin of his face and ears in red blotches. Clearing his throat and collecting the muddled thoughts swimming through his mind, he managed to look Dearka in the eye.

“Elsman…” the commander sighed heavily, a tiny smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Your puns are terrible.” He leaned forward, hissing it against the violet-eyed youth’s ear. “Now…” he said as he wrapped his arms securely around Dearka’s neck. “Kiss me. That’s an order.”

The blond couldn’t help but laugh, a wide grin adorning his features. “And who am I to deny my commander his requests?” he murmured. He tilted his head forward again, lips just barely brushing against Yzak’s. He stopped suddenly, eyebrows furrowing together. His eyes drifted upwards, a bemused, but mostly amused expression playing across his face.

“Yzak…” he murmured, snickering and snorting slightly as he did. “You… have a wrinkle on your forehead.”

--End