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Zero Requiem, it had been mutually decided, was the most efficient, neatest possible method of tying off this awful hornets nest of problems that was the dying tail end of Brittania’s bloodthirsty legacy, the world clawing at one another, and Lelouch’s general existence.
But Suzaku rather wished it didn’t have to suck so much.
“This is the third fitting today,” Suzaku said, peeved. His initial indifference to Lelouch’s sketches of what was to be Suzaku’s new fightsuit had long given over to a growing sense of dread whenever he saw Lelouch approach, armed with tailor’s chalk and a pincushion strapped to his arm.
“The seams need to lie perfectly straight for the piping to align to the length of your legs,” Lelouch snapped.
Suzaku suppressed a flinch as a pin made its presence known swiftly and painfully in his right thigh. “Does the “piping” improve the performance of the fightsuit?” he asked. Lloyd wanted to know.
Suzaku had learned to read Lelouch’s silences fairly well when they had first met as sullen, mulish children, and now it was sheer irritation that radiated off Lelouch as he crouched behind Suzaku, doing pinchy things to the small of Suzaku’s back. No help came from C.C.’s corner of the room, either, where she had draped herself over the oversized cushion she insisted on dragging everywhere, other than in the form of sniggers.
The room itself was a large war room set deep within Damocles, well out of harm’s way. Ceilings were high and the walls gleaming white in the harsh fluorescent lights, as was the norm in Britannian airships across the board, Suzaku had found in his time in the military. But the floor space was largely taken up by a broad table, not unlike at Ashford, Arthur was trying to bite and claw her way out of Suzaku’s arms, not unlike at Ashford, and Lelouch was dressed in his Ashford uniform.
“What happened to your outfit?” asked Suzaku, who had vague memories of flowing pen strokes, and an oversized kite of a hat. He had to direct his question at empty air, as Lelouch had demonstrated with increasingly violent pin stabs over the last week just exactly what happened to mannequins that moved.
“Finished,” Lelouch said shortly.
Bet he didn’t stab himself when he was making it, Suzaku thought sourly. The thought was quickly followed by a voice helpfully pointing out that no, the entire point of Zero Requiem was that if anyone was stabbing Lelouch, it would be Suzaku. He viciously squashed the thought before it could bring with it its ghost-like friends, dark thoughts that liked to curl about and hook themselves into his head if Suzaku spent too long thinking about Zero Requiem. “Does she get an outfit?”
C.C. stopped sniggering long enough to heave a laboured, put-upon sigh. “Skin-tight outfits are only for the eye candy.” C.C. seemed content to spend her days dressed in Britannian-issue prison garments.
“Don’t you hear the guards gossiping? You are the eye candy,” Lelouch said dryly. The fleeting warmth in his voice instantly turned to disapproval as he spoke to Suzaku. “This would be easier if you put the cat down.”
Arthur enthusiastically showed agreement by latching onto the meat of Suzaku’s thumb with her teeth. “No,” he said adamantly. Military warships were big scary places full of sharp pointy shooty things, and not fit for overly inquisitive cats to run wild.
Lelouch made a series of grumbling noises, punctuated by a number of quick jabs to Suzaku’s left shoulder, arm, then hip.
“What are the guards saying? Have they decided if I’m your long-lost sister or your mistress yet?”
“Better. You’re my sister, a princess long-lost and hidden from the public, for whom I harbour a most forbidden and burning love.”
C.C. made a coughing noise that sounded an awful lot like, ‘Nunnally’.
Suzaku felt hair glance across his cheek as Lelouch whipped his head around sharply.
“When did the guards get fitted?” Suzaku interrupted.
Lelouch popped his face around Suzaku’s shoulder to frown crossly at him. This close, the skin under his eyes looked milky, near-transparent, the blood below starting to show through as purple smudges. “What guards? I only have the one guard.”
“The palace guards at Pendragon," Suzaku clarified. “Wait, ‘the one guard’?”
“Oh, those.” Lelouch’s head disappeared behind Suzaku again. Suzaku thought he saw a hand full of pins flipping dismissively, but didn’t dare turn his head to look in case he was right. “I made those months ago; had the palace tailors take them in the day of the coup. Just exactly how long do you think I’ve been planning this?”
“You made those?” Suzaku said incredulously, all talk of guards long forgotten. A sneaking suspicion he had long harboured rose to the top of his head. “What about the Black Knight uniforms?”
“Compared to Zero’s suit? Child’s play,” Lelouch said, sounding nonchalant.
“When I was in the Rounds, Schneizel stationed me in the E.U. for months trying to work out what factory was producing them.”
Lelouch scoffed. “As if I’d ever put something so important in the hands of inferior E.U. factories.”
C.C.’s sniggers had started up again.
“You, shut up,” Lelouch said.
“I haven’t said anything yet,” C.C. said in a sing-song voice.
Suzaku risked the chance of being stabbed to throw C.C. a look of confusion. “What?”
“What ‘what’? You’re a big boy, figure it out yourself,” C.C. said.
“Can I get a hint?” Suzaku asked.
“C.C.” Lelouch said warningly.
“Don’t worry; it’ll be a miracle if he works it out.”
“C.C.”
“In fact, he’ll never get it, not in a million years.”
There was a very expectant silence, broken only by Arthur’s contented purrs as she mauled Suzaku’s hand.
Suzaku mulled over C.C.'s less than subtle clues. Miracle… million…
“Wow, you really have zero clue, don’t you?” Contrary to her words, an undercurrent of suppressed hilarity underwrote her words. “It’s a good thing none of Lelouch’s plans rely upon your brains.”
Suzaku scowled, remembering. “The million Zero stunt at the Special Administrative Zone?” And then, disbelievingly, “You made all of those outfits, too?”
C.C. let out a peal of laughter. “He had to outsource to the Chinese Federation. He sulked for weeks. He was so very upset.”
And was clearly upset still. Suzaku felt a particularly large pinch at the base of his neck. It was was followed shortly by Arthur deciding to go for the tender skin between his thumb and forefinger, so Suzaku took it as the universe's sign of telling him to shut his mouth.
Also, when Lelouch was extolling the virtues of Zero Requiem from the back end of C’s World, Suzaku didn’t remember Lelouch mentioning so many meetings.
“Finally. There you are,” Lelouch complained as Schneizel glided into the same room Lelouch liked to use for his fittings from hell, but now repurposed to its actual purpose as a meeting space, Schneizel somehow infuriatingly insouciant even when blank faced and red-eyed with geass, his assistant following sedately behind him. “Sit. Stay,” Lelouch barked out, before returning to his laptop and slapping a key. “Right, then. I’ve emailed everyone reference materials for today’s meeting.
Padds and laptops round the room alternatively lit up or sounded to signal an incoming message, alternating depending on their owner’s preferences. Seated beside Suzaku, Lloyd’s laptop let out a jaunty jingle, which its owner answered with a suppressed groan. “Budgets, your Majesty?”
“Budgets,” Lelouch said with the relish of someone who enjoyed spreadsheets more than any human ought to.
Lelouch was actually dressed in his emperor robes this time, in all its white and bedazzled glory, if with a significantly smaller hat than Suzaku remembered from Lelouch’s sketches. So, too, was Suzaku dressed in his Knight of Zero fightsuit and mantle, but what purpose the piping on the back of his legs served had yet to be elucidated.
“Lelouch,” said C.C. very seriously. “Where’s the budget for pizza?”
“Did you look at page six?”
“I am looking at page six. That’s why I’m asking where the budget for pizza is.”
Suzaku skipped forward to page six. A colour-coded pie chart took up pride of place, with a neat table on the side listing percentages and items. Written at the top of the page in large bolded letters was, “IMPERIAL HOUSEHOLD BUDGET”.
“Pizza is included under, ‘Food’.”
“Pizza should have its own budget.”
“I’m not dedicating tax dollars to pizza. There are hospitals to build.”
Schneizel's assistant leaned forward, and after peering at his master’s empty, geassed face, said, “Your Majesty, I don’t believe I see hospitals listed under spendings?”
“There will be hospitals to build when I'm dead,” Lelouch clarified crisply.
C.C.’s expression went carefully blank. Out of the corner of Suzaku’s eye, he saw Cecile turn her head to look at him.
Suzaku skipped back to the index, then on to page three: SPENDINGS. There was yet another pie chart, with military expenses taking up the majority of the pie, followed closely by a category titled, ‘Surplus’. On page thirteen, a breakdown of ‘Surplus’ was provided, with a detailed list of planned spending on infrastructure such as hospitals, welfare payments, and rehabilitation and training programs, all conveniently timed to begin after Zero Requiem.
C.C. rallied quickly. “I believe there should be a budget for pizza.”
“Even though you pay for everything on my credit card anyway?”
“Remembering all those numbers is a hassle.”
Lelouch gave her a look of exasperation. “Fine. Your concerns will be noted in the meeting minutes. Anyone else? No? From the top, then,” and so begun a dull and itemised rundown through each page.
Budgets meetings were the relatively fun meetings. Less fun were the meetings where Lelouch had Gottwald double and triple check the rooms for any possible listening devices, locked the doors, and dimmed the lights. Ostensibly, dimming the lights was so that the monitor taking up an entire wall could be seen more clearly, but Suzaku privately thought Lelouch also enjoyed the extra sense of drama. Particularly because everyone’s face was lit from below by the light of their laptops and padds, and Lelouch’s face, which was always looking fairly gaunt these days, took on a distinctly skull-like quality.
Lelouch looked around the room expectantly. “Right. This week’s act of terror. Any suggestions?”
For these meetings, Schneizel’s was always deliberately ungeassed. “Must you always call it that, dear brother?”
“Yes, I suppose there’s not much to distinguish it from any other day under Britannian rule, but I find it loses its charm if I call it, ‘What We will Rort on ‘Wednesday’. Brother.”
“Pizza shortage,” was C.C.’s suggestion, as was her suggestion every meeting.
Lelouch rolled his eyes, but dutifully drew up a list on the screen with ‘pizza shortage’ at the top.
“Might I suggest a raid on the Californian lords, your majesty?” asked Gottwald.
“Not nearly theatrical enough for a demon emperor,” Lelouch complained, even as it was added to the list. “Why California?”
“We've just received word that Princess Cornelia’s resistance has moved to California. It’s unclear whether or not the local lords are providing aid.”
“Forward me all reports immediately,” Lelouch said tersely. “I want to be BCC’d on any emails relating to Cornelia’s resistance in future.”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
Gottwald and Lelouch were immediately engrossed in their respective devices. Lelouch said, “The meeting continues. Ideas?”
Schneizel stirred in his chair. “How about raising medicine prices?”
“Theatrical,” Lelouch returned without looking up.
Schneizel was undeterred. “Raising prices randomly without notice. No forced shortage, of course. Pure revenue raising, which we shall let the public know to fan their anger and disbelief. A pharmacist rings up medicine essential to her customer's well being at the register, only to tell her customer that his credit cards have been declined.
A father weighs up being able to take his baby to a doctor, or keeping it clothed and fed.
Theatrical? Perhaps no, not in the traditional sense. There will be no audience to applaud you, dear brother. But dramatic? Very much so.”
“People will die if you follow through and actually implement that,” Cecile protested, shocked. She was looking directly at Suzaku. “Civilians, not soldiers. Why can’t you do what you did in San Diego, and geass a town’s population to believe some fanciful, awful story?”
“Zero Requiem can’t be achieved through rumours alone,” Suzaku said. He meant to say it gently, but his tone was low and harsh.
Cecile, who knew full well as any in the room the broad strokes that made up Zero Requiem, if not the specifics, quieted, but her eyes blazed. Lloyd sighed.
Lelouch still had his gaze tersely fixed on his laptop. “Yes, fine. That works. We’ll go with Schneizel’s idea. Schneizel, inform the Chamber of Commerce. Suzaku, Lord Gottwald, a word. Everyone else dismissed.”
—
All in all, Zero Requiem was a fairly horrible business. Which Suzaku had signed up for, as had Lelouch. Lloyd had not, but where the Lancelot went, he followed. Where Lloyd and Suzaku went, Cecile would go, to make sure Lloyd did not implode under the weight of his own genius, if nothing else, but Suzaku suspected a certain amount of mother-henning on his behalf also.
Gottwald was loyal to Lady Marianne’s lineage. Schneizel was slave to Lelouch’s geass. Maldini was loyal to Schneizel.
C.C. and Lelouch were near inseparable.
“How is he?” Suzaku asked, in a rare moment he caught C.C. alone.
He had caught her in front of the door to Lelouch’s quarters, which also doubled as her rooms, as Suzaku was making his way to breakfast.
Without missing a beat, C.C. said, “Very despondent. Says you are horrible at striking poses. Is lamenting the fact that Zero Requiem hinges on you and your wrists.”
“There is nothing wrong with my wrists,” Suzaku protested.
“‘Limp and inefficient’, were his exact words.”
The door to Lelouch’s quarters slid open. “Stop squabbling and let me sleep,” Lelouch complained. He was fully dressed, sans hat and mantle, but looking distinctly rumpled. The door slid shut again before either Suzaku or C.C. could answer.
Suzaku and C.C. wordlessly took their conversation to the dining room.
“How are my wrists ‘weak and inefficient’?” Suzaku started once they were seated.
“Apparently they’re like they’re grasping at soap bubbles.”
“What does he even want?”
“More strength. Maybe if you curled your fingers more as you flick your wrists.”
Maldini, the only other occupant in the room, wordlessly got up from his breakfast and started stacking breakfast items from the spread laid out on the table onto a silver tray.
“I already tried that. What if I start with my fingers tightly curled, then loose?”
“Not a bad idea. You need to work on your hips, as well.” For some reason, C.C. was smiling.
Suzaku was too traumatised by hours of twitching his limbs in minutely different ways as Lelouch shouted instructions at him the day before to see the humour. “I know that. I just can’t snap them as hard as Lelouch wants.”
“Maybe a conversation best kept for the bedroom, my Lords,” Maldini said as he disappeared out the door with his tray, leaving Suzaku to splutter into his orange juice as he realised just exactly why C.C. was snickering.
—
Somewhere around the mid-way point of Zero Requiem, the tailor’s chalk and pincushion made a reappearance.
“More fittings?” Suzaku asked, a little desperately.
“Yes,” said Lelouch in a tone that brooked no argument, and whisked him off in a flurry of white and gold silk, off back into Lelouch’s favoured meeting slash fitting room.
“Ah-hah,” Lelouch said, with zero satisfaction. “I knew it. You’ve lost weight.”
Lelouch had dressed Suzaku in what was to be his Zero uniform. A tall standing mirror had been set up, so Suzaku could see Lelouch circling behind him, frowning.
“Isn’t that a good thing? I’ll be able to fit into your old Zero outfits.”
Lelouch was scandalised. “Absolutely not,” he said. “Zero is a symbol,” and started waxing lyrical about thread counts and invisible zippers in a rant that completely went over Suzaku’s head.
Later that night, as Suzaku was getting out of the shower before he went to bed, he caught a glance of himself in the bathroom mirror.
He could see an argument that maybe his collarbones, always pronounced, were sharper than usual. Certainly his abdomen was looking leaner, and the muscles more pronounced.
Suzaku frowned at his reflection, shook his head, and went to bed.
Nevertheless, Lelouch must have been sufficiently concerned, because he started sending Gottwald to shadow him.
“Orange juice, my Lord?” Gottwald asked at breakfast.
“Perhaps you would like some orange slices?” Gottwald asked as Suzaku was on standby in the Lancelot’s hanger.
“I highly recommend this orange salad, my Lord,” Gottwald said at dinner. It looked no different to the orange slices he had been offered at lunch, unless you counted the fact that these had been peeled, and had a jaunty sprig of leaves sat on top.
“Do you have anything other than oranges?” Suzaku asked.
Gottwald considered the question. “Oranges are an excellent source of vitamin C, my Lord, and his Majesty Lelouch has been most concerned for your health, but if you’ve tired of oranges, I shall make arrangements,” he said and began offering tangerines the next morning instead.
“How do I make Lord Gottwald stop feeding me oranges?” Suzaku asked Cecile.
They were in the Lancelot’s hanger. Cecile had a tray of onigiri in hand. She glanced at them before replying, “Oh! I thought you liked oranges.”
Suzaku usually liked oranges just fine, but on closer inspection, he thought he saw orange slime trickling from the apex of the onigiri. They looked near nuclear. “Not recently,” he said, which wasn’t entirely a lie.
Cecile quickly hid the tray of possibly radioactive onigiri behind her back. “Have you tried asking Lord Gottwald why he keeps giving you oranges?”
“I know why Lord Gottwald keeps giving me oranges,” Suzaku said. “Lord Gottwald keeps giving me oranges because Lelouch thinks I’ve lost weight.”
Cecile looked at him critically. “Recent data supports his Majesty’s opinion,” she said, every inch the military professional. “We may need to do some recalibration if you lose significant weight to ensure that the Lancelot’s centre of balance is adjusted accordingly.” Then, more kindly, “Perhaps you could eat more?”
“I’m eating fine,” Suzaku said shortly.
Cecile changed tack. “Perhaps you could speak directly with his Majesty?”
“Speak… with… Lelouch?”
Cecile nodded. “Yes. Like adults.”
Suzaku gave the idea some thought, and realised that in the midst of war and suspicion, both he and Lelouch had turned eighteen. “Oh. We’re both adults now.”
“Legally, yes,” Cecile said sadly.
Cecile seemed to have more to say, but just then Lloyd wandered by. “Cecile, my dear, what do you have there behind your back?”
—
There was but one flaw in Cecile’s plan: Lelouch and Suzaku did not speak.
Or rather: they did not speak with each other.
On the battlefield, Lelouch relayed orders through Cecile; any feedback from on-ground Suzaku relayed back through Cecile, but generally any changes in battle would have been long spotted by either Cecile stationed in the Damocles, or Lelouch in his Shinkiro. Immediate orders were fed directly to Suzaku across a dedicated channel, of course, but that wasn’t a conversation: Lelouch rarely required a response other than a brisk, ‘Yes, your Majesty!’
Outside of battle, their paths rarely crossed, other than maybe at mealtimes, but most definitely during meetings and pre-battle briefings.
And then there were the meetings that Suzaku dreaded the most: the meetings exclusively about Zero Requiem.
“That cannot be a well-weighted sword,” Suzaku said flatly.
Again, they were back in Lelouch’s favoured meeting slash fitting, now slash conspiracy room, but this time with a great big pink sword sitting on the table. It was, if Suzaku was honest, rather hideous.
Lelouch picked up the sword, and slashed it through the air experimentally. Suzaku jumped back out of reach by instinct, even before his geass-enforced self-preservation could kick in. “It is perfectly weighty.”
“I mean, well-balanced.” Suzaku stepped in before Lelouch could accidentally stab himself earlier than planned, and gently took the sword off him. Then, to prove his point, he rested it on his outstretched hand, just a feel inches above the hilt, and watched it thunk down heavily into the ground, hilt and pommel first. Suzaku used his gloved hand to hastily intercept the blade and knock it away from Lelouch as it fell.
“It doesn’t need to balance,” declared Lelouch, utterly unconcerned. “It needs to look decadent. Pure, Britannian excess that the people can latch onto and loath.”
“It’d be nice if it were well-balanced so I can — ” Suzaku abruptly stopped mid-sentence.
Lelouch raised an eyebrow. “So you can?”
“Impale you better,” Suzaku finished.
“Suzaku, you do not need a well balanced sword to impale me,” Lelouch said.
From the other side of the table, Suzaku heard C.C. say faintly, “Finally? Could it be?”
When both Lelouch and Suzaku turned to look at her, she said, “Never mind me, boys. Carry on.”
“‘Carry on’ what exactly?” Lelouch asked archly.
C.C. smirked. “The sword came with a care kit. It’s on the table, next to the scabbard. There’s oil for your swords to make impaling easier.”
“We only have the one sword,” Suzaku said.
C.C. stared at him, apparently waiting for him to add something else.
“My… ceremonial sword from when I was Knight of Seven?”
“You are an idiot,” C.C. told him, matter-of-fact, and turned her gaze to Lelouch, who stared flatly back at her until suddenly his face rapidly flushed red, then went pale, and he said, “You are a terrible influence,” before storming out of the room.
Moments later, Lelouch returned, picked up the sword and slid it home into its scabbard, scooped up it and the care kit and left the room a second time, but not before tossing over his shoulder at C.C., “Are you coming, or not?”
“I’m not an idiot,” Suzaku protested to the empty room once Lelouch and C.C. had left.
Arthur, who had been napping on the table, meowed her disagreement.
—
But actually, selfishly, what Suzaku hated the most about Zero Requiem, even more than the death and destruction, the slow chipping away at what good remained in his soul, was how lonely it was.
It was but a little preview of the agreed upon punishment that was Zero Requiem. A mutual agreement that the both of them had unleashed a rather untold amount of horror on the world, and it was only fitting that they simultaneously get both partly but also the entirely opposite of what they had originally intended.
Knowing the loneliness was intentional, Suzaku thought, was a bit like the pain after touching a hot stove: he knew why it hurt, but knowing did not lessen the ache.
Lelouch, of course, had C.C. Suzaku, too, knew he had Lloyd and Cecile, but Lloyd vacillated between viewing him as a useful cog in the machine that was the Lancelot, and as an actual flesh and body human, but Lloyd did not know what to do with the latter, but was slowly learning better to handle the former so it did not break, as flesh parts were difficult and messy to replace. Cecile cared, very deeply, but it was a placating sort of caring that Suzaku felt he had to offer in return.
What Suzaku wanted the most was someone he could speak frankly to, and be spoken frankly at.
—
As Zero Requiem dragged on, Lelouch was starting to look increasingly haggard.
Suzaku found him scowling at some monitors as Diethard Ried was taking some test footage before a broadcast. “I look horrible.”
“Never,” Ried rushed to reassure him. “Why, you look magnificent —”
“My bags have bags,” Lelouch groused.
“Your bags have an entire airport carousel,” C.C. said helpfully.
Lelouch scowled at her.
“The makeup artists haven’t had a chance to work their magic yet,” Ried insisted.
“What you need is snails,” CC. said.
“To eat?” Cecile’s face lit up. “There’s a new recipe I’ve been meaning to try.”
“I’d rather not,” said Lelouch, who now looked queasy on top of looking like he was at death’s door.
“No,” said C.C. “They don’t go into his mouth, they go on his face.”
“That’s a shame. Escargot snails are quite the delicacy in the E.U.,” said Cecile.
“Have you been sleeping well?” Suzaku asked.
Lelouch had had his mouth open, ready to snap a refusal at C.C. At Suzaku’s words, Lelouch turned to look at him, mouth still hanging open. For but a moment, a look of anger and sadness flashed over his face. The moment passed, and Lelouch said stiffly, “I’ll see those makeup artists now, if you will,” and an atmosphere of joking liveliness that Suzaku had not noticed in him abruptly dissipated.
Lelouch used to be an open book. When they were children, he was quick to anger, but his angers had tended towards being petty, no more than a flash in the pain, and the cause easy to discern. His smiles had been more difficult to evoke, often startled out at him by something unexpected, like a sudden shower of lilting bird song, the clouds parting and letting sunshine tumble through, a gesture of kindness that touched him.
As an adult, he was far more prickly, and acts of kindness seemed as likely to provoke as please him.
“Thank you,” said Lelouch, when Suzaku presented him with a sunflower from the field the Lancelot had been on standby in while on field assignment, that Suzaku had actually intended on giving to Arthur, but had been foiled by Ried and his camera.
“Well done,” said Lelouch, when Suzaku deftly moved the Lancelot into the line of fire in the middle of a skirmish, blocking the Shinkiro from harm.
“Pot, kettle,” Lelouch said snappishly when Suzaku asked if he’d been eating.
—
As Zero Requiem approached its end, a truly oppressive atmosphere settled over the Damocles. The halls were near-empty: Schneizel and Maldini had been banished to the holding cells; Ried was busy broadcasting to the world that Lelouch had gone insane and turned on even his inner circle; all non-essential personnel, including Lloyd and Cecile, had been sent offboard.
Lelouch, had become increasingly withdrawn and haughty.
A week before Zero Requiem proper, Suzaku exited his room and nearly stepped on a plate with a slice of pizza on it. It had been clearly out for a while, the cheese opaque and congealed.
“Why?” Suzaku asked the empty hallway.
On closer inspection, a crude ‘F’ had been scrawled on top of the cheese in ketchup. Shrugging, and figuring it would be a ‘D’ for ‘DIE’ had someone chosen a clumsy assassination attempt upon finding out that reports of Suzaku’s death had been highly exaggerated, he stooped down to scoop up the pizza, and crammed it into his mouth. Chewing, he looked up and down the corridor, and spotted another pizza slice ten metres away. This one had ‘U’ on it, and the next ‘C’. Suzaku followed the trail of cold pizza slices:
K… A… L… R… E… A…
The last pizza slice sat in front of a door. Beside it was a wine glass, filled with what looked like orange juice. A tag attached to the stem proudly proclaimed ‘D’, in messy handwriting the twin of the pizza ketchup scrawls. Suzaku had knelt and was just reaching for the wine glass as a voice coldly asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Suzaku looked up. Lelouch stood above him, skin glowing ghostly white under the lights and against his robes, the pupils of his eyes looking slightly manic as they tended to do these days.
“I’m thirsty,” said Suzaku. “I ate a lot of pizza.”
Lelouch looked down the corridor Suzaku had come from. It was now cluttered with empty plates, speckled with tomato paste and ketchup.
The corridor behind Lelouch similarly had a line of wine glasses of orange juice, neatly tagged, and all untouched.
“Did all those plates use to have pizza on them?” Lelouch’s voice had the faintest tinge of horrified awe.
“Yes.”
“Did you eat them all?”
“Yes.”
Lelouch gently cradled his head in one palm. “Were there letters on those pizzas?”
Suzaku reached back through his memory. “‘FUCKALREAD’,” Suzaku said. “Is that someone's name?”
“It’s the call of a meddling witch,” Lelouch growled. He pushed the door behind the pizza and wine glass, and strode in. Suzaku gave the wine glass a last look of regret — he really was thirsty — before following suit.
Beyond the door was a dim room, lit only by a single beam of light. Directly below it was a stool, atop which were a final plate of pizza and wine glass of orange juice. Both had been labelled, ‘Y’.
“‘FUCKAL READY’?” Suzaku asked. “What is ‘Fuckal’?”
Lelouch had hidden his head behind both hands now. “‘Fuck already’,” came Lelouch’s muffled, exasperated voice.
“‘Fuck, already’?’” Suzaku asked, startled. “What’s happening? I’m not ready for anything.”
“No, not, ‘fuck, already’.” Lelouch dropped his hands. He looked somewhere between grim and enraged. Suzaku took a step back. “‘Fuck already’.”
“Oh,” said Suzaku. “As in, you?”
“Yes.”
“And… me?”
“Yes.”
“Finally he gets it!” C.C's voice crowed triumphantly. Suzaku felt the air at his back move. He whirled around, but it was too late; the door had already whirled shut.
When he turned around, C.C. was standing in the spotlight, pizza slice already in her mouth.
Lelouch had hidden his face behind his hands again.
“Welcome,” said C.C. through a mouthful of pizza. She swallowed, and said. “I’m starving; you two really know how to make a girl wait.”
Suzaku reached for the wine glass of orange juice. Lelouch slapped his hand down. How, Suzaku didn’t know, because both eyes seemed to be closed, screwed up in concentration, or possibly against a headache. “What are you playing at?”
C.C. scarfed the last of the pizza, washed it down with the orange juice, and said, “Glad you asked.”
She reached across and dragged Suzaku beyond the stool. A giant bed loomed large behind her, heretofore unseen, Suzaku too preoccupied by the now consumed pizza and orange juice. She sat Suzaku on one side, sitting facing inwards, and manhandled Lelouch into the same position on the other side of the bed.
“What—” Lelouch started to turn his head around.
C.C. slammed her palms on either side of Lelouch’s head. “Eyes forward!” she commanded, twisting Lelouch’s head so his eyes stared into Suzaku’s.
Suzaku shifted on the bed uncomfortably.
From below the bed, C.C. pulled out a giant piece of cardboard.
Suzaku squinted in the dim light.
“‘Read me’,” Suzaku read obediently.
Lelouch began to turn his head.
“Eyes forward!” C.C. said again, and thwacked him with the cardboard. His hat tumbled to the floor, and disappeared out of sight.
“Ow,” Lelouch said plaintively, but stopped trying to swivel his neck around.
C.C. started flipping through and discarding large sheets of cardboard, each written upon in scrawling letters.
“‘My dearest Lelouch’ — who speaks like this?”
“Shut up, and keep reading,” C.C. commanded.
Fearing that C.C. would try to poke an eye out with a corner of her cardboard cards, Suzaku began to read:
“‘My dearest Lelouch,
I love you very deeply,
and before I impale you upon my metal sword,
won’t you fall upon my meat sword?’”
C.C. tossed a last sheet of cardboard aside, looking flushed with victory.
“What does that even mean?” Suzaku asked. “‘Meat sword’?”
Meanwhile, Lelouch had gone very still and quiet. “Is that true?” Lelouch demanded.
“Is what true?” Suzaku said, somewhat taken aback by the intensity in Lelouch’s eyes. Meanwhile, C.C. was busy scuttling from behind Lelouch to behind Suzaku, nearer to the doorway, where Suzaku couldn’t see her.
“Do you love me?”
“I — ” Suzaku had simply read the words on C.C.’s cards. Hesitantly, he turned the words over in his mind, and found them not disagreeable. Out allowed, he said, testing each word as they left his lips, “I… love… you?”
“Say that again.” Lelouch’s eyes had never been coloured so vividly purple.
“I love you.”
“Aargh.” Lelouch let out a groan of pure consternation. “You idiot. You complete, utter idiot. You’re not supposed to love me, you’re supposed to hate me…” he trailed off, squinting over Suzaku’s shoulder.
“Why am I supposed to hate you?” Suzaku asked.
Lelouch ignored him, and began speaking in the stiff, jerky cadence that came of reading an unfamiliar script:
“My darling Suzaku,
I have unfairly, unfeelingly, unwaveringly
been a dick,
and as penance
I should be dicked in return.”
Lelouch’s eyes narrowed as he processed the words. Suddenly, they widened in realisation. He grabbed a pillow, and lobbed it in the direction of over Suzaku’s head. Suzaku instinctively lunged to the side, but he needn’t have bothered; the pillow barely traveled half the width of the bed. “You witch!”
“Am I wrong?” C.C. said challengingly.
“Why am I supposed to hate you?” Suzaku shouted.
“Everyone, shut up,” Lelouch snarled. He jabbed a finger in the air, pointing somewhere above Suzaku’s head. “You. Stop gloating.” The finger moved downward in a crisp, chopping motion to point at Suzaku’s face. “You’re supposed to hate me because, if you hadn’t forgotten, the entire point of this whole miserable exercise is for you to impale me on a stick!”
“Why does it have to be hateful? Why can’t I impale you on a stick lovingly, as well!” Without meaning to, Suzaku’s voice was rising.
“Exactly the point I am making!” C.C. called.
Except Suzaku wasn’t listening to C.C. He was watching Lelouch, whose eyebrows were slowly trying to disappear into the furrows on his forehead. “But you don’t love me,” Lelouch said. The words came out near imploringly. “You hate me.”
“Yes,” Suzaku acknowledged, and Lelouch looked away. Suzaku’s heart ached. “But I also love you.”
Lelouch lifted his face again.
“Right, my job is done. I’m leaving if you’re getting mushy. Here’s the sword care kit,” something bounced off Suzaku’s side, but Suzaku, transfixed by Lelouch’s eyes and the way hope and doubt warred within them, barely noticed. “If there are no signs of life in 48 hours, I’ll send pizza,” and off she went, her exit signaled by the sound of the door opening and closing.
“It would be easier if you hated me,” Lelouch said softly.
Suzaku thought about how cruel they’d been to each other when they first met, the tumultuous summer days before they’d come to an agreement, and the panicked franticness with which they’d found Nunnally and cemented their friendship. He thought about the soaring joyfulness he’d felt at being reunited in Area 11, and how quickly that had turned to suspicion that Lelouch was Zero, then hatred as he had learnt what had happened to Euphie. And then the roiling guilt and anger that seethed through him ever since Suzaku had handed Lelouch over to Emperor Charles.
Suzaku offered a smile. “When have we ever done the easy thing when it came to one another?”
Lelouch reached out an arm. Suzaku crawled forward across the bed until Lelouch could reach and spread his fingers across Suzaku’s chest, palm directly above Suzaku’s heart. “My sword,” Lelouch murmured, all the earlier doubt replaced with serene peace in his eyes.
Neither Suzaku nor Lelouch moved for several long moments, measured by shared breaths as they stared into each other’s eyes, faces close but barely touching.
Suzaku licked his lips. “Uh. Now what.”
The slightest sheen of panic began to surface on Lelouch’s face. “Are we —”
“Yes,” Suzaku reassured him. Worried his answer had been too eager, Suzaku added, “But only if you —”
“Of course!” Lelouch snapped.
Suzaku waited expectantly, but Lelouch was silent. Lelouch’s face slowly took on a look of flushed embarrassment. Suzaku cast his eyes about, hoping against hope that C.C. had placed another set of cue cards about somewhere, detailing what to do next. His eyes fell on the sword care kit beside them on the bed.
The edge of a sheet of folded paper was sticking out.
Lelouch followed his gaze. “Hmm,” was his unenthusiastic judgement.
“I’m reading it,” Suzaku said bravely, against his better judgement, and pulled the slip of paper free. He read it, Lelouch peering over his shoulder. Suzaku read it again. “I’m not sure that’s physically possible.”
Under his pallid skin, Lelouch’s face was turning red and blotchy. “It’s fine.”
“It sounds painful,” Suzaku said worriedly. “Are you —”
Lelouch gave him a nasty look, and Suzaku quickly shut up, remembering that in the near future Suzaku would be thrusting a giant pink sword through his chest. “‘Step one’,” Lelouch quoted, “‘Clothes off’.”
Lelouch had used his Emperor’s voice, the one he used to bark out orders in battle. Suzaku felt the long-conditioned adrenaline kick in. “Yes, your Majesty!” he said, and hastened to scramble out of the many trappings that made up his outfit, starting with the gloves, armguards, and boots. As he started on the buttons that ran along the chest of his fightsuit, Suzaku had a thought. “What’s with the gold piping, anyway?”
Lelouch mumbled something, face hidden by his shirt as he was pulling it off.
“What?”
“Increased compatibility with the Lancelot?” Suzaku heard Lelouch say as Suzaku fought with the skin tight fightsuit clinging to his legs.
“Nope. Lloyd’s run tests.” So, so many tests. Finally the last leg was free of his fightsuit was free, and Suzaku unceremoniously let it and the rest of his clothes slide off the bed onto the floor.
“Fine. It ties your uniform to mine,” Lelouch said, sounding petulant.
Suzaku finally yanked off the final layer, a finely woven mesh top intended to be more resistant against slashing knife attacks if he was ever drawn into close-range combat. “There,” he said with satisfaction. “So what you’re telling me is that the gold piping is only there to make me look good.”
“If you want to be crass about it, yes.”
Any retort on Suzaku’s lips was instantly stolen away by the sight of Lelouch naked. “You’re so thin,” Suzaku said, shocked.
Lelouch’s daily robes were flowing, billowy things that accentuated his limbs as he moved, even as they shrouded them. Stripped away, Suzaku could count the bones in Lelouch’s rib cage with shocking ease. He touched one, tenderly. “I knew you hadn’t been eating well,” Suzaku said, but with little vindication.
“Pot, kettle,” Lelouch said in a level voice. He cleared his throat. “‘Step two: oil sword’. That refers to your penis, Suzaku, not an actual sword.”
Suzaku narrowed his eyes at the condescension, certain that Lelouch was deliberately being an arse to distract him, but decided it was a losing battle. “I worked out that much for myself, thank you very much.”
Inside the leather roll that was the sword kit was a small vial of oil. Suzaku smeared it across his dick, feeling foolish. He was soft.
He heard a heavy sigh, and Lelouch’s slight, cool hand closed over his. On his dick. “What are you thinking about?” Lelouch said.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Suzaku said, ‘Step three’ looming large in his mind.
“We hurt each other. It’s what we do,” Lelouch said dryly. He had a look of wry amusement on his face, lofty even when naked and shortly about to have a cock up his arse. For the slightest moment, Lelouch’s look of unyielding confidence wavered as his eyes skittered to the side and he asked. “Did you sleep with Euphemia?”
“Of course not!” Suzaku’s refusal was immediate and indignant. “Really? Now? Now’s when you decide is a good time to talk about Euphie?”
Lelouch ignored him. “Did you ever think about sleeping with Euphie.”
“I —” Suzaku floundered. “No — Euphie was — Euphie was —”
“Pure,” Lelouch suggested, with a twist to his smile that Suzaku didn’t like.
“I loved her,” Suzaku said flatly.
“Hmm,” said Lelouch, and squeezed the hand that Suzaku had forgotten was still on his dick. Suzaku let out a hiss of surprise. “I don’t know if I’m flattered or annoyed the thought of Euphie didn’t move you.”
Suzaku scowled. A rush of affection and anger welled up within him, and he used the strength of the emotion to propel his limbs, pulling Lelouch into a kiss and cradling his shoulders and the back of his head so that when Suzaku fell forwards, letting his full weight fall on Lelouch, Lelouch's neck was protected against strain as he fell backwards onto the bed. Below him, Lelouch stiffened, surprised. Suzaku pushed himself up so his weight was resting on the palms of his hands pressed into the bed, and his hips nestled against Lelouch’s.
“You are such an idiot,” Suzaku said, fond and annoyed and tired. Lelouch stared up at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending, mouth parted. “I will always love Euphie. She was my salvation. She believed in me when I did not — when I could not.”
Lelouch was starting to look distressed. He said a little stiffly, “Well, if that’s how you feel —”
“But, you know,” Suzaku said gently, cutting Lelouch off. He pressed a kiss to Lelouch’s lips, and held it, and Lelouch, after a moment or two to process it, kissed back hesitantly. Suzaku lifted his head to look Lelouch in the eye. “I told you before. I love you, as well.”
Lelouch didn’t look entirely happy. “But you hate me as well?” He wanted to know.
“Why is that important?” Suzaku wanted to know in return, frustrated. “I already told you; I love you and I hate you.”
Lelouch smiled, so beatific that it took Suzaku’s breath away, that for a moment Lelouch glowed, and Suzaku forgot all about the bruises under his eyes, the pallid cast of his skin. “It matters because,” Lelouch murmured, low and happy, raising a hand to stroke Suzaku’s cheek. “I need you to want to hurt me.”
“You want me to hurt you?” Traitorously, Suzaku’s dick stirred. Suzaku was caught in two minds, on the one hand relieved that Lelouch had decided that the pain would be his burden to bear, on the other disgusted at himself for feeling relieved. Suzaku shifted, and caught his breath. Lelouch’s member was a red-hot length pressed against Suzaku’s hip.
With the hand not resting against Suzaku’s cheek, Lelouch reached down, and pulled the length of Suzaku’s cock. Suzaku gasped and let his breath out slowly through his nose as Lelouch stroked him to full hardness, fingers slick with the oil Suzaku had smeared there earlier.
“All the love you feel for me, and all the hate,” Lelouch said, his voice soft and calming. Alluring. “All the lust, and all the anger. Let me feel it all.
‘Step three’, Suzaku: ‘dick Lelouch up butthole’.”
A laugh was startled out of Suzaku. “Yes, your Majesty.”
Easier said then done. Firstly, Suzaku thought, with Lelouch’s skinny legs hitched around Suzaku’s hips, Lelouch’s butthole looked far too tiny to accommodate Suzaku’s girth. Secondly, when Suzaku pushed in tentatively, Lelouch let out a gasp that Suzaku did not like. “Lelouch,” Suzaku said, immediately concerned.
Lelouch curled forward, grasping at Suzaku’s dick with a dangerously tight squeeze. “What do I keep telling you about how you move your hips?” Lelouch growled.
All the lust, and all of the anger, Lelouch had said. “Zero lessons now? Seriously?” Suzaku snarled back, and Lelouch fell back onto the bed, looking satisfied if slightly pinched by pained. Suzaku bent over Lelouch, pushing bruising kisses into Lelouch’s mouth as he pushed inexorably forwards into Lelouch’s vice-like heat. Lelouch gave little gasps, pliant and sweet, other than the hands that clutched tightly at Suzaku’s shoulders, urging him onwards.
“Roll from your abdomen down into your hips,” Lelouch said once Suzaku was balls-deep.
“Shut up,” Suzaku demanded, but did as he was told, little rolling thrusts that had Lelouch openly moaning, each one seemingly travelling straight to Suzaku’s cock.
“Harder,” Lelouch demanded, shimmying his hips as though to demonstrate. Suzaku couldn’t tell, too lost in the heat and rush that was his climax nearing completion. “Are you close?”
Suzaku nodded, too breathless for words. Lelouch clenched around him, and Suzaku kissed Lelouch blindly as he came.
“Well done,” Lelouch was murmuring when Suzaku came back to himself. He was stroking Suzaku’s hair, smiling peacefully.
Suzaku pulled out of Lelouch carefully, but not carefully enough to avoid Lelouch wincing. “Did you — ” he started, but Lelouch was shaking his head.
“Not important,” Lelouch said. “Come here. I want you near.”
Suzaku let himself be pulled into a loose embrace, his limbs loose and agreeable. “Your pleasure’s important, too,” Suzaku said.
Lelouch froze as Suzaku began stroking him. “Suzaku —” he began.
Suzaku kissed him, sweetly this time, tongue soothing all the places Suzaku had bit into harshly. “Don’t you think Zero Requiem is punishment enough?”
Suzaku could see in Lelouch’s eyes that he did not agree. Suzaku kissed him again, as gently as he could, willing Lelouch to understand. With a grumble, Lelouch subsided, relaxing under Suzaku’s ministrations.
Wanking someone else off was distinctly strange, Suzaku decided. Not unpleasant, just strange. For one, the angle was all off. For another, Suzaku had to guess at whether Lelouch was enjoying the speed of the strokes, the way Suzaku was twisting his wrist, the tightness of his grasp. Suzaku tightened his fingers, and Lelouch’s breathing sped up. Suzaku changed the speed of his strokes so they were more long flicks that started at the base of Lelouch’s cock, and Lelouch began twitching restlessly.
“Suzaku,” Lelouch said breathlessly, and then his eyes were fluttering shut as ropes of warm come began to coat Suzaku’s fingers.
Suzaku watched as Lelouch’s expression smoothed of tension, the muscles of his face relaxing and giving him a youthfulness Suzaku had forgotten had been robbed of him.
Suzaku also saw the moment Lelouch’s expression transition from blissful happiness, the smallest wrinkle starting to form between Lelouch’s eyebrows. “What?” Suzaku asked warily.
“Your hips need so much work,” Lelouch said. “So, so much work. You’ll never convince anyone you’re Zero at this rate.”
“You are awful,” Suzaku told him. “Truly awful.”
“So you do hate me,” Lelouch said. He cracked a smug smile and opened his eyes. He looked happy, and at peace. Suzaku wanted Lelouch to look like that forever. “Do you hate me enough to impale me on your sword again?”
“Lelouch,” Suzaku said seriously, “I will impale you so, so hard.”