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Under the moonlight, Suzaku treads along a razor's silvery edge of darkness.
The Imperial Palace remains quiet, shrouded in nightfall, humming warmly with insects. The air flowery-fragrant. He signals to one of the guards near the rooftop's balustrade, observing, as they recognize Suzaku from below and lower their cannon-rifle.
"Are we clear, sir?"
"Clear," Suzaku says briskly, tapping on his comms.-link hooked around his right ear. "Patrol Guard L5, make your rounds."
Once inside, he heads into one of the corridors surrounded by more guards, nodding. They nod to Suzaku in response, their irises glowing red. Besides Pendragon, the capital city itself, there's nowhere more heavily fortressed than wherever the 99th Emperor of Britannian is.
Suzaku enters the bedchambers after politely knocking, gazing to the lush, opulent, and widely spaced furnishings. It reminds him very much of Lelouch's disdainful taste for the extravagant despite wanting to get rid of the ideas of nobility. He shuts the twin, marble-carved doors, Suzaku's eyes lingering on the figure lounging against a velvet chaise. Lelouch's white, gilded robes like the moonlight.
"Your Majesty," Suzaku greets him, turning around. He taps off the receiving end of his comms.
Lelouch doesn't peer up from examining a letter addressed from Spain.
"… Back already at this hour, Sir Kururugi?"
"Patrol circled back Exelica Garden," Suzaku explains. He unclasps his heavy, royal blue cloak, letting it fall off his shoulders. All but Suzaku's trousers and his plain, silk-white undershirt come a heap at his feet. "We can ride together in the morning if you would like."
He steps towards him, ignoring Lelouch's sneer.
"Who do you expect to hang that up?"
Suzaku can't help the quirk of his mouth, reaching out, fondly stroking a hand into Lelouch's black hair.
That's a ridiculous observation.
He's seen Lelouch plenty of times chasing C.C., folding her uniform over his arm while barking out C.C.'s name.
"I can send for your newest household servant, Lady Guinevere…" Suzaku tells him, expressionless. His fingertips dig deeper in, tangling Lelouch's hair, purposely massaging Lelouch's scalp. "Since she's under Geass… who do you expect her to tell about His Excellency's knight visiting?"
Lelouch snorts at Suzaku's faint mocking.
"Regardless, you are being insolent."
Oh?
Suzaku's lips quirk into a deepening smirk.
He tenses his hand, slowly pulling on Lelouch's hair until his chin tilts up.
"My apologies…"
Even with his voice soft, Suzaku's words burn. The lack of royal title glaringly obvious. He meets Lelouch's stoic stare, his Geass hidden by a pair of contacts. Suzaku forgets sometimes Lelouch's eyes are no longer violet, no longer human, but cursed. Lelouch has become a curse itself.
So much time… so much of it hating the man in front of him… it seems impossible to have aligned himself with Lelouch.
Suzaku understands to live this life is a lie.
The lie of living.
Every day…
And every day, he helps the Demon Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire expand his reach beyond Britannia as a Knight of Zero, interfering with world-nations despising him, making claims to high-tech destructive weaponry and bio-engineered warfare that Lelouch shouldn't own. Sowing fear and hopelessness and the rise of civil unrest. The Black Knights want Lelouch dead. And so does most of the Britannian military never loyal.
Suzaku can admit he wanted the same, months ago. He couldn't accept Lelouch's hand.
All of the lies, and Lelouch's secretively kept truth, are different this time.
The World of C showed him that…
Euphemia… and Lelouch… they wanted the same in the liberation of Japan. Even if they went about their outcomes so differently. Even if one lived and one died. Killing Lelouch, out of spiteful intentions, will not give Euphemia her dream. Lelouch's death has to mean something.
But for now…
Lelouch sighs, reaching up to untangle Suzaku's hand from him.
He stands.
Face-to-face, Lelouch's nose slightly brushes on his.
His breath ghosts Suzaku's.
For a moment, Suzaku loses himself to the intensity between them, before looking away.
In the background, Lelouch moves around, picking up Suzaku's cloak and his other abandoned things.
His closet-door rattles open.
"No matter what happens to us… you never change, do you?" Suzaku acknowledges, huffing a laugh. He refuses to look at Lelouch moving around and hanging up the closet's contents. His heart beats madly. "You're still… Lelouch… underneath it all. I would have never believed it."
Everything goes quiet.
"Then you are mistaken: Lelouch was never real."
He says this so matter-of-factly, and Suzaku's jaw visibly clenches.
"Don't say that," Suzaku mutters.
"It's true."
There's an emptiness to his voice, as Lelouch tosses aside a hanger, and Suzaku knows it. He knows it very well.
"No, it's you wanting it to be true. Because it's easier to get through Zero Requiem."
Suzaku finally looks at him, his features clenching harder.
"If you say Lelouch Lamperouge wasn't real—then are you saying his love for Nunnally wasn't real either?"
It's a grim satisfaction when Lelouch inhales stiffly, his eyes widening. "I've been fooled enough by you, Lelouch, to know when you're fooling yourself instead," Suzaku then acknowledges, offering a curt head-shake when Lelouch gazes around.
Within all of his moonlight brilliance, he dims.
"You've known me for most of my life…"
Suzaku doesn't argue, barging over to firmly shut the closet-door in front of them. The noise echoes. "Lelouch was real," he confirms, grabbing Lelouch's wrist and marching him across the bedchambers. Lelouch's lips start to upturn. "I was there for it."
"How idealistic of you, Suzaku…"
Lelouch remains standing in place, as if familiar with the routine, while Suzaku wordlessly unbuttons Lelouch's white-moonlight robes, undoing his belt. He eases the fabric off Lelouch's shoulders and back. Briefly, Suzaku's fingers grip onto Lelouch's entire nape.
"Rest up," Suzaku announces. "There's many long nights ahead of you, Emperor Lelouch. I'll make sure of it."
He kneels onto the marble-white floor to remove Lelouch's boots, carefully stepping him out of them.
"… Would that be considered 'a threat' or 'a promise' as my knight I appointed with my life?" Lelouch questions, seemingly amused. His own fingers work apart his collar's buttons. Suzaku's head cranes. Quiet fills every inch of Lelouch's chambers.
Both of Suzaku's hands slide up the backs of Lelouch's knees, up his thighs, and up over the curve of Lelouch's ass.
A quiet and shuddering breath escapes Lelouch.
His eyelids flutter.
"It's all the same wherever we end up, I think," Suzaku answers, knowing Lelouch's outcome, knowing what his hands are meant to do. He touches Lelouch's hips, gripping on. Their mouths hover. Lelouch reopens his eyes, giving Suzaku a heated but unmistakably impatient look.
Before there's even a thought about having Lelouch, Suzaku's comms.-link goes off.
"… Damn you," Lelouch grumbles, leaning out with another sigh.
Suzaku taps on his ear, also aggravated.
"Kururugi, here."
"Sir, we are detecting three unauthorized personnel two floors above the Emperor's suite. We have secured the rest of the palace, and the lock-down measures have been activated on every level. Is there a confirmation that the Emperor is secure?"
"He is," Suzaku says, eyeing an increasingly grumpy Lelouch. "Deactivate the lock-down on their continued route. Fallback."
There's a pause on the other connection.
"S-sir?"
"That's an order," Suzaku says shortly.
He taps for a standby transmission, and Lelouch suspiciously crosses his arms, eyes narrowed.
"Fallback?"
"It's nothing to concern yourself," Suzaku says neutrally. "There's unfinished business for the patrol I must see to. Will you be alright?"
At first, he wonders if Lelouch will press the matter, as he usually does—ever the leader, ever the chessboard strategist—and Suzaku blinks repeatedly, stunned, when a stern-faced Lelouch leans into him, pressing his closed, chapped lips deliberately on Suzaku's.
"Take your leave, Sir Kururugi."
*
A world full of hatred must be renewed…
Cleansed of the blood…
Bright crimson lights flash throughout the palace, indicating the lock-down without a full announcement. Suzaku heads to the end of the suite's corridor, palming his Knight of Zero sword. Everything's soundless and semi-lit here. Everyone clears out under Suzaku's orders.
He waits, listening for a number of hushed, erratic voices. Suzaku doesn't recognize them.
"I can't believe we made it this far!" One of the voices whispers, accented in Italian. "Fuck! There ain't any guards 'round!"
Another voice scoffs, followed by the others hastily shushing.
"I doubt they care about the Britannian bastard—he's a goddamn tyrant, after all—"
Suzaku walks around the corner, halting the three unauthorized personnel in their tracks. He quickly and mentally identifies the outdated mercenary gear strapped on them. Cheaply made pistols. One or two grenade-belts, but only one grenade to each of them, it looks like.
"Tyrant or not," Suzaku says conversationally, "we all faithfully serve the Emperor."
As soon as he drops his hips and squares his shoulders, readying his sword, the palace's intruders gasp.
"It's the Knight of Zero—!"
"Kururugi Suzaku—!"
"GODDAMMIT—!"
"Surrender and you will be captured alive," Suzaku informs them, his voice low. "All hail."
"Like HELL—!" One of the intruders foolishly lunges. "DEATH—DEATH TO THE BRITANNIAN DEMON HIMSELF—!"
He gasps.
Suzaku's blade slashes out, gleaming moonlit-silver. A line of vivid red appears on their throat.
"All hail," Suzaku repeats, unsmiling.
The other two mercenaries leap at Suzaku, while their companion collapses and gurgles on a mouthful of blood.
Suzaku evades a quick dagger-jab. He brings up his stronger-than-steel sword, narrowly avoiding a pistol to the face. The bullet bounces off. He cuts through a palace intruder's thick, metal-like vest, gouging a gash into flesh. They scream out, but they do not falter.
It's almost too easy.
Suzaku maneuvers himself with efficient speed, never moving more than necessary.
Every part of him carefully controlled.
His training with Britannia, often grueling and stretching into long hours, demanded Suzaku to excel during hand-to-hand combat.
None of them can win.
He thrusts his sword with a cool ferocity, and thrusts, and thrusts it deep into the intruder's stomach. Suzaku doesn't give them a moment to process it, yanking his sword free, and turning himself into another thrust as his second opponent charges. Blood sprays hot onto Suzaku's face. He cleaves his Knight of Zero's sword-blade right where their neck meets shoulder-joint. Their eyes meet, living and dying.
Wait…
The final intruder, and the first to attack Suzaku, chucks his grenade into Suzaku's direction. Its pin pulled.
SURVIVE.
The emerald-green of Suzaku's irises illuminate, ringing with Geass-glow.
SURVIVE. SURVIVE. SURVIVE.
His body goes on instinct, spinning and going airborne, Suzaku's leg kicking. The grenade ricochets off his heel. In three seconds, the grenade hits the backside of the running intruder. In five, the atmosphere ignites to flaming, bloodying gore.
Suzaku ducks while running the opposite way. He covers his head with one hand and sucks air through his teeth.
His ears ring.
"Sir Kururugi, what was—"
"Clear," Suzaku rasps, glancing up to the smoky, blackened ruins of the palace's intruders. "We are clear."
"Understood. Is there anything else?"
"… There's a mess in Corridor B3-A1 that needs taking care of."
"On route, over."
*
He orders another set of guards to inform Lelouch of the situation.
(By now, Lelouch would have noticed something amiss—or rather, noticed the grenade's explosion rocking the suite-corridor.)
On the floor below, Suzaku makes a quick stop in the washroom. He scrubs whatever remains of blood off his hands. Suzaku's eyes avoid the mirror. There's someone else looking back—someone wearing Suzaku's face. Someone who swore his life for, and against, Lelouch.
A world full of hatred…
Cleansed of blood…
Suzaku's fingertips drip water.
He removes his ear-comms. and leaves it in the sink.
Right now, Suzaku wants to return to the Emperor's bedchambers, and forget. Forget that both Britannia and Japan, and the rest of the nations, vilified Suzaku's decision to join Lelouch. That's the point. That's what Zero Requiem needs to be. As long as the outcome was what Lelouch intended, then opinions do not matter. He knows Lelouch's reasoning for this, and how it marches alongside Suzaku's beliefs.
Euphemia’s dream.
Nunnally's.
They all wished to create a world of peace.
(Is it not what Suzaku intended when he was a child? His father's blood staining Suzaku's hands and his heart, leaving a trail following him every moment of his life? No matter which way Suzaku went… no matter if it stayed a secret… his hands will stain.)
It has to be enough.
*
Lelouch must have dismissed the guards, Suzaku supposes. There's no one outside his doors.
He takes a deep, steadying breath, turning a knob.
Suzaku lets the door fall open, his shoulder pushing lightly against the door jamb.
"Forgive the disturbance this evening," Suzaku mumbles, crossing the threshold. Lelouch hasn't moved from sitting on the edge of his mattress, looking up, examining Suzaku's face. Lelouch's eyes drop immediately to the bloodied, ornately crafted sword resting on Suzaku's hip.
Of all things, Lelouch gives him a wry chuckle. "Unfinished business, is that it?"
"Finished," Suzaku corrects him, propping the Knight of Zero sword against the wall. "So… where were we, Your Majesty?"
The royal title vibrates off Suzaku's lips. Lelouch's eyes brighten. He reveals nothing, deciding to lean back on his hands, bare-chested in his perfectly ironed, white trousers. The milky skin of Lelouch's torso seemingly luminous through the weak light.
"That remains to be seen…"
"Allow me," Suzaku murmurs, presenting out a hand to bring a slowly smirking Lelouch onto his feet. Their chests brush together. Suzaku can feel the heat of Lelouch's skin through his own undershirt, Suzaku's palms trailing down the length of Lelouch's arms. He wants more.
Lelouch drags his fingers across Suzaku's cheek, wiping off a bit of blood.
Specks of crimson-red dry into the thin, white undershirt.
"You're far too reckless in a fight," he complains, holding Suzaku's jaw. "What a mess."
His hand lowers, and Suzaku catches it, grasping onto Lelouch.
He revels in the warmth, turning his mouth into Lelouch's hand. Suzaku's tongue prods out, licking the blood.
"No need to get your hands dirty… Your Majesty…" Suzaku murmurs again.
Lelouch's nostrils flare. He smirks.
Suzaku peers up through his eyelashes, copying Lelouch's smirk, mouthing against this pale, endless warmth as Suzaku cradles Lelouch's hand. His teeth bite softly on Lelouch's knuckle holding the gilded imperial-ring. Adrenaline lingers inside Suzaku, thrumming his pulse.
"Your Majesty…"
Each exhale is a kiss on the mouth, and Suzaku affirms this, lips caressing.
"Your Majesty…"
Lelouch shivers, and sighs, and he hardens against Suzaku's thigh.
"Your Majesty…"
It's exactly what Suzaku wants. To drive him mad.
When Suzaku's own name leaves Lelouch's lips, he grins and grips onto Lelouch's sides, heaving him down.
Lelouch's back impacts the mattress.
He yelps out an offended noise, and Suzaku only grins further, raising his eyebrows over him.
"Suzaku, you—!"
"Relax," Suzaku mumbles, adjusting himself between Lelouch's legs and unbuttoning him. "You're useless. Let me do it."
Lelouch snorts, displeased.
"And you're—you're straying too far into what may be treasonous territory, aah, ahhh—" One of Suzaku's hands massages into Lelouch's calf, interrupting the thought. Suzaku uses his other hand to ease the trousers apart, exposing him, Lelouch's cockhead moistening.
"I'll take my chances," Suzaku tells him, matter-of-factly.
He releases Lelouch, arching over his shoulder and searching the bedstead for lubricant.
"Don't bother," Lelouch says, terse. He's gone oddly flushed.
Suzaku hesitates.
After a long, heart-pounding moment of silence, Lelouch touches himself under his clothes, reaching underneath.
He holds out two fingers to Suzaku.
Lubricant gleams.
Suzaku's eyes widen, darkening desire.
"Fuck," he murmurs, crawling over Lelouch, half-hearing the other man stifling down a bark of a laugh when their mouths slams together. The rest of Lelouch's clothes get thrown off within moments, along with Suzaku's undershirt and his pants. "Fuck, fuck, Lelouch…"
This isn't the first time they've laid together, and he's doubtful of it being the last.
Suzaku remembers the first kiss, the first orgasm, and everything onward between them developing as soon as they planned Zero Requiem. Complicated emotions aside, it's… effortless… being with Lelouch, making love to him… uncomplicated… maybe that's why it's better than talking.
Pinning Lelouch up against the headboard, Lelouch's hands jerkily reaching for the pillowed edge…
"C'mon," Suzaku pants, holding himself against Lelouch's wet, kiss-swollen mouth, "A little more, a little more… that's it, Lelouch…" When there's a moan out of Lelouch, he kneels up on the pile of silk cushions, angling himself and sinking deeper into Lelouch's ass.
Lelouch grunts, nipping onto Suzaku's bottom lip.
He's defiant…
He's…
"Look at you…"
Suzaku breathes this, ramming their hips, making Lelouch expose his clenched teeth. The feeling of being inside him…
"If only they knew… how you were…"
"Unburdened…"
"Writhing with pleasure…"
"Shut up," Lelouch whispers, allowing his defiance to manifest into heated words.
He gulps, losing his composure, when a feverish-eyed Suzaku roughly grabs onto Lelouch's face, one-handed.
Lelouch's mouth smushes into a crooked, opened 'O'.
"As you wish, Your Majesty…"
Suzaku leans in, pressing a deceptively gentle kiss against him, releasing Lelouch's face.
He seizes onto Lelouch's hips instead, dragging him into each thrust, hitting every pleasure-point with increasing force until Lelouch's eyes roll. His noises, and Suzaku's groans punctuated by slickened skin impacting and the bed rapidly creaking underneath them, echo along the walls.
They're getting close…
They're…
Suzaku reaches an orgasm first, gasping out Lelouch's name and clutching onto a bed-sheet. He thrusts, and thrusts, as deep as Lelouch's heat can surrender to him. On another thrust, Lelouch comes, bellowing out a moan while sliding back on the headboard, reddening. His lips slack open.
"Lelouch," he mumbles, eyeing him, managing to come down from his own pleasure.
His fingers loosely stroke the softness of Lelouch's cock.
"Suzaku…"
"I hear you," Suzaku answers, helping Lelouch wipe off. His bare thighs glisten with strings of cum. "You okay, Lelouch?"
"Mhm…"
It's too tiring to get up.
Suzaku can feel the sex-ache and the combat-ache dizzyingly hit him all at once.
He burrows down on pillows, feeling Lelouch do the same beside him. Suzaku's left shoulder and Lelouch's right shoulder press together.
Within the silence, there's the lulling of hearts.
*
"Do you miss Ashford Academy?"
Suzaku gazes over to the other side of Lelouch's mattress. It's been nearly an hour, and they've said little.
"Not really," Lelouch replies dully to Suzaku's question.
He rubs at one of his eye-contacts coming free, sitting up and blinking. Violet disappears into that familiar Geass-glow. It's ugly. It's so ugly, and it's unbearable, yet it will always be part of Lelouch. Just as Lelouch's Geass remains a part of Suzaku's consciousness until he's dead.
"You're lying," Suzaku says, cupping the side of Lelouch's face, using his other hand to remove Lelouch's second eye-contact.
Both of Lelouch's eyes, frighteningly cursed, narrow on him.
"I won't wish for what was," Lelouch admits. "As long as the world I leave behind comes into fruition, there's nothing else."
Leave behind…
Suzaku's hands tighten into fists.
"You're such an idiot, Lelouch," Suzaku mutters, unable to express what he longs to—regret, fear, anger, love—and instead of speaking of treason or treachery, out of Suzaku's mouth, Lelouch's face starts to soften. He lies down, facing his back to Suzaku, eventually drifting to sleep.
Can there be… atonement… in death?
Suzaku always thought so.
He waits in the growing darkness… and in the fading reaches of moonlight… before Suzaku turns into the long length of Lelouch's back, his mouth running across Lelouch's naked skin… when there's no sign of Lelouch waking, no matter how many kisses, Suzaku drowsily murmurs…
"I don't want to need you…"
"But I think do…"
*
He rarely sleeps late.
"Damn it," Suzaku growls, yanking on his cloak, hurrying to the downstairs meeting room.
Sayoko, dressed in a white-and-gilded uniform, greets Suzaku with a bowed head and allows him in. They've already started. Lelouch keeps his voice hushed with Lloyd and Cécile, seated on his left, regarding an update system to Suzaku's Lancelot unit. Requires a reboot, Suzaku guesses.
"Someone's in a good mood…"
Leaning against the wall, C.C. observes everyone.
"I didn't mean to show up after. Everyone's had a difficult night, and…" Suzaku reasons, and he hesitates when C.C.'s mouth quirks.
"Funny. I wasn't talking about you…" she says candidly, now observing him and a clearly distracted Lelouch with an eyebrow raised. Suzaku's cheeks pinken. "But… since we're on the subject… when you proclaimed to be Lelouch's sword, I didn't expect you to mean—"
"C.C.—" Lelouch firmly interrupts. Suzaku's relief almost dizzies him. "What can you tell us about the UFN Conference?"
She shrugs.
"Not much. They are keeping the location to vote out of the public."
"Alright, that's a disadvantage to be certain—Suzaku—" Lelouch commands, but there's a softness on his expression that Suzaku recognizes from the previous night, "I need you with me—" He gestures to his right side, where there's an empty space right under the holographic map.
Suzaku holds in a grin.