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Everything is progressing smoothly, and perhaps that is why Suzaku is wary, his body fixed at an odd angle over the railing, arms lazily draping over its top and into the night sky. It’s a cool night; a welcome change to the bouts of humidity they have been experiencing, especially after his evening training sessions. Sweat continues to linger on his skin, steadily giving itself up to the will of thermodynamics. For everything that has gone well, something else has gone wrong. Suzaku wants to be ready this time.
Footsteps approach from behind. Suzaku doesn’t bother to turn; he knows Lelouch’s footsteps anywhere, and besides that, it’s only the two of them in this part of the castle. It was expressly forbidden to servants as soon as Lelouch made himself emperor. There was no room for prying eyes. Not when they were so close to the completion of their final task.
Lelouch’s presence swallows the evening whole, and Suzaku knows when Lelouch wants something even without looking at him. “What do you want, Lelouch?” Despite expecting an immediate reply, nothing comes.
Suzaku resists the temptation to turn around. Let Lelouch work for it for once. He’s so used to wrapping people around his finger, and Suzaku is tired of playing along, so he quiets every instinct in his body, tensing himself against the railing. To occupy his mind, Suzaku stares lazily at the ground. Below him is a landscape of cobblestone and muted green. The hedges need to be trimmed. Still no reply.
Before Suzaku can wrestle the truth out of Lelouch, his footsteps shuffle against the marble floor--not a gait befitting a tyrant. It only makes sense. Perhaps Lelouch feels the stillness of their plan as well. How easily it’s progressing now. Death is coming. Suzaku finally turns to face the emperor. He is sharp lines and stark white against the soft grey of the night; Lelouch relishes in the contrast of the world and things have always been black or white for him. But Lelouch, too, is muted tonight, long fingers resting against his thighs, held in a way that Suzaku identifies as agitation. Despite that, the emperor’s face is a quiet mask of serenity. I know you too well, I know how you give yourself away, Suzaku thinks, but he waits for Lelouch to find his bearings and speak. What sort of knight demands action from his king?
“I want,” Lelouch says, voice meek, and Suzaku is forced to remember that he is not an emperor but an 18 year old boy -- just barely a man, “you to tell me that you forgive me.” And Suzaku is forced to remember all the sins Lelouch has committed. The lives he’s taken. A collapsing image of land melting in on itself. His own undoing at the hands of geass. The control sticks for Lancelot growing slick with his sweat. Worse, a flash of pink hair. A vibrant laugh. His name on her tongue and the command to love her. And then finally, her hand clutched feebly in his own, the life draining out of her, as if he was sucking it away from her and everyone close to Suzaku is forced to wilt like a flower and it’s not fair that he is left here alone when all he wants to do is crumple up and die.
“No.” A firmly stated resolution. Suzaku is thinking of Euphemia, who Lelouch killed, because it’s always been her and it will never be anyone else and how can I forgive you for taking what’s always dear to me?
Lelouch’s head lowers a fraction of an inch but Suzaku knows him better than anyone and he doesn’t miss that as a sign that he’s threatening to unravel himself. Good. Let him implode, part of Suzaku says. And the other part wants to double back on himself and undo his own misgivings. Despite that Suzaku doesn’t move. He feels cool air creeping up into his back, hitting the spot where he bruised himself days ago while sparring. His body stays still.
Your final gift to me: I get to inhabit a world I don’t want to live in. Suzaku doesn’t say it aloud. Fingers find the railing behind him and glide against the smooth, steel surface. “Is that all?”
For a king who will be making himself into the enemy of the world, he is smaller than ever, backdrop of void castle silhouetting a white figure. Lelouch’s death is creeping up on them both. Faster than Suzaku was expecting--wanting--he is a knot of contradictions and he hates that Lelouch navigates that sea with such ease. Where is that Lelouch now? Suzaku searches for him beneath the tresses of black hair (his hair is getting long) but instead he just finds the boy he met when they were ten years old. Terrified and angry and dancing with revenge. Lelouch doesn’t want to die. Suzaku knows this and how he longs to take the king’s place; to be made into a true corpse and not be confined to a life of dead walking amongst the living. But Suzaku is a knight and is forced into the moves Lelouch wishes upon him.
After a moment, Lelouch finally raises his head and meets Suzaku’s gaze, as resolute as ever, his eyes betraying nothing despite his body giving all away. “I could command it of you. As your emperor,” he muses, voice low but somehow filling all the space between them.
“I know.”
“What would you do?” His emperor’s voice is almost challenging now, hitching on the edge of his sentence and lilting back into a time where all Lelouch did was challenge stuck-up nobles to games of chess.
“I’d be forced to follow your command.” Almost a joke. More of a warning. Don’t take this from me, too.
The smile that traces Lelouch’s face is sad. There’s no other word to describe it. Suzaku’s grip on the rail tightens. He tries to remind himself. Euphemia. HIS FAULT. “I know what you’re thinking,” Lelouch says, and he always does, Suzaku thinks, but he shakes his head firmly, chasing Lelouch out of his thoughts.
“I’m not playing your games, Lelouch. Besides, I know what you’re thinking, too. You just don’t have the guts to wear your heart on your sleeve. You’ve always been a coward.” The last word comes out harsher than Suzaku expects, but he lets air sink into his chest, mouth drawn taut.
Lelouch bristles a bit at that -- just a flicker of light that dances across his irises. Enough to let Suzaku know that he’s got him ensnared. They both know why Suzaku hates him -- pretends to hate him -- so much. All the void between them occupied by a single death and Suzaku lets it linger with him, cradling his hatred like a newborn. The words tumble out of Lelouch’s mouth before he can stop himself: “It was an accident.”
Somehow Suzaku is not surprised -- or at least not as much as he feels he should be. No. He already knew. He’d figured it out long ago. And it’s his turn to focus on the ground and sport a self-disgusted smile. There’s a small shake of his head and for a moment Suzaku’s vision blurs. He kicks down the pit growing in his stomach. “It doesn’t matter, Lelouch.” she’s still gone.
Enough said, Suzaku turns his back on Lelouch and their shared past. The memories of standing shoulder to shoulder with him when they were kids that felt that they could take on the world and not lose anything in the process inch into the recesses of his mind. The feeling of invincibility is one Suzaku treats like a foreign antibody and he purges it from his body whenever he gets the chance; he’s forgotten what it’s like, to be invincible. Everything seems to fall apart around him. Beneath his fingers, the railing is cool.
“I didn’t know, Suzaku --, and we were going to work together but then I made a stupid joke and everything fell apart -- I --,” Lelouch is begging now, but that’s not a look befitting him and Lelouch knows that because the words stop coming, cut off at their core, and when Suzaku turns back around Lelouch is shaking his head, composed once more, a hand reaching to push back the bangs that won’t comply no matter how much Lelouch combs them. Suzaku hates that. Hates that he knows so much about the person standing before him. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter. Good night.” With that Lelouch turns to go and again his presence fills up the doorway. Lelouch is already a phantom. Suzaku ignores the part of him that longs to stand by Lelouch’s side and grant him his final wish.
You’ve already taken enough of me -- my past, my identity, my future, too -- let me keep my rage.
And then Lelouch vi Britannia is swallowed up by darkness.
Finally Suzaku stoops to pick up the helmet resting at his feet. He’s been training every day with it on, to get a feel for its weight and the places it obfuscates his vision. A thumb brushes against the ridge where glass meets carbon fiber. The visage of Zero stares back up at him. In the cool air of the night, Suzaku shivers.