Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Returning to Area 11 after a year spent expanding Britannia's benevolent reach over dreary regions of Eastern Europe should have felt relieving, if nothing else. Suzaku had not been delusional enough to expect it to feel triumphant, aware that his grand victory over Zero had been both temporary and slimy; he knew it would not feel like a homecoming, as Japan had been lost to him long ago and now existed only as a vague concept half-remembered from his childhood—and there was no one left to welcome him home.

He had expected a return to form, a fire lit from underneath him now that he was once again facing Euphie's murderer. Here was a chance to avenge his princess. (A chance to find out why, there must have been another option, he could have gotten her out of his way sooner and with more subtlety, he must have known Suzaku would never believe her capable of such horror, so why—?) Here was a chance to spare Japan more bloodshed before it started, save its sons and daughters from pointless deaths as they resisted a force that could not be defeated. Here was why he served Britannia in the first place. 

Battles were unavoidable, now that the Black Knights were waking from their slumber. Death and destruction always followed Zero as he walked his bloody path. Nearly all of the Japanese would see Suzaku as a traitor and a liar; the Britannians would keep wary eyes on him, convinced that he'd prove a turncoat. All of that was expected, and Suzaku felt a cold sort of calm descend over him as he prepared for the weeks and months to come.

What he had not expected was the endless paperwork. 

Uncovering evidence that his best friend had resumed his act as a terrorist leader was not officially in Suzaku's job description—the intelligence officers that blanketed the school were meant to see to that. But Suzaku was the one who knew Lelouch best, the only one who truly knew him at all, and so he decided it was his duty, if not his job.

The OSI sent him scans of Lelouch's school assignments, notes, stray pages found in his room, receipts and to-do lists. Their agents always pored over every detail—searching for hidden meanings and codes in his memos, psychoanalyzing his profile studies in art class—but Suzaku was meant to be in the loop on this subject and so he got the photocopies as a matter of protocol. The contents of the materials were always ordinary and unobjectionable, even as recently as this week; Lelouch undoubtedly knew that he was being studied like a caged animal and had devised some way around the surveillance. Anything the agents found was something he allowed them to find.

But the Zero who held his followers in charismatic thrall could be no one else, even if all evidence exonerated him. So Suzaku tried another tactic in his war for proof. 

In the first weeks that they had known each other as boys, Lelouch wrote in impeccable, elegant cursive: perfectly straight lines, slight left slant, loops steady, flourishes deployed just-so. He wrote only with his favorite fountain pen back then, one of the few items he'd taken with him from Britannia; he and Nunnally had been limited to two suitcases each, one more pointless and cruel humiliation heaped upon the castoffs.

This had lasted exactly as long as it took for Suzaku to open his mouth, point to an image in the daily paper, and say hey, look, you write just like your dad!

He had not meant to be insensitive. The newspaper had obtained a copy of one of the Emperor's handwritten letters, no doubt leaked by Suzaku's own father, accompanied by a translation. A surface reading of the words conveyed bland and diplomatic discussions on mining and trade, but one didn't have to study it too deeply to find the warnings and threats dressed up in polite language. Suzaku had been proud of himself for deciphering the real meaning of the Emperor's words, a child pleased to win a game the adult intended to lose, and wanted to show it to Lelouch to get his insight. He'd plopped the paper down on the rickety table they used as a desk in the shed, right next to the expense journal that Lelouch meticulously kept. He was instantly struck by the near-identical handwriting of father and son—that was the only reason the comment had slipped out.

Immediately backtracking as he watched Lelouch's eyes narrow and lips tighten, Suzaku had mentioned the contents of the letter, desperately trying to engage his friend in the political discussions that he loved so much. Suzaku would've even taken a smartass lecture or cynical prediction of impending doom if it made his eyes brighten, but nothing worked.

The next time Suzaku caught a glimpse of Lelouch's penmanship, it was a long monologue from an old Britannian play, evidently copied purely from memory. Lelouch wrote it out slowly with painstaking precision, his hand pausing in places not because he was searching for words but because he was searching for style. It looked nothing like his natural hand–still elegant, but less florid, more common. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, he wrote, the uppercase 𝒶 looking like a larger version of the lowercase letter. Lelouch used to write it angular and crossed, as 𝒜.

It hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things. Suzaku had understood why Lelouch was loath to share anything in common with his father, even though he secretly preferred Lelouch's natural handwriting to his affected one. And he rarely saw Lelouch's cursive after that, owing to an argument in which Suzaku accused him of cheating at board games by falsifying the record-keeping. 

"You write in that fancy way because you know it's hard for me to read it," he'd complained, and even as an adult Suzaku was not sure if this had been true or was merely something he came up with to justify why he kept losing to Lelouch. He had barely understood the rules of the damn game, Lelouch had explained them to him only in intentionally-confusing language, and he'd been absolutely clobbered every time. "You can write anything you want, and it'll take me five minutes to figure out what it says, and by then it'll be too late to go back and fix whatever you messed up!"

In his typical mode of petty retaliation, Lelouch had smiled sweetly and promised to write in plainer language more suited for your grade level, which in practice meant enormous print letters, a sentence of which took up a quarter of the page.

But Lelouch Lamperouge, private academy student, still had need of cursive, and in those few happy days the two of them had spent together before everything went to hell, Suzaku noticed that Lelouch was still writing in that artificial style. Better suited for a commoner, Suzaku supposed—it would have been strange if such an ordinary boy had writing mimicking the Emperor's.

Another ordinary boy did have writing mimicking the Emperor's, though. Lelouch Lamperouge, brother of Rolo, son of dentists, wrote in that same sophisticated cursive that Suzaku had seen in the expense ledger so long ago. It was his natural handwriting—and he no longer remembered his desire to change it, or from where that desire had arisen. Suzaku had noticed it immediately in the first batch of scanned documents he'd received, his heart lurching as he looked at the As with straight lines, the Ls with loops on both ends, the sign of Lelouch's upbringing that neither his stubbornness nor his father's geass could erase. 

Less than a week after Suzaku re-enrolled at Ashford, the curved 𝒶s came back. It was a pop quiz in history class, a five-minute test on ancient Britannian history (mythology, the Lelouch in his head sneered). The Ls were no longer looped, the flourishes gone. The OSI agents had not commented on the sudden change in writing style, perhaps attributing it to the rushed nature of a surprise quiz. It did, after all, look like ordinary writing for an ordinary boy. Perhaps they assumed this was his natural handwriting, and the more elegant one was something Lelouch wrote only with intent and effort. But Suzaku looked at it and instantly knew it to be ordinary writing for someone pretending to be an ordinary boy. 

Lelouch must have caught his mistake quickly, because he did not repeat it, returning to his natural style (clenching his teeth all the while, Suzaku was sure) and ensuring he never deviated from it again. Suzaku wondered what happened on the day he took the quiz. He'd been frazzled, yes, uncharacteristically uncareful—but not because he was thrown off by his teacher. Maybe he was trying to figure out how to evade Suzaku now that he was back at school. Maybe his mind was running in circles over Nunnally, having learned of her new role only the night before. Maybe Suzaku was overthinking it, and it was just a trace of his old self shining through the cracks, the way Julius lapsed into nostalgia over sunflower fields. But the would-be messiah of Japan's miraculous resurrection eleven days earlier could not have been a coincidence.

Still, he couldn't help but remember that newspaper from his childhood, and the haunting sense that he had only won the game because his opponent intended to lose.

Chapter Text

How Lelouch would react to Nunnally's arrival was an open question. Suzaku had not expected him to dismiss her so smoothly on the phone, to act like they'd never met, to break his little sister's heart as she hoped to speak with him for the first time in a year. It had been enough for Suzaku to doubt himself, to take seriously the possibility that the new Zero was nothing more than an extremely skilled impersonator. But then he remembered the quiz, the handwriting that the current Lelouch was not meant to remember, and decided that it was equally likely that his friend's heart had grown colder and harder. Lelouch had thrown away the Black Rebellion for a chance to save his sister; Zero had fallen not because of his troops' failures but because of his own weakness. Throughout it all, from the summer days they spent as children to the day Suzaku dragged him to the Emperor, Suzaku had believed that soft heart to be a constant. But maybe Lelouch had finally rid himself of it and cast off what remained of his humanity. And if that was the case, Nunnally was in danger.

What Suzaku needed was information. If the Black Knights were preparing a kidnapping, an assassination, a—God forbid—repeat of what happened to Euphie, he needed to know now, head off the problem, push for permission to raze their entire organization back to the ground. 

Where he would get that information, he had no idea. Britannia's operatives were, as always, useless; the Empire's informants and spies fed them contradictory plans, wasting time and resources, and Suzaku had no doubt that more than a few Britannian operatives were under Lelouch's demonic sway. The OSI agents at the school insisted everything was in order, but they had a Rolo-sized hole in their flawless surveillance strategy. Rolo himself assured Suzaku that Lelouch was perfectly harmless, but that assurance was impossible to trust. If absolutely nothing else could be said about Lelouch, this much at least was true: he was capable of being an excellent older brother. And Rolo looked awfully happy standing beside his fake sibling in pictures.

He wasn't equipped to handle situations like this. There were too many moving parts, too many people with their own agendas, too many false leads and buried truths. Lelouch was the one who could solve this problem... were he not the cause of it.

Not for the first time, Suzaku found himself wishing that it were possible to separate Lelouch into two distinct people: the gentle and devoted friend who Suzaku knew better than he knew himself, and the monster who manipulated and murdered his way to power. He'd kill the second and protect the first, bring the pure-hearted Lelouch back to Nunnally, have him fix the mess his other half made. 

(The pure-hearted Lelouch would never be able to fix anything, and he would never have become Suzaku's friend. But the fantasy was still comforting.)

As it stood, Suzaku's only weapons were the paper, the reappearance of Zero, and his own certainty that something was amiss. Lelouch stood at the center of those intersecting lines, as always, and so only he could point Suzaku in the right direction. Willingly or otherwise.

It was time to catch up with an old friend.

Days had passed since Suzaku's last real interaction with Lelouch—that night he'd spent under the cloud-covered sky, listening to music streaming up from below, tense-jawed as he waited for Lelouch's voice to crack or hands to tense as he spoke to his little sister. The cool indifference he'd received in return had confused him more than it relieved him, and if Lelouch had any sincere questions about why he'd been put on the phone with the soon-to-be Viceroy, he'd wisely kept them to himself. 

He walked to the door of the clubhouse, feeling like a fool in his school uniform, which seemed like a costume more than ever. Maybe he had never been a wide-eyed schoolboy in the first place, but he certainly was even less of one now. He and Lelouch made quite a pair: two actors in a play, intent on convincing the other that the plot was real, both of them aware that this was an impossible task.

The last time he'd knocked on this door, it had been the night before the ceremony. He had sat with Lelouch and Nunnally, trading stories about the past. Maybe it had been too late—he'd flinched away from reminiscing about their shared childhood during his first weeks at Ashford, unable to forget how it ended in blood and war. But Suzaku had been desperate to gain Lelouch's trust, to erase the skepticism he saw clouding his friend's eyes, to ask Zero to allow Euphie's beautiful dream to bloom. 

All in vain.

That naivete had been purged from Suzaku's heart, the hope and faith that had been nothing but dangerous delusions replaced by a cold realism. This time, he would not risk the life of a princess by trying to foster goodwill or respect, making gentle and indirect requests. This time, he would get Lelouch alone, force his back against the wall, pin him down with the evidence, make every threat he could think of and vow to carry them out. He would do it in a way that Lelouch Lamperouge, ordinary high school student, would not understand, but Lelouch vi Britannia, black prince of the Empire, would find perfectly clear. He would train himself to think like his adversary and catch him in a trap of his own devising.

He knocked on the door.

Chapter Text

A list of what Suzaku assumed awaited him behind the clubhouse's entrance, in order of likelihood:

1) Rolo, informing him that Lelouch was doing homework or otherwise occupied and no, sorry, he did not have time to talk to Suzaku right now lest it disturb whatever mayhem Zero was dreaming up.

2) Lelouch, actually doing homework or otherwise occupied, allowing Suzaku inside and enduring several minutes of pointless and awkward conversation that he, an ordinary high school student, barely understood.

3) Sayoko and Nunnally sitting together, Lelouch taking his mid-afternoon nap to restore his red blood cells, everything fine and beautiful and the past year a bad dream.

Rolo and Lelouch together, both dressed in pink bunny suits and holding giant eggs, was not in the top fifty of this list.

Nonetheless this was the reality that Suzaku was confronted with, the door opening instantly after a single knock to reveal Rolo beaming with happiness, the smile wiped off his face in seconds as he processed Suzaku's presence and what it surely meant. 

"Suzaku," Lelouch greeted, whiskers painted on his face. Did rabbits have whiskers? Did rabbits lay eggs? "I figured you'd be back on duty by now. You missed the party, but Rolo and I are still having fun. I'm glad you're able to participate in some of the festivities!"

"The festivities," Suzaku repeated with considerably less enthusiasm. Then, taking a moment to come to terms with the scene in front of him: "It's Easter."

"Britannians usually say Happy Easter," Lelouch gently corrected, as though speaking to a small child, and Suzaku hated that he could not tell if this was the ordinary schoolboy Lelouch, used to an unbothered sort of supremacy, or if this was the real Lelouch, being a smartass. "But I know this sort of thing is still a bit unfamiliar for you. Have you ever decorated eggs before?"

This was a damn trap. Lelouch had somehow known that Suzaku was on his way to interrogate him, and had… had arranged this spectacle as a distraction. As a way of saying oh, I'm sorry, I can't have a private conversation with you right now, since I'm busy decorating and am also dressed as a giant rabbit. It had to be.

Suzaku imagined the laughter behind Lelouch's placid eyes, the gears in his brain turning, thinking that he'd bewildered Suzaku to the point that he'd forgotten why he arrived in the first place—or at least that he'd left Suzaku with no way to isolate him. Always so clever and self-satisfied. Well. Two could play at this game.

He put on his most bashful smile, a little rusty from disuse but backed by years of practice. "Oh, you know me, I'm no good with art. I just wanted to hang out. I've—really missed you."

Lelouch returned the smile, ever so slightly strained. "Of course. We've missed you too," he said, emphasizing the we. Rolo wasn't leaving his side. If VV's little assassin had flipped, then he could stop Suzaku in his tracks, quite literally, whenever he wanted. If Suzaku asked an uncomfortable question, if Lelouch needed a few seconds to think of excuses or alibis, Rolo would be very useful. "Come inside. We'll get changed and have tea together."

That was a problem. Suzaku had to come up with an excuse to get rid of him, a reason why he'd need Lelouch alone, without his little brother in tow. A reason like—like—

"A date." No, he thought, I wanted something smart, but it was too late to turn back. Forcibly constraining his facial muscles from contorting in shock, he beamed at Lelouch. "With you. Is what I was suggesting, actually."

He stood there, horror rising up from within his psyche as he realized the words that had just left his mouth. Lelouch was frozen in front of him, gobsmacked and speechless, mouth slightly agape. Rolo's gaze darted from Suzaku to Lelouch to the giant egg in his hands, and then something like pure bloodthirst settled over his bunnified features. 

The incredulous silence that followed gave Suzaku enough time to delude himself into believing that this had worked out in his favor. He'd stumbled into another piece of evidence to add to his meager pile here. There was, after all, absolutely no reason why Suzaku asking Lelouch on a date should prove so shocking or unsettling to his ordinary schoolboy friend. He had told Lelouch that he was beautiful on more than one occasion, half-joking at best. And even with the false memories planted by the Emperor and the real ones wiped from his mind, Lelouch certainly remembered that he and Suzaku were… quite close. Even after years of separation, there had been something there, something Suzaku could not put a name to, something he could never act upon. An offhand comment from Shirley had prompted an awkward, brief, but entirely sincere discussion about how maybe in another life, maybe if things were different, maybe if the war hadn't splintered them, would they have been, could they have been…?

Neither of them managed to fill in the blank at the end of that sentence; Lelouch could not be so vulnerable and Suzaku could not be so open. Suzaku had tried to wipe it from his mind over the past year, fending off the nauseating idea that—that what happened to Euphie had been because of this, because of him, because Lelouch could not handle watching him love someone else. But he remembered it whether he wanted to or not, and he knew Lelouch remembered it too, in whole or in part. The Emperor's geass had no reason to undo the blush that had been on his cheeks that day.

This was normal high school stuff between normal high school friends. One of whom happened to be an armed servant of the Emperor, who happened to be the father of the other, who happened to have murdered Suzaku's beloved, who happened to be his sister. All of it was extremely normal, maybe even expected. Unless Lelouch remembered what he'd done, who he was, in which case it was extremely… not.

Fidgeting with his painted egg as he tried to wheedle out of the trap closing in on him, Lelouch rearranged his face into an expression more appropriate for this would-be normal situation. "A lunch date, you mean? Sounds good to me! Rolo and I already ate, but we can always make it an early dinner."

"No." Suzaku was on solid footing now, holding the upper hand. His plan was working. If this was Zero who stood before him, then he was more vulnerable than Suzaku had feared. "I'm asking you on a date, Lelouch," he emphasized, and at this he was sure that Rolo was wishing death upon him. "I checked in with Rolo earlier to make sure that you were free."

And this was true. It had been a routine request for Lelouch's movements and plans, and Suzaku had not told Rolo that he'd be dropping by to verify the truth of his status report. He had in fact blatantly lied to the kid, informing him that he had to run tests on the Lancelot this afternoon. Concealing the truth was beneficial. Lelouch had taught him well.

He gave Lelouch a moment to collect himself, as a gentleman should—whether he was rendered speechless due to a schoolboy's embarrassment or a terrorist's rage. The recovery was quicker and smoother than Suzaku would have liked, that artificially higher tone to Lelouch's voice firmly back in place. "Ah. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'd love to go out with you, and I am free today, but I was hoping to spend time with Rolo." He graced Rolo with a smile and then blinked at Suzaku, doe-eyed and innocent, as if to say as you know, my dearest little brother, who is most certainly my blood relative and not a spy or assassin, is very important to me. "Maybe we can schedule it for next week?"

Rolo was staring at Lelouch like he was the sun, willfully oblivious to his non-brother's attempt to use him to get out of trouble. His heart was about to burst out of the egg he was (still) holding. Suzaku would have to crack it instead. "Sorry, it's gotta be today. I'm on duty all next week"—and he was, they needed to prepare for Nunnally's arrival—"and the tickets are only good for this afternoon."

"Tickets," Lelouch asked, painted whiskers twitching, "to what?"

To what indeed. The non-existent tickets would need to be for somewhere they could talk; that ruled out movies, plays, opera performances, any of the fancy cultured things Lelouch liked. He could not give Lelouch the opportunity to sit silently through a ballet and then, right as they went to enjoy dinner after the curtain call, say something like huh, would you look at the time, I'd better get home to do my history homework! 

And Suzaku needed to ensure he could actually get these tickets. His card was enough to get him most places these days; people usually granted him admittance with a pointed grimace, but he couldn't care less, so long as he got what he wanted. The jeers and snide remarks of Britannians bounced off him easily now. He held more power than they did, and they could do nothing about it.

At least in theory.

He was getting off-track again. Summoning the inner Lelouch that gave him devious plans and a knack for manipulation, Suzaku searched his mind for the best interrogation spot, somewhere seemingly harmless, somewhere Lelouch, if he were truly a normal schoolboy, could not say no to. Somewhere like—"Clovisland Pool."

…no. Actually—yes. Yes, this would work. Suzaku could easily flash his card to get tickets to the place, and wouldn't have to do much else to prepare—he happened to like swimming. And they had been there before; Lelouch had enjoyed himself, or at least forced himself to for Nunnally's sake. Lelouch couldn't pretend that he was incapable of swimming or allergic to water or whatever other excuse he'd instinctively reach for. It was open to the public, but had plenty of areas where he and Lelouch could be alone together, out of earshot and out of sight. As long as Suzaku watched him like a hawk and Rolo stayed at home, Lelouch would have few opportunities to use his geass. And ordinary student Lelouch Lamperouge should have no qualms about visiting a water park named after the dearly departed prince, who ordinary student Lelouch Lamperouge did not shoot in the face.

This idea had either been a result of Suzaku plumbing his mental depths for an ideal public location where Lelouch would be isolated and on the defensive, or a result of the Clovisland Pool jingle blaring from the speakers downtown yesterday. It would work regardless. He'd make it work.

Lelouch seemed less enthused by the idea. "Clovisland Pool," he repeated, drawing out the syllables like it was a foreign term. Rolo stared up at him in equal confusion, and Suzaku could have sworn that Lelouch's head turned in an impossible way, as though he were watching an animation and several frames were missing from the scene. He glared at Rolo, adding this to the Rolo's Gone Native pile. But it didn't matter what the two of them discussed in the few seconds that they'd stolen from Suzaku. He'd already won.

He grinned at Lelouch, not bothering to disguise the victory in his eyes. "That's right! Go grab your speedo... unless you'd prefer to just wear your underwear." With a wink, he helped himself inside, sat in Lelouch's favorite plush chair, and tried to contain the smugness radiating from him like a farmer who'd just captured a wolf.

Okay, maybe it was more like a farmer who'd just captured a feral cat.

Lelouch spent the next twenty minutes flailing around for an excuse, trying and failing to get out of this without blowing his cover. He was concerned about the sun; Suzaku waltzed into the bathroom and found a bottle of SPF 70 lotion. What if it rained? Suzaku turned on the weather channel, which displayed nothing but clear skies for the next five days. There was another history quiz tomorrow—Suzaku knew that he had an A in the class, and Lelouch could bring his notes in the car, if he wanted. Every time Lelouch tried to pry open a door, Suzaku slammed it shut, a smile on his face all the while. He wasn't getting out of this one.

Once the excuses ran out and Rolo proved unable to help his dear older brother, Lelouch seemed to accept his fate, retrieving a comically large duffel bag and violently shoving all manner of items inside of it.

"Dates are usually arranged in advance," he said, failing to keep his voice light as he stuffed three pairs of shoes into the bag. (Water shoes—no, he would not be going barefoot, these places are filled with fungus—one pair of sandals, necessary if they strolled along the artificial beach, and a pair of loafers for boardwalk sightseeing, Suzaku was informed.) "Even if you are a bigshot now." 

Suzaku ignored the unsaid barb at the end, the because of me, you worthless traitor. Instead, he offered this: "Hey, I'm being spontaneous. You've seemed pretty stressed lately, Lelouch. Maybe it's because your courseload is so much heavier this year." And it was. The amnesiac Lelouch had signed himself up for all honors classes, thinking about university and the future and how he was going to make a living. "I think you deserve some fun away from school." 

"Clovisland Pool," Lelouch groused, packing a water bottle and two changes of underwear. "Fun."

It was a good thing that he had his back turned to Suzaku. Easier to drive the knife in that way. "You seemed to like it when you went there before. We had a lot of fun with Rolo, didn't we?"

Before, when he and Suzaku held each side of Nunnally's raft as they floated around the lazy river. Before, when Lelouch nearly fainted while watching Nunnally enter the wave pool, demanding to know the lifeguard's age and qualifications. Before, when Euphie was still alive and Lelouch had not yet taken everything from him, losing everything in turn.

For the briefest of moments, Lelouch stilled, his hands gripping the fabric of the bag. Too much of a coward to turn and stare down Suzaku, he instead took three deep breaths, the heaving of his shoulders too obvious. "Sure did," he said, voice flat and expressionless. 

He continued packing in silence. 

Rolo shot him a confused look, offering to help him pack. Lelouch shook his head to rebuff him, pointing him towards his bedroom. Rolo entered the room like an obedient puppy and shut the door. The tension in the room seemed worse in his absence.

To make himself look busy, Suzaku sent two messages: one to Villetta, asking her to keep Rolo under surveillance for the rest of the afternoon, and the other to his driver. On a typical day he balked at using the privileges that were given to him as one of His Majesty's knights—it seemed wrong to flaunt such wealth when so many Elevens went hungry—and so the driver and personal assistant that he'd been gifted with rarely had much to do. But today was heading in a not-so-typical direction, and so he had some requests for the both of them. For the driver: a ride to the park in his car, too sleek and official-looking for Suzaku's taste. And for his assistant: whatever swim trunks he could get his hands on.

Duffel bag filled to the top, Lelouch turned to Suzaku and raised his eyebrows in unhappy anticipation. "Well. Let's get on with it, then."

Chapter Text

Suzaku's assistant, probably grateful to finally have something to do, found his swim trunks buried in the bottom drawer of his dresser in less than ten minutes. He'd given these to the driver, accompanied by a helpful brochure on Clovisland Pool, which Suzaku clung to like a life raft in the awful silence of the car. His hands itched to grab something, and the only alternative was Lelouch's neck.

Clovisland Pool was distinct from Clovisland proper, an ugly and generic amusement park that had been inserted into the middle of what had once been Odaiba. A ferris wheel, two roller coasters, and a smattering of traveling-carnival-quality other rides were arranged in a circle there, overseen by bored-looking Honorary Britannian settlers from outside Area 11. Suzaku had gone only once, accompanying Euphie and two of her ladies-in-waiting on the two-month anniversary of Clovis' assassination. Euphie had said that her brother would have wanted to be remembered with smiles and laughter, not tears. 

The park manager had closed the gates behind them, barring any new guests from entering as the princess enjoyed herself; at Euphie's request, they had allowed the guests already present to remain. In between his heart rate spiking as he listened to the creaking of the tilt-a-whirl and the groans from the base of the rollercoaster, the whispers of those around them who saw through Euphie's entirely ineffective disguise, Suzaku managed to enjoy himself well enough. The pirate ship ride had been his favorite; the girls had gone on it only once, owing to one of the ladies nearly vomiting from the back-and-forth swinging, but Euphie ordered him to go for a second ride. He would have gone back as many times as she wanted, no matter how many dirty looks he got from the tourists in the crowd.

Suzaku was not sure how involved Prince Clovis had been in his theme park's creation. There were bright colors and murals and strangely out-of-place classical statues of beautiful women, but beyond that there was little to speak of its royal patronage. Maybe it had just deteriorated in the few months since his death, or maybe Clovis was the sort of person to make something, derive five minutes of joy from its existence, and then move on to his next project without a second look.

Work began on Clovisland Pool before the park was even open to the public. It stood on the edge of Urayasu, right where the Kyuedo flowed into Tokyo Bay. Half-waterpark and half-beach resort, it was open to any Britannian citizen—for a price. The settlers paid ninety dollars a day; Honorary Britannians paid a hundred and thirty, including a forty-dollar fee for background checks and fingerprinting. 

The beach part was artificial. The bay was no place for swimming, and the sand of Clovisland Pool had been imported from elsewhere. When they'd last been there, Lelouch had complained about the irony of chlorine and imported sand located beside a body of natural water that they could not swim in. Coconut palms and parrots more appropriate for a tropical island had been brought in to round out the impression of a seaside haven. Were it not for the industrial odors wafting in from the district to the north and the faint scent of trash from the ghettos across the water, the impression might have held. But Suzaku knew that Britannians were good at ignoring minor imperfections in their paradises.

None of this had any relevance to Lelouch, Zero, or Nunnally's safety, which were the topics that Suzaku was meant to be addressing now that he'd pried Lelouch away from Rolo. His friend sat beside him, staring intently at his history notes, content to let the tension between them simmer as long as it made Suzaku uncomfortable. But it was little more than silent bluster. No matter how petulant and cagey Lelouch appeared, the reality was that he was locked in a moving vehicle with Suzaku. There was no one here to help him, no one to manipulate, no one to serve as a distraction.

He knew that Lelouch remembered the last time they were together in such a small place: the end of his rebellion, the day that should have ended in a victory speech given over the burning remnants of a Britannian tank, Zero's cape billowing in the wind, Euphie's name slandered and Japan's rebirth declared. Instead he spent it bound and tied in the corner of the Lancelot's cockpit, back digging into the emergency medical kit, forced to sit at Suzaku's feet as he transported the renegade prince to his father. Suzaku had left him conscious, no gag in his mouth, nothing to impede his speech but the blood-stained jacket of Suzaku's knight uniform draped over his head. (This had served a practical purpose in theory—Suzaku feared the sight of the geass would cause him to kill Lelouch on the spot, end up at the Emperor's doorstep with only a corpse to present—but mostly it was a message. Zero's rebellion had been built on Princess Euphemia's blood. Now he would be suffocated by it with every breath he took, the wound on his forehead bleeding into the jacket and mingling with the results of his human sacrifice.)

Lelouch had said nothing as the Lancelot moved, and maybe this was out of defeat, the reality of his hopeless situation finally sinking down past his pride. But Suzaku supposed it was more likely out of wisdom. If Euphemia's name had crossed his lips—if Lelouch had even dared give another excuse, another plea for mercy—the Emperor would have been given less than a corpse. A pulverized bag of blood and flesh, maybe.

Was that why he gripped his notebook so tightly, his eyes not even glancing in Suzaku's direction? Or was this ordinary schoolboy Lelouch, determined to keep his top marks in every subject?

"You sure are studying hard!" A blunt opening line, blatant in its intention. "What a big change from the days of, you know," slipping grades, long nights spent at the Black Knights' headquarters, lying to Suzaku's face, "not taking this stuff seriously."

A small smile and a turn of the page met his comment, Lelouch refusing to flinch under the scrutiny of Suzaku's gaze. "That's right. You've been away from school for so long that I haven't told you yet."

Suzaku made himself comfortable in his seat, tucking the brochure into the pocket on the door beside him. "You haven't told me"—everything, anything—"what?"

"I've spent the past few months boosting my grades. My courseload is so intense right now because I've been inflating my GPA as high as I can get it. I had the opportunity to make a good impression on a visiting admissions officer from a university in St. Edward's Bay a short while ago. He said that I have such potential that he'd be willing to offer me early admission, as long as my GPA meets their requirements." Mirroring Suzaku's movements, he flipped his notebook shut and turned himself so they were facing each other, not a trace of tension on his face. "And as of now, it does. I'm graduating a half-year early, six months from now."

This was too much information for Suzaku to process all at once, and so the response his brain spat out was only: "What's St. Edward's Bay?"

"Area 7, next to China. One of the territories the Holy Empire took over from Portugal. Used to be called Macau." He looked up to his right, lost in thought. "I've heard they're considering New Hibernia for Area 11. Have you heard anything about that yet?"

"No," he said, clipped. A cruel taunt, if it was one. Euphie had wanted it to be Japan, at least a small corner of it.

"I think it's a nice name. Much better than some of the others we've come up with." He made to say something else, something intentionally grating or distracting or both, before Suzaku cut in.

"Huh. Rolo didn't mention any of that to me when I talked to him." And at this the gears in his head started to turn: either Rolo knew and this was some plot by the Black Knights, or Rolo didn't know and this was some plot to get away from him. "You're not going to leave him here, are you? He'd miss you."

With a long-suffering sigh, Lelouch tried to cross his legs, smoothly crossing his ankles instead as the small amount of legroom proved too difficult for him to manage with grace. "Oh," he said, "you know, I wanted to go to the homeland, or maybe Europe. That's where all the best universities are. The ones in Area 11 are too new and untested, and most aren't even accredited yet. But Rolo freaked out at the suggestion and begged me to stay, so we compromised on somewhere in Asia."

By Lelouch's account of the situation, the plan was for Rolo to stay at Ashford until graduation—that's what their non-existent parents wanted—but he could not guarantee that his beloved little brother would stay put. He'd looked into high schools in St. Edward's Bay, just in case.

As he started listing the courses he planned on taking at the university, Suzaku sat in silence, staring at Lelouch's hands moving in hypnotic motions. If this were true—and it couldn't be, could it?—what did it mean about the Black Knights' plans? Were they abandoning Japan, giving up so soon after emerging from the grave? Was Zero intent on crowning himself the king of China now? Was Britannia about to stare down a rebellion spread out across the entire Pacific?

Was Zero... not Lelouch?

No, his mind screamed, remember the penmanship. Remember the tension that should not exist. He remembers, now you need to do the same.

"That's quite a move," Suzaku ventured, his first real interruption of Lelouch's monologue. "I mean, moving to another country, somewhere you've never been before, that's a huge life change."

Lelouch gave him an appraising look, cool and detached in the same way that Zero must have looked beneath his mask. He had seen it on Lelouch's bare face before, long ago, in the first two weeks that the imperial siblings had spent at the Kururugi Shrine. Suzaku and Lelouch had instantly disliked each other, every interaction of theirs provoking rage in Suzaku and a smug sort of prickliness in Lelouch. To avoid Nunnally's tears and his father's lectures, Suzaku had forced himself to stay out of the brat's path, surrendering control of the shed while seething in resentment. The two boys would manage to encounter each other from a short distance from time to time despite their best efforts, and Lelouch would always look at him in that exact way. Evaluating him like he was a machine prone to defects. Probing for weakness.

Looking for the exact place to strike to break him completely.

The ice between them as children had refashioned itself into a bridge soon enough, and Suzaku grew to see that prickliness as a honeybee's sting, a way of defending something soft and otherwise helpless. Cold and haughty gazes became a thing of the past, deployed only in jest or moments of childish triumph.

Suzaku spent the last year wondering whether he'd missed something—knowing that he'd missed something. More than one sleepless night had passed while his mind tormented itself with the awful realization that he'd been so fond of Lelouch that he had ignored the ruthlessness that had always been present and only grew stronger with time. He had been so intent on preserving those memories of the innocent honeybee that he'd blinded himself to the reality of a wasp, Euphie paying the price.

"You may not realize it, given your... origins," Lelouch was saying, "but around a quarter of our classmates, maybe more, will be going abroad for university. Many will never come back. None of us were born here, after all. Our attachment to this area is minimal, and for many it's dependent on the colonial subsidies—no offense." Suzaku took none. Why would Britannian settlers care about Area 11? They had a third of the world to choose from, most of it with less war and better-established colonies. The Empire sent its people into the wind like seeds, encouraging them to take root anywhere under the never-setting sun. "If there are better law schools elsewhere, then I'll go elsewhere. It is no problem at all for me."

"You'd make a good lawyer," Suzaku replied, his mind tangling itself in guilt and blame and questions. Lelouch had always been good at being an asshole.

"Thanks. I was thinking about estate law. Are you familiar with it?"

He was not, so Lelouch gave him an explainer, flying through the definitions of living wills, guardianships, powers of attorney, bickering families, wealth driving a wedge between co-heirs. At the end, he kindly gave Suzaku an opening. "And what about you?"

"Me?"

Lelouch retrieved his notebook from beside him. "The army usually provides its top soldiers with an opportunity to pursue higher education during their leaves of absence. And certainly the Knight of Seven would be granted entrance to whatever school he wanted. You can do a combination of night school and online learning, even. What do you want to do," he said, flipping the notebook open, "besides fight?"

A long pause stretched out between them. Suzaku opened his mouth and found no answer forthcoming. "I haven't really thought about it," he admitted. "Graduation and—everyone going their separate ways."

"You haven't thought about time moving forward?" Lelouch said, a touch too lightly.

He had thought of endless war. He had thought of vague and formless dreams, ideas that refused to take root, words that never seemed to come together, even on paper. Things that sounded noble and brave but utterly hopeless, free Japan and avenge Euphie and change Britannia. Plans without plans. He had thought, mostly, of the release of death, of the cruelty Zero imposed on him by taking away even this. "It would have been nice," he said instead, and it was half a lie and half the truest thing he could think of, "if we had just stayed the way we were forever."

A gentle touch on his arm jolted him out of his stupor, Lelouch drawing back at his flinch. "Hey, don't get too down in the dumps. You can bet that Madam President will host reunions every year. We'll see each other then, no matter what." Then he frowned, pouting up at Suzaku. "Unless things here settle down again, I guess. They'll probably ship you off to some other warzone if that happens. Can't have that machine of yours collecting dust. Hopefully it will be somewhere warmer than Belarus next time."

Outside, the tiki torches that lined the road to Clovisland Pool came into view, the car slowing at the admissions gate.

Lelouch's teeth flashed in a grin that was too wolfish to be kind. "But don't worry. Whenever you get the chance to come back, I'll be here for another date."

Chapter Text

Suzaku's driver retrieved the two guest passes from the machine at the gate, obtaining a receipt for $250: ninety dollars for Lelouch, a hundred and thirty for Suzaku. (It was fine. He didn't want to be treated any better than the other Honorary Britannians of Area 11, anyway.) The remainder had been comprised of fees, including a fee for entering the park by private car rather than a lift from the official Clovisland Hotel, a fee for same-day ticket orders, and a fee listed simply as "various". Lelouch glanced at the slip with thinly-veiled disgust, either at the price or the discrimination, then went back to staring at the palm trees wrapped with string lights as the indifferent attendant at the admission gate waved them through.

The ride from Ashford to the pool had taken thirty-four minutes in total, most of it spent in Tokyo's lunch hour traffic. In this lengthy amount of time during which Suzaku had Lelouch trapped and at his mercy, Suzaku had learned a lot about estate taxes and the process of probate. He'd made notes to himself to write a will, leaving his unwanted possessions and funds to charity; he'd brooded over the realization that even if he were given the opportunity to pursue an interest other than fighting, he could not summon a desire to do so. At the age of eighteen he had already spent so many years working as part of a machine that he had lost the ability to envision himself as independent from it. Suzaku avoided contemplating the future for exactly this reason—too easy to get lost in self-loathing and doubt. He rarely liked what he learned about himself in those rare moments of reflection.

Of Zero's identity or plans he had learned nothing at all.

He'd been disarmed before he'd even taken out his weapon. It was terrifyingly easy to forget who sat next to him in the car, the amount of blood on Zero's gloved hands, the corpses that he'd piled between them. All Lelouch needed was the smallest of openings, and then, before Suzaku's face, he would transform himself into a friendly conversationalist whose words Suzaku longed to hear. Lelouch wielded that charm of his half like a shield and more like a blade, blocking and striking at opportune moments. In hindsight, this much should have been obvious: beating Lelouch in a contest of wit had about as much chance of success as Lelouch beating him in a contest of force. He would need to use slightly more direct methods to get what he needed, wear down Lelouch's body and mind and his resistance with it.

The car rolled to a stop in the enormous, bleak parking lot. Lelouch exited the car without waiting for Suzaku to do the gentlemanly thing and open the door for him. He left his history notes behind, taking the opportunity to stretch his legs and complain about cramping. Suzaku followed his lead, squinting at his surroundings. A tanned blonde woman wearing a Hawaiian costume smiled down on him from a massive billboard. CLOVISLAND POOL — HAVE SOME FUN!

Oblivious to the reality of the situation, his driver lifted up his sunglasses, winked, and wordlessly handed him a note before retrieving Lelouch's bag. The note was from his assistant: Best of luck and an enjoyable time, sir. This will be waiting for you to give to your love upon your return to the car. A photo of a summer bouquet was stapled behind it, sunflowers staring him in the face. He opened his mouth to refuse the kind gift, to tell his driver to head halfway across the country and let him and Lelouch take the bus back, to just spare them both the misery and run them over now, but no words were forthcoming. Instead, he put on a sad attempt at a smile, handed the paper back, and waved goodbye in gratitude.

Lelouch glanced at Suzaku, who watched the car as it departed, and then put on his sunglasses. It was an immediate raising of a barrier. His eyes had always been the thing to give him away—he had never managed to conceal the emotions that shone there, at least not from Suzaku. They were his weakness before they were his sword. Bitterly ironic, he guessed.

Suzaku lowered his own sunglasses, responding to the volley in kind. He picked up Lelouch's duffel bag, shoving down the foldable chair and antibiotic ointment poking out of its opening.

"Ready to have some fun?" He gave a smile, and if it did not reach his eyes, then Lelouch would have no idea.

For half a second, Lelouch moved towards the bag slung over Suzaku's shoulder. Then he seemed to decide that Suzaku deserved to be a pack mule as punishment for this ridiculous situation in which they'd found themselves, drew back, and motioned towards the glittering entrance. "So the sign commands us." He walked forward.

Whatever. Lelouch would have been winded after twelve steps with the bag anyway. Suzaku followed.

A year's worth of terrorism, war, guerilla fighting, riots, and seething natives had evidently done nothing to diminish the splendor of Clovisland Pool. Women in grass skirts flanked the road leading into the heart of the waterpark, smiles plastered onto their faces, hips constantly swaying back and forth. Suzaku was not sure whether their stamina was admirable or sad. Then he looked at Lelouch and the unconstrained revulsion on his face, and decided he should find it noble instead. A paycheck was a paycheck, and the men who passed by them seemed to derive some enjoyment from their existence.

Enormous painted maps stood in the middle of the path, one a guide to the park's attractions and the other a bird's eye view of the surrounding beach area. He and Lelouch came to a halt in front of them, looking for familiar rides and glancing at the new ones that had been added to the map. The lazy river had been Lelouch's favorite ride last time—mostly because it was not a ride at all, but instead somewhere he could relax on a comfortable float, a gentle current pushing the passengers along a comfortable and semi-scenic fake river. Lelouch's only objections to the attraction had come from an unexpected waterfall to the face and an unexpected toppling into the water courtesy of Suzaku.

It was also the quietest place in the center of the park, unless one of the newer attractions had taken that spot. And if Suzaku linked their floats together romantically, they would be tied to each other for fifteen solid minutes. Plenty of places to accidentally nearly drown him without witnesses, too; the ride had few other devotees beyond the elderly and mothers with young children. Good. He'd drag Lelouch along with him on a few more adventurous rides, get his heart rate up, get him frazzled and desperate for something nice and easy. Lelouch absolutely despised the wave pool. That would probably be the best place to get—

"There's a pirate ship," Lelouch interrupted, pointing to the recently-added bottom left corner of the map. "I remember hearing you say something about liking those sorts of rides. Want to check it out?"

Suzaku followed the line of his finger, his eyes meeting the pirate ship in question. It was surrounded by miniature volcanoes, water erupting from their calderas. He had never told Lelouch about his visit to Clovisland. They rarely spoke about his days spent in the service of Princess Euphemia; Suzaku knew the very concept of his knighthood proved grating to him, and had no desire to pour salt into that wound. Nunnally had no wounds to salt, though, and so Suzaku was happy to tell stories of her sweet sister whenever she asked for them.

How often had the two of them spoken about Suzaku together? How often had Nunnally told Lelouch the words that Suzaku could not bring himself to say to him? Would Lelouch have listened to his stories, if only he'd gathered the courage to tell them?

He'd never know. And Nunnally would never get the chance to sit with her brother in the quiet hours of the evening again.

"Sure," he said, the duffel bag digging into his back. "Think you can handle it?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it." Maybe on Suzaku's part it was guilt or caution or some mix of both, but the venom in Lelouch's eyes seemed visible through the sunglasses. "I've grown a little tougher since we last had fun together."

Before the fun could begin, there were logistics to attend to.

Lelouch directed Suzaku to plop their bag down on a picnic table in the seating area across from the maps. Suzaku watched, entranced, as Lelouch proceeded to remove no less than sixteen items from the bag. The foldable chair was un-folded and placed next to the picnic table, with Lelouch citing the table's perilous lack of back support. Three pairs of shoes were retrieved next, arranged on the table in approximate order of use. Then two orange life jackets—the park provided them for an outrageous fee, Lelouch said, and it was more economical to bring their own. The water bottle, a pair of goggles, two towels, two protein bars, and a plastic bag followed. Lelouch handed the latter to Suzaku, who stared down at the thing in confusion.

"It's a waterproof pouch," Lelouch explained, digging for his bottle of sunscreen. "For your phone. Since you didn't bring one yourself."

"How do you know I didn't bring one myself?" He opened the pouch with unnecessary force. "I'm not incompetent, you know." (He had in fact brought nothing beyond a pair of swim trunks.)

A glare of weak loathing was Lelouch's only response. Suzaku stole a look at his phone as he shoved it inside the bag. Villetta had messaged him back—she'd keep Rolo occupied until they returned to the school. See? He wasn't incompetent.

Lelouch sat in the foldable chair with considerably less grace than he'd intended, judging by the way his eyebrows jumped comically above his sunglasses for a brief moment. He attempted to recover, repositioning himself in his hammock-like chair, which clearly provided less back support than he'd thought. Suzaku walked over to the table, taking a more solid seat, and squinted at the items still nestled in the bottom of the bag. "What about your under—?"

"I think you should go get changed," Lelouch interrupted, his voice loud enough to make the family to their left turn around and stare. "I assume you're intending on wearing those trunks, meaning you have no swimwear currently on your body. Odd, since you've been looking forward to this." This was true, and so Suzaku regrettably could not snap him in half with the chair, despite his rising irritation. Lelouch applied the sunscreen to his face, his skin temporarily taking on the appearance of a terminally ill orphan. "You've been so forgetful lately. I'm already wearing mine, so I'll stay here. Maybe I'll grab a locker for us while I wait."

And maybe he'd take the opportunity to leave, scribble a note for Suzaku saying sorry, emergency at home, thanks for the day out. Maybe he'd put everyone around them under his sway, turning them into drones for some plot to get rid of Suzaku. Maybe he'd call Rolo for backup, tell him to ignore Villetta and get here immediately. Lelouch had called him stupid more times than he could count, but what, did he think he was that much of a moron?

But also: did Suzaku really have a good reason to say no?

"We'll deal with that later. Come with me."

Lelouch lifted his sunglasses for a moment so as to regale Suzaku with his most unimpressed look. "Why? Do you need help changing into your swim trunks?"

"Yeah. Help me take off my pants." There. Finally a weapon he could use: Lelouch's virginal prudishness, more pronounced than that of the purest maiden. He would always look away in embarrassment as Suzaku took off his shirt when they were children. "This is supposed to be a date, remember?"

The woman at the next table narrowed her eyes at him, forcibly turning her wide-eyed child back around. Lelouch's blush radiated through his sunscreen, rendering him a pleasant pink. "I beg your pardon, but I am not—I don't know what manner of company you've enjoyed in your military pursuits, but I will not so easily be—I will not engage in lewd acts in a public changing room!"

"I didn't ask you to engage in lewd acts with me, Lelouch. You can stand outside the curtain if you're so shy. I just want you near me. This is supposed to be the day I finally get you all to myself."

"That does not mean you need my emotional support while you labor to remove your jeans," he complained.

Suzaku shrugged, lifting his shirt off his body. Lelouch stared at the ground intently, his ears now the color of tomatoes. "I'll just change here, then. Hold a towel up to block the view, would you?"

"You will get us arrested for indecent exposure, you loathsome oaf," he hissed, trying and failing to jump up from his chair. With sustained effort, he was able to extract himself from its grip, walking over to Suzaku with a scowl on his face. He was still looking anywhere but Suzaku's bare chest. "Fine. Take me to the changing room, O date of mine, and I will stand outside your curtain and whisper sweet nothings."

Flashing a grateful smile, Suzaku repacked the bag at Lelouch's request, lest someone covet their protein bars while they were away for six minutes. He slung it over his shoulder as Lelouch stomped towards the changing room. Suzaku followed with a spring in his step.

Chapter Text

As promised, there were no lewd acts in the changing room.

Their deeply unromantic liaison involved Suzaku standing on one side of a faded green curtain reeking of mildew and mold, doing his damnedest to take off his jeans and boxers without removing his shoes. Lelouch absolutely forbade him from putting his bare feet on the floor, vowing to leave immediately if Suzaku dared expose them to athlete's foot. Suzaku was going to do it anyway, mostly out of spite, but thought otherwise as he observed the stains on the concrete. Someone had enjoyed lewdness here.

So he used every ounce of his dexterity to maneuver the trunks onto his body once he was bare, listening to Lelouch bitch and fumble as he tried to take off his pants on the other side of the curtain.

"This would be much easier if I were outside," he complained. "But that would deprive you of my glowing presence, and so it is not acceptable. I understand." Suzaku could see his feet through the opening beneath the curtain; he had one foot in the air as he worked to free his other leg from the vicelike grip of his slacks. "Regrettably, I am too preoccupied to engage in flirtatious—for the love of God!"

The Lord's name had been taken in vain just as Lelouch lost his footing, sending him tumbling to the filthy floor with a shriek. Suzaku pried open the curtain separating them, trunks firmly in place, and gazed down at the mighty Zero. Lelouch's sunglasses were askew, his speedo exposed, one pant leg still on his body. He looked up at Suzaku with an expression that morphed from shame to indignation as Suzaku hauled him onto his feet, pulling the other pant leg off of him in the process.

"You should stay off the floor," Suzaku helpfully advised. "Lots of fungus down there."

Wordlessly, Lelouch moved his sunglasses back into position to hide the way he stared at Suzaku's chest.

Lelouch had neglected to remove his shirt in the dressing room. Presuming that this was because of his distressing attempt at pant removal, Suzaku offered to do it for him.

The reaction was not the embarrassed refusal that he'd been expecting.

"I will be leaving it on," Lelouch said instead. "I believe I'll be too chilly without something to cover me."

Alarm bells immediately began ringing in Suzaku's head. Lelouch had never had a problem going bare-chested before. Something had changed. Something was being covered. "That's what the towels are for."

"I'm leaving it on," he said again, emphasizing the finality of the conversation.

And this was a problem. Suzaku couldn't rip it off him now that they were back in the company of others, and there was no chance of getting Lelouch to return to the moldy changing area. Damn, damn, but what could it even be? His shirt was plain and form-fitting; Lelouch had very little meat on his bones, and the contours of the dark shirt revealed nothing but straight lines. The only place he could possibly be concealing anything was in the slightly looser area under each sleeve. Without thinking, Suzaku reached out, lifting up one of the sleeves before Lelouch could pull away.

Lelouch hadn't been hiding anything under his shirt. Nothing but his bare upper arms, scars from deep gashes dotting them, making him look like a wild animal had sliced him open with its claws.

Suzaku pulled back as though burned, regret making bile rise in his throat.

"So," Lelouch said, pretending that neither the action nor the reaction had just occurred, "the pirate ship?"

With a mute nod, Suzaku walked beside him.

The Emperor's geass was quite powerful. In many ways it was more terrifying than Lelouch's power, if only for the infinite nature of it. The king could reshape a mind as many times as he liked, breaking apart the connections that formed memories and inserting falsehoods to create new paths. There was no limit to the number of times a man could be made to forget his friends, loyalties, location, name. And for many of them there was no recovery.

But all power came with drawbacks, the universe's way of preventing godhood from arising amongst mortals. For the Emperor, ruler of a third of the human population, there was this: changing a memory could not change a mindset. There were traits too intrinsic to a psyche, beliefs too ingrained in the soul for his geass to reach. Some part of the original human would always remain. And when that preserved fragment resurfaced, when it gained enough self-awareness to observe the disconnect between desire and action, the hold of the geass would falter.

Lelouch and his doppelganger Julius shared a few things in common: ruthlessness, dramatics, a cunning sense of strategy, a preference for tacky fashion, an evident glee in making Suzaku's life more difficult. But their differences proved too great to overcome. Lelouch would sooner wear a prisoner's chains than the uniform of the Empire, and sacrificing lives in service to his father made something deep within him revolt in outrage.

Suzaku had watched this happen with fascination at first, deriving a sort of bitter joy as Lelouch the master of puppets became aware of his own strings. The episodes were always temporary and quickly forgotten, tending to occur in the early mornings and late nights. Dr. Haverhill, one of the Emperor's private medics, had been dispatched with them to ensure that no harm came to Lelouch's walking corpse during his fits of individuality.

The doctor had a favorite tool in keeping Julius comfortable. Signal, a brand-name drug made by the manufacturers of Refrain, was known for dulling the painful sense of self, the recognition that the world was not as it should be. Julius took a dose each night, washing it down with water before sleeping. It was active within six hours, and lasted most of the day once in the bloodstream. Milder than Refrain, Signal was an emotional painkiller fit for the working man; energy and activity levels were mostly unaffected for the typical patient. Addiction recovery programs in the ghettos of Area 11, run by Elevens as Britannians pumped in more Refrain through the gangs and dealers, admitted defeat to opioids and tried to transfer their patients to the lesser evil.

Signal came with its own side effects, less devastating but still uncomfortable. Many patients complained of endless thirst, absent appetite, a constant need to scratch their skin until it bled. Hallucinations were rarer but still present, trapping users in nostalgia for minutes or hours.

Julius had been no stranger to these. His pleas for water to satiate the insatiable had been a daily occurrence; much as it grated on Suzaku's raw nerves, it was easy enough to deal with. He would ignore the pitiful sounds that came from Julius' mouth, leave the room, and find something to distract himself with. Ten minutes later the strategist would be composed again, holding no memory of his prior state. The scratching was a different beast. Suzaku had once stumbled into their shared common room in the dead of night, awakened by sounds emanating from the cabinets there. Tense and guarded, he'd expected to see an awakened Lelouch searching for a way to escape. He had not expected to see Julius, blood on his face and arms, helplessly looking for bandages.

The wounds he'd clawed open on his arms were deep and ugly. Lelouch must have torn himself open through his night shirt, then scratched at the broken skin, digging further and further though his tissue. His fingernails were disgusting, coated in caked blood and skin cells. And he seemed entirely unaware of the trail of blood that dripped behind him.

Somewhere in the mausoleum dedicated to the royals of Britannia, Euphie's inscription had just been installed, marking only the sixteen years of her life and the father she barely knew. In Area 11, emboldened Britannian troops hunted down the remnants of the resistance, sparing little thought for any civilians caught in the crossfire. Suzaku's ideal world was farther away than ever, courtesy of the bloodstained monster in front of him. But something about the sight made him feel protective, sickened by himself, by Lelouch, by the world that had done this to the both of them.

At sunrise Julius awoke to freshly-scrubbed and clipped nails, gauze and medical tape wrapped around his biceps. He'd been tucked in flat on his back like a small child. Dr. Haverhill sewed up his arms while he was still in his morning haze.

What story had the new and improved Lelouch Lamperouge been told about his scars? Did he have vague memories of being attacked by a rabid dog? Had the Emperor left it as an open question, leaving his son's reconfigured mind to fill in the blanks? Suzaku did not know, and the thought of asking Lelouch about it made his mouth dry. Speaking the existence of the scars aloud would make it all real, would allow Lelouch to look at him and say without words: I remember who you made me become. I remember what you made me do. And I will never listen to your hypocritical screeds against puppeteering again.

Not that he'd be right. Suzaku had not been the one to create Julius.

He'd hunted Zero down with the intent to kill him, and if the man beneath the mask had been anyone else, his brains would have decorated those ruins where they met each other's eyes. For a bloodlusted hour he'd ignored reality and convinced himself there was still a possibility that he'd have Zero's head as a prize by the end of the day. But it had to be Lelouch.

Suzaku's rage and grief wiped all thought from his mind as he shoved his friend into the Lancelot, refusing to trust his own unsteady hands with the rebel's fate; he would execute him, undo his bindings, scream in his face, sob into his arms, drown him in the sea. Much better to leave the thinking and the acting both to a higher power, he told himself, and his mind was blissfully blank as the knightmare took off. Whatever the Emperor decided to do with him was a matter of imperial policy. It was out of Suzaku's hands, and he was blameless in any entirely just punishment that Lelouch received.

Certainly the creation of a creature with Lelouch's face had not been remotely close to what he would have wanted with the benefit of hindsight. If Suzaku had his way, Zero would have been unmasked, exposed as a self-serving liar, a bitter prince using the Japanese to further his own childish revenge. He would have been made to stand before the eyes of the world in chains, confess his sins, clear Euphie's name. Tell his followers that he'd deceived them all and instruct them to lay down their arms for the sake of peace. And then, maybe, if he truly worked for it, if he allowed himself to become an instrument for that noble purpose, Suzaku could have suffered through his continued existence. He could have made peace with the fact that Lelouch was alive and Euphie was not, as long as Lelouch spent the rest of his life advancing her cause.

Lelouch would have never gone along with any of it, of course. He'd have sooner chosen death. Unless Nunnally had been the carrot dangled in front of him, if the Emperor had brought her into the room and said she will die unless you obey, then—maybe. There was a chance, at least. But the Emperor had his own reasons for concealing the existence of geass and the fact that his own child had rebelled against him, and Suzaku could not go against his will.

None of it had been his choice. Lelouch deserved all of it and more. Suzaku was a servant of the decision-maker and merely abided by those decisions, scraping together whatever power he could to help the people of Japan in the aftermath. He was not to blame. The blood drying on Lelouch's fingernails had not been his. The scarred reminders of Julius' existence were not from his hands. He consoled himself with that thought as the two of them made their way through the park in silence, the humid heat draping the distance in an unreal fog.

Chapter Text

So. The pirate ship.

The map, as it turned out, had been closer to a 1:1 scale than expected. When Lelouch and Suzaku arrived at Pirate Patchy's Plunder, they were greeted by a five-foot-tall plastic frigate christened the Jolly Roger. Small children with an average age of four scampered over its deck, taking turns down a slide with such a gentle slope that they had to scoot to the bottom. The terrifying volcanoes spewing hot water were two feet off the ground and behaved as gentle bubbling fountains. The children's mothers lounged on deck chairs as their kids played, more than one of them eyeing the pair of teenagers with suspicion as the idiots in question took in the scene.

"Perfect," Lelouch said, claiming a chair for himself and attempting to drag the duffel bag off of Suzaku's shoulder. "You go play with your equals while I relax."

All two ounces of Lelouch's combined muscle mass proved unable to dislodge the bag, and so he crossed his arms and looked away, every bit the petulant child he'd always been. Suzaku could not exactly blame him for being surly after the scar incident, but he could have picked a better place to be an asshole than somewhere filled with preschoolers.

Suzaku wasn't going to apologize—he had a right to know if Lelouch was hiding something, and Lelouch had done plenty to invite suspicion—but he did feel slightly ashamed for reasons he could not quite articulate. Half as a peace offering and half as a means of protecting it from the volcano-springs, he left the bag by Lelouch's side, slid off his shoes, and walked into the pool, which reached halfway to his knees. Lelouch could eat the protein bar while he sulked. It'd improve his mood, and maybe put some bulk on him in the process. Suzaku would not have his people represented by a terrorist leader who could be swept down the street by a mild gust.

The bubbling volcanoes were surprisingly relaxing, despite the screaming children ten feet away from him. He closed his eyes for half a minute as he leaned against the fountain, letting the warm water soak into him. The Knights of the Round headquarters had a jacuzzi, and Suzaku had been sorely tempted to use it to force the tension out of his muscles, but Bradley had practically monopolized the place with his rotating assortment of women. When he wasn't in it, Gino was, often begging Suzaku to play beer pong with him as though they were fraternity brothers and not the proud creators of a pile of corpses. This spot was, for the moment, his alone. The kids were too busy playing pirate and sending each other to the plank-slides to notice him.

It was pleasant, listening to the sound of laughing children, feeling the sun warm him from above and the water from below. Clovisland Pool was an imposition, a false paradise built on ruins and the rubble of fish markets, but something good and kind had bloomed from that bloody soil. The kindness did not extend to all, but with the right guiding hand, maybe it would. If the extra surcharges for Honorary Britannians were removed—if every resident of Area 11 was granted the right to enter any public establishment for the same price as anyone else—would he see Japanese children playing on the pirate ship, making friends with the children of settlers? Would they be willing to lay aside their bitterness and resentment and accept that new reality, the new Japan that could be a place of peace and cooperation?

Would they—have to hear Lelouch argue with one of the staff members?

Blinking as his reverie dissipated around him, Suzaku rose from the pool, shivering as wet skin met cool air. Lelouch had left his deck chair while Suzaku was deep in delusion, and this was expected. He had not taken the opportunity to leave the area, and this was... not. Instead he was standing in front of a balding man wearing a polo shirt, lecturing the man in a loud and very cantankerous voice. Lelouch stood at least five inches taller than the man, angling his body to tower over him; he may have even seemed imposing, were he not wearing a speedo and displaying his birdlike legs.

Still barefoot, Suzaku plodded over to the site of the argument, relieved that the disagreement at least proved that Lelouch had not used his geass on the poor man. "Is there a problem here?"

"Yes, Suzaku, there is a problem." And this was evidently true, because Lelouch was using the voice that slipped out when he was angry, the one that said you are a lowly worm and I'll have you trod underfoot like one, vowels elongated by the vestiges of a Pendragon accent that Lelouch tried so hard to suppress. "Recall if you will our last adventure here in the aquatic Land of Clovis, may his soul rest easily."

"—can't you just use normal—"

"Recall if you will the park manager and my conversation with him. You do recall this, correct? We had a long and productive discussion about opportunities to improve accessibility at this facility. You hovered over my shoulder to intimidate him."

Suzaku did recall that... pleasant conversation. Nunnally had wanted to go into the whirlpool with Milly and Shirley. This was a slightly more-exciting version of the lazy river: a swift current moved visitors in a circle, sending them under waterfalls and fountains. She'd always been more adventurous than Lelouch when it came to these things, though she donned the life jacket he gave her without complaint. Shirley retrieved a float for her and Milly assured Lelouch that they would follow Nunnally around like a hawk the whole time. With reluctance only overcome by his desire to see his sister smile, Lelouch agreed to the plan.

Then they got to the edge of the pool, where they were stopped by an attendant tapping a sign: no floats allowed. It would ruin the experience for the other guests, the man said. The whole point was to mimic the feeling of danger, and there wasn't much danger in sitting on a pool float. Besides, what if the current forced her float over someone's head and they got stuck under there? She's blind, isn't she? How would she even know? She shouldn't even be here.

Predictably Lelouch had gone absolutely ballistic on the man. Suzaku cringed at his ranting but could not disagree with his sentiment, and so he stood beside his friend for backup. A solid twenty minutes of lecturing began, onlookers gawking at the teenage boy in his tiny speedo raining hellfire and fury onto his opponent, who was revealed to be the manager of the entire park. "Well, yeah, but I wasn't trying to—" 

"Now recall the end of said conversation." He turned back to the man, glowering. "I believe—and do correct me if I am wrong, sir—but I do believe I inquired as to whether or not the simple and cost-effective measures I proposed would be put in place when we were next here. And you said—again, do correct me if I am mistaken—yes, certainly, that will be easy to do! Now the promised day has arrived. My partner and I walked the length of the park to arrive in this spot, and I made certain observations along the way. Namely, I see no improved accessibility. Indeed, the new rides have even worse layouts for mobility-impaired individuals. The slide that looks like intestines has neither a ramp nor an elevator to the top. The line to the wave pool is now constricted by a gate too narrow for a wheelchair to fit through. Would you care to explain this?"

The manager was unmoved. He had probably never forgotten Lelouch's face and spent the past year fantasizing about telling him off. "Our priority has been to increase revenue. I'm not sure if you're aware of it, sir, but tourism to Area 11 has taken a hit since the Elevens started acting up. Maximizing profit is in the park's best interest at the moment. And maximizing profit means adding new attractions to draw people here and making the ones already present more exciting. There are thousands of people in the settlement who will enjoy these rides, and maybe a half-dozen cripples who will be sad that they cannot. You seem like an intelligent man. Which group would you prioritize?"

Lelouch's expression went cold. If he were a different man, one with more musculature, Suzaku had no doubt that Lelouch would choose to deck the guy in the face. Suzaku had half a mind to do just that, but he waited for Lelouch to give him the time for violence signal first, a backhanding motion in the air with his right hand.

He noticed, for the first time, what had prompted Lelouch's most recent outburst. A young boy sat diagonal from them, sitting next to his mother in a wheelchair. The boy was looking at the children on the pirate ship with a flat expression, probably watching one of his siblings enjoy their playtime. He himself could not join them: the ship was only accessible by stairs, and the deck was too packed with plastic statues of pirates, wheels, and fake cannons for him to squeeze through. At most he could be dragged up a narrow slide and made to sit as others moved around him.

Ordinary schoolboy Lelouch Lamperouge was a decent person, a loving brother, and an observant mind. There were plenty of reasons why he'd look at the boy and feel a sort of anger on his behalf. But the menace in his voice, the fury on his face, spoke not of discontent but of rage. And it was not on behalf of a stranger. Lelouch, the ordinary and extraordinary versions alike, was not one to abandon his detachment without a cause that hit close to his heart.

He remembered Nunnally. At the very least he had some memory of loving a girl who had to sit alone while her friends had fun. There was no other explanation. And there had never been a need to wear down Lelouch's resistance when his heart still had so many open wounds that bled with the smallest pinprick. His weaknesses were still his weaknesses.

"Suzaku," he said, giving him a sidelong glance. "I need you to fetch something from my bag."

"What?"

"My phone. It's buried somewhere near the bottom. I would like to take this gentleman's number down so that we can discuss this matter further in the future. Please retrieve it for me." Please go away for two minutes so I can force my will upon him and make him do what I want. Please leave the door open for plausible deniability, because as long as you don't see me use my geass, you can't prove it happened, even though you know it did. You can pretend that nothing out of the ordinary happened here beyond a very persuasive argument.

Two things struck Suzaku about this: one, Lelouch knew that Suzaku understood his real intent. And two, Suzaku searched inside himself and found little resistance to the idea.

"Sure. Hang tight."

He turned his back and walked away.

They left the tiny pirate ship behind, with Lelouch cursing Suzaku for leaving his brochure in the car. It had information on every ride—including, presumably, which ones were meant for toddlers. How did he spend ten minutes flipping through that thing while managing to absorb no useful information whatsoever?

Suzaku pointed out that visiting the damn ship was Lelouch's idea, and he himself would have been perfectly happy with the wave pool, which they were headed to next as payback for the boredom they'd just endured.

He spared a glance behind him, waving goodbye to the ship and comfortable little volcanoes. A group of confused children, some in tears, stood gathered beside the frigate. The park manager had kicked them off and was currently dismantling part of the starboard side with a saw, making room for something just wide enough to fit a wheelchair. Lelouch's words sure were convincing.

Chapter Text

It felt good to make tangible improvements to the world, even if the world was a plastic pirate ship.

Suzaku had spent so many months reducing cities to rubble, raising the imperial flag above their ruins, telling himself this is worth it, this will pay off, Japan is what matters. Rising through a system meant melting into it, moving as part of it; a machine could not function if its gears refused to turn. He couldn't keep his hands clean while wielding power, by nature a dirty thing, but he tried to avoid losing himself completely. The people he fought were probably fortunate to face him instead of one of the other knights, all of them less sympathetic and more bloodthirsty. Suzaku would at least give them a chance to surrender, to think things through, to realize what he had understood long ago: there was no beating Britannia. The only path forward was the one with the least destruction and the lowest casualties. If people survived, if cities remained standing, they could recover. If fighting ended, the weapons of war would leave, and more peaceful bureaucrats would move in. And if those bureaucrats had a genuine desire to help their people, or at least pity for them, it wouldn't matter what flag flapped in the breeze above their capitals. The world was a playground for empires. If not Britannia, it would be someone else within a year.

There was little doubt in his mind that his logic was sound, no matter what nationalists and terrorist sympathizers might think of it. But the world that existed in theory was not the one that he saw in reality. Civilians risked their lives to pull down Britannia's flag, knowing it would be replaced within an hour. Rulers of conquered areas were disinterested at best and hostile at worst towards the unhappy people they lorded over. Britannia could change, he would change it, but his list of like-minded allies was thin and would take decades to grow.

So if Lelouch could instantly improve one little boy's life with a single conversation, if Suzaku could look at something and think, yes, I helped with this, if only with the blinders I placed on myself, then he'd take it.

They walked the length of the park as friends who shared a secret, one that could never be spoken aloud without the dreamlike peace shattering around them. Some battles weren't worth fighting.

Lelouch's complaints about the wave pool began before they were within ten feet of it.

"Nine hundred thousand gallons," he drawled, reading the sign posted outside. "Nine hundred thousand gallons of chlorinated, urine-filled water with band-aids and trash in it, while a quarter of East Asia is enduring its worst drought in a hundred years. Do you know how many people have died of kidney disease due to dehydration recently?"

Suzaku did not know. He did know that Lelouch would do absolutely anything to delay their entry into the pool, including inspecting their life jackets for tears or discoloration (a sign of weakness in the material, Suzaku was informed), reorganizing their bag three times, and attempting to distract Suzaku with a discussion of Britannia's over-reliance on chemical fertilizer. The waterproof pouches were opened and sealed again to ensure there were no leaks; the clips on Suzaku's vest were undone and refastened twice. There may have been an argument about the practicality of wearing sunglasses in the pool (Lelouch insisted that his eyes were too sensitive to sunlight to go without them so close to high noon). All of the attempts were shot down within five minutes, and Suzaku was perfectly content to watch Lelouch flounder as his list of would-be distractions gradually dwindled into nothing.

It was only when a line began to form around them that Suzaku realized Lelouch's game: the pool closed for cleaning in forty minutes. Fifty people were allowed in the pool at a time. This was running out the clock, the exact way he tried to get out of going up to bat in gym class on baseball days.

Well. Suzaku had a favorite method for dealing with that strategy at Ashford last year.

He grabbed Lelouch by his life jacket, lifting him a few inches off the ground, physically dragging him towards the line and refusing to relinquish his grip as Lelouch squawked and struggled. (He did not try to force his way to the front of the line, even though they were there first. Cutting in line was against the rules.) Five people were in front of them, with visitors exiting the pool individually or in groups about once every three minutes. All of Lelouch's delay tactics would end up costing them fifteen minutes at absolute most. That left them plenty of time to have fun.

The couple in front of them, a man and woman who looked to be in their twenties, turned and stared at the sound of Lelouch's accusations of violence. They exchanged glances, then focused on Suzaku's face, examining him. A year ago, this would have made him flinch in shame, fearful of strangers making assumptions about innocent Japanese people based on his poor behavior. Now, he continued to hold Lelouch in the air, threatening to throw him into the pool from ten feet away if he didn't behave himself.

"This at minimum qualifies as criminal coercion," Lelouch bleated. "I would argue for misdemeanor assault as well. And if you follow through on your threats, we should add battery to the list. Oh, but of course, you have immunity from prosecution now. So this is how you behave when there are no consequences for your actions, you boorish savage—"

"We're going in the damn pool," Suzaku said, grabbing the sunglasses off of Lelouch's face and revealing angrily-angled eyebrows. He took his own off so that they could glare at each other properly, eye-to-eye. "And we're staying for at least twenty minutes. I'll drown you if you try to leave."

Their neighbors in line seemed amused by the interaction, expressing absolutely no alarm at the death threat they'd just heard. Judging by their continued focus on Suzaku's face, there was something else drawing their attention.

"Hey now," said the man, a grin on his face, "aren't you the Knight of Seven? Sir, ah," he made a show of struggling for the right word, hand waving in the air, "Kurugi?"

Close enough.

Lelouch and Suzaku turned to stare at him in unison, their eyes meeting for half a second before flinching away from each other. Suzaku was still holding Lelouch slightly off of the ground, which suddenly seemed a bit inappropriate. Putting on his best attempt at a friendly expression, he nodded at the man. "That's me! Just here for some fun with a friend."

"Wow!" He turned to his female companion, excitement on her face. "I told you it was him! The guy who caught Zero!"

The woman fumbled with her purse, pulling out her phone in triumph. "Unbelievable! I need to take a picture!"

Before Suzaku could so much as blink, the phone made a shuttering sound accompanied by a flash. The resulting photo displayed Suzaku, bare-chested but for his life jacket, holding Lelouch in the air. The expression on the face of the Zero in question might have been gently described as baffled. The woman happily turned her phone around and showed the picture to Suzaku, who stared at it with a sort of incomprehension, as though it were an abstract art piece.

Deeply uncomfortable with the whole affair, he dropped Lelouch, who grunted and nearly toppled over from the three-inch fall. "That one's going on the fridge," he tried to joke, but it felt flat even to his own mind. Their photographers, now at the front of the line, seemed to appreciate it, at least.

"I just wanted you to know," the woman confided to him in a low tone, readying herself to get into the pool, "that my husband and I hold Princess Euphemia in high regard. We've heard what the government said about her," and at this he had a brief moment of hope, a bittersweet feeling in his heart, before she added: "But we think that's nonsense. That woman did more to crush the Elevens than anyone else in this incompetent administration. Absurd that she had to pay for such a brilliant move with her life."

And then she handed her pocketbook to the pool attendant and slid into the waves.

Dreams never lasted.

Lelouch was not his friend, and the only secret they shared was this: he had murdered Euphie, dragged her name through the mud as she lay dying while Suzaku held her hand. Slaughtered Elevens and Britannians alike, rallying his troops to bloodshed and abandoning them just as quickly once consequences caught up to his actions. He twisted the minds of those around them like they were dolls that existed to be characters in his play, remorselessly manipulating Euphemia, Cornelia, Suzaku himself. There was not a trace of honor in his body, and if there was goodness, it was only of the twisted sort: a kind of possessiveness mistaken for love, by Lelouch and Suzaku alike.

The world refused to change, and a single toy pirate ship would not change it.

Beckoned forward by the pool attendant, Suzaku dropped their bag at his feet, and he did not allow Lelouch to turn around.

All nine hundred thousand gallons of water undulated with artificial waves emitted by a machine. Young preteens shrieked in delight as they were violently sent bouncing up and down, some of them desperately trying to swim away from the approaching onslaught. Older visitors gathered towards the end of the pool; the waves were more gentle there, having lost most of their energy along the rest of the length of the water. The middle seemed a good compromise area until those positioned there were sandwiched between body-surfers flocking with the waves and incoming adventurers pushing their way up.

Wordlessly, Suzaku dragged Lelouch behind him, the earlier banter between them dissolved into silence. They pushed their way into the exact spot where the waves were at their peak, where the concentration of overactive adolescents was at its highest. Twenty minutes on the clock.

He reached over to Lelouch's life jacket and removed it, tossing it to the edge of the pool. Lelouch looked at him blankly, without shock or anger. The way he must have looked while covered by Euphie's bloodstains on Suzaku's uniform. Lelouch was not a strong swimmer, and the lifeguard seemed to be paying no attention at all to the water, but he had nothing to fear. Suzaku would never let him die—not until he got his answers.

Clovisland Pool: have some fun!, the speakers blared.

The first wave approached.

Chapter Text

A drowned cat was too obvious a metaphor for Lelouch's state after they emerged from the pool, and an inaccurate one besides. Pale, tense-jawed, and shivering as they emerged from the torment chamber, he looked less annoyed and more distant, like he'd sent his mind somewhere else and was only gradually summoning it back into his body. He had not spoken, screamed, or laughed once during their time in the waves.

As promised, Suzaku had not let him drown. He'd been close to it a time or two, admittedly; a boy who looked to be around thirteen, ignoring those around him in typical boyish fashion, crashed into him on an incoming wave and sent him under the water. Suzaku had to search for him in a panic as he went ten seconds without resurfacing, finally spotting a black smudge beneath the surface. A particularly huge wave had caused Lelouch to brace himself too much, the tension in his legs rooting him down where he should have allowed himself to flow with the water, catching the wave directly in his face and wheezing as he coughed it out of his lungs. He instinctively clung to Suzaku to keep himself afloat, and Suzaku, in momentary pity, did not shrug him off.

So it went for around fifteen minutes, when Suzaku wordlessly shepherded Lelouch back towards the end of the pool and let him recover in the gentler waves. By the time they'd dragged themselves out of the water, pruned and disheveled, the laughter of those around them seemed strange, almost like background noise pumped in from a speaker. All that was real was this, the two of them, dripping wet and mutually stiff and the space between them filled with unspoken accusations and apologies and regrets.

Suzaku could have pushed him further, dragged him onto one of the slides with twists and turns or the chute with a perilous angle, but he decided not to indulge his bitter sense of victory. He'd pushed Lelouch far enough. The message had been transmitted and received. It was time for someplace quieter and more secluded, where the day's business could be attended to.

When they'd made the trek from the pirate ship to the wave pool, they'd stopped by the map again, trying to plan their itinerary for the rest of the day. As always, Lelouch had gravitated towards the lazy river, suggesting that they enjoy a ride there and then head to the faux-beach. But Suzaku had noticed something in the new addition to the map, a place labeled The Old Mill, illustrated with boats fashioned to look like swans headed into a tunnel in the shape of a heart. What better place, he said, to end a date?

And so they walked there now in awkward silence, Suzaku once again assigned the role of a pack mule, Lelouch uselessly wringing out his shirt and inspecting the discarded life vest for damage. He opened his waterproof pouch, checking his phone for cracks; it had been in the vest's pocket when Suzaku had so carelessly thrown it aside.

The Old Mill was a ride for lovers, swan boats slowly floating along guideways as they made their way through dark and romantic tunnels. Only one boat was in motion at any one time; it was as intimate as anywhere in an amusement park could be. If this were a real date and Lelouch were someone willing to be wooed, it would have been perfect. As a spot where the two of them could be confined together, hidden from the eyes and ears of others, it did its job.

There wasn't a line for the attraction. Suzaku and Lelouch stood alone, waiting for the attendant to get off her phone and help them into the boat. If the park manager aimed to optimize every ride to increase revenue, then this one was a failure. But the swan boat was pretty, almost comically elegant-looking among the cartoonish surroundings, something that Prince Clovis may have liked if he'd lived to see it.

They placed the bag along the floor of the boat, climbing into it through its wing-door. There was no room to avoid each other, despite their best attempts; their shoulders pressed into each others' bodies uncomfortably until Suzaku placed his arm along the back of the seat, winding it behind Lelouch's head. Like a proper couple.

Lelouch looked behind him as the boat started moving, already missing the solid ground and the opportunity to be at least a foot away from Suzaku. The swan made its way to the mouth of a tunnel, dim neon lights outlining the heart shape of its entrance.

"Pretty fun day so far," Suzaku ventured, the darkness swallowing them up. "Don't you think?"

A mild huff was the only response, and Suzaku figured that Lelouch was planning on giving him the silent treatment, stonewalling any attempt at interrogation. But then he heard a sigh, followed by this: "Besides my near-death experiences, yes. It has not been entirely unpleasant."

And that was the truth, wasn't it. When they forgot about what sat in the space between them, or at least when they forced themselves to ignore it, things were—nice.

But they could not ignore it forever.

"I'm glad I got to spend time with you. And I mean that." He shifted in his seat, trying to face Lelouch, who was staring straight ahead of them. "You know, a long time ago, when I was a kid, I had a good friend. You remind me of him sometimes." Struggling to find the right words, to ask without asking, to be direct but evasive, he took a breath. "My friend had a little sister, like you have Rolo. He thought the world of her, but then things got—complicated. And his sister got separated from him." The neon hearts on the walls of the tunnel caught the color in Lelouch's eyes, the bright purple shining in the dark that surrounded them. "What would you do if that happened to Rolo?"

"That depends on who took him." The light moved out of his eyes, shrouding them in darkness once more. "Where he was being held captive, what sorts of obstacles stood in the way of rescuing him."

"I didn't say he was being held captive," Suzaku corrected, because this was important. "He—my friend's sister, she was fine. She missed her brother, but she was happy, and she didn't feel like she needed to be rescued. She had things that she wanted to do, even if he disagreed with them."

Lelouch said nothing in response, stonewalling again. None of it had been a lie, much as Lelouch might refuse to believe it. Nunnally had pushed for her position as viceroy, eager to carry out Euphie's good intentions and make them a reality; she had requested an audience with the Emperor, the man who exiled her to a warzone, and made her case in a clear and strong voice. She'd told Suzaku as much herself, with a sort of plea underpinning her words: I'm doing this for Euphie, so I need you to return the favor and do something for Lelouch. I know you know where he is. I know you're lying to me. And I will do something drastic to find him myself if you don't give me your aid.

Her brother had done his damndest to keep her sheltered and ignorant to the brutal reality of the world, but Nunnally was not stupid. She had an uncanny, almost supernatural knack for the truth, though knowing could not always translate to acting for her, constrained as she was by her eyes and legs and political vulnerability. So she chose to ignore it or bury it when she could do nothing about it, using a smile to cut through the bitterness—it was her way of asserting some control, of telling the world I will not be broken. Even as a kid Lelouch had mistaken this for blissful unawareness, a parent who saw his child as innocent rather than a brother who saw his sister as equal. But Suzaku was well-practiced in the art of self-delusion, and he understood what hid behind Nunnally's gentle exterior.

And so here he was, in a tunnel of love with her brother, keeping his end of the unspoken bargain. Protecting Nunnally and stopping Zero had to be his priority. But protecting Nunnally meant protecting her brother—even from his own insanity.

"If that happened to Rolo," he tried again, the boat emerging in the momentary light between tunnels, "would you try to get him back, even if that's not what he'd want? Even if it risked his safety?"

Folding his hands in his lap, Lelouch finally graced Suzaku with a sidelong glance. "I would assume that he was being used, whether he was aware of it or not. The world is a cruel place, even if he doesn't realize it. And I would assume," he said, louder and more direct, "that it was my responsibility as his brother to stop him from being a pawn in someone's plot. Especially if everyone around him, even those who should love him, was perfectly content watching him be used."

If Lelouch wasn't the sort of person who was revolted by spitting, Suzaku figured that he'd cap off that sentence with a spit into the water, or maybe into Suzaku's face. And Suzaku would take it, just this once. Using Lelouch's one weak spot, the one person he loved most—the one person he loved at all, maybe, even though Suzaku had once numbered Shirley, Euphie, himself in that short list—it was low.

Not quite as low as murdering his half-sister, stoking his rebellion on her funeral pyre. Not quite as low as slaughtering in Nunnally's name as he lied to her and tolerated her pleas for peace. But low, sure. That's how the world worked, though. Lelouch had taught him as much.

So he took the venom and the spite, but offered more cold truths in return. "Maybe Rolo isn't as ignorant to the world around him as you think he is. You should have more respect for him, Lelouch. He is your brother, after all. Hasn't he learned something from you?"

Lelouch opened his mouth to respond, a sound emerging and then being cut-off in a strange way and replaced by a startled yell.

A large obstruction had appeared on the guideway, right in the middle of the swan boat's path, five feet ahead of them. A rock or a small obelisk or something else solid and capable of derailing the boat. Suzaku blinked at it, baffled; it had not been there a moment ago, had it? And what was that shadow scampering off towards the edge of his vision?

He remembered nothing else from their pleasant boat ride.

Chapter Text

The park manager, covered in plastic flakes and still carrying a saw, inspected the soggy teenagers with more confusion than irritation. "I apologize for the mistake, sir, and don't concern yourself with the damages. The boulder from the lagoon ride should not have been anywhere close to there, and I understand your alarm at its presence. I know soldiers can be—jumpy."

Despite the plastic boulder weighing no more than fifteen pounds and posing more of a risk to the paint of the boat than the lives of its occupants, the curse that Zero had placed upon Suzaku caused him to interpret it as a threat. He thus chopped the boat in half, using his hand as a tomahawk, immediately prior to its would-be collision with the obstruction. Lelouch, startled, had fallen atop the wreckage, the knee-deep water soaking the shirt he'd spent so long wringing out. Suzaku had blinked into awareness as he stared down at Lelouch, whose head was in his hands, mumbling something about incompetence.

No one could explain how the boulder had materialized on the track in the blink of an eye. Suzaku wanted to blame Lelouch for it, as unexplained phenomena tended to follow him wherever he went, but Lelouch's many magical talents did not, as far as Suzaku knew, involve telekinesis. And his unmanly yelp had seemed quite genuine.

Lelouch had promptly thrown Suzaku under the bus as alarmed attendants raced towards the sound of the incident, informing them that Suzaku was a Knight of the Round and his salary would more than cover any repairs to the ride. The fact that Suzaku had been under the sway of Lelouch's geass did not seem to register, at least not in comparison to the irritation Lelouch still clearly felt regarding their interrupted conversation.

Happily, the park manager informed them that the ride was a bust anyway, due to be replaced by something better and more exciting. (And, he added, tone flattened out, compliant with all accessibility suggestions as outlined by Lelouch.) He thanked them for giving him an excuse to replace it and sent them on their way as he whistled, headed back to dismantle part of another ride.

Some divine being had clearly been trying to send the message that their day at the park should come to an end, so Lelouch and Suzaku took the hint and made their way to the beach.

Clovisland Pool's beach was officially titled the Beach Pool by Clovis, according to a banner greeting guests, which Lelouch immediately scoffed at. The Beach Pool by Clovis at Clovisland Pool was, in practice, an enormous heated infinity pool raised above Tokyo Bay, its waters blending seamlessly with the dirtier seawater beyond it. The imported sand that had been carefully arranged along its fake shore did not quite manage to capture the warmth and softness of the real thing, but even Lelouch had to admit that the overall effect was calming. The quiet waves of the bay in the distance, at least, were not fake.

The two boys dipped their feet in the pool, walking its length in the opposite direction of most of the tourists. Gulls called to each other as they dived and flew on the horizon, searching for whatever fish remained in the sea.

A sort of calm had settled over the both of them now that they were removed from the garish colors and screams of the park. Maybe they were both struck by the ridiculousness of it all—the boat, destroyed by Suzaku on Lelouch's indirect order; the date, a mutually-acknowledged farce that neither could admit aloud; the fact that two friends, brought close on the eve of one war, had been so permanently separated by another. Here, at the border of Area 11 and the world that lay beyond it, they could almost leave it all behind.

Lelouch had given up on his drying his shirt, content to shiver as the air chilled him. Suzaku had fished a protein bar out of their bag and handed it to him as they walked as a sort of apology gift, though what he was apologizing for was unclear even to him. Lelouch had insisted that Suzaku eat the other one, concerned about his ratio of calories consumed to calories expended. Either out of boredom or as a sign of protest towards the very concept of Clovisland, Lelouch grabbed a pebble from the fake beach and tried to skip it out across the pool, failing miserably and sending it sinking five feet away from him. Trying to stifle a laugh, Suzaku grabbed another one, flawlessly plotting a path that sent it so far into the distance that it seemed to travel into the open sea. Outraged, Lelouch insisted that Suzaku had cheated, using a lighter rock, or a heavier one, or whichever one skipped better—he wasn't a geologist, how was he supposed to know?

The next ten minutes passed with Suzaku finding pebbles of various sizes, skipping them all across the water and watching Lelouch study his technique and entirely fail to properly apply it. The bottom of Clovisland Pool's Beach Pool by Clovis gradually filled with small rocks that probably clogged its filter, but Lelouch said it was their own fault for trying to recreate nature, and Suzaku supposed that was fair.

They sank further into the warm water, going up to their chests, enjoying the stillness and lack of waves or children bodysurfing. The sun was an hour from setting, and most of the tourists were on their way home, leaving the pool sparsely-occupied and free of chaos. Lelouch felt safe enough to dip his head under the water for the briefest of moments, trusting Suzaku to not hold him under. For a few moments, for the span of a fragile dream, it was like they had never been separated at all. Like Nunnally was with them, maybe somewhere off with Shirley and Milly, this time allowed to ride the whirlpool as her brother and his best friend enjoyed their time together. Like this place was the result of an eccentric and strange businessman who set up shop in Japan, not the colonist prince who once ruled its people.

It wasn't any of those things. But God, it would have been nice if it were.

The towels buried at the bottom of their bag, long-forgotten during the events of the day, were finally put to use as Lelouch and Suzaku patted themselves dry and sat upon the sand, staring out at the sea. Lelouch stretched out his legs, leaning back on his hands, looking at peace. They'd never put their sunglasses back on, and Suzaku could no longer remember where they'd placed them.

But it didn't really matter. It was all out in the open now, wasn't it? Not in words, maybe; not in a way that was beyond deniability, beyond doubt. Still. Lelouch remembered what he had done. Suzaku could not change how he'd responded. Neither would leave their paths headed in opposite directions. Zero would come for Nunnally, capturing her to save her, but he loved her too much to harm her. They would face each other down in war once more, killing allies and friends, and there was nothing to be done about any of it.

He got the answers he'd come for. And none of it changed a thing.

Lying down on the towel, head propped up by his elbow, Suzaku looked up at Lelouch. His eyes were closed, his phone on his lap, displaying a conversation with a message that had just been received.

Halfway through 16. Arrive in 5 mins, read the outgoing text.

Understood, came the reply from the sender listed only as Domino's. And then, two minutes ago: Sorry.

Suzaku's eyes returned to Lelouch's gentle face, lingering there and ignoring whatever pizza he'd just ordered. Some battles weren't worth fighting.

"Hey," he whispered, so quietly that he was not sure if Lelouch could hear him, not sure if he wanted Lelouch to hear him. "You asked me once, if we would have been—in another life. If things were different. Do you remember that?"

Lelouch did not open his eyes, and for a moment seemed to have fallen asleep. "I remember," he finally said.

"I think we could have." His voice sounded raw and wounded to his own ears, too thick to say more than a few words at a time. "I think"—if things were better, if Lelouch were not Euphie's murderer, if they hadn't been separated by death and conquest, if they could erase all of their memories and just meet each other again for the second time, Shinjuku and every day since a bad dream—"it would have been good."

He stared out at the sea, feeling foolish and vulnerable, every bit the idiot Lelouch had always told him he was. This man had taken everything from him, drenched the world in blood, vowed to do it again, and he felt like crying over this, over him. Because maybe Zero did not deserve his tears, but the boy who used to fish with him did. The boy who engineered complex plots to help Suzaku make friends did, even though he thought Suzaku was too stupid to realize what he'd done. The boy who was helpless at skipping stones—he did, too. And all of them were going to have to be destroyed for Euphie's world to be born.

A rustling sound brought Suzaku out of his misery as Lelouch came into view, lying down on his towel and joining Suzaku in watching the sun make its way towards the horizon. "Sounds nice."

They said nothing more, waiting for night to fall.

The car ride back to Ashford felt faster than the torturous one to the waterpark, even though they hit rush hour traffic. Lelouch vowed to research the art of skipping rocks, and he would prove that Suzaku was using some trick or sleight of hand, and they would return to this topic at another time.

They had managed to put their pants on with much less effort than taking them off had involved. Lelouch had consented to putting his bare feet on the sand as he changed, owing to the decreased likelihood of fungal infections. His shirt still clung to him uncomfortably, so Suzaku had draped a towel over him, which he huddled into like a soft cocoon.

As they passed the media center, Suzaku suddenly remembered the picture that the couple had taken of the two of them, embarrassment flooding his cheeks. He prayed to every god he knew of that the horrible woman wouldn't post it anywhere; the last thing he needed was a public image of him manhandling a lithe and beautiful Britannian man. Lelouch was unsympathetic, pointing out that Suzaku had ample opportunity to grab her camera from the attendant by the powers vested in him as an agent of the Empire and thus someone who far outranked a theme park worker making twelve dollars an hour. Playing by the rules had its own consequences.

They spent the last ten minutes of the ride again discussing estate law, which Lelouch had either extensively researched for this express purpose or had a genuine interest in. In either case, Suzaku really needed to create a last will and testament, and also needed to bestow someone with his healthcare power of attorney in case he ended up braindead. Maybe Cecile. Lelouch would be a poor choice, as he was so determined to make sure that Suzaku lived—

Anyway.

It was dark when they finally pulled up to the clubhouse, Rolo opening the door to greet them. Suzaku had expected him to be annoyed for stealing Lelouch away and sending Villetta to keep him occupied, but instead he looked sheepish, glancing up at Lelouch for some sort of approval or forgiveness. Lelouch ignored him, turning to Suzaku as he exited the car.

"I know it might sound like I'm being ironic," he said, slow and deliberate, "but I did manage to enjoy myself today. So... thank you." He tried to pull the bag out of the trunk, allowing Suzaku to take over as his back nearly snapped in half from its weight.

"Glad to be of service." And then he looked behind where the bag had been, at the box there, and remembered his assistant's note. Hesitantly, he reached for it, opening it up. Sunflowers and daisies and something darker, larkspur maybe, greeted him; all of it was bundled together in a clear vase wrapped in twine. Beside him, he saw Lelouch avert his eyes, trying and failing to keep himself from blushing.

He pulled out the bouquet, handing it to Lelouch, who stared at it in silence. "Here. For that other life of ours."

Crickets chirped in the warm air of late spring as they stood together, saying goodbye in more than a literal way.

"Thank you," Lelouch finally managed, soft and uncomplicated. Without a further word, he turned and walked away, leaving Suzaku standing where he was.

He remained there for a long moment, trying to engrave it in his memory, then let the car bring him back to work.