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“I’d like to memorize the different rhythms of your heartbeat.”
Suzaku was no stranger to satisfying Lelouch’s whims– even his eccentric immortal ones, now. So he just sighed and said:
“Okay.”
And that was that.
In all honesty, he didn't expect Lelouch to be around anywhere near frequently enough for him to fulfill that goal. It had been five years since his last visit, which was also his first visit… a whole three years after his resurrection. Suzaku figured that to an immortal, for whom time meant nothing, these visits were frequent. Suzaku, however, didn’t hold that sentiment, so he met Lelouch with a scolding both times– and Lelouch met that with irreverence both times. Jackass. Even still, Suzaku would always intend on letting him stay for as long as he wanted, which would never be long enough.
But he was still there as of now, sitting in the chair across from Suzaku at the admittedly pathetic dining table in his private wing. Nunnally herself was the only other person in the palace allowed in the area, so Suzaku found no need for it to be ornate. It was square-shaped and only had two chairs set at it. They would have been able to manage with only a singular chair for Suzaku, obviously, but both he and Nunnally still silently held this naive hope that Lelouch would be there sitting with them more regularly, one day.
That day had not come, and it likely never would, but the chair remained set at the table all the same. It was convenient for times like these, as infrequent as they were.
Lelouch was looking at him expectantly, though Suzaku had no clue what he expected of him, so they were awkwardly staring at each other for a short while. Suzaku was often nostalgic for a time when he could read Lelouch's expressions as if they were his own- but with each passing year, with him getting older and Lelouch still looking the same, he almost felt like more of a stranger than ever.
“Your wrist, Suzaku?”
Ah.
“You know, that’s the pulse, not my heartbeat.”
As pedantic as his reply was, he still moved his arm to rest wrist-up on the table between them. Lelouch clicked his tongue, putting his left hand beneath Suzaku’s wrist, cradling it as he used his right hand to press two fingers to the radial artery.
“They're one in the same, you know.”
“You’re an expert now?”
“You come to know things, when you have all the time in the world.”
Suzaku sighed. All the time in the world, yet he’s only visited him twice? His sigh was his way of biting his tongue. He didn't want to get into it, however Lelouch had other ideas.
“What are you sighing for?”
“Lelouch.”
Suzaku warned, putting an edge on the end of his name that always spelled trouble.
“I’m only asking you a question, Suzaku.”
Lelouch, the jackass, had a self-satisfied smile on his face. Suzaku was about to really go off on him, but Lelouch shifted his eyeline to where he was holding his wrist and Suzaku wised up, catching on to his game. He shifted tactics, swallowing his rising anger through gritted teeth. (He may need to work on his short fuse.)
“Clever,” he remarked with thick sarcasm, “trying to get a read on all of the variants of my heartrate?”
“Yes. Do you mind?”
Suzaku rolled his eyes at him.
“Would it kill you to have a pleasant conversation, for once?”
“We just established that nothing could kill me. We’re similar like that, aren't we?”
Suzaku had that thought before. Both of them were cursed to live through someone else’s selfish wish, beyond their control. Still, similar was not the same.
“I can age.”
“I could tell.”
Suzaku was going to kill him again. He blinked at the immortal, annoyance clearly visible on his face. Lelouch corrected himself.
“It's not a bad thing, necessarily. It suits you.”
Suzaku frowned, that nostalgia for what they used to have was creeping its way into his head again.
“It would have suited you, too.”
“We both knew that wasn't possible. The entire point of the Zero Requiem was–”
“The Zero Requiem didn't intend for you to rise from the fucking dead, Lelouch, so I think we’re a bit past being stuck on that.”
He didn't intend to get worked up, but Lelouch was very apparently an expert at putting pressure on his sore spots. Jackass. After calming down, at least a tiny bit, he spoke up again.
“Are you happy now? You got what you wanted, after all. Typical.”
Lelouch didn't respond. Suzaku didn't want him to. In a move that was maybe even worse than verbally responding, though, the immortal tried to soothe him. He shifted his right hand away from checking his pulse and attempted to just hold the offered hand. Suzaku didn't let himself want it, retracting his arm back to his side of the table.
“You have give-or-take sixty years, Lelouch. Think you can make it back before then?”
Suzaku stood from his seat and all but stormed off without letting Lelouch answer. He wouldn't have one worth hearing, anyways.
It didn't surprise Suzaku very much when Lelouch was gone by the next morning. Nunnally was immensely disappointed, just as she was the past two times when Lelouch left too soon. Suzaku couldn't blame her, nor would he even dream of it. For one, this was the shortest of Lelouch’s visits by a country mile. He wasn’t even with them for twenty-four hours. (Suzaku knew it was his fault, that he shouldn’t have treated him so coldly, but Lelouch had it coming, with the way he was acting.) Furthermore, he had time with Lelouch, up until the procession. They weren't especially happy times, necessarily, but he got a whole lot longer to bid farewell to him than she did. Nunnally hardly got a minute, clutching onto her older brother’s dying body as her tortured wails were drowned out by the joyous cheering of the crowd. None of them could hear her, but Suzaku could. He always wondered if Lelouch heard her, too… or if he even remembered, now. He wouldn't dare ask him, though. Some aspects of his resurrection were better left as unknowns. The ignorance didn't necessarily help him sleep at night, but it prevented the knowledge from being yet another thing to keep him awake.
“My brother stopped to talk with me before he left last night.”
Nunnally spoke up, breaking the silence between the two of them as they were traveling down the hall. They’d just finished breakfast, and were on their way out for the day– there was a charity event that Nunnally was sponsoring, so of course she and Zero would make an appearance. Behind the mask, Suzaku raised a brow.
“Really? That was… courteous of him. What did he say?”
“That you didn't want him here, so he was going to leave.” Suzaku’s heart twisted with something close to remorse. Guilt? Not quite. Regret? Maybe. Yearning? …Suzaku didn't want to think about that one. Nunnally continued, “I wish you two wouldn't get into fights so often.”
He looked at the young lady’s face, seeing an upset frown cast upon it as she turned to look back at him.
“I just want things to be like how they were, Suzaku! I thought that it might be possible. When he came back to life, it kind of felt like a miracle… but he’s always so far away.”
As tears came to the princesses eyes, she stopped in her tracks. Suzaku stopped alongside her, kneeling and placing a hand on her shoulder. Lelouch was always the better of the two of them at comforting her, obviously, but Suzaku always saw her as a sort of little sister, too– and he was all she had, now.
“I’m sorry, Nunnally. Next time, I’ll try harder to get along.”
“I’m afraid there won't even be a next time.”
Suzaku was immensely grateful for his face being fully concealed behind Zero’s mask. This way, Nunnally couldn't see his solemn expression of pessimistic agreement. He gave himself time to think of an answer that would soothe her.
“I don't think anything in this world could keep him from you. Not forever. He’ll… be back.”
Nunnally gratefully smiled at him, but a certain sadness still permeated the expression. She could certainly hear his hesitant uncertainty, despite how hard he tried to reassure her.
“Thank you, Suzaku. I’m glad I have you here.”
“Of course. I’m not going anywhere.”
Being by her side was the only thing he was good for now, anyways.
“We should hurry, though… wouldn't want to be late. Right, Zero?”
“Of course.”
Lelouch was back by the next week. He strolled into the palace like it wasn't anybody's business, and kept on going until he reached that same pathetic dining table and sat himself down next to Suzaku and Nunnally. The two permanent residents didn't do a double take, it had to have been quintuple. They stared at him for a solid thirty seconds, Nunnally’s eyes wide and Suzaku's jaw agape. Lelouch gave them the slightest tilt of his head.
“Whatever happened to hello?”
Nunnally was quick to recover. Suzaku was still jaw-dropped.
“I’m sorry, we’re very glad to see you! It was just… unexpected, is all!”
Nunnally smiled with a genuine joy, her shock well and truly washed away. Lelouch, in spite of his prior words, smiled right back at her.
“I haven't exactly called ahead before, either, have I?” Lelouch turned his head to his best friend, his smile dropping. “Suzaku, close your mouth.” Without a hitch, he was smiling at Nunnally again as she giggled nervously and took his hand.
“Be easy on him, Lelouch, you know it's not so easy being Zero. He’s surely just tired, right Suzaku?”
Suzaku closed his mouth and nodded.
“I suppose I’ll grant that, then.”
Surprisingly, Lelouch didn't seem the slightest bit miffed to be saying that. His tone held a special fondness that even his masterful deceit had never quite replicated. Suzaku finally swallowed his shock.
“It’s good to see you again, Lelouch.”
“Likewise.”
Lelouch saying shit like ‘likewise’ made him incredibly punchable and kissable. Suzaku most often went for the former, but in the time leading up to the zero requiem, all bets were off and he became very partial towards the latter. It broke his heart every single time, but he knew it would have been far worse to lose him without ever having been lovers, no matter how brief. It’s been… awkward, though, since his resurrection. The most intimate they’d been was genuinely when Lelouch was measuring his pulse. They were both touch-starved and stubborn, and of course their stubbornness trumped all else, just as it always had.
Nunnally squeezed her brother's hand before letting go, beginning to wheel back from the table.
“I’ll grab a third cup for you, and I’ll send for a pitcher of iced tea, too! I’ve been really keen on it lately, you know!”
“Have you? We have some catching up to do, then.”
The siblings smiled at each other in mutual agreement, and Nunnally was out the door. Lelouch's sight lingered on the doorway in a way that, even now, Suzaku could tell was steeped in regret. So he reached out to him in the only way he knew how: with claws out and teeth bared.
“What makes you think that her happy world doesn't have you in it, anyways?”
Lelouch simply looked at him, poorly concealing a sigh. At least he turned away from the door. Suzaku took it as an invitation to keep steamrolling.
“That was the whole reason for everything, remember? Everything in your entire life- hell, in the end, my entire life, too- was all so you could make a happy world for Nunnally… and you don't think that she wants you in it?”
Suzaku walked the edge of condemning and consoling– an attempt to understand and a motion to criticize. He wasn't sure which way he wanted to come off, which way would actually reach Lelouch, so he wound up being both and neither. He was still as unsure of his convictions as he was at age seventeen– and he was still just as stubborn in his refusal to examine that uncertainty. Lelouch eyed him in a way that seemed to undress all of that confusion, though- as if he somehow saw straight through Suzaku and was peering into the dull core of his soul.
“It’s for the better.”
Lelouch’s reply was as depressed and detached as Suzaku could have anticipated. It was a tone the brunette came to know very well from his friends lips: the resignation to a misery that Lelouch found to be unavoidable.
“Bullshit, Lelouch.”
He wasn't going to have it, though. Maybe driving a sword through Lelouch's heart was something unavoidable, but the way they were living right now had to have a different solution. All three of them were suffering unique miseries, and it certainly didn't have to be this way. Right?
“She’s a young lady, now. She doesn't need me anymore.”
Suzaku narrowed his eyes, frustration culminating into an anger that thrummed throughout his nervous system. Certainly, he’d have to get through to Lelouch by telling him off. He unclenched his teeth to open his mouth and say
“I need you.”
Well. Suzaku was utterly flabbergasted by what he had said. He hardly even let himself think things like that. The only thing that stung worse than the embarrassment of letting that slip was the look that Lelouch gave him. He didn't quite have the expression of a kicked puppy, more so that of a man looking at one. Suzaku's mouth went dry as he swallowed empty air.
“We… need you, Lelouch.”
He inwardly cringed at how rough of a recovery that was. Lelouch didn't even humor the new statement, still looking at him with that pitiful expression. Suzaku wanted to hide. He wanted to run into Lelouch's arms. He wanted to tell him off for having the nerve to look at him like that. He wanted him to never look away. He wanted him to leave. He wanted him to promise he'd stay forever. He wanted and wanted and wanted and wanted but never ever had. How could he have anything when everything he wanted contradicted each other?
“Suzaku–”
“Yes?”
Suzaku was far too eager to change the subject. Lelouch exhaled measuredly through his nose.
“May I listen to your heartbeat again?”
Suzaku very slightly narrowed his eyes.
“You’re not going to try anything this time?”
Lelouch narrowed his eyes with a much steeper degree.
“What do you think?”
Suzaku supposed that was a fair reaction. For all of Lelouch's faults, he was hardly the type to make the same mistake twice. Suzaku held his wrist over the table again.
“No, uh… Go ahead.”
Lelouch hummed in affirmation, yet barely spared the offered limb a glance. He rose from his seat and moved to stand directly in front of Suzaku's chair, the fabric of his pant leg brushing against the brunette's knees. A question died in Suzaku's throat as Lelouch gave a preemptive answer in the form of placing his palm firmly over the right side of his chest. A subtle heat rose to Suzaku's face, and he could have sworn that Lelouch had a faint flush, too. Without breaking their eye contact, he placed his formerly extended hand on top of Lelouch's, lacing their fingers together as well as he could. Like this, he could feel his heartbeat, too.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Despite the apparent nervousness, his heart rate was steady. Calm. Soothed. Suzaku leaned forward, resting the crown of his head against Lelouch's sternum. He could feel the rise and fall of the immortal’s chest, this way. He let his eyes slip shut as he felt slender fingers find purchase in his hair.
It was nice. It reminded him that he was alive. He felt like a ghost still tethered to this world, sometimes. It might have began when Lelouch died and he took up the role of Zero- but it probably began before that. Thinking back, it may have begun the day Euphemia died. When he watched her get shot or when he felt her hand go cold in his own. Maybe before that, even. Maybe on the day he killed his father. Maybe on the day he was born. But Suzaku wasn't a ghost, he was alive with warm skin and a beating heart. He was going to be alive for a long time, thanks to the man he was leaning on at present. There was a time when Suzaku was afraid he’d been cursed to live forever. He’d scrutinize himself in the mirror for hours on end, horrified to find no wrinkle or dimple he didn't already have by age seventeen. That wasn't something that he stressed himself over anymore, though… at least not too much. He had frown lines, now. Immortals didn't wrinkle, surely. He was twenty-eight and getting older- and one day he’d be old enough to die. Lelouch's Geass certainly wasn't powerful enough to stop the passage of time. One day, he would die, and Lelouch would live on. Yet again, Suzaku felt like the original intention of the zero requiem was so far away. They were stupid kids back then. Stupid kids with the entire world in their palms.
“The other day, when you told me I have ‘give-or-take sixty years’ left with you… I knew that, already.”
The comfort that Suzaku was relishing in abandoned him in an instant. He opened his eyes and Lelouch's fingers felt like snakes in his hair. He didn't lift his head, though. He didn't even open his mouth.
“That’s why I want to memorize your heartbeat, Suzaku… It’ll be all I have left of you.”
‘Then stay,’ Suzaku wanted to beg him. ‘Actually spend those years with me, Lelouch, please,’ he didn't say. He only pressed Lelouch's hand into his chest.
“I wish you didn't have to die.”
Suzaku physically recoiled. He raised his head off of Lelouch's chest violently, simultaneously standing from his chair. He knocked it down as he stood. He didn't care. He stared at Lelouch with a wide-eyed and sudden furious betrayal. He didn't move his hand from his heart, though. In fact, he kept his hand on top of Lelouch's and squeezed.
“What?”
Suzaku seethed, voice dripping in a dangerous anger that Lelouch hadn't heard in earnest since the black rebellion.
“Suzaku, I didn't mean it like–”
“Yes you did. You don't view me as a person, even now. I’m just a thing. A pawn in your big chess game, right? Something you wish you could continue to keep around for when you need him?”
Lelouch's tone went from a sympathetic one to a defensive one that matched Suzaku’s emotion. Not as intense of an anger, not even close, but anger still.
“You know for a fact that's not what I think!”
“Bullshit!” Suzaku said yet again. “You don't give a shit about me or what I want!”
“That’s not true, Suzaku!”
“Then why do you refuse to let me die?!”
“I–”
“That’s all I want!”
Suzaku felt his eyes sting with brimming tears. Fuck.
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted, Lelouch!”
The anger left Lelouch's face as quickly as it came. It twisted with a sympathy that made Suzaku's stomach turn.
“Suzaku–”
“Don't look at me like that! You’re the one who did this to me. …And you’d do it again, wouldn't you?”
Lelouch struggled to respond. He twisted his hand to be palm-to-palm with Suzaku, locking their fingers together.
“Yes. I would.”
Suzaku squeezed harder.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“You're so selfish.”
“I am.”
Suzaku went to insult him again, but he choked on the sob that was caught in his throat and his voice broke. In spite of himself, or maybe because of it, he crumpled against Lelouch and bawled into his neck. They both had their arms around each other in an instant, Suzaku clutching fervently to the back of Lelouch's shirt. Lelouch smoothed his hand up and down Suzaku's back- encouraging him to let it out, but gently shushing him whenever he managed to get his lingual lamentations out. The reason being that they were mostly some variation on ‘I don't want to live.’ Lelouch would follow up with a soft and earnest apology, a rarity that Suzaku might have better appreciated hearing in another circumstance.
Were the two of them just wholly incapable of sharing a nice moment, now? He knows they used to have the capacity to. He had memories from before the war of tender moments between them. They'd lay in the sunflower fields and stargaze. They'd wade through creeks and rivers. They’d run and climb and play and get along. Even though they were two boys born into opposite sides of an inevitable conflict, and those boys now only existed through the tinted lens of nostalgia, they were better off than what they were now: unstoppable force and immovable object. Two star-crossed polar opposites who loved and hated each other more than anything else.
That sentiment didn't calm Suzaku's sobbing in the slightest. He really wanted them to be able to be in each other's lives, he really did, but Lelouch has never been easy to understand and Suzaku has never been much of an optimist. The former soldier was very quick to catastrophize into the worst case scenario, immediately jumping to the assumption that they were well and truly doomed. All he felt he had control over was how tightly he clung onto Lelouch– and so he had the back of Lelouch's shirt bunched into bundles of loose-fitting fabric between his knuckles.
“Suzaku,” Lelouch waited to speak until there was a lull in his friend's cries, “I’ve only ever wanted what's best for you.”
Suzaku was going to question how shooting Euphemia dead was what was best for him, but it died in his throat. He knew Lelouch was lying about using her to motivate Japan, he knew that it was a lie even as Lelouch was saying it back then. (It didn't stop it from enraging him. Pushing the ex-prince’s head into the dirt that day is one of the few things he's never come to regret.)
“So please, don't say things like that.”
Suzaku sniffled and swallowed the next wave of cries that threatened to wash over him in favor of formulating words.
“I was only saying how I felt.”
Lelouch kept smoothing his hand down his back, but sighed with an overwhelming sadness.
“You will die, one day. It's inevitable.”
“...I know.”
“So you don't have to want for it.”
“But–”
“Some things will only happen if you have the desire and drive to make them so. But death comes for us all… all you have to do is wait for it.”
Suzaku would have frowned, if he wasn't frowning already. Lelouch was speaking so tactically about an emotional matter– it made Suzaku feel as if he’d said something wrong before, when he asserted he was only telling the truth, and he’d caused Lelouch to lock his genuine side away again. He could tell there was something else that Lelouch had wanted to say, but he couldn't tell what it was.
Suzaku stood himself upright, scanning Lelouch’s face for anything readable. There was nothing there to find.
“I suppose I am decent at waiting.”
Lelouch's eyes softened.
“That you are, my knight.”
Suzaku blinked. He hadn't called him that in a while. Lelouch raised his hands to brush away the tears from Suzaku's face. Perhaps the tenderness hadn't been entirely sealed away, after all. Suzaku still wished that they could speak freely with one another, but he supposed that the warmth of Lelouch's hands was a fine enough compensation.
Once Lelouch had dried all of his tears away, his hands stayed cupped around his cheeks. Oh. Lelouch closed his eyes and began to lean in, Suzaku pursed his lips and did the same. They leaned closer to each other, closer until Suzaku could feel Lelouch's breath on his own face. They were just about to finally close the years of distance when-
“I got the tea pitcher!”
The pair were off of each other in an instant. They turned stiltedly to where Nunnally was in the doorway.
Unfortunately for all three of them, Nunnally was no longer blind. Her smile turned awkward.
“Am I interrupting something…?”
“No, not at all! We were just about to sit back down. Right, Suzaku?”
Suzaku could strangle him.
He said “yeah” instead.
There was a spare bedroom in Suzaku's wing of the manor specifically for Lelouch's sake. Staying in the private wing only made sense– seeing a man who looked exactly like the demon emperor walking among the living would be jarring enough, but publicly boarding in the residence of his sister? Surely people would be able to draw conclusions further than ‘an unfortunate likeness with the dead man.’
For a man with a home he hardly returned to, Lelouch didn't exactly seem hard-pressed with a need to reunite with his own bedroom. He spent most evenings in Suzaku's room with him, taking measure of his heartbeat just as he promised to. His preferred method on this particular evening was two fingers pressed against the pulse point of his neck. This arrangement obviously necessitated Suzaku laying his head in Lelouch's lap. Obviously. And that obviously necessitated Lelouch stroking Suzaku's hair with his free hand. Obviously.
“You're really warm for a dead man, Lelouch.”
Suzaku teased him with a smile on his face. The smile turned into a beaming one when the joke drew a chuckle from the other.
“I could say the same for you, couldn't I?”
“It is odd to be able to visit my own grave.”
“At least you have one, still. I had half a mind to predict that it would be completely destroyed, once the demon emperor was dead.”
“I guess that would have made sense… desecrating the remains of your willing accomplice.”
Suzaku appreciated this conversation. It was a nice change of pace, actually being able to speak openly. …Just like he wanted. Huh. He didn't even have to speak that wish, and it was being granted. Maybe they did still know each other on that deeper level.
Getting his hair pet was a nice bonus, too.
“I’m glad they didn't. That means that the zero requiem went as intended. All of the world's hatred was placed onto my shoulders… not yours. Not anyone else's. They all only hate me."
“I don't hate you.”
Suzaku said it so easily that he didn't even realize what he said until he was sitting in the silence that Lelouch was left in. He opened his mouth to correct himself, but… that would be too cruel. With the way Lelouch's hand went still in his hair, the sentiment must mean something. Suzaku wasn't much of a liar. Maybe, deep down, this was his version of the truth. At the very least, after letting himself say it, surely he could make it so.
He heard Lelouch take a shaky inhale before he speaks, and Suzaku wished he could see his face.
“Is… that so?”
Lelouch hardly ever sounded so uncertain. That odd twisting pang of guilt stabbed into Suzaku’s heart again. He reached up and held the hand that Lelouch had against his neck.
“It’s the truth. The zeitgeist of the world may hate the 99th emperor, but Suzaku Kururugi doesn't hate Lelouch vi Britannia.”
Lelouch's hands were trembling. Suzaku thought he may have said the wrong thing again. Then he felt the sudden drops of tears against the side of his head.
Suzaku finally sat up then, staying close to Lelouch, sitting hip to hip, fronts facing opposite directions. Faces towards each other. Hands clasped together in between them.
“That's all I wanted, Suzaku. You and Nunnally… you're all I care about.”
“Nunnally loves you, Lelouch.”
Lelouch's face contorted with a mix of relief, disbelief, and soul-crushing sorrow. That expression untwisted as the sob he’d been pushing down finally broke through.
“Oh, Lelouch…”
Suzaku muttered as he cupped the immortals face, giving him a sad smile before it fell back to concern.
“This whole time, you thought she still…?”
“You said it yourself, remember? How could I expect anyone to forgive me? Especially her, after everything I’ve done…?”
Suzaku truly frowned, now. It appeared that even the demon emperor, in his conquest to become the most hated man in the world, was left feeling lonely about it. In retrospect, it felt obvious. Of course he was avoidant. He didn't feel wanted there. Maybe not even welcome.
And it was all Suzaku's fault, wasn't it?
Yet again, it was his actions that forged their path for them.
He wouldn't let it be a foregone conclusion this time. Choice wasn't an illusion anymore. Choice was right in front of him.
“I was wrong,” Suzaku began, drawing surprise from the face he was cupping, “I was upset and angry and I said something cruel. I… keep saying cruel things.”
“But that's exactly it, Suzaku! They aren't cruel, they're just… the truth. You were only telling me the things I deserve to hear.”
Suzaku knew this wasn't going anywhere good. He had to try and get it back on track so they could talk and-
“You’re telling me now that it was wrong of you to say I’m unforgivable? That you can forgive what I did to Shirley? To Euphemia, Suzaku?”
Logically, Suzaku knew that Lelouch was engaging in some sort of self-sabotage to maintain his idea of the status quo. At the end of the day, however, logic never led Suzaku's decision making skills. It made him so unbearably angry that Lelouch invoked Euphy’s name like that. But he also knew that he was trying to carve a different path than the one that seemed predestined. So he did the only thing he could.
“Just shut up.”
He kissed him. No interruption, this time, but it also lacked the intimacy and romance of their almost-kiss from before. He supposed that it highlighted the differences between them. Lelouch was all about the prelude, the set dressing, aligning the stars so that things will work out perfectly… that it takes him so long, too long, to reach the desired outcome. Suzaku, on the other hand, was about results. Circumstances be damned, he’d rush in and get it done. Maybe that was what made the two of them such a good team.
They broke the kiss with gasps for breath, likely due to its abrupt beginnings. …Oops. Suzaku was going to say something, but then Lelouch was pulling him in for another kiss and he briefly considered that speaking candidly might just be overrated.
He still pulled away, thanking whatever god there still may be for the willpower he had left. He moved to sit across from him at more of a parallel.
“Lelouch. I don't hate you.”
He hoped if he said it definitively enough, that would quell his objections. That was not the case.
“Suzaku–”
“I used to. More than… anything. But I don't hate you now. In all honesty, I don't know why, or what really changed… but I don't hate you, Lelouch.”
It was difficult for Suzaku to say such vulnerable things. At the end of the day, he was still incredibly repressed- which was likely the cause of him not knowing the origin of his hatred’s death.
“Perhaps absence made your heart grow fonder?”
Lelouch set his palm gently over Suzaku’s heart, a very slight smile on his face now. The brunette returned the expression.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Suzaku caught himself dopily staring at Lelouch like he was still some lovestruck teenager. He looked almost ethereal, and he was just kissing him, and now his hand was on his chest just to feel his heartbeat. They’ve always danced this waltz, skirting the edge of friends and lovers and enemies for as long as they've known each other. Probably for the foreseeable future, too. They just kissed, but they've kissed before. They kissed and held each other and hummed the other to sleep and yet Suzaku still had to drive a sword through his heart. It wasn't fair. If Suzaku were a fool, he'd let himself think that maybe it would be different now that there was no imminent execution– but alas, he was no fool. Lelouch inevitably leaving would be his way of turning the sword around and returning the favor. Again. And whenever he came back, Suzaku would gladly hand him the hilt and wait on the business end for the fleeting sensation of connection it provided.
Belatedly, Suzaku realized Lelouch's tears were staining his cheeks. He blinked in a surprise half-caused by the fact that Lelouch hadn't thought to wipe his own tears away, given the care he put into clearing Suzaku's a few days ago. Gingerly, he reached towards Lelouch's face, rubbing his thumb down the tear streaks with a tenderness he wasn't sure he possessed. Lelouch realized what he was doing with a contented hum. Was he waiting for it…? Suzaku sighed with a smile. What was he going to do with him?
…What was he going to do without him?
It wasn't very uncommon for Suzaku to have nightmares. They mostly consisted of the people he killed or watched die, a manifestation of his guilt for not doing more. For not saving them.
He’d been a fitful sleeper ever since he settled into the role of Zero. Before, he was a soldier, a knight. He’d been trained to sleep as efficiently as possible. He rose early and went to bed late. He was fine. He got used to it. But now… he’d gone soft. Zero was a symbol more than anything– he was always at full attention by Nunnally's side, of course, but his life was still a lot more leisurely. Nunnally insisted that he sleep in, rather than rising at the crack of dawn, and he was often dismissed from his post relatively early in the day, too. He appreciated it, of course, but being spoiled had made him a bad sleeper.
He woke up in a literal cold sweat, breathing staggered and eyes blown wide. The memory of the nightmare that afflicted him was washed back into the sea of his subconscious as he recognized Lelouch's familiar weight on his chest. He wasn't entirely convinced that he wasn't still dreaming. He fumblingly reached his hand to where he felt Lelouch’s head, accidentally jabbing him in the cheek.
“Ow.”
“...sorry.”
He began to move his hand away, but swiftly realized he didn't know where to put it, now, with Lelouch on top of him. This drew a sigh from the immortal.
“Don't act shy, Suzaku, we’ve done this before.”
‘Yeah, nine years ago,’ he doesn't say. Instead, he rests his hand on the small of Lelouch's back- trying to control his heartbeat post-nightmare, given that Lelouch's ear was pressed up against it.
“You were talking in your sleep, you know.”
Suzaku had half a mind to remind him that he wasn't invited, and had no right to complain, considering he had a perfectly fine bedroom he could sleep in instead… but he knew he didn't mean it like that.
“Did I?”
“You were… crying my name, Suzaku.”
Ah.
He remembered the nightmare, now.
“Lelouch?”
Suzaku began, trepidly. Regretting what he was about to say before he even said it.
“Hm?”
“Did… it hurt?”
There was a long pause, but it certainly wasn't out of confusion on what he was asking about. This was one of many unspoken secrets that hung between the two of them, now. Suzaku hoped that he’d granted Lelouch as painless a death as possible, but… he had to know. Simply hoping had never gotten him very far. It seemed as if Lelouch was deciding on whether he should tell Suzaku yet another lie. He decided against it.
“It hurt like hell.”
Suzaku didn't like the answer, not at all, but he appreciated the honesty.
“...okay.”
Internally, Suzaku cursed himself for only saying ‘okay.’ He didn't apologize, he didn't beg for forgiveness, he didn't say any of the things that he'd been aching to say since the moment he drove the sword through his heart.
“You were only doing what I asked of you. …It's okay.”
Suzaku cursed his heart, now, for picking up its pace and having betrayed his emotion.
“I-”
“Go back to sleep, Suzaku.”
Suzaku frowned, unable to help himself from one last question.
“Will you still be here in the morning?”
Lelouch took his time to think on that one, too.
“If you want me to be.”
“That's all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Then it's settled now, isn't it? You need good rest now, Suzaku. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Lelouch.”
I love you.
“I love you.”
Lelouch's voice was hesitant and almost timid. Suzaku barely realized that the words weren't just echoing in his own mind. He took a deep breath.
Ba-dum.
He steadied himself.
Ba-dum.
“I… love you, too.”
Ba-dum.
There was a pleasant silence, then.
Ba-dum.
For the first time in a very long time, Suzaku fell asleep without hoping that he wouldn't wake up.