Chapter Text
“I don’t know how I let you talk me into these things,” Lelouch grumbles, his breath clouding before his face in a puff bigger than a fist.
“Special talent,” Suzaku replies cheerily, grinning at him. The flash of his teeth is as white as the snow beneath their feet and twice as irritating. “Besides, you should feel right at home out here, my Ice Prince.”
“Shut up,” Lelouch snaps, swiping at him. He misses, of course, Suzaku ducking out of range with utmost ease and a laugh that carries up through the naked trees. Lelouch gives a little growl, shoving his hands deeper in his pockets, hiding his face in the warm layers of his scarf. “When I slip and break my leg, you’re carrying me back to school.”
“I’ll drag you.”
“Charming.” Lelouch finds himself hiding his smirk behind his scarf. Suzaku is charming in his own stupid, maddening way. Not that Lelouch would ever admit it. Not that he’d ever need to.
Truthfully, he wouldn’t let anyone else talk him into a walk in the bloody bitter cold on Christmas Eve, away from the fire and the kitchen and Nunnally, when there’s still so much to prepare for tomorrow and he hates being outside at the best of times. But… he supposes, this is the best of times, something precious. He so rarely gets Suzaku to himself these days, these stolen moments as singular as each snowflake gently spiralling out of the sky. It’s beginning to get dark, the crust of snow crunching beneath their boots glittering, brilliantly white beneath the low lilac stretch of winter’s eve. Ashford Academy, almost a mile at their backs by now, is quiet, with most of the students gone for the winter holiday. The world is silent, waiting.
They stop. Their shadows stretch out before them, stark against the snow, merging at the top into one. Lelouch shivers.
“Cold?” Suzaku asks.
“Of course.” Lelouch tucks the idiot under his tongue for a different day.
Suzaku puts his arm around him. “Okay. Let’s go back. It’s getting dark, anyway.”
“I’ve got a million things to do, anyway,” Lelouch says. “So much baking… You can finish putting up the decorations, please.”
“Hot cocoa first,” Suzaku replies, pulling him close as they turn and begin to follow their own tracks back towards the lights glowing in the distance.
“Fine, if you insist.” Lelouch snuggles into the heat of Suzaku’s body, their cheeks pressed together. “I suppose somebody has to spoil you.”
Suzaku sighs, his breath warm, nodding in his gentle, grateful way. Lelouch feels his hand slip into his coat pocket, wrapping around his own, their chilled fingers intertwining as they follow the first stars home.