Author Note: I'm trying to post here on FFN for the first time using the FFN app. Interesting. It seems regardless of what I do, the formatting of italics never comes through and I have to go redo them ALL, one by one. /twitch/

ANYWAY. With the three compilation Geass movies on their way, and the third season of the show by now announced... I have mixed feelings, predictions, and fears that I could talk about forever. PM me, if you're inclined to engage. Otherwise, I will share the one giant thought most prominent in my mind - and the one that pushed me to finish/post this fanfic.

If there's a season three, and Lelouch is actually alive, or otherwise comes back in it... that DOES THINGS to the integrity of - or at the very least, the result of - Zero freaking Requiem.

Zero Requiem is the most epic, bittersweet, fanfic-inspiring, emotional damn plot twist I've ever seen in anime. So I figured I'd better start getting all my fic about it out there at last, and exploring it and enjoying it some more... before the canon ushers in a change that severely affects my ability to do so.

Therefore, have an angst-ridden piece, in which Emperor and Knight of Zero interact (yes, eventually naughtily; who do you think I am?) and Suzaku debates one of my favorite questions. "Is it better to love and lose, or never love at all?"

In all Suzaku's life, the sun had never looked so perfect. It streamed earthward in rays of yellow, lighting up the pollen in the air as if the pollen granules were gold dust, instead of simply an occasion to sneeze. But it was neither the perfection of the sun rays nor the pollen that made Suzaku's breath catch like a door he couldn't seem to close. He pulled up short on the garden walkway because of something else entirely.

The brightness had gilded Lelouch's profile, where Lelouch stood yards away from him — up the stairway and under the gazebo. In his white, bejeweled attire that threw the sun rays back skyward, like hymns, Lelouch made light seem meant for him. His stillness turned him from a man into a gilded, waiting instrument.

Or so it seemed, as Suzaku stared like he gaped at heaven's shining orchestra pit.

The truth was that Lelouch would never be playable. Suzaku realized that, staring. And therefore he could not compare Lelouch to an instrument upon which he might rest his fingers, and just… lose himself. Just lose himself — in peace and song, forgetting what they'd planned to do.

Lelouch did not let anybody use him. Lelouch took whatever control he could grasp and made all moves in life himself. He wrote the songs Suzaku listened to. Right now, Lelouch controlled the entire world through Geass, and Suzaku was his personal and most powerfully stationed knight. If anybody was an instrument, it was Suzaku, not Lelouch. And Suzaku was the kind of instrument that spilled blood, only — uncompromising sword — rather than ushering in the respite of a song.

Indeed. Suzaku swallowed, hard. Before long, Suzaku would become Lelouch's personal murderer, choking out the possibility of Lelouch existing like an instrument of song forever. Suzaku would snuff Lelouch out with his light, and turn Lelouch into nothing but a symbol of the world's hatred, for all the world to overcome. Suzaku would do his part, to ensure one of nature's most basic laws remained upheld – the law that said beautiful things on earth were never made to last. Not even the finest, best-made, most beautifully gilded instruments that God sometimes crafted in the shape of people. People exactly like Lelouch.

Suzaku kept looking up the stairs, at the person he watched standing there. Beautiful things must expire, but why? And why so often, at the height of their bloom? Was that why Suzaku had pulled up short, breathless? Because he just couldn't stand it?

Lelouch had chosen to expire. And Suzaku had agreed to bring it about, because it was their punishment. And yet he still couldn't stand it. That, more than the feel of the fine breeze, was what made Suzaku pull up short, still so many steps from the stairs. That, more than the lazy heat and heady floral scent of the gardens, that more than Lelouch's ethereal beauty and posture of peace, that was what recalled him to the door to his emotions and cracked it open horribly.

Suzaku's feet scuffed, but remained at a halt. And he tried – he tried so hard – to close the damn door.

But it would never close again. From now on, now that they had planned Zero Requiem, it would always hurt Suzaku to look at somebody he knew would just be… gone.

Did Suzaku have mixed feelings? Yes. But people grew, and feelings changed. If his own changed in time, he'd lose. Lelouch would be gone; there'd be no changing this.

There'd be no telling Lelouch, I've forgiven you, or I'm sorry, or Thank you for doing this for the world. There would never be a chance to say, I miss you, or a chance to make Lelouch understand that while Suzaku had agreed to Requiem, and did hate Lelouch, and did demand recompense… Lelouch still meant more to Suzaku even now than any other figure in his life of eighteen years. Suzaku would never get to say, I think I've learned I can love you. He could not change later what Lelouch thought of him now, or the relationship they had; they had no future together. All involving Lelouch would be frozen in time, a fixed point for Suzaku.

And Lelouch? All he had was now. Lelouch would bring peace to the world, and then perish.

So Suzaku swallowed again where he stood, between an azalea past its prime and an unwieldy rhododendron bush he was surprised the gardener hadn't trimmed. His heart twisted inside his chest. There wasn't a way around what they had planned; Suzaku had agreed, and he couldn't change that.

But he could acknowledge it. And he could imprint on his brain all of these final moments he saw. Right now, as if Lelouch would make the God that had put him on earth acknowledge his untouchable sacrifice, he stood kissed by heaven's light – anointing himself with its splendor, as it recognized and tasted him.

Suzaku would remember this sight, as much as it pained, tempted, awed, and unnerved him.

Soon he began walking again. He took his time climbing to the gazebo.

"You make as if we've been granted forever," Lelouch said, when Suzaku finally got close.

A smile played across Lelouch's lips. It was a wry smile, Suzaku thought, as Lelouch just continued to look at the sky. One lone, fluffy cloud seemed to hold Lelouch's attention.

Then Lelouch flicked his gaze at Suzaku once more. Suzaku paused again on the last couple of stairs, before stepping into the gazebo's entrance.

His gaze caught on Lelouch's hand. The hand rested familiarly on the gazebo railing, as if Lelouch would speak to the whitewashed wood through touch and nothing more. How many conversations had he carried out, alone up here?

"I came the moment I received your urgent summons." Suzaku lowered his eyes and bowed. "I just… took the meandering path. Forgive me."

He had wanted to clear his head in the garden. Little had he known his emperor would fill it again, merely by standing in a patch of sunshine.

His formality made Lelouch smile some more, with more irony than Suzaku believed fair — even considering his own inward state that he sincerely hoped Lelouch didn't discern. Lelouch said, speaking at the sky, "Too slowly. But it's still all right. In fact, I think I like that you didn't come running, even though the messenger told you it was urgent."

Suzaku remained quiet. Lelouch liked that Suzaku had creatively interpreted his orders — by indeed coming immediately, but by the longest route possible?

Suzaku had deliberately wasted time. And time, he had just established yet again, was not a thing that Lelouch had.

But if Suzaku hadn't tried to shake his constant thunderclouds, the little time Lelouch did have — and with Suzaku — would get rained on. Suzaku didn't desire that.

He hid his heart behind a question. "Why do you like that I didn't come running?"

Lelouch watched a butterfly wheeling around. "I'd lose my nerve," Lelouch told him, "if you began acting frantic." His smile was still there, a little bit sad. "I couldn't stand if you did anything differently, simply because we know I'm going to die. The truth is I'm a bit relieved you found a way to deliberately misinterpret my orders again… in the way you've been doing, so religiously, since acknowledging me as your new emperor."

Suzaku twitched; the call-out wasn't wrong. He often expressed visible defiance, without ever quite disobeying orders. Emperor Lelouch would command something like, Leave off eating this instant, Kururugi. I want to discuss something important with you now. Suzaku, annoyed that Lelouch seemed so casually to flaunt his authority over his knight, when it wasn't directly necessary to Zero Requiem, or in front of people they needed to make a show for…. Suzaku would find ways to teach Lelouch that he was nobody's puppet.

He thought, perhaps, it was because he didn't always want to be somebody's blood-spilling sword-instrument. When off the battlefield, when they were alone, did Lelouch have to treat Suzaku so… distantly?

He'd 'leave off eating this instant' by dropping his fork from midair — the moment the order finished falling from Lelouch's lips. Then, when his food made a mess on the table, or on the floor, Suzaku would shrug, as if to say, That was your order, wasn't it? I obeyed it, to the letter.

It was petty, Suzaku knew. But Lelouch — stubborn, and always in power and control — could be reached through little else but total surprise.

And too, the Knight of Zero was not a Geassed minion, like the rest of the palace. Suzaku followed orders, yes, but that didn't mean he enjoyed doing so for Lelouch at every moment of the day.

But defiance hadn't been Suzaku's aim this time, when he'd dallied rather than rushed to his emperor. Suzaku watched the play of sunlight in Lelouch's complex, violet eyes. Should he admit it? Try to explain himself? Did Suzaku want to take the time… or might he simply gaze at Lelouch some more?

"How are you, Suzaku?" Lelouch asked him.

Suzaku. Not Knight of Zero, or Sir Kururugi. The sound of his name made Suzaku bite his lip. Lelouch had changed his tone, and spoken like the emperor requesting a report, but his form of address was one used between friends.

Lelouch hadn't addressed Suzaku like this since they'd settled on their agreement inside C's World. What was Suzaku supposed to say? Was Lelouch trying to be gentle with him?

"I'm not sure what you mean," Suzaku replied. He did not know to whom he was speaking, really. How could Suzaku determine the proper reply?

Lelouch wore no emperor's mask at present. At least not that Suzaku could see. But Suzaku could not tell what mask Lelouch was wearing now instead of that. And could Suzaku even trust his own interpretations any more? Who did Suzaku speak as, really? Was he the knight, the murderer, or the friend? Where had the lines gone between them any more?

It felt like every line – and even their personalities – had been redrawn too many times; Suzaku could no longer find where they stood. In any situation, they knew all each other's masks, by now – and so to be together these last days felt like confronting and assessing a host of Lelouches and Suzakus, rather than one set of them. It was a miracle they weren't insane.

Childhood friends. Classmates. Enemies.

Knight of Zero and Emperor.

"I mean," Lelouch said, "that you look rather strained. I'm inquiring after the state of your mind." Was he a little tart, or just concerned? Or was that melancholy in his eyes?

Suzaku parted his lips, but he still didn't speak. Instead he watched the golden buttons that dripped from the arms of Lelouch's attire.

Lelouch sighed, and then he ruffled a hand through his loose raven hair. He seemed glad, a little, not to be wearing his stiff, pointed hat. Did Lelouch enjoy being free of its burden? Free of all such a clear crown signified? Lelouch leaned on the railing next. "Does being alone with me cause you so much tension?"

Suzaku realized he still stood at the gazebo entrance, and that his body appeared stiff. He made a stark contrast with Lelouch's relaxed and peaceful posture. He forced his shoulders to loosen.

"It's just… not easy to relax, before I'm sure why you called me out here. And so urgently. What did you need?"

Lelouch's slow blink made him look even less urgent than he had looked when Suzaku had entered. "Are you greatly opposed to some afternoon pleasure? I watched you come up. You admired the view." A hand gestured lazily out the archway, to draw Suzaku's gaze again to the sunshine.

That view? No. Lelouch had filled Suzaku's eyes.

Suzaku pressed that truth aside. "I do think the gardens are pretty," he said. "If you brought me out to look at them, I don't mind doing so with you." He had seen rain on the forecast. Perhaps the urgency was that Lelouch wanted to walk the gardens and discuss something important, before a storm hit them. "Excuse my seeming hesitation," he added.

"Then you want to? You really would stay here with me?" Lelouch's disbelieving intonation didn't suit his commanding appearance. Suzaku stiffened again, confused. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather spend the afternoon in training, like you planned to?" Lelouch gestured to Suzaku's attire.

Suzaku hadn't donned his cape – and he had also left his gloves behind. His collar lay unzipped at his throat, but only a little. He knew what was proper. In the sun, his dark blue pilot suit gleamed like deepest ocean water. Suzaku had indeed been about to change into his hakama and dogi instead, and do a few figures with his wooden sword. But it seemed Lelouch was testing him.

Lelouch wanted Suzaku here.

Suzaku couldn't read Lelouch for sure, however, so he reverted to manners, and didn't agree too enthusiastically. "I have all day to train. I can go back and dress more properly, to escort you through the gardens if you'd like it. Whatever you wish takes priority over what I had planned for myself, Your Majesty."

"I see." Lelouch told him. "I would like it." It came thicker. Something in Lelouch had changed, or browned like the edges of a bruised flower. "But there's no need to leave just to spruce up your clothes." Lelouch seemed to recover himself. He paused. "You're fine as you are, Suzaku."

Something in the way Lelouch said it made Suzaku bite his lip again. Lelouch sounded compassionate and warm, despite his momentary lapse into stiffness. Unbuttoned, almost.

It struck Suzaku as curious.

How long had it been, since Lelouch had felt unreserved enough to let Suzaku see him showing any emotion beyond determination? How long had it been, since they hadn't argued about ends, means, tactics, Nunnally, CC, Zero Requiem, or the power of Geass? How long, since Lelouch had looked straight into Suzaku's eyes, and spoken something other than a curt, necessary order? He was asking Suzaku to spend time inside the garden with him.

Lelouch was indeed being gentle with him. But why? Suzaku's heart began beating a little faster, and it pained him at the same time it quickened him. Lelouch was redrawing their lines, again – setting them down in different roles that made Suzaku's sanity wind tight.

"Lately you always choose to say nothing," Lelouch told him. "Why not try saying everything for once? Why don't you say whatever you desire? Bottles under pressure tend to crack." But this time, Lelouch didn't add anything like, I need you at full capacity, Knight of Zero. Your duty is to function, and cleanly.

Lelouch was telling Suzaku that right here, right now, they were equals. That now he wasn't playing emperor. Lelouch was saying Suzaku should feel free to unburden himself, even.

That perhaps Suzaku ought to, because he'd have no outlet, and no solid closure otherwise.

But… could they do this? Could they just… talk? Was this Suzaku's chance to express all his fears about what things he might long to say to Lelouch, in years after, once Lelouch was gone? If Suzaku dared to voice those things now, so early…. No, he just couldn't. How could they not affect Zero Requiem?

Zero Requiem did not need to be made harder than it already was. Suzaku couldn't stand this. Couldn't stand it.

Lelouch's gaze perused him when Suzaku offered no reply. His eyes were tender, thoughtful, poised. "Suzaku," he whispered, "if you keep looking at me with such an expression—"

"What expression?"

"Like you're going to cry."

Suzaku lifted fingers to his eyes. He wasn't crying. Never in front of Lelouch vi Britannia.

"It's just the light, Your Majesty."

Suzaku didn't feel like he could talk. But he didn't mind if Lelouch did.

Part of Suzaku only wanted to watch Lelouch speak and move in this sunlight forever. Glimmering this way, glittering, looking just as warm as the sun rays suggested. Arresting and stunning, less tarnished and tragic. What Suzaku wouldn't give to save it – this meeting now, in a perpetual loop. Lelouch so lusciously, liquidly lovely, present for Suzaku to admire or resent as he pleased – without the need for him to speak, or justify his devouring of the scene. Without having to sift through and define his many mixed emotions.

Lelouch's fingers drifted, and Suzaku moved his feet to shift away. Lelouch had come too close to him. "Don't lie to me, Knight of Zero."

Suzaku straightened. "Your Majesty." These royal lines were easier. Easier not to step across.

Lelouch touched Suzaku's chest. Then the touch grazed – absently – the red jewel on Suzaku's uniform front, the one at the navel. Lelouch's hand then moved just a hair lower, while Suzaku's brain tried to process the movement.

The brief stroke of fingers trailed down the center of the jewel, and just past it, but then no farther. "Suzaku..."

Suzaku moved away and spoke quickly. "I'm all right. Don't concern yourself with me."

Lelouch's eyes refused to meet with his. A nearly undetectable hitch of breath accompanied Lelouch's words. "If you're all right at present, then I'm going to take a risk. Humor me."

"Within reason," Suzaku replied. He wasn't sure, however, he was in any state to pretend he knew reason.

Lelouch laughed very quietly. He said, still looking at the floor, "You hate when I assert my will with you. But would you let me do it, just a little more? I asked you here urgently not only to admire flowers. I wanted — I needed — you here. Beside me."

Suzaku did his best not to show skepticism on his face. He watched Lelouch swallow.

"I mean this as a tryst," Lelouch told him. "A tryst with my exquisite knight." His eyelids fluttered. And then, as if defiant, he turned his gaze to Suzaku's face. "Will you allow me to have such a thing? Would it satisfy you as well, Suzaku Kururugi?"

Suzaku frowned. "What—what's a tryst?" Why had Lelouch's cheeks flushed in that way? Strawberries and cream now, his fine complexion. Suzaku had to look away.

But Suzaku did not expect his question to cause quite the jolt it did.

"A tryst?" Lelouch's eyes blew wide. "You don't—? It's—" and Lelouch stopped. The gazebo's atmosphere seemed to change.

The change was not one Suzaku could put words to. Lelouch looked unable to speak. "It's something you can't say to me?" Suzaku prompted him, flatly, to keep hidden the further quickening of his heartbeat.

He wasn't certain what had shifted, but the inside of his throat felt clogged, and sticky, as if with sickening honey. Lelouch did not look better off.

But why did Lelouch appear also as if Suzaku had suddenly slapped him? The berry flush had left his cheeks as fast as juices wiped away from a table.

And why had, a moment before, Lelouch laid fingers onto him? Suzaku and Lelouch had not exchanged a single physical touch like that since—

"A tryst is a romantic, private rendezvous between lovers." Lelouch announced it tonelessly. As if that were the only way to do so, now.

Suzaku registered it. Lovers.

His honey-throat seemed to worsen. He made a little choking sound. 'Lovers' was a line they hadn't crossed in some time – if truly ever they'd crossed it. They had only… only ever….

The mask of 'lover' was not one either of them had worn comfortably. Or well. Or even very long at all. Suzaku did not think it wise to go there now, no matter how quickly his heart was pounding.

The decision of Lelouch's fate had already been made, and sealed. Suzaku had Zero's mask waiting upon his damn bedside table. It was hard enough for Suzaku to commit himself to preserving Lelouch's memory, dedicatedly and quietly, by just gazing, and to follow all his myriad orders. To ask Suzaku to navigate waters that ran so much deeper on top of all that…. How could Lelouch dare? How could Lelouch dare… when Lelouch would only be gone?

Suzaku dug his teeth into his tongue, calling himself to focus better. They didn't even know how to be lovers. Had a teasing exchange, a flirtation, a conversation, and one hesitant kiss even counted as a foray into having been lovers before? How could Lelouch jump so quickly into such intimate territory? If Lelouch was only suggesting this — rushing it — because he knew he had no time—

Was that reason enough to justify slamming Suzaku with the idea?

…Was it reason enough for Suzaku to give in, and let Lelouch have what he asked?

Lelouch had admitted to an attraction, back in school once, at Ashford – long before Zero had seized his attention so fully. Long before Suzaku had grown involved with Euphy and learned to hate him. "You've grown up well, Suzaku. I've been glad to see you here at school. In truth… you're attractive, and it's distracting. Who knew I'd prefer the jock type?" Suzaku remembered the way Lelouch had paused, waiting to see if Suzaku would grow horrified… and whether he would need to find a way to pass his comment off as some off-color joke.

"Do you mean that?" Suzaku had asked instead, and very, very seriously.

Lelouch had closed his eyes, taken a risk, and muttered very simply, "Yes. And that is something I would like you never to tell the Student Council. Or Nunnally."

Suzaku had grinned a little and returned the sentiments immediately. "I also think you're beautiful, Lelouch. Except I never thought I would be able to tell you that directly."

And at that, just for a moment, as if Lelouch could hardly believe it… as if Lelouch wished to test Suzaku's words… Lelouch had turned their gaze-exchange into a brief, experimental kiss.

Suzaku could still recall that kiss. After it had fired their lips, they'd both been flushed, and quite giddy. But they'd agreed it hadn't been the time to risk their friendship by pursuing the attraction any farther.

Both of them had been busy, after all – Suzaku with the military, Lelouch with lying to the world as Zero. Admitting the attraction and laughing about it, feeling relieved, was enough of a shared secret at that point to bond them, and erase any awkwardness that had clung to them after the rooftop Arthur incident and Suzaku's being bullied in the locker rooms.

What they'd both needed most was a friend, not a lover. And it seemed now eons had passed since they'd even considered it. War changed so much. Killing changed it. How could Lelouch so easily hearken back?

Suzaku reflected. The sunshine still reflected too, off his mortified emperor. Suzaku looked at the tailored grass. Lelouch brought their chemistry up again now because he finally wanted to pursue it, despite everything? Did he really think it such a good idea?

Suzaku rather hated it.

While Lelouch cleared his throat, and Suzaku swallowed, a flock of birds took flight from in the hedges. Their flapping wings beat the sky as haphazardly as Suzaku's mind flew… and his chest persistently fluttered.

Lelouch said, appearing suddenly paler than his clothing, "You didn't expect I'd address this topic again. Not ever. You hadn't even thought it of it." All at once, he checked himself, and backed out of Suzaku's space. "The idea hadn't crossed your mind, because Zero – my Zero – has managed to destroy your appetite. Of course." Lelouch laughed hollowly. "Yes. How much you hated Zero would have affected your assessments of anything deeper between us as time went. And that is completely justified. I perhaps should have realized that." Lelouch's murmurs went on, with more words against himself.

Suzaku stood there and tried to function. He thought of simple, geometric lines. The manicured paths of the garden they occupied, easy to follow and hedged on most sides….

There were places Suzaku had known he could walk. There were places he'd lost… and never dreamed he might re-find. Lelouch opened a path again. And as if it were something so… so casual.

Suzaku hated it. He couldn't stand it. His hand closed in a fist. The fist merely loosened.

Lelouch took no notice; he gazed back at the flowers. "I see. I understand. It's fine."

How could Lelouch recompose himself so quickly? Lelouch's regained — forced, but regained — tranquility, so like a placid, shining birdbath…. Even if Lelouch fought to uphold the composure, it seemed to mock that Suzaku stood in the gazebo, roiling. Debating.

To suggest pursing intimacy now, when so much time had passed, and so many events had come in between them… when Zero Requiem waited on the horizon…. That was earthshaking enough.

And then, to decide so quickly that Suzaku wasn't interested?

That was plain unacceptable.

Suzaku hated the idea, yes. But damn him, he gave in to so much that he hated. So for Lelouch to turn away, to mutter, to deny them this, before Suzaku could even speak, before Suzaku had digested and processed… to make assumptions and choose for both of them, in that quick-assessing style of his, when Suzaku's silence this time was only because he felt stricken dumb, perhaps flattered….

Annoying. Unacceptable.

Suzaku finally twitched. He blinked, and breathed a very shaky breath.

"And I'm sorry to have brought up something so repellent to you." Lelouch did sound sorry, still blathering on, his voice thin and weary like the threads of an ancient T-shirt. "It was my intention to bring us a little closer at the end — not press us both farther apart. Try not to hold it against me. Though I'll understand if you do. You can go now, if you prefer."

At least that was easy enough to react to. Suzaku said, "I'm not going."

Except then he failed to express anything more.

Lelouch cleared his throat again, looking conflicted. Then yet again he turned aside.

Suzaku didn't want Lelouch to think his idea rejected. Suzaku still believed he should reject it, but—

He stepped into Lelouch's space. His hand came up to touch Lelouch's cheek.

He did find Lelouch beautiful. That hadn't changed, in all their time. In fact, it had proved a lovely source of angst often, for Suzaku. But Lelouch was impermanent, now… and someone Suzaku had sworn he would kill.

Suzaku stood still, cycling through every aspect of the person before him. Lelouch appeared like a swan caught in a snare, allowing Suzaku to brush his cheek with his hand. What would happen, really, if they simply allowed…?

And then Suzaku was catching those fine strands of hair, drawing Lelouch toward him as if Lelouch were air. Suzaku allowed himself to find out, to answer all those persistent questions. He allowed the pulse in his chest to conquer.

Because what was he supposed to do?

Before he shut the idea down, did he not owe it to himself – and to Lelouch – to at least try? To make sure they at least attempted this, to avoid making some sort of massive mistake? It was a mistake of another sort to get involved in this at all. But it might be a mistake of a worse kind not to find out what things they felt. Suzaku didn't know. He couldn't possibly know, but he—

Lelouch let out a signal. "Mmn."

Suzaku couldn't read it. Surprise? Permission, for the sudden kiss Suzaku now bestowed despite himself? Or would Lelouch pull away, affronted or otherwise now plain confused? Was this all some test for Suzaku as well, or did Lelouch vi Britannia want this, badly – despite knowing as well as Suzaku that it really wasn't wise?

Lelouch was untouchable. Something practically sacred now. Suzaku was helping Lelouch die. How could they go and cross these lines?

Lelouch's hands closed on Suzaku's shoulders. Suzaku tasted the flesh of parted lips, when Lelouch gasped and their breaths started to mingle. Suzaku unleashed a small, urgent noise, when Lelouch's tongue darted inside to taste him.

He intended to stop. To check them both again. After all, what Suzaku still believed he most was trying to prove was that they shouldn't do this. How could they dare? How could it possibly turn out helpful to them? But the kiss became daring before he could halt it.

Lelouch tightened his hold at Suzaku's shoulders, and Suzaku caught Lelouch's lower lip between his own, roughly. His heartbeat raced; his focus on knight's etiquette began to blur. Then his control blurred, thoroughly. Sensation heightened between their sliding, seeking lips, and the kiss grew deeper. Grew faster. Lelouch's fingers fumbled with Suzaku's clothes, stroking, clinging. Suzaku found and held Lelouch's hips, after moving his greedy hands from Lelouch's jaw down his slim torso.

Lelouch plucked nimbly at Suzaku's collar. Royal lips claimed the hollow of Suzaku's throat.

"O-oh." Suzaku couldn't help himself. The reaction presented itself as a groan.

He shook his head and stepped away, before he could give in to what impulse struck – a carnal urge that stretched awake and insisted he should force Lelouch against the railing, and touch him. To create pleasures neither of them had dared to think about, with each other, or in a gazebo, until now.

But that was not his mind talking. Suzaku suspected it was not his heart, either. It was something much simpler. And so incredibly unfair.

Suzaku's lust was what spoke now to him – the very force Suzaku knew that he could not cave to, like this. Not here. Not these circumstances.

While a part of him wished he didn't have to care — why couldn't he simply be the eager, foolish teenaged boy he ought to have been, at eighteen? — the part of him that had been tempered by all his experience as a soldier, and a knight, and a killer, and a sword, and Lelouch's punishment said Suzaku actually knew much better. Suzaku knew he needed to separate his desire from reality.

Lelouch looked startled by Suzaku's reaction. Suzaku licked his lips, grasping for words, finding none. Those purple eyes, so overblown… and Lelouch's lips, now kiss-bitten, dark rose hued and moist…. The look of Lelouch there, so ravished, aroused…. It shot Suzaku's chivalry to hell.

And that was too damned dangerous.

If Suzaku didn't stop playing, he might do things he would regret — in time. For reasons horribly complex. Merited, after Requiem.

And Lelouch would never be there, to tell Suzaku it was all right.

Suzaku felt cold start to seize him. Complex and complicated emotions began creeping out of the door he couldn't close. Such a draft of chill, poisonous air. No, Suzaku didn't want this. Kissing Lelouch made him afraid the door would bang open, smack into the wall, and leave a mark he'd never fix. Too dangerous, this thread of shared desire, too much in opposition to the goals they'd come far to achieve.

Yet Suzaku's need now felt emphatic, acute. It burned. Yes, he wanted a tryst. Suzaku cleared his throat, blinking. He tried to speak, but groaned once more.

There was a pause, which Lelouch broke, only after the pause grew twice as desperate. "Your wavering control is overwhelmingly erotic."

Lelouch's voice came out thick with his want. His eyes were as unfocused and hazy as Suzaku realized his own must be. To hear Lelouch state that his unchecked self-restraint appeared 'erotic' nearly pressed Suzaku to further things he shouldn't do.

"We can't do this," Suzaku murmured.

Lelouch's voice stayed pleasure-thick. "There's no reason why we should stop. No reason on earth I'd want you to refrain. There's nothing left for us to lose."

"Are you so terribly convinced of that? You don't know what I want to do to you. Or what doing it might cause — now or… or later. The circumstances around this are awful. Haven't you thought beyond what's in your pants?"

He thought Lelouch might laugh at him, but in a moment Lelouch seemed to realize Suzaku was serious. Suzaku's hands closed, opened, and closed again. "What would this do to Requiem?" he whispered.

Lelouch's eyes narrowed like slits closing in someone's window blinds. "Are you planning to break your vow to finish me?" he asked, darkly.

"No. I can't. Because that's our punishment. I won't go back on that promise; killing you and becoming Zero in your place is the only real penance for the both of us. But that's why I can't just do this. Can't you see?" If only life would grant Suzaku a better tool in his libidinous haze than words that sounded mangled, vague.

"What I proposed was but a tryst. That's all," Lelouch replied quickly. "And a casual one, one only physical. A tryst doesn't have to be much beyond than that." Lelouch knew where Suzaku was trying to go. And he was trying to deter Suzaku from believing it all to be… complicated. His voice stayed even. Until toward the end, when it shook – much like Suzaku's control again, to hear Lelouch imploring him. "Just make me yours, Suzaku. Before the end. At— at least one time. I want it. If even a single part of you thinks there'd be room to allow me this final request… don't deny me. I promise you there will be no repercussions."

"A final request?" Suzaku didn't want to think of it like that. That wasn't fair, somehow. Was it? That was Lelouch, being hasty, taking advantage of his impermanent position to ask for boon to be granted. Did Lelouch see a tryst as some sort of reward? Did the demon emperor deserve rewarding?

And if Lelouch cared for Suzaku, so much that he would ask this favor… then why hadn't Lelouch brought it up until now?

Suzaku had a feeling he was simply being turned from a sword into an impersonal tool for pleasure, to allow Lelouch to feel pleasure before he bled out on the royal parade float, at Zero's feet, and could feel it no more. Suzaku didn't wish to be an instrument that could be played like that.

"There would be no repercussions for you," Suzaku added, curtly. Lelouch would die and feel nothing, and leave Suzaku with the results. There might be emotional repercussions for eternity – or for as long as Suzaku lived.

Thanks to the Geass, those two items were already practically the same, weren't they.

"Don't be naive," Lelouch said. His voice left him again, breathless. His lips neared Suzaku's again. "There would be no repercussions on your end, either. Once I was gone, you'd feel nothing left over." It came out almost like a question. Lelouch sounded like he battled back a fear. But then his face returned to his expression of insistence and determination.

Lelouch didn't want to suspect — or even have it suggested to him — that Suzaku might court anything but simple, disassociated lust, when it came to threads between them. Lelouch did not want to conceive of bigger notions like emotions, or hearts… of such irony of feeling in the face of a task like Zero Requiem.

And maybe Lelouch could entertain denial, because it hurt him to think about whether Suzaku might mourn him, and moon after him even after his grandiose death. But Suzaku did not have that luxury. Suzaku could no longer afford denial.

Suzaku was the one who might wake up at night, cold and clammy, rasping Lelouch's name. Desperately wishing Lelouch wasn't gone, wishing he hadn't tied his heart to someone so impermanent.

"Lelouch, you don't understand," Suzaku said to him, giving up for the moment on emperor titles.

They could not become lovers. Fate had already decided what they'd been and were to be instead.

Childhood friends. Classmates. Enemies.

Knight of Zero and Emperor.

It was too late to fit another, more complex label into the mix.

Suzaku wanted to push Lelouch against one of the wooden beams that held the gazebo roof up. Suzaku wanted to nip and bite and drive Lelouch into breathless, thoughtless pleasure — so that Lelouch wouldn't say these things that made Suzaku feel crazy. Helpless. And more angry than he'd ever been in his life, with nothing to take it out on. Suzaku wanted to make Lelouch scream his name, so that Lelouch wouldn't make Suzaku think about this, and how much he'd be losing if he gave in to the notion of lovers—

He stepped away another inch.

"You don't want this?" Lelouch asked him. The downturn of his mouth was soft, as if he would try not to let it speak for itself – speak for his disappointment at Suzaku's conflicted attitude. Apparently the wavering was no longer so 'erotic.'

Suzaku looked at the curve of that tempting mouth and told himself again that he was making the right decision. He said, the words coming out choked, "I can't. I cannot grant you this."

"Of course, Sir Kururugi," Lelouch said. "Very well. Think nothing else of it, in that case, then. I understand your viewpoint and there will be no repercussions for refusing, either."

But Suzaku wasn't sure that Lelouch really did understand him. And as if to punctuate the horrible gaping chasm opening between them, the emperor turned away from him.

Not petulantly. Not sarcastically. But it closed the conversation completely.

It closed it, perhaps, forever.

Suzaku tried not to feel destroyed. Was there no good choice he could make? He tried not to feel the twinge inside his chest. What was so damn wrong with trying to make the right decision in the end? What right had Lelouch had, to ask Suzaku to get his heart involved?

Suzaku gazed at Lelouch's profile. Then he separated them, and swept into a regulated bow.

While he was looking at the floor, he noticed two or three drops fall — from somewhere. They patted wetly onto the gazebo's floorboards. Suzaku stared at them a moment, holding his perfect, formal bow – until he realized they had come from his eyes.

Blinking, he straightened up at last. "I'll take my leave, Your Majesty."

"Yes." Lelouch didn't look at him.

"I'm available still, when you want to call for me."

"Yes."

Suzaku turned around. "I would still like to dine with you this evening."

"The dining schedule has not changed."

Suzaku waited only long enough to determine that Lelouch was through with him. The sunlight glinted in the wetness of his eyes, and made him squint enough to squeeze another tear loose, after he'd turned his back.

He made his way slowly back down the stairs, toward the fading azaleas.

Author Note: This has another chapter that's coming (haha, pun certainly intended). I know I sometimes take forever to add chapters, and with some of my shorter stuff, I trail off and NEVER upload latter chapters. But this fic is going to be finished (feel free not to believe it until you see it, LOL). Like I said, I have limited time now to get all the Requiem out of my system... and I want to put it out there! Plus I've already written 85% of my next chapter. I'm not wasting that much fanfic by neglecting to give it you people. :P