Author Note: As promised. Have fun hurting over Requiem.

The problem was that Lelouch had gotten Suzaku thinking about it. No matter where they met, the rest of that day — palace or gardens — and no matter what they did, a voice in Suzaku's head piped up to ask if he was quite certain he did not wish to have sex with Lelouch vi Britannia. Suzaku didn't think his mind would have jumped straight to sex, either, if Lelouch hadn't done a wretched and deliberate thing in the kitchens.

Tactical, determined, and unaccustomed as he was to losing, Lelouch had swiped a daub of cream off the cook's passing tea time tart. And then he had licked his finger, and made a contented sound much like a cat.

The finger-lick had not been an innocent, unconscious taste of dessert. Lelouch's hooded, violet eyes had held Suzaku's far too long for that.

To make it worse, after Suzaku had gone outwardly like a stone, and inwardly like putty, Lelouch had flushed, as if at his own daring. Then Lelouch had continued on, as if nothing suggestive had even happened. But his flush, his self-conscious uncertainty…. Suzaku had never seen Lelouch like that.

It made him want to pin Lelouch on a mattress… and engage in something well beyond the oral exchange Lelouch's tongue had suggested.

Suzaku wanted to make Lelouch writhe, scream, and come across bed coverlets. Here was the teenager in him he'd mourned, rearing himself — and almost uncontrollably. But Suzaku still knew better, way back in his mind, underneath the raging hormones.

He was not going to grant Lelouch his wishes.

Suzaku was certain Lelouch knew there was no point in pressing him. In fact, after that afternoon, efforts to change Suzaku's mind ceased themselves.

Lelouch became himself again. The calm, determined emperor. And dinner proceeded that night, in the same way it always had… since two Ashford students had purloined the throne. Dinner was formal, opulent, and planned.

Except Suzaku arrived late. He hadn't known whether he should really show. He had intended to, originally, but now he couldn't trust himself. Oh, he trusted himself not to cave in, and take Lelouch between soup and salad courses. But that didn't mean he wouldn't feel… distracted.

Suzaku did not think eating would go well if his mind danced toward other topics. He didn't want to appear conflicted, still — 'erotic' at all, to Lelouch — lest Lelouch see him wavering and think yet again he could tempt Suzaku. Conquer. Win.

As well, Suzaku could not get over the feeling that he'd let Lelouch down somehow — despite not being wrong about a tryst being a terrible idea. The guilt Suzaku felt was worse than his hormonal distraction.

Suzaku didn't want Lelouch to die with regrets. He didn't. If Lelouch had to die with those, let them be regrets about killing Euphy. About lying to Nunnally, or about using the Geass. Anything else seemed like excess that Lelouch didn't quite deserve. Therefore wasn't it cruel, to deny Lelouch what he so wanted?

And yet. If Suzaku did grant Lelouch's request… then he might have to live with grand regrets, in the place of Lelouch simply dying with them. Should Suzaku make that sacrifice? His mind worked itself in circles.

Lloyd and Cécile had both already gone by the time Suzaku entered the large dining room. The lights glowed, as low as the sun outside now, and only CC sat beside the emperor.

Lelouch did a curious thing. He sent CC away when Suzaku arrived. Suzaku and CC passed each other — petals on a windy night — and when Suzaku raised his eyebrows at her as if to ask what was in store, CC neither smirked, nor guffawed, nor made a snide comment at him.

That boded very ill for Suzaku.

Indeed, when Suzaku sat down, it seemed Lelouch's mood was chill. But Lelouch passed dishes along to Suzaku. "Would you like butter?"

Suzaku didn't think he could eat. But he tried, just to uphold his charade. The meal proceeded in silence. The fine silverware and finer china winked, in knowing, clever candlelight. The tablecloth gleamed, a light, lacy affair, but something weighed the mealtime down. It made Suzaku feel stifled.

It seemed something momentous brewed, more meaningful than any stew or craft beer from in the kitchens, and Suzaku had no idea what it was. What Lelouch wished to say to him. What would become of them both, now.

Suzaku focused on his spoon, realizing that maybe he read the mood wrong. Maybe Lelouch felt as serene as he looked, and nothing hid underneath the surface. Maybe there were things Suzaku wished to say, to Lelouch, rather than the other way around. But as always, Suzaku had not the guts to say anything whatsoever.

The food on his spoon hung in the air for what seemed like millennia, before Suzaku had the sense to lift the damn thing to his mouth. When he swallowed, the food tasted just like cardboard. He really didn't want to eat. This was no way for a knight to keep up his strength.

Lelouch wasn't eating either. He seemed to fiddle with his knife.

Suzaku bit back a sigh. Even if he could speak his mind, what on earth would Suzaku convey first? What could he say, that wouldn't further taint the time Lelouch had here? He might try, It's because you matter so much that I can't do what you asked, but somehow that didn't feel like it would go over very well.

Lelouch's face across the table looked… bland. If anything, much too carefully arranged. Resigned. And that seemed such a shame, such beauty marred with heaviness like that. Did Suzaku really have a right to disappoint Lelouch like this?

Yet Suzaku couldn't forget the way Lelouch's proposition had left him with a wound, as well. Did Lelouch have a right to ask Suzaku for favors like sex?

Suzaku's heart twanged another time. He ate another spoonful of his food, his tongue managing it like paste. If their lives had been different, if Lelouch had cared for Suzaku beyond just lust that carried no meaning… if Lelouch actually understood repercussions, and could have helped Suzaku to address them… would Suzaku have done anything differently? Would Suzaku have agreed to the urge in his pants?

Lelouch put his hands gently on the table. His plate, Suzaku noticed, remained full. "Suzaku," Lelouch said to him.

Suzaku swallowed — though not food. He drew his hands and his arms out of sight, letting them hide inside his cape. He wrapped his arms around himself.

He waited for Lelouch to speak further.

"Are you going to hate me more for this? For having even brought it up?"

Suzaku had not wished to talk, but the questions opened flood gates. "Do you need me to hate you further, now, to make you a better demon emperor? Do you need to give me another reason to finish you off, and blame you for everything wrong in my world? Was that your plan with this, from the beginning? To make me furious enough — by bringing intimacy up — to hate you more than I already do for everything Zero has done?"

Lelouch's eyelids flickered. His mouth turned down again, into a frown. He looked like he'd answer Suzaku.

But Suzaku didn't let him.

"If yes," Suzaku said, stiffening, "then that was very cruel of you. Using even our attraction like a tool for Requiem, and tainting it with all the hate already tangled between us…. How can you take one of the few good things we share and rob it of its innocence like that?" Lelouch tightened his jaw, but nothing more. "Never mind how dare you ask me for something so— so risky. God damn it. And if this wasn't about you manipulating me some more, to solidify your punishment, and you really want me to bang you as a gift, until your body's weak with it—" Lelouch's eyes widened at that, but Suzaku didn't try to stop. "—then if it's better to talk more, about why I have refused it… I think that is the only thing I'm willing to discuss right now." The final sentence he gritted. "So leave the hatred out of it."

It felt slimy to mix their hate, repentance, and Zero Requiem's bitterness with what Suzaku felt toward Lelouch when Lelouch looked at him with gentleness, desire.

Suzaku watched Lelouch process, across the table in his shining cloak. Lelouch appeared as if he tried not to move, or breathe, or make a sound. But Suzaku knew Lelouch too well. He knew Lelouch's brain now whirred, and reached some kind of curt conclusion he would act upon, in not too long. And Suzaku hated not knowing what it was, when doubtless it would affect both of them.

"Lelouch. I just need you to understand."

Suzaku shrank small, in his cape. He wished that he could rub his face, but he would not allow himself such weakness. "I know that what you think of me will cease to matter before long. But that doesn't change that I don't like being in conflict with you while you're here."

A chain closed tight around his throat. He told himself he didn't feel overwhelmed, or like he would choke on feelings.

A muscle in Lelouch's jaw ticked once. Lelouch's face remained a mask.

Was Suzaku getting through at all?

"Even if you never agree with how I see it, I need you to get why I'm denying you. I hate it," Suzaku said to him, "but maybe we have to argue, and battle, until every point gets hashed out. So… let's, so we don't have to leave things… like this." His hands came back out of his cape. He gestured once, into the air, like his guilt and his conflict were dark, evil moths he tried to swat, to no avail.

Arguing with his emperor about feelings that were ironic and taboo was not how Suzaku wished to spend their final hours together. He just wanted to sit and stare, to watch Lelouch exist, while he still did. Maybe he wished to exchange jokes, about school days, or childhood. But Suzaku wouldn't ever be all right with leaving things as they were now.

God, he had managed to mess up quite drastically here, hadn't he?

A moment passed. Their dinner steamed — though weakly now, since time had passed. Lelouch smiled wryly down at the meal spread. And then he straightened in his chair.

The emperor lifted his golden fork, delicately, as if he had an audience. Around his bite of creamed spinach, Lelouch began to talk at Suzaku.

And talk. Engage in discussion. Much like Suzaku had suggested. Except god damn it, Lelouch talked about the most mundane details of his duties and plans as emperor. About matters that touched upon nothing at all — as if specifically rendered to defy Suzaku.

In no time at all, it was not a 'discussion.' The words became a waterfall that Suzaku couldn't sail a boat behind.

Suzaku blinked, rapidly. Alarmed. But after another droll monologue passed, Suzaku began to grow irked.

"And according to the reports," Lelouch told him, as he reached down for more spinach, turning his fork now to admire its shine, "even Odysseus is showing promise. I really think I should be commended on my tombstone for that. Honestly, the trials I've put them all through might turn them into much better people. Carine finally knows how to hold a broomstick. Or at least, CC said she did... and she's the witch, so I assume it to be true. It would seem—"

Suzaku put his napkin down. "Are you doing this on purpose?" he cut in. He calmed himself, then tried again, using a dose more of his knightly respect. "Your Majesty?" He counted breaths.

"Doing what?" Lelouch said to him.

Suzaku thought he would go insane. His temples began to feel tight, and a muscle in his leg started to twitch. "Dwelling on topics that are inconsequential, when I've expressed that we should talk about—"

"Sir Kururugi," Lelouch said. "Nothing is inconsequential when one is the emperor of the whole world. If you can't handle these details, I suggest we rethink our dinner meetings." Then Lelouch paused, adding, "As well, you've made it clear it frustrates you beyond any control, to focus on what I asked for while we were in the gazebo. Perhaps I'm talking about something else… in the hopes that it will calm you, Knight of Zero."

"But you're being a dick about how you're doing it."

He hadn't meant it to come out like that.

Suzaku shut his eyes. He changed the topic. He'd let Lelouch's flip back to the formal way of addressing him annoy him. "Why did you send CC away?" he asked.

Hadn't Lelouch done it so they would be alone? Didn't that mean this was a perfect chance to talk? Why did Lelouch have to be so difficult?

"Before you came in here to dine, CC's opinion was that this meal didn't please her. I told her to feel free to order pizza. You know she can't resist a slice."

Mundane. Mundane, and well-designed to fend Suzaku off, like a housefly. Suzaku stayed quiet, but he didn't pick his spoon back up to eat again.

His upset with their situation seemed to flip a switch in him. He tried to fight his temper. He sat there, waiting for Lelouch to realize that he would only boil over if Lelouch didn't finally give in. Suzaku wanted Lelouch to acknowledge the complex net tangling them. Acknowledge that despite everything, Suzaku tried — and it would be so nice if Lelouch stopped being a brat, and talked to Suzaku, and tried back.

He watched Lelouch lean back and sip casually from his crystal glass. Lelouch swallowed, then dabbed his mouth. Then went on eating normally.

He didn't even raise his eyes. Suzaku might as well not have been present in the room at all.

The silverware and platters on the table clattered, when the flats of Suzaku's hands came down between them like two sledge hammers. At the same time, Suzaku shoved himself out of his chair, so he could lean on the table.

At the same time, Lelouch fell still like a statue.

"Do not do this," Suzaku told him.

"Do what?" Lelouch whispered stiffly.

"Do not start pushing me away, or ignoring my side of this, simply because once in your life you aren't getting what you want. Don't do it. I can't take the games."

Suzaku would not give a game a change to begin, to mess with him. He knew how Lelouch played. Checkmate. Suzaku did not want his knight's piece cast aside that wretchedly, that easily.

Lelouch's voice dipped, dangerous. "My desire for you is not a game. Nor has it ever been, Knight of Zero."

Suzaku contemplated that. At least they were getting somewhere.

He still growled, to clarify. "Still. You've been talking about lust, correct? Don't you see how that's too naive? If lust is what you meant, Your Majesty, when you told me we could have a 'physical' tryst… if lust alone is what you meant, when you suggested there'd be no repercussions, then you have failed to consider everything. I'm asking you to understand that in my case, it's… more complex. You don't understand what I face, or you just don't have respect for—"

"You have upset the table, Sir Kururugi." Lelouch tone, his interruption sounded perfectly benign. Suzaku noticed the pepper shaker had tipped over and spilled grains.

He slammed his hands down one more time. Lelouch's goblet jumped, and the serving fork fell out of the salad bowl. "Stop doing this to me, Lelouch!" He didn't care about the table's state. A jewel on his big cape trailed through the gravy boat. He ignored it.

Then Suzaku dropped his stinging eyes to his napkin, feeling so ludicrous. Feeling like now, instead of teenager, he'd reverted — in anger — to his child self. To the child that had once punched Lelouch, because Lelouch woke up too much in him, from thrill to hatred to despair. For the love of Lancelot, would he cry again?

Why did it have to hurt, so much, that Lelouch only cut him off, diverted him, and wouldn't talk? Weren't things like this meant to matter, if they'd ever been friends at all?

It mattered, damn it. It cut him like a blade, because Suzaku had never intended to let Lelouch down, on top of hating and opposing him. On top of fighting as his knight, only to murder him and deny any forgiveness for Zero's misdeeds. This was the worst feeling in the whole world. Was that Lelouch's stupid goal? To make Suzaku feel as rejected, and hopeless, and lost for letting Lelouch down as Suzaku had made Lelouch feel, by denying them any tryst?

Suzaku couldn't stand this.

He watched Lelouch taking another calculated bite of food. Was Lelouch even tasting it?

And he was still so beautiful. That hair, falling against his cheek. Untouchable, untouchable, and farther now from Suzaku than the image at the end of a telescope. Suzaku felt like he gazed at and battled the cold tundra of outer space. He'd never win; he couldn't reach. Lelouch was far away from him, and Suzaku looked at all that black and all that cruel universe and realized he would go insane. He suspected that he would break.

"This is killing me," Suzaku rasped.

The reply reached him, clipped. "Is it."

Suzaku realized his poor, poor choice in wording — terribly too late. Had he forgotten so quickly his Geass from Lelouch? Live on. To dare to bring up the possibility that he would die, even if it—

Lelouch was already rising — his silverware placed down calmly — and he looked like an emperor.

He looked like he'd destroy something.

Lelouch arched his neck and set his napkin down, as pale as a chill, winter moon. "I am terribly sorry, dear Knight of Zero," Lelouch said, honeyed, dangerous, "that you feel as if you're dying. It must be quite a grim mental ordeal to navigate a reality as stark and as uncompromising as that. Allow me to show you some calm compassion, as you fight the anxiety."

Ah.

Suzaku's fingers trembled. He stepped back. On top of his ironic comment in the face of his Geass, there was that aspect, wasn't there. Of course Lelouch would end up incensed thanks to his own fate, when instigated so. Of course Lelouch couldn't help but think about how he'd die, versus Suzaku.

It was all part of Requiem, for Lelouch to lose something he dearly treasured. That was how Lelouch would finally repent. But Lelouch didn't want to die, especially not while Nunnally still lived. Yet even so, he'd plotted Requiem. Of course Lelouch struggled and suffered, dealing with his decision.

Suzaku was a fool, to disrespect Lelouch's sacrifice by saying—

"Perhaps, since you do have your ability, however, to avoid dying horribly, you should stop whining and do something about bettering your mood." Lelouch let fly his volume, rigidly.

Suzaku realized they were alone, beyond CC now being gone. Lelouch had dismissed all the guards. Even the kitchen staff had gone.

Had he meant to talk, after all? Had Suzaku rushed this, cluelessly? This wasn't easy for either of them. Maybe Lelouch had wanted to work up gently, to something more—

Suzaku knew he'd made a mistake. But how, now, ought he to fix it?

And he had never seen Lelouch lose his composure quite to this degree. Even when Lelouch had learned Nunnally lived, and had flung his chess set off its board, outraged at Schneizel's upper hand, Lelouch's outburst had not carried quite this thread of hopeless desperation. The lines between Lelouch's eyebrows and the downward pull of his fine features said if Suzaku got close, Lelouch might just… kill him. Right here. Might just give up and end it all, and be done with it, finally.

Like Lelouch had gone insane, first. Like if Lelouch could not manage either of their struggles, and shut Suzaku up because Suzaku insisted on suggesting this might kill him before Requiem could occur — and thus ruin their promise, and ruin their trust, and fail to save the world they'd wrecked — then Lelouch might decide to off Suzaku here — and at least get a small burst of satisfaction.

Suzaku wasn't sure, watching Lelouch, he didn't wish to allow it.

But then. As if Lelouch realized his ire as clearly as Suzaku did, and felt just as tempted as Suzaku by the urge to set the palace afire, he smoothed his features… and he took a deep breath.

The effect of the effort froze Suzaku's blood more. He had no idea how Lelouch compartmentalized anguish like that.

In another instant, Lelouch was walking — away from the dining table.

"Lelouch, wait. Please." Suzaku choked it. Was he as stupid as all this? He could not stand to see Lelouch stride for the door, with such finality. Lelouch looked so thin, lately, too, so weak.… He had only managed a few bites of spinach. His lips had touched his drink but once.

"Lelouch, just stay. I didn't mean—"

"Knight of Zero," Lelouch's temper crackled, like guttering candles or summer lightning. "You are without a single doubt the most infuriating, feckless, idiotic, stubborn human being I have encountered in my short lifetime. It is a wonder to me we have managed so much together."

"Please don't go saying things like that." Lelouch was going to cast all the good things they'd shared in darkness.

Lelouch paused once at the door jamb. He came to some conclusion there, his face going unreadable. Was it because of Suzaku's shaking plea? But his voice remained like a whip.

"I want you to find me. In one hour. God help you, Suzaku, if you disobey me."

With that, the emperor disappeared. Suzaku stood, wrapped in the 'fight or flight' mode that came more typically when he fought Knightmare frames.

He debated, for that hour. He worried. He walked up and down every hall.

He smelled pizza from CC's room, but she didn't come outside to offer advice. Suzaku didn't dare to knock. Not even the paintings Clovis had done amused him enough to bring him any calm.

On the hour, sharp, just like a knight, Suzaku knocked at Lelouch's door. Most of the rooms in the emperor's wing — its chambers — had been left unlocked. Suzaku did not know what to think that finally, he found himself knocking on the one door he knew to be Lelouch's bedroom one.

"Come in."

Suzaku didn't want to. But he followed the order perfectly.

Except then he stopped, hovering inside the door. The sight presented to him caused him to bite his tongue. Very hard.

He'd seen Lelouch's emperor's bed before — the stately, carved affair with the canopied top like festival streamers. He had watched Lelouch court a special sort of fit, having the mattress changed, and all the sheets, and the drapes of the canopy when they'd moved in.

But Suzaku had never seen the bed quite like it came presented, now.

An unclothed Lelouch reclined on the bed's top, covered only in silk — see-through, but for the space between his hips. It seemed the silk passed as bedsheets. Lelouch looked mildly up at Suzaku, as if he hardly cared Suzaku entered, despite his ordering Suzaku to.

Suzaku felt his face go tomato at once. He turned around, immediately. His foot passed the threshold to retreat sharply, but Lelouch uttered, "If you do, you'll regret it. That's why I've called you to this room. Come in and shut the door now, Suzaku."

Against his will, Suzaku paused. Then, slowly, Suzaku turned around.

Lelouch's face now flushed as well. So… Lelouch knew, like Suzaku did, how laughable it seemed, and how pathetic, to finally resort to this? As if this were an old movie. As if Suzaku had no control. Did Lelouch think Suzaku would cave, just by seeing Lelouch spread out, like plunder for Suzaku's taking? Why did Lelouch so easily offer himself?

Suzaku's cheeks were still heating. And possibly the rest of him. He said, "I know what you're doing. But it will never work, Lelouch."

"Being this blunt and this direct — with the only method that seems to work on you — is the best way I can get through your thick skull," Lelouch said, toneless.

"Believe me, you already made it clear what you wanted from me. You didn't need to go this far. Especially since I refused you."

"Say that while your eyes rove my actual face, and not the length of my body."

Suzaku, caught, and mortified, returned his eyes to Lelouch's. He swallowed. "Why do this, Lelouch?"

Then Suzaku stepped inside, and shut and locked the great door behind him. God forbid even Geassed maids wander in and see this play out. "You know I've told you that I can't." Suzaku's voice left him weary.

"I heard you, very loud and clear." Lelouch reclined more languidly, but his tone was neither arrogant nor come-hither, nor his posture deliberately seductive. He was just… calm. And very direct. Suzaku found it disconcerting. And that skin…. "It may be I'm the one who will be gone," Lelouch told him, coolly, "and thus immune to all of this. There may be things I do not understand, but I do understand one thing. It's this. You do want me, Suzaku Kururugi. And I take great pleasure in wanting you back. This tryst was suggested not just for my sake, but for yours. I do not want you to—"

"I never asked you to do this. I never wanted to go here. You could go die in Requiem, and it would still be difficult — but it wouldn't have been as torturous as doing this, right now, right here."

"And you are foolish, thanks to clinging to that narrow view of it. You want to set the hate aside? Then do so, and then assess this. Or is what you have merely fear? I suggest you cast that aside. I would do this for you, so you have no regrets. Is that clear, yet? Can you not look a few years down the road, or a few days after I'm in the ground, and see that you would loathe yourself for letting your one chance to know this thread between us pass you by? Don't force me to put words to it, to what emotion I know well that you're battling on top of the desire you already feel. I handle the irony of it no better than you do, Suzaku." Lelouch's voice came so even. "But there are things your emperor knows and does handle better than you — for example, right now I suspect that the state and the fit of your uniform under that cape has become modified, and maybe even slightly compromised."

The lilt to the suggestive words told Suzaku exactly what Lelouch implied. Lelouch seemed, however, to take the shock Suzaku felt in stride.

"If you do not get on this bed and do something about it," Lelouch said, "then when I die, and you're alone, you are extremely liable to—"

Suzaku had come to the bed, in the midst of the long tirade. Lelouch wasn't wrong, not necessarily, because neither of them knew the future, and Suzaku so, so hated this, but the situation was not salvageable.

Not with Lelouch so obviously primed and ready for Suzaku to— to— to give in to cravings that seemed more violent than yearning for death or Refrain.

Suzaku crashed their lips together — to make Lelouch silence himself. Too late, yes, they would spiral down — and the consequences would be dealt with. Later.

Probably for the rest of Suzaku's cursed life.

Lelouch thought he was doing Suzaku a favor, beyond just pleasuring himself in this fashion, before he died? What would Suzaku do, if Lelouch was turned out wrong?

Lelouch let out a mewl of submission, but he didn't let Suzaku rise again. There would be no changing of minds. Lelouch hauled his knight roughly onto the bed.

And Suzaku went — for god, that skin. That unflawed, porcelain flesh like a canvas, waiting for Suzaku to paint it shades of red — through kisses and biting, through the heat of pleasure… bound afterward to end in the crimson of death. That spot behind Lelouch's ear, that white strip like a geisha's neck that smelled of a floral shampoo and his scent — that Suzaku had eyed longingly, one time too many, aching after this — it made Suzaku want to lick, nip, and defile every inch of flesh offered to him right here, at last.

Suzaku would devour everything that Lelouch offered him. Because if Suzaku could never have this again, if he'd be so bluntly seduced into this, then this night was going down in Suzaku's personal mental history — just like watching Lelouch exist in the sunshine. This delicious, damned debauchery would go down as the time Suzaku had broken, slaking himself on heaven's beauty incarnate because he could no longer help himself.

He would take his pleasure and hold nothing back — because if Suzaku had been cursed to find, to fight, and to follow Lelouch thus already, it only made sense that he'd give in and fuck Lelouch emphatically, as well.

Yes. He would make Lelouch cry out. There seemed little other path now. He'd make of Lelouch such a mess—

Lelouch arched his back and gasped, when first Suzaku's hands found his hips.

If they could only die like this, Suzaku thought, his breath hitching. Like this, and negate all the rest. If they could only wind time back.

Lelouch fell flat underneath him, clay at the touch of Suzaku's hands. And it seemed Lelouch sobbed, just once. Something Suzaku had never once witnessed.

"What do you want? What should I do?" It might have been rhetorical. His voice came out low and ragged, the testament to how much he, too, wanted this.

Lelouch wound his hands into Suzaku's clothes. "Remove all this," Lelouch managed. "Remove it. I want only you."

Suzaku kissed Lelouch's hand.

Suzaku had always complained about the weight of his giant cape. He'd whined — if only to himself — about his boots, that zipped high up his thighs. Putting the outfit on took him more time sometimes than showering — and Suzaku liked to be clean, so his showers lasted ages.

But Suzaku liked to think, right then, that he stripped himself with admirable speed — because Lelouch had begged him in that voice. That voice a sweet, yet strong cocktail being poured, melting ice in its glass with a hiss.

Suzaku wanted to taste him. Wanted to become drunk on him, until he couldn't feel a thing but his head spinning with pleasure.

If he thought of anything more, he'd freeze up and back off from this.

His clothes hit the ground in different locations. But Suzaku kept his cape, noting the chill of his skin. When he leaned forward on the mattress again, hovering over Lelouch, the great velvety thing made a tent over them — as if it would protect and contain what would surely be their steaming, and yet too-fleeting pleasure.

"Suzaku. Suzaku, Suzaku…."

Suzaku had never heard his name fall from Lelouch's lips like that. If he had not been hard before, now he was. Rather painfully. To think the human body was so simple — pleased so much more easily than brains, or hearts. Suzaku trembled.

Lelouch writhed underneath him, hot. Suzaku touched him everywhere. With hands, with forays of his lips. His tongue swiped a pebbled nipple, and his blood thrummed when Lelouch whined. So Suzaku made the move again… and again, until Lelouch broke into wordless murmurs, panting, hard — until Lelouch shuddered and fisted the cape.

Lelouch squeezed shut his beautiful eyes… and something else as beautiful and terrible as reality happened just then.

Suzaku felt something in his chest push against the cage of his ribs, something much like a bud that broke the dirt with a firm persistence. Suzaku thought he knew what it was, what woke, because of this closeness… but he'd thought he could ignore it, to satisfy his simple lust.

But no. This was Lelouch, clinging to him. This was Lelouch, who mattered much. And sometimes pieces of broken and battered hearts came together, manifesting like buds despite circumstances, threatening to bloom when bodies came together in this way. Suzaku's heart asserted itself — the last thing Suzaku had wanted.

"Lelouch…."

If Lelouch were to know, would he die in more pain, or less?

Lelouch had started crying. The tears fell hot, shocking Suzaku. Was their touching so good? So bad? Suzaku lapped once at the moisture, then took Lelouch smartly by the lips. He kissed Lelouch thoroughly breathless, until Lelouch moaned again, rather than cried. This taste, this feeling… it all would be gone. That had to be why Lelouch cried.

How could Suzaku have agreed to this?

Lelouch caught him around the neck and pulled Suzaku in, too close. His fingers twined into Suzaku's hair, and from his lips escaped another sob. The sob resonated, in the ache already inside Suzaku's chest. What could Suzaku do, or say?

Suzaku started to say something he shouldn't say… and yet still felt, persistently. Why ever should he hold it back? Was this truth, this desire to risk speaking it, what Lelouch had meant when he'd claimed there was nothing left for them to lose?

"Lelouch," he said, throwing the choices he'd made until then out the window, "I'll never recover from this. From you. Ever. You're just so— I love y—"

Lelouch craned his neck to steal Suzaku's mouth. He unleashed a desperate sound. "Nnn."

Suzaku understood the sound was simply 'No' getting cut off, in Lelouch's haste to hush him… and instigate Suzaku to move, instead.

Lelouch did not want to hear it. He did not want Suzaku to say a thing that would endanger Requiem, by blotting out the hatred and the certainty they had come to.

Lelouch's kiss sent fire creeping along Suzaku's nerves – and god, Lelouch's lips were so soft, so pliant, the way they slid against his own. A little moist, a little crushed with pressure, as Lelouch pushed twice as close, tightening his fist in Suzaku's hair.

And suddenly Suzaku became aware of what else waited between them. Lelouch was erect, in no benign or unimpressive way, and his need roared in Suzaku's ears loud enough to drown out all else.

Then Lelouch pulled Suzaku away, a hair's breadth, so they both could gasp for air… and when Suzaku's lips parted again, Lelouch came between them another time, venturing out with darting tongue. Pressing himself against Suzaku, limberly.

The kiss near curled Suzaku's toes. Suzaku felt a moan dragged out of him, as Lelouch's tongue slipped past his teeth, so slick and hot, and seeking something, as if Lelouch would speed Suzaku's arousal beyond what Suzaku could take. As if Suzaku weren't already helplessly hard, and greedily aware of it. When Lelouch's tongue caressed his, a beast far more formidable than Suzaku's regret, or his hesitation, or his misery flexed itself — the same beast that had arrested Suzaku's reason in the gazebo. He shuddered.

His tongue curled around and against Lelouch's back, and Suzaku forgot the three-word phrase he had nearly let slip. He forgot the ache that came from knowing that Lelouch would never feel it back back. After a dance between their mouths that suggested so many intimate acts that Suzaku's felt faint, Lelouch drew his tongue away – whimpering. Lelouch used the pause to drag Suzaku full flush against himself.

Suzaku began sweating. Like this, he could feel every plane and curve of Lelouch's body, and if he thought before that he had come close to insanity… he hadn't.

Regardless of buds in the chest, regardless of taboo phrases, Lelouch wanted this just as much, in the sexual sense. Lelouch craved him. Did Suzaku deserve such desire and regard from his emperor? And then—

Lelouch became possessive again, and wiped out Suzaku's struggling thoughts, as next he bit on Suzaku's lower lip and sucked there, imploring. And exquisitely canting his hips, in the same moment.

Suzaku released a husky cry. To think they'd touch, in such a place, to think he'd welcome it, like this, despite himself. He thrust against Lelouch back—

"Yes. Yes, yes, ah, Suzaku—!"

Lelouch licked Suzaku's lip in one hard, neat stripe of slippery gloss, to mark it as his territory and bid Suzaku to continue. But Suzaku was already far beyond that.

Suzaku could feel the lower half of Lelouch's body heat more. Every shift drove Suzaku mad, as he held Lelouch roughly by both the hips and tried to keep their erections from rubbing together and making him come. Lelouch was writhing under him, his legs sliding desperately this way and that, as if he could do anything but let Suzaku take control of him.

And Suzaku liked that control. He liked having the control of something, for once — something unrelated to war, to death. He liked having control of this commanding and merciless emperor who had decreed that for Suzaku to repent, he must both be able to pleasure and murder.

Suzaku's hunger had reached new zenith. But somehow Lelouch's seemed worse. His desperation struck Suzaku as so appealing that Suzaku wished both to drag out the pleasure and sate Lelouch's appetite—

He wasn't sure what to do next.

"I have a request," Lelouch said.

"Final one?" Suzaku asked, seriously. Was Lelouch going to declare, after this night, and whatever request he had, that the very next morning Suzaku must kill him?

Lelouch brushed fingertips on Suzaku's mouth, as if to keep Suzaku silent. But Suzaku could not stay quiet when Lelouch said, "You, inside me." Suzaku let out a sound like metal wires curling under heat. He licked Lelouch's fingers, weak. "It seems like to do so would suit you. Am I right, that you want it?"

Suzaku moaned. "I wouldn't have you any other way, I think, if I'm only to get it once. I think I want to pound you, until you are seeing stars, Lelouch."

"That's interesting pillow talk. You can't manage more eloquence?" Lelouch was teasing him, only. Suzaku's attention had already helplessly turned Lelouch on. Suzaku wanted to hate Lelouch, wanted to walk away. But he couldn't.

"You want it now?" Suzaku asked. "Already? Do I need to rush all this?" He trailed a hand along Lelouch's thigh. Suzaku had wanted to try things with his mouth—

"I've waited and wanted this act with you for longer than you know." The response came murmured against Suzaku's ear, like summer rain on a window. "That's practically an order. Enter me." Suzaku breathed out and Lelouch clutched him close. "I don't think I'd mind seeing stars. At the very least, knight of mine… I'm already in heaven, engaging in this pleasure with you."

Then Lelouch raised one playful eyebrow — knowing he was no better, in the end, at his creative pillow talk.

But if Suzaku was not already undone, then that statement pulled him apart — that first one, 'longer than you know.' Like laces coming off a woman's corset to reveal something raw, private, vulnerable. Suzaku liked it that Lelouch wanted him. But was Lelouch saying the wait had been a trial? Torture?

Suzaku would punish. He would call to account. But torture was something he had never aimed for.

If Lelouch had wanted this from him, all this time… then before it all came down to a place where lust alone so insulted, not enough — where anything beyond it was an emotional death sentence — then why couldn't Lelouch have told—

"What you need is in the bedside drawer." Lelouch's words came as another command. He didn't want to wait.

Not anymore.

Suzaku moved. The cape fell from them, leaving Lelouch entirely exposed. He looked like marble, like artwork, and Suzaku almost tripped finding what he needed.

Lelouch's violet eyes riveted on him, through him, as if Suzaku were something he had wrought, and now admired. "You're absolutely breathtaking."

"I'm hurrying," Suzaku answered.

"That wasn't me filling dead space, giving you empty flattery while waiting. I mean it. And I will lie here, and take in every inch of you."

Was that a double entendre? Suzaku wondered, hazily. Who on earth now would stop Lelouch, if he wished to admire Suzaku? Lelouch was an emperor. A beautiful, formidable emperor.

"Admiring your lines," Lelouch went on, "impressing it all upon my memory…."

Then Lelouch did the very same thing Suzaku did. Imprinted it. The only awful difference was that Lelouch had little time left for the recall.

Suzaku came back to the bed, as prepared as he'd ever be. Lelouch welcomed him, lips parting, looking more wanton than Suzaku realized he'd dared to yet.

Lelouch had been attempting to go slowly. He hadn't wished Suzaku to rush. But it was as Lelouch had claimed. The emperor could wait no more.

"You're shaking," Suzaku said to him.

Lelouch paused, for a split second. He said, "There's always a moment like that when your dreams and reality finally collide."

Suzaku wondered if Lelouch had trembled this way, when he'd vanquished Emperor Charles, or heisted the throne — or if this interaction was different, entirely. Did Lelouch mean dreams as something separate from items like goals and intentions? Had Lelouch believed, all this time, that he might conquer the whole world, beat Schneizel, but never once touch Suzaku?

Suzaku said, "I'll be gentle."

The reply was immediate. "Of all the sorrow I've brought you, I would never do you the further disservice of ordering you to hold back, Suzaku. Don't be gentle," Lelouch told him. "I want whatever you can give."

Suzaku didn't deserve this.

And yet, he took himself in hand, and kissed the flushing side of Lelouch's neck. He thought that he might cry again. "You don't know what I feel, Lelouch. How badly I want you to realize—"

Lelouch looked in Suzaku's eyes, interrupting. "All the more reason to show me. Don't make me wait here, Suzaku."

Suzaku held back a helpless sniff.

And again he just wished this would murder them both. At the very least, they would die pleasurably.

Suzaku used his fingers first. Lelouch threw his arms up and over his head, panting, trying hard not to shift. His panting became low, encouraging moans. "More, a little more. Yes. If you stop there—"

"I won't, Lelouch. I won't," Suzaku said.

He withdrew his fingers and bent himself, when Lelouch appeared unable to stand much more. The moment Suzaku entered, he felt time stop.

God, this. Just this. This connection. The bud pushed itself further out of Suzaku's chest. The dirt was giving way to grass. A garden of feeling opened up in him.

Lelouch was so tight, hot inside, and slick, because of the bottle Suzaku had been ordered to make use of. And this felt so good he thought he—

Lelouch gave a bitten-back wince.

It was no good yet, Suzaku realized. Lelouch had not done this before. Lelouch might beg, plead, and appear confident… but having sex like this was new to them. When in their lives had they had time to navigate an act like this? And now, they both needed to learn.

Now, when they had no time to go slowly.

Suzaku was not sure how long he could resist starting up movement. Hadn't Lelouch ordered him not to hold back? But Suzaku didn't want to hurt—

He said to Lelouch, "Flip around. Your back to me. I think then… the angle? I—"

Lelouch shook his head into the crook of Suzaku's shoulder, the hot breath of another sob making Suzaku's skin heated. Then Lelouch tightened up, getting more tense.

The feeling drove Suzaku a little insane.

And god, the way Lelouch dug fingertips into his back. He dragged his grip up the length of Suzaku's spine…. Suzaku shuddered. And then he groaned, for Lelouch was tilting his hips.

Suddenly, Lelouch's legs came up to wrap around his waist, as well. Both Lelouch's arms settled around him, and now his legs clamped themselves down — tight, flattening Suzaku against every inch of his haunches.

Too much. Suzaku would go insane. Lelouch's sweat smelled musky, and Lelouch husked out, "Stay close. Like this. I want it just like this. Now please, please… please move. Suzaku—"

Suzaku did as he was told. He gave Lelouch what he wanted.

He finally granted Lelouch's request — because nothing left on planet earth, not even Zero Requiem, could have prevented him from this exploration he so wanted.

The first thrusts were a bit hapless. But then Suzaku found his rhythm. Lelouch didn't complain — rather, he arched his back and tossed his head. Heat radiated off Lelouch like a furnace. Suzaku increased his pace. Suzaku sweated in tiny beads… and as he kept going like that, to the sound of Lelouch's explosion of pleas, to the sight of Lelouch lost in their two bodies, Suzaku lost himself as well — in something like a wave of ecstasy.

He rode the wave, like a ship toward a gracious island in a storm. Then Lelouch stiffened, as Suzaku changed angles.

The ratcheted-up tension burst, and gave way into the loud cries and desperate screams Suzaku had desired.

"Ah, ah, aahn— Suza-aah!"

Suzaku didn't care that it was rough, and that Lelouch was very loud. Lelouch dug his hands into Suzaku's hips and pulled Suzaku in, in, in, before his function and his strength seemed to fail him entirely. When Lelouch could manage his own motion no more, Lelouch moved his hands around to Suzaku's chest and rested there. Pleasure made Lelouch pliant, weak.

Suzaku liked it that Lelouch curled into him and still kept near, as Suzaku thrust, and thrust, and thrust — so that Lelouch threw back his head and screamed again. So that Lelouch's hands scrabbled against the sheets, the silk crunched between his fingers.

This time Lelouch's deep voice broke… and Suzaku knew that that was it. That he had tipped Lelouch into the climax before orgasm – and the sight of Lelouch as he hit that high point because of and with Suzaku inside him made Suzaku entirely forget himself.

The bud inside him pushed again, and suddenly burst into bloom. Suzaku's body felt amazing, but what he felt inside his chest was epiphany, pain, pleasure times a thousand. The emotion that Lelouch didn't want to know Suzaku had blossomed, leaving Suzaku helpless.

Suzaku bore up under the scented miasma of the flowering emotion he mourned Lelouch had never, ever felt for him. Would Suzaku resent Lelouch's distance for years, for eons, until he finally died himself?

He thought perhaps it no longer mattered. Suzaku was here, already a victim, more than he'd ever wished to be. How could this be? Why this? Why them? Why somebody that meant so much… that Suzaku was destined to lose?

Lelouch sobbed and clutched Suzaku close. Suzaku whispered, "Lelouch, I'm here. And I don't care, I love you— more than I think you will ever know."

Lelouch tried to quiet him. "Suzaku—"

"More than I wish I did. More than—"

Lelouch cried out — at both the touch of the words, and the touch of Suzaku's hand slipping between them. Suzaku rubbing Lelouch's length, in time with his murmured, passionate words. Lelouch's body froze in the instant before it went wild at Suzaku's touch, at Suzaku's strokes and Suzaku's thrusts and the closeness they finally shared. Suzaku did not stop touching him, or keeping their bodies sandwiched close.

The cry Lelouch let slip when his crisis at last began to hit made Suzaku come a fast, hot spill inside Lelouch immediately, which made Lelouch shout out his name—

And god, hitting orgasm had never been so perfect for Suzaku. Not alone in his showers, not anywhere. Suzaku shivered and said, "Lelouch, Lelouch—"

Time froze again, for one second, as if it wished to take their side for once, rather than acting as the bane of them. One beautiful second, impressed there — as moments after Suzaku, Lelouch experienced the cataclysm.

Suzaku imprinted all of it. Lelouch and his fantastic heat. The sound of all Lelouch's cries, the faintly floral scent of his exertion, the way Lelouch clenched and trembled around Suzaku's persistent length, skin flushed crimson, his muscles all gone taut and flexed as he began coming, and coming… and the one vein standing out on the side of Lelouch's neck, as Lelouch writhed, and squinted shut those violet eyes. Lelouch's body quaked; Suzaku could feel it, and Lelouch spilled, spilled a stream of his hot, sticky mess, into the hand Suzaku had snaked down to grip him and stroke and pump so it was done.

Lelouch collapsed violently back, shuddering, and now sobbing quietly, for real. There were tears Suzaku knew he possessed no power to stop. To see Lelouch crying like that was something new and deeply shocking.

Suzaku blinked to clear his head, feeling like the room had just finished spinning. They both gasped for air. And Lelouch softly cried.

Suzaku registered the result of their coupling, in the sudden lull they had. His ears rang and his blood careened through him, but his body began to relax. Lelouch's sobbing abated as well.

Suzaku kissed Lelouch's hair. "Lelouch?"

He pulled out of Lelouch with a slow, wet slide. It made Lelouch's breathing hitch, eliciting another half-wanton moan. And then, while Suzaku's heart still wildly beat and felt full enough now to burst, Suzaku looked down – to peruse yet again the scene they'd created — recklessly. Bad idea.

But still. He'd fill his eyes up with Lelouch, memorizing Lelouch for as long as life let him.

Lelouch's lips were parted. He let Suzaku gaze at him. He still panted, his arms thrown back above his head on the pillows. A flush made his cheeks and his skin look more alive than Suzaku knew Lelouch would ever look again — and nothing, Suzaku thought, nothing that day and night had looked this beautiful. Not even white robes in the sunshine had stunned Suzaku as much as Lelouch did in these after-moments, under him.

Belonging to him – regardless of the fact that he would leave.

Lelouch's chest heaved. That tongue that had so driven Suzaku mad flicked out just then to taste his lips, as Lelouch attempted to recover some sense and semblance of himself and the power of speech. "Suza…ku…." Weak and reverent.

Those amethyst eyes as they held Suzaku's mesmerized and pained Suzaku most. He almost looked away, but he couldn't. Lelouch's gaze glittered with tears of pleasure, tears of pain, regret… and of love.

Yes. That was it, wasn't it. Yes.

Suzaku really was stupid.

Lelouch looked simply beautiful… and Suzaku knew he was loved. Lelouch loved him; to doubt it at this point would be sacrilege. Suzaku had never seen anything quite so evident, even without it being spoken in words. There Lelouch was, looking disheveled and euphoric, prone before Suzaku like he'd been prone before no one, ever… and hardly caring he was so. Reveling instead, in the tangled-up sheets, and sweat, and come, as if he'd never wished he could be anywhere else.

If Lelouch did not love him, then would Lelouch have asked for this?

Suzaku's release had marked the curves of Lelouch's flesh between his legs, just as surely as the strawberry kiss bites, and subtle bruises, and long pink marks of the strokes of Suzaku's fingers up and down Lelouch had marked him there. And those marks, Suzaku knew, were echoed across his own back, too. But Lelouch just blinked languidly at Suzaku through hooded lids and long, dark eyelashes, and didn't want to hate Suzaku at all. Yes, yes, Lelouch did love him. And Suzaku… he loved Lelouch, as mixed as it was with Requiem's hatred.

And Lelouch hadn't wished Suzaku to kill him without understanding it.

A tear of Suzaku's patted on the pillows. This did not make having to lose Lelouch one whit easier. No. But maybe now, Suzaku wanted to think, in years later, the scars of this would heal smoothly.

Maybe he could even look back on this and take comfort, knowing he'd been truly loved. Knowing he had been able to love Lelouch back, as much as it hurt them both in the moment. As much as pleasure and pain danced, interchanged.

Lelouch sighed out a last, satisfied breath, and then beckoned Suzaku close to him. Suzaku settled next to Lelouch, to rest where they could hear the beating of each other's hearts, and perhaps sleep – bare, hot skin against bare, hot skin.

Lelouch vi Britannia loved him.

Suzaku cried again, quietly, like he had cried inside the gazebo. He tightened his jaw and looked away, to wipe his eyes with one casual hand, while his emperor whispered, "Please don't leave tonight."

Suzaku knew he wouldn't. "I'm yours, Lelouch. Even though I'll kill you… or maybe because of it. I'm sorry the two us screwed up the world so much that the only option left is for me to finish the only person I've ever loved quite like this."

"I'm also yours forever, Suzaku — even in the afterlife. Know that. You are the only person I've ever loved quite like this as well."

Suzaku laid down next to Lelouch. The flower that had burst inside his chest bloomed like a garden in sun rays, anointed by the light of the beyond — in the same way Lelouch had been that morning. For one more peaceful, final night.

Lelouch vi Britannia loved Suzaku… and Suzaku did not regret having loved him back.