Written by request. Warning for potential trigger material.

The Child Emperor

"Let me," Suzaku whispers into his neck.

Lelouch's long fingers tremble in their grip on Suzaku's shoulders. His breaths are long, noisy, uneven, faltering.

"Nervous?" Suzaku asks as gently as possible.

"No," Lelouch says sternly. Suzaku smiles, not having expected anything else. And just to prove how not not-in-control he is, Lelouch leans back and unbuttons his blazer all on his own. Very carefully he folds it and pushes it out of the way. Then he meet's Suzaku's eyes with a haughty tilt to his chin and a defiant edge in his imperious gaze.

Suzaku moves back from the bed and kneels before Lelouch, palms shown in supplication. He smiles, amused, under Lelouch's glare, and says, "More." He untucks his white shirt, having discarded that heavy blazer long ago somewhere near the couch. Lelouch hesitates and then untucks his own.

Suzaku laughs softly. A brief smile flits across Lelouch's own countenance. Suzaku slowly unbuttons his shirt; Lelouch slowly unbuttons his shirt. Suzaku slowly slides it off; Lelouch slowly slides it off.

—but here the prince stops and finally looks away. He bring his arms up to cradle and shield his naked torso, looking very feminine, something like a mother holding an invisible child. Suzaku reaches out with warm hands and tugs the child-fold out of Lelouch's arms. Lelouch bows his head and lets Suzaku runs fingers over the smooth skin of his thin chest, his broad shoulders. Suzaku hears it when he gulps in the dead silence of the dark bedroom.

Again Suzaku leans back and again Lelouch glares. (His long white fingers grip the edge of the bed until the sheet creaks.) Suzaku unbuckles the belt of his pants. A sigh rattles through Lelouch before Lelouch does the same. Suzaku unzips; Lelouch unzips.

"Are you alright?" Suzaku asks.

"Of course," Lelouch says, voice tight with agitation. He stands abruptly and Suzaku follows.

"Let me," he whispers again, and this time Lelouch lets him. Suzaku skims his hands down Lelouch's body and tugs the pants and lets them fall. The sound of the buckle on the wood is loud enough to make Lelouch jump. Suzaku chuckles lightly and pecks Lelouch on the lips. "You're fine."

"I'm fine," Lelouch repeats quietly. He kisses Suzaku on his own initiative for once, and unlike Suzaku's kisses—hot and wet and passionate—Lelouch kisses with the sweetness of children, of family, of closeness. He kisses with lips pressed, mouth closed, tugging lightly, lingering and lingering. With this kiss, Suzaku moves forward, moves Lelouch backward, and lowers his lover to the bed.

Suzaku didn't know.

And they kiss and they touch and Suzaku is bold and Lelouch is light but assured in his movements. All clothes eventually divested (all of Lelouch's: neatly folded), they writhe, nude, panting. They are nervous and ecstatic, and Suzaku didn't know.

Suzaku laughs without breath and leaves the bed to find the lube in the back pocket of the pants he had thrown away a bit harder than he meant to. He leaves Lelouch on the bed, cold and shivering. When he turns back, Lelouch is on his side, knees drawn up, arms drawn in, brow pinched vaguely. Fetal position. "Cold?" and Lelouch nods and rolls onto his stomach. Suzaku rejoins him, covers him, heavy and ready.

And Suzaku didn't know—couldn't know—but suddenly, knew, with a small delay between pressing slowly inside and Lelouch saying "Big brother, please stop" and him sliding in on "please" and Lelouch making a noise like a choked off scream and Lelouch clenching, hard, as his whole body freezes and locks down.

Yes, somewhere in there, in those two or three seconds, Suzaku suddenly knew and hastily withdrew.

And there is silence. Lelouch does not move, does not turn to face Suzaku, does not utter a sound. Suzaku feels the tremors from Lelouch's legs, through his butt, up his back, to his shoulders that visibly twitch and jump as Suzaku looks on in growing, gnawing horror.

"Lelouch," he hisses into the darkness. "What did you say?"

Lelouch does not answer. Suzaku quietly unwraps his limbs from Lelouch and comes to sit beside this boy, his lover, with one hand on his jumping shoulders.

"Lelouch," he says again, calling through the deep darkness of the room on a new moon night. Lelouch is ever silent. Suzaku sighs, gulps, licks his lips, looks around the room. And finally he stops being a coward and he nudges Lelouch and rolls him over.

Lelouch does not look at him. In fact, Suzaku thinks, he doesn't look at anything, though his eyes are wide open. He's looking, frozen in terror, at something Suzaku can't see. Suzaku calls his name again and again and again and he shakes him and he turns on lights and still, Lelouch does not answer, and Lelouch does not move. He might have died but for the whispering wind of his breath.

Lelouch comes back sometime after Suzaku starts to cry. His coming back is nothing more than a twitch of his wide, wide eyes as they move in their sockets to take in Suzaku's wet, ruddy face. And then they close, and Lelouch curls in upon himself again, and he cries, too—like a child.

They argue about it. Suzaku thinks later to himself that yelling at Lelouch after—after thatprobably wasn't the least asshole thing he's ever done in his life. He justifies as much as he can so that he can get to sleep sometime before three in the morning: I wasn't yelling at his problems, just yelling at the fact that he doesn't want to let me in. (That's different, right?)

Suzaku curls on the couch, feet pointed awkwardly at the ankles to fit his whole body on the seats. There are two spare blankets and neither covers him all the way; there's one for his feet and one for his torso, and between them is a slit that lets in the cold air of the living room and makes him shiver. It doesn't help him fall asleep any more than the sight of Lelouch freezing and unresponsive or the words they exchanged afterwards.

("Just get out, just get out, get the fuck out before I—"

"You what? What, Lelouch, really, I think I'd really like to hear this. I'm trying to help you and you're going to do—what?"

And Suzaku saw it in his eyes: Lelouch would... he'd ki—.. he would...)

Suzaku slips fitfully, waking every half an hour to change position, widening the gaps in his blankets and exposing himself more and more. Whenever he's aware enough, he hears thumps coming from the hall, and he knows Lelouch has not slept once.

Suzaku wakes to the smells of cooking and shame-facedly drags himself into the kitchen. Except for tired eyes, Lelouch looks much the same as he did before the incident. He even turns around and smiles and says that the eggs will be done in a moment.

Sayoko takes Nunally off to school and Suzaku hangs back. He makes sure to knock into something as he comes back into the kitchen, because Lelouch's back is turned. Lelouch doesn't make any particular movement but to continue with dishwashing, uninterrupted.

"Lelouch," Suzaku whispers. "About last night-"

"Don't mention it, Suzaku." Lelouch voice is suddenly hard once more.

"No, I just- I shouldn't have pushed... If you don't want to talk about it-"

"I don't."

"Yeah, well... I just wanted to apologize for yelling an-"

"No, Suzaku," Lelouch spits with all the vehemence of last night. "You're not getting it! I don't want to speak of it at all. Last night didn't happen—" Lelouch finally turns to look Suzaku in the eye "—understand?"

And when he looks like that— when Lelouch looks like that—

Suzaku would do anything for him.

A year and much more later, Suzaku gets at last a rather unsatisfactory but by now un-extraordinary answer. When he enters the throne room there is Lelouch, grimly and viciously amused—

—and there is Odysseus, his willing dog, naked and debased, turning tricks.

"Fetch, boy," Lelouch bites out, and he throws a knife that Odysseus, entranced, woofs and fetches with his bleeding mouth. Lelouch glances at his knight with blazing eyes.

Lelouch is nothing if not vengeful. This Suzaku knows well enough by now.

And in that same night, Lelouch calls him to his bedroom and throws him roughly against the bed. Lelouch looms above him, threatening, eyes red and inexplicably frightening. He pins Suzaku's shoulders to the sheets but Suzaku reaches up anyway and strokes his cheek.

"Knight of Zero, who am I?"

"You are the emperor of the world, Your Majesty."

"That's right," Lelouch says, and then he descends with teeth bared.

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Thanks for reading!