Disclaimer: Code Geass is the property of Sunrise

Credit: This fic was inspired by none other than jusrecht's masterpiece—"Infinity", while my deepest gratitude goes to Scratchy Wilson for beta reading

Warnings: mainly yaoi smut with flashbacks about alien invasion, mecha, gore, politic and non-explicit het sex; also, a dictionary may be needed for some parts of the fic

Author's Note: Enjoy your birthday present, jusrecht!

This smutty fic is set post-R2 and can be read as a standalone or a sequel to my other fic, "Zero of Britannia". This one is still in the Code Geass canon universe, but quasi-AU due to alien invasion. Please note that in this fic, Zero is, de facto, the Knight of Zero—Empress Nunnally's knight who outranks the Knights of Round, while Schneizel—who swore his allegiance to Zero toward the end of the canon series—has been reinstated as the Britannian prime minister who serves the empress. Lancelot Albion Neo is the replacement for Lancelot Albion. All members of the current elite knights are different from the canon series (nameless OCs) because the canon characters either deceased or retired.

What the Solitary Eyes See

'Suzaku-kun.'

Why still use that name? Kururugi Suzaku is long dead. I am Zero.

'Are you all right?'

Why so gentle? Is it pity? I have no need for such a thing!

'Hard … er … harder!'

No honorific, no sophisticated words elaborated his demand. Amidst the dank air, Suzaku gasped for breath, hips twitching. The precision of his partner's measured thrust was impeccable; it choked off his breath, constricting his lungs with the need to yell out the prince's name again and again. He might be the paradigm of a hero on the battlefield, but was a mere boy before Schneizel el Britannia. Always.

Soon, too soon, Suzaku's impassive look succumbed into pure wantonness. Thicker and thicker the mist of lust swirled, coiling, writhing endlessly, and his treacherous legs moved together with the older man's in synchronising harmony. And yet, no matter how many times their bodies were connected, he could never get used to a certain overwhelming sensation that he forbade himself to name.

Lustrous as the finest amethysts, a pair of purple eyes gazed at Suzaku with profound concern. Schneizel surged forward, lining their hips up and plunging into Suzaku the way two pieces of a puzzle fit snugly together. Behind the white prince, the peeling wallpaper revealed cracked, murky wall spotted with leprous-looking growths of mildew—an abode that under normal circumstances would not do for a sojourn of his majestic personage. The shoddy bed of the brothel creaked under both men's vigorous movements, and next to it, pooling on the chair, was their apparel—white muslin gloves scattered on the crumpled black cape and golden epaulet strands covered a portion of the steel-cold mask of Zero.

Suzaku writhed. The long, hard line of Schneizel's unblemished body pressed against his battle scar-etched skin. Schneizel slowed his hips, sliding inside Suzaku, incrementally, tortuously, filling every inch of him. The knight found himself trembling at how deep the prime minister was inside him. With every gasp he emitted, his hips rocked fervently. He wrapped his thighs around the older man, ankles crossed above his partner's hips. Even his inner walls squeezed the length of the prince's member each time Schneizel glided out, and then sucked it each time Schneizel drove back inside.

Give me more pain so that I can forget…

Flashes of recent events heat up Suzaku's blood.

Two years had passed since the Zero Requiem; withal, Lelouch's sacrifice to bring peace of the new world had proven to be nothing but an inception. While Schneizel's new policies maintained peace amongst mankind, extra-terrestrial creatures began to set their eyes on earth. Their colonisation started in the extreme temperature of the Tunisian desert, and within days, their nests spread across the globe like wildfire. At eight feet tall, it was hard to tell which was worse between their impenetrable scutes, which were ten times as hard as diamonds, and their thousand vine-like body extensions, which could lift and crush a knightmare with ease.

Those screams…

Following some local olive farmers' unfortunate encounter with these predators, the Tunisian government sent their special troop to annihilate the threat. Bullets rained the fields of Sahel. In less than fifteen minutes, only the soldiers' names and tiny pieces of their guns and clothing articles remained to be mourned.

Knightmares made their entry then, but resulted in little difference. Ordinary rifles stood no chance to scratch the creatures' skin. The destructive power of Hadron Cannons managed to eradicate some of the aliens, but their long loading time was no match for the predators' speed; many pilots had fallen prey to the aliens before they finished reloading. While Maser Vibration Swords had the capacity to slice the aliens' inured bodies, they required close combat range; on the other hand, the claws of these alien life forms were perfectly capable of cutting through the knightmares' Blaze Luminous energy shield. Not to mention that their saliva of was so acidic that it melted knightmare frames.

Those blood-spattered knightmares…

When the Holy Empire of Britannia despatched the Valkyrie Squadron and the Knights of Round with newly manufactured tenth generation KMF, each unit more advanced than Guren SEITEN and Lancelot Albion combined, and commanded by Zero himself, mankind thought there was still hope. Nonetheless, that hope was crushed on the seventh minute of the elite knights' initial encounter with the vile aliens. The Knight of Eight was the first to fall. The entire Valkyrie Squadron, along with a third of Britannian troop, was wiped off from the face of earth in matter of minutes.

The Knight of Four tried to flee, but an alien pursuer cornered her. When she tried to climb between walls using land spinners, another alien ambushed her from above. Its massive weight descended upon her knightmare frame, piercing the alloy as easily a knife through custard. But the most worrying thing was the fact that the abomination was intelligent to open the cockpit door. At the pilot's ejection, it grasped the Knight of Four by her shoulders. Within the next couple of seconds, her arms bent in the wrong way. Her screams echoed through the abandoned city hall, only to grow louder as the other alien gnawed at her legs. But when they snapped her into two at the waist, her high-pitched shriek was no more. Her blood sprayed the black aliens crimson and parts of her entrails fell near an alien's foot.

Her best friend, the Knight of Nine, let out a shriek before vomiting. The other knights vowed vengeance. Some charged madly with Slash Harkens, others gunned the accursed creatures down with VARIS. There were also those who opted for the fortress mode. Alas, the glory of the sky did not belong to them alone. Chiropteran wings sprung from each alien's head, from what people had previously reckoned to be its ears.

If these aliens had been formidable opponents on land, they were invincible in air. Not only their agility rivalled that of jet fighters, but their ultrasonic voice also acted as natural Gefjun Disturber to knightmare frames. Fire sparks of crimson and gold festooned the carked clouds in accompaniment to the screeches of claws against metal. At the end of the calamitous oratorio, the world's best air force was instantly eliminated as pettily as children crushed paper planes.

Those disintegrated corpses…

Seeing that the shrapnel from the Knight of Eleven's Chaos Mine only did little damage to the aliens' impenetrable skin and three of these vicious creatures were attempting to open the cockpit, Zero unleashed the Harken Boosters from his Lancelot Albion Neo's wrists, poking each of two aliens in the eye. The third alien swooped at him from behind, but without looking back, Zero swung Lancelot Albion Neo's left arm behind and the MVS blade pierced through the loathsome creature's liver.

What Zero did not expect was the fourth alien, which came from below, digging burrows like a badger and surfacing to grab Lancelot Albion Neo's legs. The Knight of Ten rushed to slash the alien's arms, but in doing so, the alien's tail wound its way around the knightmare's waist, limiting his mobility. The two aliens with injured eyes rushed to him, one biting his back, the other nibbling on his right hand.

'Go!' He besought the freed Zero, his scrunched-up face bearing the tale of his agony, blood dripping from his freshly cut wounds. 'You're our only hope.'

'No! I won't abandon you.' Zero rushed back to the Knight of Ten's side, stabbing one of the aliens as he hied.

'If you die today, who will be left to avenge me? Who will put an end to—ARGH—these blasted invaders?' His cry permeated the air with anguish.

At Zero's hesitating gesture, the Knight of Ten activated the Radiant Wave Surger. To create an escape route for his comrades, he exploded himself with, bringing a bunch of aliens with him down to the underworld.

Only two Knights of Round and less than one tenth of the Britannian troop survived. No knightmare frame returned unscathed. Lancelot Albion Neo's lower part was gravely damaged. The moment Zero ejected himself out of his knightmare's cockpit at the palace ground, saturnine and battered, the bereft mother of a deceased soldier threw a stone at his head. 'Why did you let my son die, you empress' dog?!'

In response to Zero's report to the Ministry of Defence, the world government was forced to resolve to Uranium-235 detonation. With over three quarters of its units crippled, the Britannian air force combined forces with the remaining elite forces—the Glinda Knights, the Glaston Knights, the Knights of St. Michael and the Knights of St. Raphael—to drop the bombs from the air. The impact of the explosives new was designed to be smaller in range, but more destructive than their predecessor—FLEIA warheads—had been. Nevertheless, myriads of the aliens' eggs were at the verge of hatching and, in the dearth of time for evacuation, more than 147 million people worldwide became collateral damage, caught in the explosions. The destruction of buildings was enough to cast several countries into the depth of economic crisis.

The current Suzaku bit his lip. If only he had managed to decimate the alien invaders, how many lives could he have saved? How many children would still have their parents? How many pedestrians would still crowd the streets?

'Are you peradventure thinking about yesterday's catastrophe?' Schneizel's voice, soft as thunder, perforated the stale air. Gone had the adjuratory air that had usually graced the cold-blooded strategist, ousted by an empathic gaze and knitting brows.

Suzaku's lips refused to merit the statement, but his eyes asserted otherwise.

'Suzaku-kun, it is not your fault that those people died—Zero or not.'

Schneizel halted abruptly, only to drag his manhood very, very slowly, fully aware that this tantalising slide always made Suzaku's breath hitch. He did it again, and again, pushing in rapidly, staying still for a few moments as he caressed the boy's thigh while by changing the angle of his hips to reach a certain spot within Suzaku where no other man had the privilege to access.

When Schneizel eventually resumed his normal pace, Suzaku caught his breath and remembered the prince's remark. A flare in Suzaku's eyes was enough deviance.

Had memory been so charitable as to let him forget, he would not have gone to the ghetto in the first place. Earlier, he had hobbled down the ill-smelling alleyway, where soot and dirt made their nest and laundry lines populated the upper part of the narrow gap between time-ravaged walls. That was where he crashed into the first brothel on his way, asking for any available prostitute. He needed relief so badly. A relief from all this madness.

The wench had blonde hair like Schneizel, but that was where their resemblance ended. She was far too talkative compared to His Highness, too carefree and too vain. And her face … he could not remember her face. His head resounded with the ingeminated rebukes, 'You weren't there. You didn't witness how those aliens' mouths spread to engulf humans' limbs and how their jagged teeth crunched every inch of flesh within their reach.'

A scream punctuated Zero's train of thoughts. He came to realise that he had been pounding mercilessly into the prostitute, taking her from behind. His penetration was quick and fast, intent on his own need at the expense of her comfort. He did not even give the poor girl the time to get wet; his own suit stayed intact, bar his unzipped trousers.

Sobbing on her slapdash run, the girl went to her panderer. After discarding the protective rubber, Zero—whom they wrongly assumed to be one of so many impostors—went after her to offer his apology, but refused any replacement. It was not what he needed. It would never be. No living soul possessed the capacity to relieve his pent-up frustration, save for one.

Initially, the procurer seemed to be ready to send him off provided that he did not ask for refund. But then, one of the wenches pulled the woman with ponderously drooping breasts to the side and whispered something to her ear. The senior woman accosted Zero with a smile that only increased her wrinkles and when she spoke, her tone was so unctuous that it served to increase his repugnance, 'It's no policy of mine to leave guests unsatisfied.'

'I assure you I don't need—'

'Ah, but this one is special,' interrupted the round-faced pimp, batting her eyelashes in a way that made onlookers' stomachs churn. She then pointed at the door scribbled with number six on it. 'Anyway, just take a look inside. If you don't like it, you're free to go. Come on, you've got nothing to lose.'

Even when Zero pressed the handle, he was convinced he would turn back right away. Yet, after the door swung inwards to reveal the interior of the room, what he perceived made his heart almost leap from his ribcage. He shut the door behind him on impulse before proceeding farther into the dingy chamber.

'Your Highness, what…'

'… inappropriateness is this?' were the words he meant to say, but his throat suddenly became too dry to articulate as much as a syllable. Before him, on the rickety bed, sat the very figure of Schneizel el Britannia. While his countenance was vested in his usual composure, the remainder of him was undraped, revealing the proffered expanse of his body that was fraught with luxurious enticement. The smooth, marmoreal complexion of his broad shoulders tapered downwards into a delectably sinful junction between the musculature of his flanks, interspersed with well-sculpted clavicles, chest, ribs, abs, and continued to the sensuous rondures of his thighs.

The prime minister raised his head at Zero's arrival and, in doing so, pronouncing his exquisite jawline for Zero's lips to kiss—a sight that reminded the knight of the first time he had learnt to dive in the air while piloting a knightmare, except that there was no altitude beneath him now, no long drop waiting for him bar the one his heart was about to feel.

Before Suzaku's brain fully registered of what had transpired, he found himself straddling Schneizel's lap. A voice inside the knight's head told him that he was staring at the most lethal specimen the entire cosmos could conjure. Not a piece of garment was in the way to interrupt the exchange of heat between them. His thighs were trapping the prime minister's slender waist, while the older man's hardened flesh brushed across his stomach. His chest heaved in convulsions as his prince's lips paid adoring homage to his uncovered body. The slope of his neck soon bore the affectionate bite marks of Schneizel's teeth.

It was not until the fifth bite that Suzaku's senses found their way back to him. 'Why are you here…' then he hastily added, '…sir?'

'To find you,' came Schneizel's retort, enfolded in a timbre too alluring to fit the prime minister's usual decorum.

Heat flooded Suzaku's cheeks. Trying not to imagine the erubescence that was now staining his visage, he observed his surroundings. Anything from the room's squalid furnishings to gaudy décor was preferable to meeting Schneizel's nerve-shattering gaze. Atop the heap of the prince's royal attire lay a metal object that suspiciously looked like an APS or Accurate Positioning System—the more precise version of GPS that Lloyd Asplund had invented a while ago; for security reasons, Zero had consented to have a tracking device installed to his belt.

'Why?' Suzaku wanted to ask, but an invisible bludgeon smashed his chest. Regardless of the mask, Kururugi Suzaku remained Zero in Schneizel's eyes—or at least, Lelouch's Geass so decreed. Schneizel el Britannia was Zero's retainer who would forever serve; for Zero and Zero only his loyalty was reserved. Otherwise, why would Schneizel take the trouble to visit such a filthy place unguarded just to accommodate Suzaku's need after the devastating battle, or even care whether a mere soldier named Kururugi Suzaku live or die?

'I-I should wash first.'

At Suzaku's stammer, Schneizel's lips curled upwards, one of his hands settling on Suzaku's thigh. 'Is it not too late for that?'

As five lissom fingers traced a line down his spine, Suzaku insisted in his mind that he was shivering from cold rather than anticipation. He was not supposed to want this. Even so, he instinctively arched when one finger dipped between the cleft of his backside. Schneizel slowly circled his svelte finger, spiralling it as he made his way closer and closer to Suzaku's core.

Then it smote Suzaku. When their gazes met, Suzaku's blood hummed in his veins from the look of passion in the aristocrat's mesmerising eyes, urging him to move his hips and spread his legs wider. His fingers sank into the prince's golden hair. He needed, craved for more of Schneizel's touches. A part of him wished that he did not yearn for this, but how could he nullify his most abstruse longing over the clamour of his own needs?

Schneizel added his second finger in acceptance of Suzaku's wordless invitation. Judging from his partner's gritted teeth, he could tell that the muscles in the Suzaku's stomach were dancing in the rhythm of this familiar pleasure. However, the boy's hand stopped his movement with a grip on his wrist when he attempted to reach for a bottle of lubricant on the nightstand, eliciting a questioning glance from him.

'Don't prepare me,' explained the brunet, 'I want it to hurt.'

As expected, the entry that followed was not without difficulty. Yet, the view of Suzaku's face, contorted with wantonness as the sense of fullness invading him the moment he filled himself with Schneizel to the hilt, was worth the effort. The room abounded with the young knight's arousing groan. Suzaku tightened around Schneizel, accepting the older man's shape as his own by meeting every contour, every length and every breadth, until the entirety of the prince's manhood became the very form of him.

Beads of perspiration slowly trickled along Suzaku's temple as a part of Schneizel jabbed deep into him. It felt good, so damn good—the pain mingled with pleasure in a forbidden duet. He needed this. More than breathing, more than survival, more than Geass, he needed to have Schneizel inside him. How could something be so wrong and so right at the same time? Why was it, as long as he was with this man, every nip set him aflame and every lick fuelled his passion? Suzaku wished Schneizel had not introduced any strange feelings into his life. Then he wished he had not had the time to wish Schneizel had not introduced such feelings into his life.

Warm tightness encased Schneizel as Suzaku sank on top of him, chest inflating and deflating with anticipation. He moved slowly as Suzaku's contracting muscles clenched around him and pulled him deeper inside. Tighter he held Suzaku in encouragement as the boy push back into his hips, matching his advances with equal eagerness.

Suzaku felt power radiating from Schneizel, in the roll of his hips and in the embrace of his arms, heating him and chasing away the guilt. The thick presence inside was filling him to the brim, leaving no space to care for identities and politics, for Geass and duties, for comrades-in-arms and casualties. There was just their bareness, skin against skin, combined with a desire first lit years ago. The scent of sex overpowered the mustiness of the room. The salacious sound from the place their bodies were connected was well-nigh tactual in its intensity.

Euphie had been his first love—an existence so pure that made him want to protect her at all cost. Then, there had been Lelouch—the person he once loved and abhorred most, his best friend and the bestower of his curse. There was also Nunnally—the one whom he treated as a little sister despite her quiet pining for him. What karmic offence he had done to deserve always falling for the Britannian royal family he did not know, but none of those love interests could compare to the second prince of Holy Britannia.

It had begun with an intrigue. A world-class master of stratagem, Schneizel el Britannia was the only one who had seen through Lelouch's Geass long before the existence of Geass was unfolded before him. After the massacre, while Cornelia defended Euphemia out of sororal concern, Schneizel believed in the princess' innocence based on logic and deductions.

For a man who once had tried to sacrifice him and the Lancelot prototype in order to kill Zero with Avalon's bombardment, Schneizel showed no remorse. What he did not reveal in words, he made up with action. Had it not been for the Weinberg's treasured cognac, words would have never slipped past Cécile Croomy's lips that it was Schneizel who commissioned Lloyd to keep upgrading Lancelot for Suzaku's sake, ensuring that all modifications would be optimised for Suzaku's abilities and refusing to consider any other candidate for Lancelot's pilot. Just as Schneizel never declared his support, Suzaku chose to express his gratitude not through words, but through victories in battle.

Had it not been for Schneizel, Zero would likely become just another revolutionary terrorist in history. Their encounter at Lelouch's mausoleum changed that. It was Schneizel who proposed that Zero maintained of peace and order from within the Britannian government. He also played an indispensable role in rounding up the new incarnation of the Order of the Black Knights.

It was thanks to this man's peace treaties that mankind led a better life after the departure of the Demon Emperor. On Schneizel's injunctions, Britannia had yielded colonisation and embraced multilateral relationship in its stead. It offered free education and technology for under-developed countries, provided building materials to the slum areas globally, built strong network in trade and commerce, and also promoted sport competitions and cultural events worldwide. Gradually, but steadily, the peaceful world of Lelouch's envisioning materialised through Schneizel's hands. From there, what had begun as an intrigue in Suzaku's heart grew into a fascination.

Then, with one earthquake on a blustery day, came the public declaration of which person mattered most to Zero. When the ceiling threatened to collapse, he rushed ten feet to shield Schneizel from the debris, ignoring the Japanese prime minister, Ougi Kaname, on his way. Nor did he even consider an attempt to rescue Empress Nunnally, whose wheelchair was immediately next to Zero. Although there were no fatalities, or even in truth any serious injuries, discomfiture bade Zero to remove himself from the Britannian prime minister's presence for weeks after the incident.

Prior to the commencement of the annual Knightmares' Joust, it was a customary that a knight received the blessing from his patron. That day, the prime minister became the empress' deputy, for she was bedridden with cold. Carrying no handkerchief to give away, Schneizel handed Zero—the empress' representative knight—his glove. For the first time, Zero touched the skin underneath the prince's glove and its warmth made Suzaku's every nerve sing with comfortably numbing electricity.

For seemingly interminable seconds, the power of mobility abandoned the knight. He stood there, statuesquely, until Schneizel's voice brought him back to the desolated changing room. 'Is there anything else, Zero?'

A brusque 'no' was all Suzaku could manage. He excused himself, cape flapping along his hurried strides.

'In truth, there is one more thing.' The prince's voice halted the knight before the younger man reached the exit.

Turning back, Zero noticed the prime minister's eyes flickering with uncertainty—something he had least expected from Schneizel el Britannia. Curiosity prompted him to encourage the taller man to continue. 'Yes?'

The prime minister's body was stiffening as he delivered his answer, 'I was wondering if you were so inclined as to let me kiss you before you take your leave.'

It was the prince's shivering lips, rather than those aureate words, which made Suzaku's feet step closer to Schneizel and his hands take the mask of Zero off his head.

Suzaku regretted that kiss as soon as it ended. Why on earth had he thought that for a split second Schneizel really wanted him? Under the Geass' influence, the white prince would only do what he deemed fit for Zero's interest. And now that Suzaku had tasted those luscious lips, how could he wrench himself free from their addictive grasp?

Since that day, nothing in the world could make Zero regard Schneizel in the same light as before. Unbidden, he would start seeing Schneizel's image wherever he turned and recurrently grew feverish whenever the real Schneizel came into sight. Just as the old saying, 'the course of true love never did run smooth'*, so did their courtship progress. The prime minister's invitations for tea were often interrupted by all sorts of political affairs, from the pre-emptive contrivance for the nuclear development in the near east to the seal of approval for the Pendragon Anniversary Festival entertainers. When a slot in Schneizel's cramped schedule was finally unoccupied, Zero and the Order of the Black Knights were subduing the sedition on the northwest of the country. Even when the two of them did meet in public, both concealed themselves behind the estrangement of their masks—one, of bulletproof glass, the other, of imperturbable mien. Yet, from time to time, a parcel of foreign delicacies would be delivered to Zero's door upon the prime minister's return from his diplomatic mission. The thirteenth parcel came with a card bearing the white prince's own handwriting: 'May I visit you tomorrow night?'

No candlelit dinner, no violin serenade, no diamond ring preceded their intercourse. And yet, when Schneizel knelt before him, Suzaku knew that the moon would sooner be immersed in water than he could reject this man. Ever since, it had become their ritual that the prince would visit the knight in the dead of the night every now and then. Each time he yielded to Schneizel's embrace, the stones of guilt settled within Suzaku's guts. This ought not to happen—how one who was merely under the Geass' influence took him into a plunge across forbidden bliss.

But tonight, ever-so-tender kisses skated over Suzaku's ivory skin, igniting every nerve beneath it with a flame he was unable to extinguish. He couldn't stop himself from moaning now, even if he wanted to. His hand brushed over the prince's unscarred back, which acted as a magnetic field to Suzaku's fingers. He wanted to merge with Schneizel, to melt their bodies together and become one. This was as close as they could get, their two figures intertwined, and it would have to be enough. Yet, he desired more. He coveted for more heat, more friction, more of Schneizel.

Schneizel entered Suzaku again, thrusting in and out of the younger man over and over, surging through him relentlessly, right into that spot until the knight's panting grew gustier and the flush on his face deepened. He pulled Suzaku so close that he could lean and kiss the brunet, tasting yet again that ghost of special phrase their respective status would not permit to utter.

The notion of witnessing the prime minister of the Holy Britannian Empire reduced to do nothing more than gasps and groans and grunts had been non-existent before Suzaku found himself alone with Schneizel like this, when the cloak of the night concealed them from the world's condemning eyes. Guttural sounds tore from deep within Schneizel's throat, the episodic mutinous whimpers slipping from his lips as his partner's insides spreading along his girth.

Suzaku began to falter in his rhythm as he approached his crescendo. Inside him, the climax was building. Pleasure rippled through his body, tingling through his nerves and coursing down his spine. He pushed the balls of his feet down, toes curling into the bed sheet. His hips raised and bucked wildly, blunt fingernails digging into Schneizel's shoulders. With gritted teeth, he swallowed back his whimper: if the mask of Zero were never his to wear, wouldn't he play a mere pawn's role in Schneizel's chess board of life?

As Schneizel's hips twirled in a graceful gyration, Suzaku's world whirled into oblivion. The ceiling was spinning, but there was no wine to blame. Time and space lost their meaning. He stopped noticing whatever noise the people outside the room were making. Even the walls and the ground themselves did not seem to exist. There was only this prince, delectable lips pressed against his, teasing tongue exploring his, enticing body inseparable from his own.

Suzaku felt warmth pooling in the pit of his belly and then his hips jerked, pushing erratically towards his demise. He came with wild abandon, numbly unaware of his surroundings as a torrent of delirium swept over his being. Arching his back towards Schneizel, he admitted the prince even deeper into his body.

At the sight of the spilt seed on his torso, Schneizel smiled and then proceeded to plant a kiss on Suzaku's forehead. He held Suzaku there while pressing in again and again until his hips faltered the following minute, skipping a beat before shuddering with one long thrust, Suzaku's name on his lips. His handsome face was distorted with a spasm of passion; for a moment, Suzaku caught a glimpse of an ordinary man not unaffected by ardency and affection. Then Schneizel went still.

Their breath mingled together in short bursts.

Suzaku balled his fists. His insides were ablaze with a maddening fury to tear Lelouch's sepulchre open, to resurrect the dead, to hurl the Geass back at the ninety-ninth emperor's face … to discern whether his name on Schneizel's lips would sound less perfidious in the absence of that infernal command.

Even after Schneizel regained his genteel bearing a short while later, he continued delving within Suzaku's warmth and listened to the prolonged quiver of the boy's body. His amethyst eyes beheld Suzaku in the way they had never settled on others. His fingers laced with his partner's notwithstanding the knight's adamantine denial of what the silent music of the prince's veins was conveying: how little the Geass was pertinent to this sentiment—this particular intoxication Kururugi Suzaku had instilled in him for over three years.

Tomorrow's garish sunlight would restore noblesse oblige, but here in the dark, they were insolubly united.

THE END

* Quoted from Shakespeare's The Midsummer Night's Dream

Further details about Gino, Anya and Nonette's retirements can be read in my older fic, "Oh, Really?" The encounter at Lelouch's mausoleum is described in "Zero of Britannia". As for the earthquake scene, its details are located on chapter 4 of my other fic, "Reverends and Revenants". If you are curious about Schneizel's feelings for Suzaku, head to "All Hallows' Eve" (although it took place years before the setting of this fic). They all have lighter vocabulary and syntax, promise. However, this fic is still comprehensible without you reading all those aforementioned fics.