A story about understanding one's flaws but having to courage to ask for love despite them. I was inspired to make this piece after hearing Adele's "Remember Me" for the first time because I think it describes CC perfectly. She is certainly a flawed character but loved dearly nonetheless.
Warning: this story does contain sex, but nothing too graphic (imo). Hope you all enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the piece of left over pizza in my fridge
CC wandered the dark halls, restless. Tonight was the last night before the completion of the Zero Requiem, and everyone else had long since gone home: Cecile to her family, Lloyd to his machines, and Suzaku (she suspected) to visit his dead princess's grave. Meaning it was just her and Lelouch in this dark, empty castle that he had made specifically for it to be torn down. CC remembered him telling her that he had specifically designed the building to look like a mausoleum for a memorial for all who had died in this war.
CC's lips quirked upward in a grimace.
"It's ironic, isn't it Marianne?" CC asked.
She got no answer, as she expected to. After Marianne had disappeared into the world of C she could no longer speak to CC's heart since she no longer possessed a consciousness of her own. But CC liked pretending to talk to her anyways. It made her feel less alone.
"Lelouch spending his last night in a mausoleum when in a few hours he'll be…" her voice faltered. She couldn't bring herself to say dead; instead the word that reverberated through her mind was gone.
Gone. Gone. Gone. That was the part that mattered anyway. It was certainly selfish on his part; she was the one with the death wish, and yet he was the one who would be leaving first. Leaving her alone. She felt it again, that feeling of wildness in her chest that had made her start this midnight walk to begin with. It made her want to kick and scratch and claw and take, but take what exactly she couldn't figure out.
It was strange, how he made her feel things. Before Lelouch every aspect of her life had been like a coin flip, completely trivial and meaningless in the context of the infinity of time. And now, well, she wouldn't be so completely clichéd as to say that he gave her life meaning again. But she cared, about some things. She had found herself actually caring about winning or losing when she battled Kallen in that nightmare so long ago. She certainly cared about pizza. And when he made her smile…she cared about that. She would miss those smiles when he was gone.
xxxx
"I thought you would be sleeping soundly, witch," Lelouch greeted her as she entered the room. He didn't turn to face her and instead continued staring through the window outside.
Why she felt drawn here to see him, CC did not know. Maybe it was just to sneak in his room once more for old times sake. Or maybe it was just to make a connection with a fellow human being in this castle of the dead. But being here with him calmed the restlessness within her.
"And why would that be?" she asked. She flopped down onto his still-made bed and hugged her knees to her chest.
CC could see the light from the full moon reflecting in his violet eyes, giving them a feral look. "We both know that you don't care about the affairs of this world."
She knew him. She understood that he was trying to shut her out, trying to cut everyone away so that he wouldn't lose his resolve to do the unthinkable. She knew him, so this tactic wasn't exactly a surprise. What was a surprise was that it hurt.
"And do you?"
"There's nothing left for me to care about." He finally closed the binds and turned to face her, and in the darkness CC could see him for what he truly was: a broken man. His skin was grey, his posture crumpled. His eyes, which usually contained so much fire that they seemed to burn straight through her, were dead.
Make a plan! CC wanted to scream. Don't just roll over and die! Fight back!
Of course, he had made a plan. He had made this plan, this path that he had chosen for himself. But just looking at him like this made her want to go over there and slap him until he finally hit her back just to see a spark of life.
Instead she looked at him and said, "Do you want to make love, Lelouch?"
His eyes widened in surprise. "What?"
She twirled a strand of green hair around her finger in an attempt to sound nonchalant. "Well it just seems a terrible waste to die a virgin."
He rounded on her with a quickness she hadn't thought possible and pinned her wrists to the bed, forcing her onto her back.
"Why now?" he asked sharply. He was close now, so close that she could feel the heat of his body as he loomed above her. He's angry, she thought, but at least he is alive again.
She fixed her golden eyes with his. Lifetimes ago that would have made any man surrender themselves and kneel at her feet. Now she couldn't even get one to pretend to love her for the night.
"Answer me, witch!" he demanded. "Why do you come here, tonight of all nights, and ask me this?"
"Because this is the last night we have, and it's better than spending it alone," she finally answered.
She didn't give him any time to answer before she leaned upwards and kissed him, pressing their bodies close. Of course, being Lelouch, he gave no verbal admission to her desires because that would be showing that he didn't have control of the situation. But that was all right with her because his body was saying yes all on its own. She could feel his manhood pressing into her and began to massage it, eliciting a low moan from his throat.
"CC," he gasped, pulling away from her slightly. She said nothing, instead choosing to ravage his body further until he leaned into her touch.
Now he will not leave, CC thought. She kissed him again.
Clothes were removed; kisses shared; bodies touched. The two of them were silent through it all except for their muffled gasps and groans of pleasure, simply enjoying the feeling of being with another. It wasn't until he began thrusting into her that she spoke again.
"You don't have to be the hero, you know," she said quietly.
And what else would I be?" Lelouch asked. He ground his hips into hers and a spasm of pleasure rippled through her body, making CC arch her back and let out a muffled gasp.
"You could be warlock." You could stay here with me. You could live.
He quirked an eyebrow up at her. "And would CC be witch?"
She leaned close and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He seemed to understand what she wanted and slowed his tempo, moving in her at an easier pace.
"Is it such a difficult idea to grasp?" she asked.
"What idea?" he countered
She moved to meet him this time and felt rewarded when he shuddered and moaned.
"Loving me."
Lelouch made no move to answer her except to pull her in close and kiss her deeply. His tongue caressed hers as gently as a lover's embrace but moved with the quickness of a viper's strike, teasing her and leaving her wanting more, all the while his member pulsing in and out in its fiery dance.
He burned her. He set her alight in the same way that his piercing eyes always had except this time the flames moved through her entire body. And soon she was going to lose him, the only person who had ever made her feel anything in so long. When she went to bed tomorrow evening her warlock would be gone.
Suddenly the flames began to consume her. And it felt so good to be able to fucking feel something again, even if it was only the sensation of being burned alive because at least it meant she was alive at all.
CC forced herself to pull away from him. "Am I such a monster to you, Lelouch?"
"You're not a monster. You are CC," he answered.
His answer was so simple that it made her laugh. "I am. I am CC. I'm a bitter, childish woman. I am not gentle or innocent or kind-hearted. And I have a fickle heart."
She couldn't stop now, neither the words on her lips nor the tears now streaming down her face. She was crying. CC couldn't even remember the last time she had cried. It was certainly not in this lifetime.
"I used to be able to make any man love me, you know. All I had to do was just look at them. But you…"
She gasped as he pushed into her once more and couldn't stop herself from crying out. The pressure within her core was building quickly and would soon be begging for its sweet release.
"Is there nothing to remember in me? Nothing to remind you of the human I once was? Is there nothing in me worth staying for?"
Lelouch sensed that she was close and began pulsing in and out of her much more rapidly.
"Didn't you promise you would make me smile?" she asked once more.
She dug her nails into his back as she climaxed, all of the building pressure rushing out of her in one glorious stream of unthinking pleasure. Usually CC's moment left an image of beautiful colors in front of her eyes, but this time all she could see was his face.
Lelouch….
He finished seconds after, leaving the two of them to gasping for breath on the tangled sheets beneath. A minute passed. Two. Three. The two of them stared at each other in silence, golden eyes locked with violet. CC didn't want to move, didn't want to even blink because if she did he would be gone, and his face would be only a memory.
"CC," he said finally. "I remember what you told Mao the night that you killed him. You said 'in another life I could have loved you.' In another life I could have loved you, witch. In another life I could have met you in a coffee shop. In another life I could have dated you throughout university. In another life I could have married you and had two kids and made you smile every single day as we grew old together. In another life I could have loved you, not the innocent girl you were thousands of years ago, but the selfish woman with me tonight."
He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear in a show of tenderness she hadn't thought possible from him. And for a second she began to hope that just maybe she had changed his mind.
"But that is not the life we have chosen," he said finally. "I'm not warlock. I'm not a hero. I am the demon king who is doomed to a tyrant's death tomorrow morning."
CC's tears began to fall fresh on the pillow-case, but she forced herself to smile through them.
"In that case you have a life-time of smiles to make up for," she joked.
"That's a little difficult to do in one night," he said with a shaky smile of his own.
"Didn't they call Zero the bringer of miracles?"
xxx
He made love to her many more times that night. The next morning she awoke in his bed alone, her arms still cradling the empty space where his body had been just hours before. Her pillow was still wet with tears.
But CC knew she had been smiling in her dreams.