Author Note: There's someone out there in FFN-world named Nessie-san. I'd like to let her know that she is part of the reason I posted this piece.
It's been a while since I've written for Code Geass; I'm working on "Stripped," but that fic has a way different tone. Lately, I've been going over my older Geass fanfics, thinking, "How come I can't do that any more? What's gone missing? Why can I not pull that off today?" Somehow, it's been quite the downer. People grow and change, and so do writing styles; I know that, but still – my love for the show and what it does has never changed! So… what the bloody hell, dude – right?!
I also haven't been in great health, as of late. Since I had such a healthy young-adulthood, I'm spoiled; going into adulthood with issues I'm not used to makes me freak out – even if things are small issues, compared to others. My problems are simple, but since I'm not used to them, I start to worry that I must be fucking dying, every time I have a tiny symptom. Those sorts of worries cause real mental darkness. I still don't know if half my problems are there, or if they're only in my head, from some anxiety disorder I just haven't understood yet.
I don't know where to put all that trauma. So recently, I put it in this fanfic.
It was like breaking into a boarded-up old house. I got to dig into emotions I used to dig into, back when I wrote more Code Geass stuff. When I happened to be dealing with rougher points of my life, and Code Geass was what helped me deal. Basically, life has been so good for me these past few years (finally – so nice!) that I'd FORGOTTEN I COULD WRITE TO HELP MYSELF, on the off chance something was NOT going well. This is like therapy! Am I a total idiot? Plus, when people write like that, in the therapeutic sense…. Okay, sometimes it only smacks of egotistical, self-pitying people behind the keyboard. But sometimes, it works, and emotions on the page come out stark and real.
So, I wrote. But I still had a problem. I got a draft of this fic down, then I looked at it and went, "There is no way I can post this. Who the hell would get anything out of it – anything at all – except for me? Aren't I past the point of posting my explorations of human suffering? Aren't I? Because I AM past the point in life where I feel I myself consistently suffer. Am I not beyond writing pieces where everyone can see that certain parts are only thinly veiled by fiction?" I had myself a scoffing fit. I answered yes to all those questions. I intended not to polish off this piece or put it up at all. After all, just getting it down and hiding it away had already served my purpose.
Then I remembered Nessie-san. She's always, always said the nicest things. If ever I expressed apprehension about posting my emo-like Suzaku-centric fics, she always came around (still does!) to assure me that the levels of emotion in my pieces are, if nothing else, NOT pathetic or a blight on the fanfic world.
That has meant something. That really has – especially because I have no ties to her in my offline life. She doesn't review because she personally spends a ton of time with me; from what I understand she does it solely based upon my writing (and because she's addicted to stories). That really helps me believe that my work isn't only self-serving. I LOVE the people I love, and reviews from people close to me are also deeply meaningful. But surely people see how this is different, in a certain way? It's the best thing for a writer, to hear her work struck a chord in another human being, but it's twice as striking when there was no prior relation to that human being. And. And, even more than that….
Creativity is how humans relate to each other and express themselves. Nessie-san reminds me through her kind reviews that depth of feeling in words can build powerful windows through which readers can see and explore their own emotions. Isn't that what fiction is for? To wake us up to the world of human feeling?
Fiction is just another way to teach us how to be alive. So, regardless of wherever I am whenever I churn out my fics from now on… if they're the least bit worth anything, I promise I will post them. Because someone else out there might get something from them. I won't let my own embarrassment or fear or ego prevent me from sharing, because I honestly believe that if people are creatively gifted – even in the slightest – they are MEANT to share and feed their art back into the world. It's like making little humble offerings at a huge shrine. That's how life's creativity keeps flowing. It's how art makes the world so beautiful.
So thanks, Nessie-san. I think this might be my darkest piece for Suzaku to date, and I feel like an ass being all, "This is thanks to you! Now go and maybe cry!" but…. I hope you can somehow understand what you've done for me, by sticking by my fanfics for the good handful of years you have.
As for the rest of you – I do listen to you, whether or not you may know it. FFN is a fantastic community of enthusiastic, supportive people, and I wouldn't stick around so long if I didn't find value in everyone's comments and involvement.
Thank you for reading.
Aging gracefully, Suzaku thought, was an art some people never really mastered. To master it, one chose not to grow old – at least inside – despite the body wearing thin.
All his life, Suzaku had watched as people aged. Many had refused to slow themselves down, even to attend to bodies that were crippled. Failing. Sick. Those ones were stubborn; they lived a long time, despite that their problems worsened with neglect. Suzaku had watched them all, collecting lessons, but he remained uncertain about whether he understood it.
Cornelia li Britannia had managed old age best. Her voice had never faltered at the onset of her wrinkles. Yes, Suzaku thought, sometimes the light in people's eyes refused to die. It lasted, to a person's time of death, a magic candle flame upon a never-ending wick. Sometimes, people managed to stay whole, right until they breathed their final breath.
And yet, sometimes to grow old meant getting tired. That part was the point that always got Suzaku lost. Endurance was an idea aged, arthritic hands could not cling to. Yet even those people lived on now and again – the tired ones – like gauzy paper lanterns, out of reach. The lanterns had no flames inside. They just existed, bobbing in life's breeze.
Suzaku didn't know whether his own lantern was lit, and quite often, reflecting on his crinkled hands, he wondered.
He looked out the window, across the vineyards he lived on. Mountains stained the horizon with their craggy, purple overhangs and shadows. The setting sun dipped everything in red and gold. The grape vines undulated in the breeze, an ocean of hazy green ripples, whispering. He smelled them, even through his stunted, ancient senses. The light reflected off the clouds; it pinked his pale window-box flowers.
Summertime, perhaps high twenties in Celsius – but Suzaku drew a balding blanket around his shoulders to ward off the air. The slightest wind could chill his bones, yet that did not mean he would close the window. Sights like this were a balm to his eyes. The landscape sank into his rheumy, dulling vision and fed him splendor. Earth was more timeless than he was. He glanced down at his glass of thirty-year-old, homemade wine.
"My best bottle," Jeremiah had once stated. "Light, hints of citrus. And those hints are mostly orange." His orange plantation and more recent vineyards belonged to someone else completely, these days.
All but Suzaku's small property on them. Suzaku heard the evening birds warble, and decided special wine was all the company he needed.
"What are you thinking about, dodderer?"
Suzaku turned, startled out of his reverie. He said, "I'm sorry. You don't have to stay. I have everything I'll need for quite a while."
"Is it a question of need, anymore, when even what you need is something you're not sure you want?" Distinctly teasing.
Suzaku's shriveled fingers twitched against his blanket, cold. He took his eyes away from that so supple, patient form. Painfully spring-colored, always, her hair. Just like the earth, she stayed endlessly young.
"I'm tired, C.C.," he said, and his voice wavered.
"You've been in the vineyard almost every day still, working." She said it to provide Suzaku with an explanation. She thought he was whining. Being difficult.
"Would you stop by Nunnally's grave for me, when you go back to your own home tonight?" He asked it instead of explaining himself.
C.C. stood up from the couch and walked over – to Suzaku's side, in bare, porcelain feet. "Are you going to sit here like stone, while I do? You'll put the marble carver in the town outside to shame."
Her tone was light. C.C. knew that tomorrow, he'd get up and go outside in his work clothes. He'd take a can out, and he'd water the flowers. Suzaku knew it like she did – but he also knew C.C. needed to hear words that would reaffirm it. This time, however, the prospect of tomorrow felt unbearably plain. He'd hum a tune, get wrapped up in a coughing fit, and clear his throat until he started to breath better. He'd hum anew and let the ball of bright sun bake him. His health would not allow him any more. Suzaku could not think of what to say.
Without waiting for him to answer, C.C. smoothed his patchy, wisp-like hair. Almost in a whisper, she uttered, "Is accumulating more experience all that's left for you now?"
Suzaku felt a lump form in his throat.
She opened her arms to him before he let his blanket go and moved.
C.C. didn't complain, when Suzaku's face hid in her chest. She held him very gently, but Suzaku wished she would squeeze. He wished she wouldn't be afraid to break his brittle bones. He wished she'd grab his shoulders, shake him. Make him want to go outside.
Suzaku didn't merely collect experiences – or at least he didn't want to. He found something to love about waking up every day. If he didn't, he felt sick, and dull, and listless. And so he kept on loving, learning, even when he didn't want to.
But oftentimes, in times like now, appreciation of his life felt forced. Suzaku felt guilty, failing to find ways to love it, but still he couldn't help the ache that lived deep in his chest.
All but C.C. had years ago departed. Even Kallen's children were gone. Suzaku was still here, to eat off the great plate of life. He had aged, without losing himself, or so he liked and dared now to believe. His very existence – today, now – was lucky. What right did he have, to resent that he had it? And yet, sometimes, he felt as if he'd had enough. He felt content enough, with everything he'd seen and done.
The question of Suzaku's rights then flipped around. What right did Suzaku have, to endure while others couldn't? Hadn't he already lived multiple lifetimes? To endure like this was a gross glut of luck….
He didn't deserve it. Everything should end, in time. Suzaku lived, too far past his. He simply couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand it, couldn't stand it.
C.C. gently rubbed his rigid shoulders. Then Suzaku remembered, the same way he always did. Remembered that… at least he still was mortal. He held C.C. even closer.
He tried to clear his head. No, he had no right to complain – or even right to wonder about his long-lasting life. He was not the endless one, enduring well past everyliving thing. How did C.C. do it? How, and always with a smile?
Suzaku thought that sometimes, he had answers to those questions. He knew why C.C.'s life outlook had changed, and when, and who had made it happen. Suzaku didn't want to fathom how such feelings still, still lasted. That such feelings endured, survived, lived on….
It made him want to drown inside them all.
Feelings drowned him, if he let them flow. Perhaps that was why, despite C.C. here at his side, Suzaku felt his buried discontent crop up each time. C.C.'s presence put too much in front of him.
"You know, it's the tenth of July."
"Yes," said Suzaku. The tenth. It was his birthday.
"You're one hundred and seventeen years old."
Suzaku finally laughed – a weak, low sort of hiccup. He said softly, "Thanks for counting."
"Better to count your years than mine. Now, look at me, and don't you squint your eyes. Do everything you are told. You can't afford not to learn how to take care of yourself. It's never too late to start. Do you understand me, ancient white-beard?"
"I don't have a beard," Suzaku said.
"Take your medicine. Call if you feel ill. The nurses I send here have told me what they found progressing. They complain about how stubborn you are, but I know you must understand how wildly imperative—"
"Do you pay them in pizza?"
The question cut C.C. abruptly off. She stood silently, stiff there for a while. Then her grip around his shoulders – around his neck – finally seemed to tighten. She sighed, and gave him a sharp little laugh, burying her face without real warning in his hair. "My pizza is just for me, boy." Her fingers started trembling a little.
Boy. Suzaku only felt like himself when she said it.
She stayed for a while, and petted his hair. When she left, she told him, "I'll bring Nunnally your flowers."
Suzaku nodded. He had picked them just that morning. C.C. asked if he still wished to keep the window open. He said yes. She checked his blanket for him.
Stars had begun to blink into existence, all across the cobalt sky. From the windowsill, Suzaku watched, as C.C. left and disappeared around the path. The path cut through the vineyard miles, and as Suzaku's eyes traced it, he found himself close to sleep.
For a long moment, Suzaku closed his eyes.
C.C. had gone today without bringing up the person who'd tied them together. She almost never did, and neither did Suzaku. Not long ago, however, C.C. had mentioned him for the first time in decades. Suzaku's heart had skipped a beat to hear C.C. pronounce his name. But old habits died hard, and said name hadn't led them further.
Suzaku hadn't followed C.C.'s lead into a conversation. That person was nothing more now than a gem Suzaku hid inside his heart. A valuable item Suzaku was used to, that he knew stayed secured; he didn't need to check its presence more than intermittently. Or, perhaps—
Perhaps he checked the gem so frequently that to speak of it would only prove how poorly it was hidden.
A treasure was not locked away if it came out to glimmer day in and day out. Suzaku smiled, wryly. Lelouch.
He shifted in his chair, and said the name into the blanket. The syllables rolled down him like silky rain. He noticed a headache gnawed at him again. Perhaps he'd had too much of his sweet red wine. The joints in his knees hurt as well. There were even more complaints, he knew, but it was nothing Suzaku couldn't bear. He should have told C.C., perhaps, so she wouldn't accuse him of laxity, but….
Suzaku rolled over. He'd do it tomorrow.
"What do you think he would say, to all this?"
C.C. had asked with her arm pointing out, at all the sky that hung up over them. At the sweeping trail of vineyard vines. At the quaint house Suzaku had. She'd pointed at the life – not only his – that had birthed from one man's timely death. One bloody conclusion that had stained Suzaku's hands, and shaped both of their destinies, so they remembered him.
Suzaku had leaned on the fencepost at his side and gripped hard. His smile had been wry. He hadn't been able to answer the query, and nor could he now. Such things couldn't be known.
He didn't know what time it was. He wanted to shut the window, finally, and move to his bed, but the task seemed too large now to conquer. He'd grown weary, vegetating there. He'd try to sleep here, then, and get up tomorrow. He'd prepare his breakfast and move his stiff bones.
Suzaku let his breathing even out. Despite his dreamlike state, he felt like real sleep stayed elusive. A sudden impulse called up details of a face. Of a grin, that had once wakened him on the flower-dotted palace lawns. "Wake up, Suzaku, my knight. Did you nap well?" Her face seemed lit within. And then, another face morphed in, the one Suzaku kept always there, but this time it made Suzaku's task feel too daunting – as if the hazy images he recalled meant he'd forgotten the specifics. Hadn't her eyelashes been a bit longer? Hadn't his hands looked a lot more commanding?
"Lelouch." Suzaku murmured it.
The breeze from outside stung Suzaku's slack cheeks. He knew they'd gone pale – drained of blood – because he suddenly felt faint. A dizzy spell; nothing to worry much about. He would wait. It would pass, the way it always did. If it didn't, he'd haul himself up for some water, and the faintness would subside. Fade off. He thought, like all my memories do. But he was safe here, in his chair, the way that he had always been.
Suzaku was more concerned that his cheeks also felt wet. With eyes still closed, he reached to wipe the drops away. The vineyards, he thought, and the window-box flowers. They needed him here. Lelouch ought to stay locked away. Kept, inside his heart. No need to call him from the past. No need to test his weak and feeble body, Suzaku thought, and to wrack it with emotions it could not bear, when living on was quite enough for him to fathom.
Suzaku saw flashes of more images, and thought it odd that he still seemed to be awake while dreaming. He wondered if he could control what he saw.
He couldn't, he thought. Or… he could.
He saw Lelouch.
Suzaku let it go; he just unlocked the box. Lelouch came into softest focus – along with Nunnally. They were young, all three of them. Nunnally looked most clear and brilliant, with her sandy hair, and cheeks as soft as brand new peaches. Euphemia was there, for some strange reason, poking at the grumpy child samurai Suzaku knew was himself. He'd forgotten the curls at the ends of her locks, the way they fell just so, like pretty petals. But upon looking now, in his dream, they seemed familiar, and he recalled that yes, that was exactly what they'd looked like. How could Suzaku have thought he'd forgotten?
He could call them up, all of them, in memories if he tried. Better, even, than looking at all his old pictures. Where were those albums…? Buried somewhere in a chest.
He called up the rest of them. He called up Shirley, when she'd been the most alive. He tried, but couldn't poke her side to prompt her biggest smile. It made Suzaku gasp, and then he sharply, briefly paused.
Nothing could recreate their voices, the twinkling of their eyes, or the simple warmth of touches. Not even his memories could secure those for him. Not everything lasted though long years of time; Suzaku grew frustrated at it. Had he not remembered Shirley enough, as years passed and he went to visit her grave? Had he not focused enough kind thoughts and love to be able to see her, and to hear her fully now?
And Lelouch. Oh, Lelouch, the one Suzaku had been afraid of calling up. For far too long, he had avoided it completely – long before he'd made Lelouch a gem inside his heart. Was that why, right now, Suzaku could not call up his face as fully? Clearly? Lelouch's flawless, bold, entrancing features weren't there, for all he saw was softest lines….
What Suzaku wouldn't give, to look on him again. Just once – and not just in his memories and dreams while he felt weak and tired. What Suzaku wouldn't give, to once again experience those eyes, or the deep, melodious timbre of voice Suzaku feared was only pure imagining.
Suddenly, behind images of Lelouch, a swath of vines filled up Suzaku's eyes. Suzaku began dreaming that he'd stepped into a forest – a forest packed to the edges with screens of endless, curtained vines.
He thought he caught glimpses of Lelouch among them, through them. It seemed like, if he still wanted to see Lelouch, he must wade forward.
Suzaku stretched his hands out, realizing that in this dream he'd left his exhaustion behind. His vision hadn't adjusted yet, but he could see the vine leaves clearly. He pushed their dark green fronds aside.
He'd clear some vines, and he'd take a step forward. He would think he saw Lelouch, and then the vines would come again. He pressed through them, for quite some time, slogging, although he never grew too apprehensive. Suzaku didn't feel lost, or like he never would get out. He merely yearned. As always. Always for Lelouch, who floated out of reach.
It struck Suzaku that he didn't want this dream to end. Suppose he broke through at last? What would he meet?
What I would do, just to see you again.
It became the focus of his dream-like thoughts. It became the engine that carried him on. No matter how old Suzaku became, no matter how much time continued to pass, he always ached to hold a conversation. To tell Lelouch about the things he'd learned. There's so much in this world, so much! The beauty, the splendor…. He wanted to pass it on.
Suzaku wanted to share the ways he'd grown and learned to change, the way he'd seen the world do so as well. Suzaku had shared, with many, many others, but somehow fulfillment stayed so far behind. It stayed where he had left Lelouch. His friend, his enemy. The man he'd found too late he'd loved. When Suzaku called Lelouch up in his mind, Suzaku could never fathom what Lelouch would do or say, or if Lelouch would even understand at all. Life was different. People changed.
It wasn't fair, that Lelouch hadn't been allowed to live and witness all Suzaku still witnessed. It wasn't fair, that Lelouch always remained the same, frozen in time. While it comforted Suzaku and gave him something solid, knowing Lelouch couldn't change…. It left Lelouch so far behind.
Behind. Suzaku grew, and learned, and changed; Lelouch stayed far behind, eternally that striking, tenacious teenaged boy.
God, I loved you. And I miss you, still.
Maybe Suzaku was the person left behind. He shifted another layer of sweeping vines.
At least he'd gotten rid of all his guilt. He'd given up thinking, Why did I go along with Zero Requiem? It had taken Suzaku months, perhaps years, to stop feeling the hilt of that sword in his hands. To stop feeling the cut of that blade into flesh. He'd cried so often, nearly every day and night, and locked himself away at times. He'd courted nightmares, and ached, and burned. He'd been the one to kill his closest friend.
But the Requiem ideas, Lelouch's plans for their atonement… they all disappeared, and dissolved after time. Dissolved, after Lelouch himself was gone. Suzaku stopped feeling he could do nothing; he took part in world politics, in peace, in life, in time. He stopped believing he should be the one inside a vault. All misgivings retreated, in time.
Lelouch had left him in good hands. Acceptance, forgiveness, and new strength had risen. Suzaku soon gave up on even resentment, on hate, and on trying to break his damn Geass.
He'd grown slowly to understand Lelouch more after death than he had ever done in life.
It made a few things easier to bear, but others harder. Suzaku had cried often.
In those first, loss-stricken years, all Suzaku had wanted was to see Lelouch's face and ask him questions. Embrace him, tease him. Cry, wrapped in his arms. But by that time, Lelouch was too far gone.
On the fifth anniversary of Zero Requiem, Zero went to Lelouch's vault, and bluntly broke it open.
It'd been cold, under the ground. Underneath the mound that looked like an abandoned military bunker. Either image reeked of death. Suzaku had breathed festering air. Putrid, in a sweet, succumbing way. The smell of decomposition, just before life birthed anew – the mix of molding leaves and long-stale air… and Lelouch vi Britannia's remains.
His remains. Not his stunning, lithe, warm body. Not like it had been before they'd locked the cover closed. Suzaku would not see the curve of those exquisite cheekbones, or the lines of his soft mouth, frowning slightly even in death – ever like him, to make an expression like that.
Lelouch was in a casket now. The casket lied inside a gray stone coffin. Suzaku had known what to expect – but still he had walked over. He'd scraped back the coffin lid with all his practiced, steely strength.
He'd stared at the casket inside a long time. Rich, delightful, tight-grained wood – mahogany. Lelouch had never requested anything specific for his burial; Suzaku had simply chosen what he liked best for his friend. His heart had beat a tattoo, as he stared down at the casket.
He really ought not open it. He knew he wouldn't see Lelouch.
But god, the temptation to touch familiar fabric. The golden hems, the jewels, and all that white, enchanting silk. They'd be dusty, of course, like the top of the casket – but it hadn't been so long that they would powder at his touch. Suzaku felt crazy, and yet he knew he'd do it. He would open the casket. He would break if he did not. Some last shred of sanity depended on this futile task. His body shook and swirled with it. Lelouch, Lelouch…. To see him there, in rest – but what would he smell like?
The question hit him, from afar. God, would Suzaku merely leave here scarred?
There was a body inside there. A body. No one lived inside it any more. Suzaku had seen bodies. Plenty. They churned his stomach, moreso when they weren't all whole. They frightened him, because they'd been organic things that had unfairly crumbled and broken down, doll-like, in a grotesque way. They had no working mind or pumping heart to animate them any more. They frightened Suzaku, because it meant someone had died. A spirit had left, and the world had lost a soul.
Finality. Where did that person go? Finality… and here, in someone he'd believed almost immortal!
Lelouch.
Suzaku knelt, completely paralyzed. To think he'd thought himself so primed for death! He couldn't even face it, when the dead person was someone else – a friend he'd known had chosen when to go.
"Forgive me," he'd said brokenly, his fingers brushing down the grain above where they had laid Lelouch's head.
Suzaku had never opened up the casket. Not then, not at any other time. He'd been too afraid of the death he would see. He'd been petrified of the death he might not see, and then what he might do – lean in, touch Lelouch's hands, kiss his closed eyelids – and maybe… and then—
The hope of such a thing had rammed Suzaku in the stomach. Had he been so inescapably human, that he believed this still couldn't be happening to him? Had he believed fate would change, for his sake? That there was still a chance all of this simply couldn't be? Five long years! Five years had passed. To reconfirm it wouldn't simply magically erase it. How cruel of life, of human nature, to help trick Suzaku like that.
Lelouch was gone. Disrespectful, to disturb his resting death. Such hubris, such foolishness, to hope, or half expect, or wish that anything identifiable or meaningful would be there. Nothing would be but a rotting, empty shell. And, in more years, nothing but ash-like dust.
What had Suzaku thought he would learn, looking in that casket? What had he wished to see? Impossibilities and lies?
He'd started to shake, and his teeth had all chattered.
Forgive me, Lelouch, for forgetting to move on. Suzaku had sunken to the floor, with his arms and his head resting upon the cold coffin.
While birds sang outside, Suzaku broke down and cried. He shed his bitterest, hottest tears. He couldn't, he couldn't pull the casket open. He was sad that he couldn't, and sad he nearly could. I miss you, he thought, sobbing. I miss you. I always will. So please, Lelouch….
Suzaku didn't quite know what he burned to ask for, unless it was, Come back alive. Lelouch was gone; there was nothing. Five long years.
Suzaku had thought five years an eternity.
When he'd cried himself out, when his eyes were bone dry, when he was certain his resolve had hardened like petrified wood again, Suzaku dragged the sarcophagus lid back into place. He knelt and kissed the gritty stone.
He said goodbye, with his most beautiful words, with his handsomest bow, and a promise to live on.
He left, pulling the gate shut in his wake. Three years later, he ordered the crypt burned.
He kept Lelouch instead inside his heart.
In the end, there'd been no need for graves or coffins. For cinders or markers or long eulogies. What Suzaku had been unable to destroy, despite that Lelouch had wanted a cremation…. Now it finally was gone. But that did not mean gone inside.
And so the years went past him, running.
Suzaku pushed the vines in his too-vivid dream aside.
He didn't know how he'd endured like he had. For as many wonderful gifts he had been granted in his life, they'd often balanced out with bad. And yet, he overcame the bad. In fact, the bad he overcame only made Suzaku twice as strong.
Suzaku felt that it was often disconcerting. After all, how could one man go on, knowing challenges would get more intimidating, simply so he could keep conquering them? Everyone had to meet his end sometime. To live, fearing that last unbeatable challenge…? To live, knowing that every risk he took meant he might possibly still die…?
It took Suzaku years to start fearing his death like that, but eventually he'd learned how to – like all the rest of mortal human beings. Every time a bump in his life-road occurred, Suzaku got scared he was meeting his end. He didn't want the end to find him anymore, the way he had a hundred times, a thousand, during Zero's Black Rebellion. He feared it. He thought, Oh my god, one day I'll die.
He was not invincible. Not an exception. For once, he grew to love the Geass that helped to protect him. But even a Geass – and one as rock-firm as Suzaku's – couldn't ensure that Suzaku would not finally die.
He'd been inside the World of C. The power of kings – despite its power – did not equal the power of God. And he had heard Lelouch's words. Collective unconsciousness…. Please do not stop the march of time!
Lelouch had known that all life had an end. He'd fought it only to a point. Why should Suzaku oppose it further, try to make things any different?
Suzaku kept surviving. And surviving, and surviving. Sometimes he felt fear. Sometimes he didn't.
Suzaku survived two heart attacks, a stroke, and a fall down a steep flight of stairs.
The fall was easy enough to explain; he'd known his head had been about to strike the railing. Marble railing, so hurtfully gorgeous – swirled, cloud-and-cream complexioned, always wiped to shining. Solid as the will of someone pulling on a trigger. Suzaku had understood that he would hit his head and die.
No skull could recover from such a sure bash. Yet, because he'd known it, he'd been able to survive.
He'd twisted aside and broken his left hip instead. It merited surgery; he was just forty years old. He'd told the woman who'd replaced Sayoko that he ought to go to the hospital. She'd said, "But you're walking on it, aren't you?"
Nunnally had been the one to rush him off for help. She'd cried, "You could have killed yourself! Please wear your helmet – even in your quarters, Zero!"
Some things never really changed, like the way Nunnally always looked after him. The way C.C. would slap Suzaku's shoulder, and tell him he could endure Hell and fire if he tried. "After all, you run up walls…." His Geass never changed, either. Back then, Suzaku had still been green at playing Zero's part and living on.
He grew wiser with his age. Yet still, despite those years of symbolic, masked, and happy, steady life, he wasn't sure when he wanted to live, or miss Lelouch, or simply die.
The heart attacks had not been any easier for Suzaku to accept.
The heart attacks still made him shiver, made him shake his balding head. He'd do his best to count to twenty-five, for a distraction, when he thought he might remember them.
He tugged and swooshed at all the draping vines. He plodded on inside his dream – calm, and warm, and feeling rather limber. Remembering a heart attack… it wouldn't hurt him now.
Suzaku had felt the warning signs both times. Once, eating breakfast. Porridge and bananas, warm like the sun's kiss. The second time was while he had stared out, over the miles and miles of sweet and curling vineyards. Chest discomfort, shortness of breath. A cold sweat. Sudden, irregular heart palpitations. Other upper body pains.
Oh my god, Suzaku had thought, the first time, I'm having a heart attack. It's happening to me – what I watched Jeremiah die of. I couldn't save him. I wasn't in time. And now? And now, I—
He'd wanted to die. He'd wanted it, during that heart attack – just to stop his sudden, vivid fear.
But Suzaku hadn't died or drowned in fear. Instead, he'd called himself an ambulance.
The medics very nearly missed the time window in which to save him, to open blood flow to his shriveled heart, and make it beat in normal rhythm. They'd very nearly missed, but they hadn't, and Suzaku had recovered by himself. He hadn't required the aid of Britannian technology or their medicine to aid him for long afterward. The second time Suzaku felt signs of attack, he wasn't sure whether they were even real, or whether his fear and memories of the first event had simply made him panic, and brought symptoms upon himself. After all, he'd been extremely healthy still, at ripe old ninety-something. Ninety-two? The first attack was ages gone. He had been seventy back then, or seventy-one, maybe two.
He came damn close to never picking up the phone. Calm down, Suzaku, he thought. Let it be. Besides, perhaps it's finally time. Are you not isolated here, alone?
What did he really want, so old, with everyone he'd ever loved long gone? What did he have to live for anymore? More never-ending, changeless azure sky? Not even someone's magic spell could defeat the everlasting march of time.
Let it go.
Except he'd called for help. And Suzaku had recovered from his heart attack, again.
What brought Suzaku shivers, sometimes, what woke him up at night – directly following the attack, and occasionally now, in the years after – was not that the Geass had plumb overcome even a malfunction of his body's burdened muscle. It was that Suzaku had never even felt the Geass, during either heart attack.
He'd saved himself of his own will.
Suzaku hadn't merely thought that he preferred to live – a mindset that had been a feat for him to succeed at, from the beginning. He also hadn't merely feared to die.
Suzaku had actively attempted to preserve himself. Without his stubborn Geass. He wondered if saving himself of his own will meant he'd granted Lelouch's desperate, aching wish.
But all of that…. That had been in Suzaku's nineties. As even more years passed, Suzaku again wanted death. Again, the way he had when he was young.
Suzaku had lived out a beautiful life, so beautiful it made him hurt to think about it now. Zero had done fabulous things, after murdering Emperor Lelouch. Suzaku had been able to retire Zero, even, sooner than ever he could have imagined. He'd watched the world grow wonderful, the result of all he and Lelouch had done. Suzaku had fallen in love again, even, and fathered two brilliant, athletic children. Nothing in the world made a person feel alive as much as the act of creating life oneself. But age, and time… they decimated all, and made a person ache at the end of the road for the still peace of oblivion, of death.
All passing the century mark had done was bring Suzaku's pain full circle.
I want to die. I only want to die. And fear of dying made him want to do it more. Just to end the fearing. Just to stop it.
The symptoms of stroke had been such a relief.
Suzaku had not called 911. He'd let one side of his mottled face sag, and slouched against the window where he watched a storm roll in on fury-clouds.
But something deep inside had sparked to life. Something in his brain he'd thought he'd conquered, finally – and finally understood.
Geass! How, now! Strokes were caused by blood clots in the brain. The Geass shifted something in his brain…. Geass couldn't possibly shift the blood clots? Impossible! And yet, how could Suzaku not die of this? Equally damned impossible that chance or will secured Suzaku's survival.
Suzaku remembered speaking it out loud – his disbelief, his recognition, anguish – and realizing quite fuzzily that all his words were garbled. A terrible stroke, and yet Suzaku didn't die of it. He woke up on the floor, later – alive, and weak, but sound of mind and breathing.
Wasn't there anything strong enough yet, in all this world, to let Suzaku finish? To end? To find his peace and finally rest?
Suzaku pressed forward, through the soft, seductive vines. His hands out in front of him looked blurry, pale. He couldn't make out any of his knobby veins, or the liver spots he'd grown so used to counting.
He felt that he was somewhere caught in time. But somehow, he kept pressing on. Yes, even though I'm tired.
Even though he finally felt a bit afraid.
Because… no dream had ever been like this. Not quite. Not while he was young, not in his old age. The smells, the very air felt real. His sight had started out so clear, but now again was bleary… yet, only because he realized – upon feeling a sting – that he held back tears. He was crying, in his dream.
Where was he? How? How come he moved so well? So freely, with his back perfectly straight, and almost youthful as he moved around the vines?
He thought, at last, that he knew what this was. Delirium, a journey, the moment before he really did—
But no. But no.
Suzaku felt afraid.
There had only been twice that the fear didn't touch him. The second time always reminded Suzaku of the first – when he had felt such grief, helplessness, and fury that it had consumed him.
Death, it seemed, as often as it scared him, also made Suzaku very, very angry. Occasionally the anger was enough to blot out fright. The first time he had not felt fear in the face of death… had been when he had killed Lelouch. Too much else, so much had pushed that fear aside. But the second time was different. It was the only other time Suzaku had felt too broken to get scared.
His wife had died, in a horrendous accident. One nobody could have predicted, that had taken all by shock and storm. Like the Hindenburg, Suzaku had thought much later, tightly, putting flowers on her grave.
She'd died caught inside a brand new, famous building, where the Sakuradite energy system had malfunctioned. The bottom floors exploded first, but the building held, at a grotesque tilt. It held for thirty breathless minutes. Rescuers began to help the screaming victims out alive.
His children were part of the rescue team. Like Suzaku, they'd been risk-takers. Selfless in the face of saving innocents and loved ones.
They did their best to reach their mother. They did it for Suzaku as much as they did for themselves. But neither of them had been ready for the risk; emotions had ruled, and mistakes had been made. The kind that people never could come back from. The kind that made what was already tragedy feel worse.
Suzaku always blamed himself.
He recalled that night. How he had left his cozy house, where the smell of potato-leek soup still wafted all around. The woman he had grown to love had just cooked it that evening.
"I'm going to the new mall, Suzaku, even though it's late. It's nearly the summer holidays. I'll buy the boys a present… and you, too." Her kiss set fire to his lips.
Suzaku had not been able to stay silent, sitting inside, once Jeremiah Gottwald knocked. He said there'd been an accident. Suzaku's family was dead now, gone. No, there wasn't any chance they might still be alive in there. No, the wreckage site was off limits to even the high-ranking knights.
And no, Suzaku could not revive and use the persuasive identity of Zero.
"Please don't try to go there; all proceedings will be handled as they will. I'll do for you whatever I can, but Kururugi. Zero…. Stay here. Please."
Suzaku had fought Gottwald, hard – and almost taken out the man's mechanical left eye. But grief had weakened all his limbs; shortly, Suzaku had been subdued. Later, alone, he had tried to go out, only to find that there was a perimeter of guards around his house. He'd gone instead to his backyard, and screamed up at the night-black sky, hearing his shrieks echo back to him. Down – with all the wrath and rancor of a biting acid rain.
His knees had kissed the perfectly pruned grass, and the picket fence – the tool shed – said nothing to sooth his sobs.
Suzaku recalled Lelouch at that time, the last person of this high caliber he'd lost. The last person he'd loved as much as his family, and lost. Suzaku wanted to speak to him.
"I can't do this," he'd said out loud. And he had just repeated it, over and over again.
Suzaku remembered thinking he would do anything. Not to see his family, for he knew that they were dead; he'd not try to open any silent graves this time. But Suzaku would do anything to catch a glimpse of him – of Lelouch, in some distant, spectral world. Suzaku wanted to beg him. Ask.
Lelouch. Lelouch, I can't bear this. I'm fifty-eight now – isn't it enough? He wanted to ask Lelouch what to do. I'm tired. And I can't bear this.
He wanted Lelouch, to comfort him. To tell him his repentance now was through and he could rest.
Why must I live, with the three of them gone; why did they go through what I most fear – dying, alone! – when I'm the one who, despite fear, has always been the most prepared to face it?
Their dying made Suzaku angry enough that he longed for death himself and didn't fear it. Not at all.
Please, talk to me. God, I miss you, Lelouch. I miss you so badly. Can't I go where you are?
He'd wished for a whisper, but not a word came.
That same night, when his eyes at last dried up, and the grass had left impressions on his knees, Suzaku had gone to bed. He'd had nightmares of his wife dying, and of Lelouch. He'd imagined it too clearly, dying, and suddenly Suzaku had woken up, quite scared again. Petrified, enough to quake beneath his covers, and have trouble breathing. A panic attack.
Cornelia by then was sitting at his kitchen table. She'd sworn she'd watch his side all night. Guilford also watched Suzaku's door, leaving his princess alone there, with her deceased sister's old knight.
As if she had been waiting for Suzaku to break down, she burst into his bedroom at the sound of his short breaths.
"Kururugi. Everyone's afraid to die. But everybody does it. Knowing that, you must endure. The world needs all people, until their final breaths. You can still make life worth it without them. Endure."
She'd spoken it to Suzaku like a Geass.
He'd yelled, and asked Cornelia why Lelouch had made him live. "Still?" she'd asked, surprised by the recurring question, thinking it was long gone. Solved.
Suzaku broke down, in her wrinkled, rigid arms, crying like a boy the way he hadn't since he'd burned Lelouch's grave.
The anger rushed back, but this time, aimed at Lelouch. Lelouch couldn't guide Suzaku through his hardship. Lelouch had died; he hadn't been able to help Suzaku for a very long time. He didn't understand the pain of life, because he'd left it as a teenaged boy. So young, Lelouch had misunderstood what he had asked Suzaku – and asked the world – to do without him.
Living meant feeling incredible pain.
"Why? Why did he Geass me to live? What did he want me to do, by myself – live on, just so I'd learn how people die?"
Cornelia ordered him, "Hush, Kururugi. You're not alone, and you won't die. Not tonight, at least. You've been spared. Nunnally is on her way from overseas. So put your fear down and get up, and live tomorrow. Pain just proves that you're alive." Suzaku had hushed, and ceased to cry. It sounded like something… like something Lelouch—
"I don't know why he did the things he did, or why he forced his endless optimism and his pity on the whole entire world. To have such a ridiculous last wish…. I wish that I could ask whatever's left of his remains." Cornelia's voice wavered, for the first and only time Suzaku recalled. "Sometimes I even wish I'd never learned what Lelouch did. But only sometimes," she had said.
Cornelia then called Guilford in, and all of them had sipped hot tea.
Suzaku still put flowers on her grave, the way he did on everybody else's. He wondered, glancing at his youthful hands, when he might next stop by to do it.
He first had to move all these vines.
Perhaps a better understanding of death had been part of Lelouch's grand plan. Perhaps feeling fear was meant to help his comprehension of the cycle of life, and of the melancholy beauty of the world. Suzaku could not die yet, it seemed, Geass or no, but he would always be afraid – and feeling fright like that was natural. Suzaku could not escape it… but he could accept it, and enjoy what was left of his long lasting time.
Even in his hundreds, even feeling all these pains, he started to think that it might be okay.
But what of those with paper lanterns all burnt out? The ones who chose to kill themselves? The ones who pulled out their IVs and waited? The ones who refused to call 911…. For some, suffering seemed far worse than nothingness that came with death. Suzaku might still be one of them. But how could anyone be sure relief was not around the corner?
Wasn't that humanity, to hope and search for something better? What people wanted, always… was the future.
Lelouch had known. He'd thought it tragic for people to discard their hope. Yet he had known they all must die.
He'd made the most of every ticking moment. Even his last – reaching up to wipe Suzaku's tears.
Suzaku smiled into the fronds of green. He'd only touched Suzaku's – Zero's – shining helmet, not Suzaku's eyes.
Lelouch. Did you predict what I'd be thinking, far ahead, through all this time?
The only relevant question, Suzaku thought, was whether one felt truly ready to go. Most people didn't, even when they thought they did. Most people, staring death in the face, would wish for more days, months, years, more time – no matter how deeply miserable they felt. Surely Lelouch had been no real exception. But every now and then, people found strength to meet death anyway.
Perhaps all dying really was, was a decision.
Suzaku flitted swiftly through the swaying vegetation. He wanted that soft raven hair, that smirk. Oh? Suzaku, what's on your mind?
Lelouch, I want to talk to you. I want to thank you, while I still have time.
Suzaku was old now, so, so old – and whether he felt broken, joyous, or alone, he turned to the person who had given him his life. His good life. Suzaku ploughed through all the vines.
He felt a jolt of something sharp, and had to stop, dizzy and weak for just a moment. He looked around – at all that pretty, draping green. Each little leaf made a waxy, jade heart. He swooshed them so they brushed against each other, while the wind between them sighed. Suzaku was mad at himself, abruptly, for his sudden hesitation. He wanted to be outside. The vine-tangle entranced him, whispered, soothed, but…. He hungered for more. Outside.
He ought not stop his journey forward. Wherever he was now, whatever this dream… where could he go now, but where his feet took him? Forward. He could not go back in time.
Memories, in the end, were only that….
He lifted fingers to his cheek again. Tears. He couldn't turn around, no. Or he wouldn't. Not this time.
Suzaku checked his path ahead. What was he prepared to forsake? Or to gain?
It's not that I'm the least bit discontent. For once in my life, I think I might be fine. I've always done the best I could. I can go see what waits up there.
'The best he could.' What more was there than that? What more could he have done – as an imperfect human being? Suzaku wasn't sure that there existed scales to go by, besides what he might have crafted for himself. Was he okay with everything he'd done? Not with what had happened, but with everything he'd done?
He looked around. What did he want out of this moment?
What did Suzaku want? Right now? This critical moment, inside this dream, this dream that for once was no lie. He wanted… in the end, all Suzaku really wanted….
He swallowed, and he didn't cry any more. He pressed and pressed through all those fragrant vines.
He pressed until he saw a glimpse of blue. And white – the clouds – and caught the scent of sparkling water.
He broke through – to a burbling stream, somewhere on the edge of space and time. His name was called, in a voice he still knew.
Like letting leaves go in the wind, Suzaku sighed.
Underneath a tree, by a patch of purple flowers, someone had waited for him to decide.