Warnings: Hinted necrophilia. I am a sick person, I know.
Ara Pacis
Even in death, she is still beautiful.
Still irenic.
Still Euphie.
She has a charm that can't be extinguished, a grace that augments forever on. But after all the tears have been shed and everyone has retreated to bed, only he remains and can't move on.
It's bad, sick, mistake-messy, and fucked in the head (that he knows). Damage-run and no regrets. She's dead, full stop.
But he can't help it (he tried).
And so, Lelouch goes to her. In her make-shift, pink satin sarcophagus, she awaits for him with a marble smile. He touches her cheek and runs long, skeletal fingers through her hair. Thinking he'll somehow make it okay. Just all right. Better now, always will—
"—be fine. You'll be fine, Euphie."
You'll see.
He kisses her softly. Toxic, he parts her mouth with his and drinks her in. She is like an exotic wine, clarified nectar served in lavender crystal. She's got him drugged, oxidized. Weak (and willed) he cannot break free from her—forget her.
Already strung up in her chaotic, marionette threads.
Tender and loving, he traces down her skin. She is icy and rigid where she used to be warm and sweet (he wonders why). Gradual, Lelouch pushes in deeper. He kisses her harder. Singed cruel and mute, she remains unresponsive.
Mechanical, inspired, he switches to a different tactic.
She is nonetheless indifferent.
She has—he doesn't dare to say it.
"Euphie."
Tell me you love me, like you used to do.
Steady and jaundiced: a bright, sandless shore with crimson and rolling waves. From a tower blue and blind in the mountains (a millennium to ascend) Euphie calls his name.
"I love you, Lelouch. Only you."
She reaches out to welcome him. Sings mellow, little notes.
He smiles, thinking she's done playing her enigmatic games, that she's finally forgiven him. He hugs her something ferocious and desperate and all the while refuses to let go.
So he takes her.
Swift (brutal) he takes her back—for himself. And there, she will be safe.
Because he loves her, tells her so.
Late into the night, Lelouch wakes up with the livid, vivid scent of Euphie lingering and languishing in his mind. He can feel her breasts and thighs on his hands. Smarting, his palms are inflamed.
Her sigh rings clear and true in his ear. The taste of her on the slice-edge of his tongue, intimating a hunger he cannot satisfy.
She is laughing as she arches for him, ready and feverish (delirious).
He looks up.
Across the room, Euphie is motionless. And then Lelouch remembers: how she died, why she died. For peace, for justice, for the unholy, god-hanged reparations he (and Zero) promised.
But some atonements can never be made.
And Euphie is still dead.