Long time no see, everyone. To throw myself off the chopping block from the start, I greatly apologize for the absence of Sovereign Will. I promise a new chapter will be up by the end of May. If not, then you can all feel free to flog me mercilessly.
Now, this fanfiction was written for the LiveJournal community cg_flashfic, a fanfiction exchange group. Check it out if you're feeling creative or want to challenge yourself, as your fanfiction must comply to the wishes of the person you are assigned to.
That being said, please enjoy this story. *bow* I've had this plot in my head for a long time and never got around to writing it, so here it is in my strange short-story style.
I'd be honored if you all would look forward to new things coming from me.~
A part of me forgets what I ever wanted from him in the first place.
Was what I wanted a sense of displacement from the fringes of reality I had been living on for the past eight years? A feeling of gravity pulling me over the edge? The feeling of falling that I had been experiencing since the second time I met his face, just to counteract the stomach-flipping rewind that came with each trigger he pulled and each body littering the ground?
The feeling of falling had been much more pleasant, but all the more teasing and stinging on the edges of my nerves, like the violet-tinged glass that cut into my skin each time I wanted him.
I suppose that, in the end, what I had wanted was for a shred of honesty to for once peel itself off his shaking bones and be able to stand on its own for more than five minutes. And, like a fool, I thought I had finally gotten it, the elusive closure I had chased after for so long, all the way to his side at the top of the world. I thought he had given me what I craved more than anything in the world, the ability to stand on my own for more than five minutes.
But that would have been horribly out of character for him.
And so without his shoulder I find myself crumpling to the ground in a fit of rage and helplessness and confusion, more disabled than ever without his support that I never knew I needed so desperately until I gave everything to him, to the point where my mind deludes itself into fantasies, etches my memories onto plates of glass and stacks them on top of each other, but I'm not able to see through at a certain point.
What my heart chooses to remember is the series of fleeting touches when passing each other down the hallway, the melodious rhythm of his heart beating against my skin, fluttering like a bird. It remembers every subtle caress that he squirmed under despite all of the pleasure rushing to his face, places every hair perfectly on his head and remembers tickling brushes fleeting across my neck as I cradled his head in my palm. The growing knots in my stomach that each moan undid in an instant, the outline of his chin against the white pillowcases, the site of his morning looks of endearment spilling over the blankets to meet my eyes. The inevitabilities we discussed afterward in a hazy yet lucid stupor of velvet consciousness. Talking until dawn about nothing and everything all at once, conversations impervious to the nebulous intents of sleepiness.
But strangely blurred beyond all existence in my mind is the moment when he said "I love you".
Melted together with that clouded memory, perhaps taking the place of it, Lelouch's soft breathing in the night, forming soft puffs in the cold night air drifting in from the window, mushrooming and then withering into nothingness. His soft murmur whispering to me rumors of his immortality, his father's grip around his neck. Passed on traits that activated at death, letting him live forever.
Letting us live forever.
And just in those few words, that confirmation, it felt as though the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. The weight of Lelouch's death was in someone else's hands, never to be seen again.
And he would be eternally in my hands.
In my head he weaved pictures long forgotten since my childhood, buried during adolescence, saved in a corner of my mind for when I would have time to live them out. A traditional Japanese house on a hill, far away from my father's house, by a river. A neighborhood full of children. Blue skies. A wedding, maybe.
An entire life with someone I loved.
In those last days I didn't give a damn about the past, which I suppose is what Emperor Lelouch had been aiming for all along. As long as I had a guarantee, a promise, that he would be with me forever, I could breathe. I could stand on my own. There was no longer anything that could hold me back. He had consumed every part of me, touched every fragment of my mind, assimilated himself even into the deepest parts of me that never thought I deserved him in the first place. He settled himself on the branches of my dreams and the limbs of my every thought and action, always watching, waiting with those violet, glass eyes, for me to return to him. And it made me want him all the more.
It felt to me that those merciful last days had saved me, all of me, from drowning. Drowning in guilt, in solitude, inside the familiar vacuum of emotion I could no longer return to so long as I lived. It was a wonderful thing, to for once in my life be able to love someone without guilt, without a sword hanging over my head (or his)…and just like he wanted, those last days were the epitome of our existence. One last shred of happiness had given itself to me, and with it the hope that one day I could bring happiness to him, to both of us, to finally be able to stand my own happiness.
This was what my heart decided to remember.
Zero Requiem.
What my mind chooses to remember is the smothered scream in the back of his throat as the blade sunk deep into his abdomen, his eyes widening with terror, the most frightened expression I had ever seen on his face. His tensed muscles. A suddenly expressionless face, hiding from my eyes.
His last lies crashing to the ground like a discarded mask.
His hands finally growing cold against his sister's body. The moist tears steaming inside the mask that would never again be removed.
He didn't move.
I pleaded with him in my mind just to move, move, maybe not here, but someone, move. He couldn't come back to life here, not in front of everyone, so move him. He has to move. He will move. He promised me he would move. He wouldn't lie to me again.
He didn't move.
He didn't move.
But somewhere I felt him falling from the limbs of my fantasy into some sort of eternal vacuum.
A part of me forgets what I ever wanted from him in the first place.
Most of me forgets him altogether.