Chapter 4

"Tell me what happened," R2 prompted, seating himself at the foot of Suzaku's bed in a way that was far too invasive for its owner's liking.

Suzaku forced himself to calm down enough to form coherent sentences. "I was talking to my gym teacher," – he decided he didn't need to delve too deep into the nature of that conversation – "…and suddenly she…" He found himself blushing at the absurdity of the ordeal. Did he really have to relive the whole thing?

"She what?" R2 cupped his chin in his hands and leaned forward in interest, his head cocked slightly to one side.

"She… started flirting with me," Suzaku mumbled hurriedly, annoyed with himself for displaying so obviously how distressed he was. "She was really forward about it, and she asked me out, and…" Gods, this was awkward.

R2 bit his lip pensively. "Do you mean to say that… she acted as if she was in love with you?"

"Well… yes, if her words were anything to go by." R2's earnest curiosity was somehow having a calming effect on Suzaku. What had happened to the bewilderment and anger he'd felt just minutes ago? R2 was forcing him to coolly analyze the situation rather than act purely on emotion, and though this irked him, he grudgingly admitted to himself that he was probably better off that way.

"Then I suppose that's it, then," R2 said thoughtfully. "Your geass, Suzaku, is to make anyone fall in love with you. Coincidentally, the immortal who granted me my geass had at one time possessed that very same power."

That latter statement was an influx of information, almost more than Suzaku could process all at once, and it set a flood of questions coursing through his mind. He hadn't known that R2 had possessed a geass… what power had he been given? He supposed that R2 hadn't always been immortal, then, as he had automatically assumed. The thought that R2 had once been in his situation was almost too surreal to imagine. That R2, an unsuspecting student, had made a contract with another immortal that granted him his own geass…

But no, he needed to focus on what was happening at this moment, because, he told himself, it was much more pressing. "To… make anyone fall in love with me?" he repeated needlessly; it was more for himself than for anyone else. "I can make anyone love me?"

R2 shook his head. "Not love you."

"But you just said – "

"Suzaku, your geass simply creates feelings of extreme attraction and infatuation that give one the feeling of being in love. No amount of supernatural power can create love itself. It's far too complicated to duplicate, far too complicated to instill by artificial means."

Suzaku blinked slowly as he attempted to digest that. And then the anger that he'd thought he'd been able to suppress bubbled back to the surface.

"Out of all of the possible powers that you could have given me, you chose that one?"

He was angry, that was undeniable, but under that was bitter disappointment. When R2 had granted him a geass, he'd expected something… big. Something that he could use to change the world. No, not the world – that sounded too presumptuous. But he wanted to change… something, as vague as that sounded. He wanted to eliminate prejudice in Japan for good, so that neither he nor any other Japanese had to suffer simply for being who they were ever again. If he'd been given a geass that was actually useful, then that dream could have been realized…

R2 released a short, humorless laugh. "I didn't choose it, Suzaku… you did."

Suzaku felt dread, cold and heavy, creep through his insides for the second time that day. "What do you mean?" he asked apprehensively, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

R2 explained, "A person's geass manifests itself according to his or her greatest, most desperate wish. I wished to have other people bend to my will, and so I attained the power to command someone to do anything. I had no say in the matter; it simply happened that way. Likewise, if your power is to make anyone fall in love with you, then it must be that you wanted more than anything to simply be loved."

Hearing R2 say it like that, so impartial and analytical, made it even worse. At that moment Suzaku felt like one incredibly wretched human being. His deepest wish… so when it really came down to it, his desire to be loved trumped his desire to help his people. How pathetic.

"What a selfish geass," he spat in disgust.

"No more selfish than mine," R2 pointed out.

Suzaku shook his head. "That's not true. With your power, you could achieve anything. You could use it for the greater good… change the entire world with it. I… I envy that power." And he really did, though he was rather ashamed to admit it.

R2's eyes clouded over, rendered completely unreadable. "It's not that great," he muttered darkly. But before Suzaku could inquire about his sudden change of mood, R2 asked – a little too forced – "Out of curiosity, I'd like to figure out any limitations that your geass has. Can you remember if you were making eye contact with your gym teacher when it activated?"

Suzaku took a moment to ponder the question before answering, "I don't think I was."

R2 twirled a lock of ebony hair between his fingers as he surveyed Suzaku with detached fascination, as a scientist might observe unexpected results of an experiment. "Interesting…" His eyes had gone cold, his tone completely aloof, and Suzaku felt at that moment that R2 viewed him not as a human being but as a specimen.

And it infuriated him to no end.

That ever-present anger ran white-hot through his veins, and he demanded harshly, "R2, why did you give me a geass?"

"Because you accepted the terms of the contract," the immortal responded matter-of-factly.

Suzaku's knuckles whitened under skin stretched taut over curling fists. "You know that's not what I mean!"

R2 feigned innocence and said, "I don't know if I do." The violet eyes that Suzaku had so admired were mocking him now, glazed over with indifference.

"Why would you give me a geass? Were you trying out your powers as an immortal because you had nothing better to do? Zeroing in on some unsuspecting victim so you could play God?"

R2 bristled at the accusations, and the eyes that observed Suzaku then were frozen and dangerous. "Did it ever occur to you that during my one hundred and fifty years of isolated wandering, I could have gotten bored?"

That was not what Suzaku had wanted to hear. "So that's it, then?" He was full-on shouting now, he was losing control and he knew it, he was drunk on his anger, but no, he didn't care. "We mere mortals are nothing compared to your greatness, oh no. It's perfectly all right for you to find a human plaything so you're not completely jaded during your endless existence. And when you get bored with one, no worries – you can just toss him aside and find a newer, more exciting toy to ease your boredom. It's all a big fucking game to you, isn't it? Well, I've got news for you, R2…" He distantly realized that he was grasping R2 by the collar of his shirt, hoisting him into the air, but the fact that he might be hurting the immortal never once crossed his mind. He hadn't snapped like this since that day seven years ago… and though he didn't plan to go as far as he had then, God forbid, he was going to act on his emotion, and no earthly force was going to stop him.

He jerked his face forward until it was only inches away from R2's. In any other circumstance he would have been thrilled by his proximity, but now he only felt pure loathing for the man, crashing down on him in roiling, relentless waves. "Find someone else," he hissed, "because I'm not your fucking test subject!" He threw R2 hard against the mattress, and then snatched up his wallet and a change of clothes without another word.

Before leaving the room he turned back, against his better judgment (if any remained), expecting to find R2 staring at him fearfully, his pretty purple eyes bulging with shock. But no - the bastard was smiling. Not a broad, jovial grin; rather, his thin lips were pressed into a calculating smirk, as though this all was just some game.

And he said, "This is more entertaining than I ever thought it would be." Flinching only barely at the slamming door that followed.

He meandered lazily to the window, watching as Suzaku pulled out of the parking lot on his motorcycle a few minutes later. Yes, this was the most fun he'd had in ages.

But R2 had always been a bit of a masochist in situations such as these. When people had blamed him for the unthinkable wrongs he'd committed, he would never once try to deny the accusations or argue his position. He'd simply take the hatred all in stride, reasoning that none of it mattered in the bigger picture.

So instead of telling Suzaku the truth – that he'd given him his geass in the hopes that it would manifest into a power that could save the boy's life during that moment when he wasn't sure whether he'd live or die, much like C2 had done for him all those years ago – he was content with agreeing with whatever theories Suzaku came up with.

Because really, it always came down to the bigger picture. Nothing else mattered, right?

Suzaku paused only to change in one of the school bathrooms – balling up his gym shirt and tossing it in the trash to be rid of it once and for all – before taking off on his motorcycle to who knew where.

He was an excellent student with an immaculate record – he was at Ashford on a scholarship, after all. He'd never even thought of skipping class before. But there was no way he was listening to any sort of logic at this point. He was simply acting on his fury. And he didn't want to accidentally use his geass on anyone else at his school, for fear of producing more horrific results.

And so it was with a strange sense of déjà vu that he found himself speeding aimlessly through the Tokyo traffic with no knowledge of his destination. In a movie he'd be stopping at a bar right about now to wash down his problems with a few manly shots of gin. Unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps?) he wasn't in a movie, and he was seventeen and had no fake ID to speak of. He supposed he could have tried to pass for older, but his rage-clouded mind could at least figure that it really wasn't worth it.

So he settled for a local bookstore. The fact that all of the books were written in Japanese soothed him a bit, and as he ensconced himself in a comfortable chair with a couple of volumes of his favorite manga, he thought for a few illusory moments that perhaps everything would be all right.

But he hadn't scanned through the pages of black-and-white swordfights and gravity-defying hair for more than a few minutes before slamming the book shut and placing it at his feet; more urgent matters were biting incessantly at his mind.

He had no idea what limitations, if any, his geass possessed. When he'd used it against Coach Villetta, it had been completely inadvertent. He hadn't been chanting "Love me!" like a mantra in his head. More than anything he'd just wanted her to leave him alone. The moment it had activated had seemed to be completely at random. Was its initiation completely out of his control? Just thinking about that made his stomach clench sickeningly.

He didn't want another fiasco like the one with Villetta to occur. He needed to know how his geass worked. It seemed that the only way to do that would be to test it on people. But no, he refused to go that far – he refused to use people as his pawns. Of course, he thought bitterly, R2 would have no such qualms.

And that brought him to another matter that he was reluctant to face: R2 himself.

The way he'd looked at him so coldly, the way he'd regarded him as though he was no more than a slab of meat; and then the way he'd smirked so knowingly, as if Suzaku's distress was just one big joke. He supposed that being immortal, having no emotional ties, could mold someone into that… but no, he wasn't going to try to justify R2's actions. He was only trying to delude himself.

Suzaku had been aware of his homosexuality for a while now. Though he'd surprised himself at first, he'd quickly acknowledged it as yet another inevitable aspect of himself, like his unusual green eyes or his perpetually tousled hair. He'd had crushes – who hadn't by the time they were seventeen? – but they had all been from afar. He'd never acted on any of them.

And then R2 had stormed dramatically into his life. Truth be told, Suzaku's heart had been his the moment he'd kissed him, never mind that there was no rational explanation to it. And he'd continued to believe that it had meant something, even when R2 had explained that it was a way to "connect their consciousnesses." Even when he had made it perfectly clear that their relationship was purely platonic, if even that.

What was their relationship? It was strange to think that Suzaku had only met R2 the night before – he felt like so much had happened to the two of them that it must have been much longer than that. But a near-death experience did have a way of bringing people together.

Their relationship was that of a geass contractor and his immortal. What that meant, Suzaku could only begin to guess at. But the contract was irreversible, and their bond, however strange it was, ran deep. Whether Suzaku liked it or not, his geass was a part of him now. R2 would be there to, if not guide him per se, lend him at least his presence for support. And they would discover side by side where their contract took them.

Suzaku didn't know whether to smile or cry as he thought, It's going to be one hell of a ride.

Author's Notes: Yes, I know this one's a bit shorter than the others... but I'm leaving soon for a 2-week vacation in a delightful little cottage a block away from the ocean. I've been going there every summer as long as I can remember, and I love it. The only downside: no internet access. That's right... for the next two weeks, no YouTube, no Mangafox, no deviantART... no FF. T_T So I didn't leave off where I originally intended to because I knew that I wouldn't finish it in time to post it before I left. If by some miracle I do finish the next bit in the next two days (amidst all of the frantic packing), that'll definitely go up too. If not (which is quite likely due to my pitiful packing skills, but let's not rule out the first option quite yet!), then it'll be two weeks till the next chapter. But take heart - just because I'm on vacation doesn't mean I won't be hard at work on the next few chapters... so once I return home and my beloved internet is given back to me, expect multiple chapters being posted very close together! ^0^

Until next time,

Byronic Heroine ^-^