Disclaimer: Code Geass – with its characters, settings, and all other borrowed elements here – is the sole property of its creators. Segment titles are titles from various songs, and I don't own those either. For overall warnings and general Author's Notes, see 'chapter' 1!

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(10) 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered'

What did you say to someone whose privacy you invaded, whose company you all but forced yourself into only to ditch in the rudest way imaginable? The way Suzaku saw it, there wasn't a good answer to this question, which was why when the door clicked shut behind him, it was Lelouch who had to break the heavy silence: "Good afternoon, Detective."

The greeting hung waiting in the air, awkward, and almost went unreturned. "Afternoon." Suzaku nodded once, finally gathering his wits enough to walk around his desk, pull back his chair and sit down. He was well aware of Lelouch's eyes on him the entire time. "How - " He glanced at the clock and frowned. How did you find me, he would have said, but with the way the newspapers now stalked their agency's every move, he supposed the question was meaningless. "How long have you been waiting?"

Lelouch shrugged. "Not too long. An hour...maybe two." Suzaku would have said something to that, but he was in the middle of a swig of coffee and the other man continued before he could finish: "They told me you were on the field today."

"I was," he nodded, fumbling for a pen and a clean sheet of paper under all the clutter that was on his desk. "I just now got back."

"I see."

"Hmmm." He found a pen and scribbled blindly on an old parking ticket to see if it worked (it didn't), avoiding Lelouch's eyes the whole time. There was no earthly reason that conversation should be this hard, he tried to convince himself. And yet the evidence was proving otherwise. Well, might as well cut through the bullshit, then: "What brings you here?"

Although he could have stood to phrase that more politely, Lelouch merely smiled, nodding towards - how did he not notice the wrapped bundle sitting atop the other chair until now? "I thought you might like this back," he said nonchalantly. There was a pause, and when Suzaku looked up Lelouch met his eye. "That," he murmured, "and an apology."

"That's not really necessary," Suzaku said, breaking the gaze-lock and diving through the mess for another pen (because this was still easier) -

"No," Lelouch shook his head insistently. "I feel as though I might have made you..." Even when he hesitated for the right word, Lelouch looked anything but flustered, simply tipping his head to the side, thoughtful. "Uncomfortable," he eventually settled on. "I didn't intend for that."

I'm sure you didn't. "It's okay," he said instead, eyeing the plastic bundle. Lelouch had packaged his coat neatly, with the creases smoothed out and crisp folds along the seams and - he squinted - had he had it cleaned? "You really didn't have to."

"You wouldn't have wanted your coat back?"

"No - well, I would have." Especially since it wasn't going to be sweltering July forever, after all. "But you really didn't have to come all the way here. I would have gone back to the bar eventually."

"Hmmm." His lips quirked up in a strange smile. "Would you, though? I wonder."

Suzaku blinked. He wasn't sure what exactly to make of that. Nor was he sure what to make of Lelouch's posture now, leaning back in the chair with his legs crossed, his elbows resting on the arms and his fingers steepled in front of his face. Long, elegant fingers, the bone protruding ever so slightly around the knuckles and joints - perfect for the man's career choice (or perhaps it was the other way around?) Suzaku was thinking to himself, before he shook that errant thought away.

"Either way, thanks," he said. "A lot. And..." He swallowed. "I'm sorry I bailed on you that night too."

"Were you all right?" There was a softness in Lelouch's eyes now. "I warned you, though."

"You did," Suzaku nodded. "It's fine. I'm fine."

Another lull followed after that, in which Lelouch was once again the infinitely more composed of the two - he just sat there, unmoving with a polite smile on his face, as though the silence didn't bother him in the slightest. Suzaku, on the other hand, found himself glancing everywhere but at the man before him, fiddling with the fabric of his coat and why was it so hard to find a working pen, God damn it -

"Well," Lelouch eventually shrugged. "If that will be all..."

"Wait. Actually..." Suzaku felt some of the tension finally evaporating when he stopped the pianist from leaving. He felt a twinge of guilt at that, because although he didn't have a choice - "If you left your name with the secretary, she probably registered you as a potential witness. Which means I'll have to ask you a few questions before you can go." - he felt as though deep down, that wasn't the only reason he was asking Lelouch to stay.

"Really?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I didn't come here for that." Strangely enough, Lelouch seemed not so much angry or annoyed, as he was amused. "I just told her I wanted to speak with you."

"She would have assumed it, then. Formality." He shrugged by way of apology, digging under a pile of witness statements that were probably three cases old and - yes, a pencil. "I hope you don't mind?"

"Not at all." Lelouch was still smiling. "Quite the contrary, if it means I can share a few more minutes of your company."

...And what did you say to that? "Ah. Ch-charmed," Suzaku stammered, pointedly ignoring Lelouch's stare, and the flush in his cheeks as he found his legal pad. He leafed through the notes before ripping out a blank page somewhere in the middle. "Okay. So. Mister..." What was the name Marika had said? "...Lamperouge, was it?"

He got only a chuckle for that; he wondered if he'd pronounced it wrong. "'Lelouch' is just fine."

"Not in here, it isn't." Suzaku gestured towards the office interior. Meeting at the bar was one thing, but here... "I'm Detective Kururugi, and you're Mr. Lamperouge."

"You're serious." Lelouch laughed, softly. "I really don't think this is all necessary."

"Oh, but it is." Which is why you shouldn't have come here. Suzaku grinned, and jotted down a couple of lines at the top of the page: the date, and the pianist's name. Lelouch Lamperouge - hmmm. "May I ask where you were between 5 and 7 in the evening yesterday?"

Lelouch simply hummed into his fingers, staring straight ahead as though he hadn't even heard the question. "You know what I want?" he said, after entirely too long. "Coffee."

"...Coffee?"

"Mmm yes." He couldn't see the bottom half of Lelouch's face from here, but his violet eyes were crinkled in a smile. "Yes. The dreaded afternoon lethargy has begun. A cup of coffee sounds good right about now."

Suzaku frowned, tilting his own mug and glancing inside. And how did that reasoning even work for someone with a schedule like Lelouch's, anyway? "I could make another pot if you like - "

"No," Lelouch cut in. "I'm thinking...a change of location." The pianist finally brought his hands down, resting them on his lap. "I know of a nice little cafe ten minutes from here, halfway to the bar." He flashed Suzaku a confident smile. "Isn't the working day technically over by now anyway?"

"Almost." Suzaku qualified that very carefully as he glanced at the clock. Certainly Lelouch wasn't suggesting what the thought he was suggesting... "But if I told you I planned to work overtime?"

"Then you could pass this off as me being an uncooperative interrogation subject, and you doing whatever it took to get the job done. That works, right?" And that did work, in theory at least, but Lelouch already knew that, because Lelouch was already uncrossing his legs and rising to his feet. "A proposition, then: you drive, and once we get there I buy you something and answer whatever questions you might have. Acceptable, Detective?"

He supposed there wasn't really a choice to this, as it was either he went along and humored this pianist's strange request, or let Lelouch walk away and leave him empty-handed with nothing to show for what should have been a formal questioning. Which would then be brought to Bismarck's attention, who would then most probably raise hell for him wasting company time - and so on.

He did wonder, though, if all of that was just flimsy justification, as within fifteen minutes they were seated at a table, having just given their orders to a waitress who promised them their coffee was 'coming right up.'

Suzaku sighed, leaning back into his chair and resisting the urge to just slump. All in all, it had been an exhausting day, the hangover of death from that morning having been slowly replaced by this heavy, mind-clouding exhaustion. Clearly the coffee he'd had at the office wasn't doing its job, although the ambience didn't help - the place Lelouch had chosen was a cozy little corner cafe along a strip that was composed entirely of restaurants and similar establishments, made of brick and mortar and a dense, permanent cloud of cigarette smoke. The cafe wasn't particularly well-lit, so even sitting right next to a window did little to remedy the dim, almost sleepy atmosphere.

"Right, so...where were we?" He'd brought only the pencil along, having left even his coat back at the office, so he swiped a napkin from the dispenser and began to write. "Your whereabouts on the night of the murder."

"I was at the library," Lelouch drawled, watching as Suzaku scribbled onto the napkin, lightly so as not to tear it. "The one by the post office."

That was unnecessary, as there was really only one library this side of town. Suzaku paused at that, though, because that very same library was located rather close to the scene of the crime - ten, fifteen minutes easily on foot. "What were you doing there?"

"I was trying to track down sheet music for a piece that's been playing in my head for some time." He hummed a few bars then - a melody Suzaku had never heard in his life. "Alas, no luck."

He smiled at the waitress as she returned with two cups of coffee for them, in steaming, fanciful mugs of porcelain in off-white and brown.

"Does everyone in your family have green eyes?"

And Suzaku thought that if he'd been drinking just before that, he might have choked at the completely inane question. "What?"

"Standard interrogations are hardly fair," Lelouch shrugged. "One person asks all the questions and the other provides all the answers."

"This isn't a standard interrogation," Suzaku deadpanned. Just in case the coffee, the time, and the location didn't make that clear enough -

"Precisely." The pianist smiled. "So is that a 'yes' or a 'no'?"

...Anything to get the job done Suzaku repeated to himself, biting on the inside of his lip as he watched the wisps rising from his cup. No matter which way he looked at this, this was really quite ridiculous - he was questioning a civilian whom he had no reason to believe was even remotely connected to the crime, when he still had dozens of suspects he had yet to even speak to. All things considered, he really ought to just end this now: potential witness had nothing of value to report after an hour of questioning, and let Bismarck make of that whatever he liked. He ought to get back to actually working on the case - or maybe, hit the bar now and make it easier for himself in the morning.

But he didn't. He didn't know why, and he didn't know why he settled for stirring his coffee absentmindedly as he answered. "Not everyone. My cousin has them. My father doesn't." He shrugged. "Hit and miss, I guess."

"Hmmm." Lelouch was studying his face, and not being at all discreet about it. "Interesting."

Lelouch took his coffee with one lump of sugar, as well as enough cream to drown out the blackness, until it was a rich, light color. And he was precise in his actions, never clinking the teaspoon against the side of the mug, never spilling a grain or a drop - and maybe Suzaku really ought to get back to the questioning now. He cleared his throat. "How long were you there for?"

"I don't know." The pianist frowned, tapping the teaspoon once against the edge of the mug and bringing the tip up to his lips - lips which caught the stray drop of coffee that had remained there, aided by the smallest flash of a tongue, pink and soft against the hard metal. (And what the hell was wrong with him, really? Suzaku gripped the pencil and tore his eyes away, back down to his notes on the napkin.) "Maybe a couple of hours? More? It's easy to lose track of time when you're not particularly in a hurry."

He nodded and wrote down as much: Time is relative. "And you were there the whole time? You didn't happen to, say, head out for a break in the middle of your search?"

"Are you just trying to ask if I was at Prince Odysseus' mansion that day? Because I can assure you my name wasn't on the guest list."

He chuckled then, and Suzaku bit back a smile as he wrote. He'd have to double-check that, of course, but he was fairly certain he would have remembered seeing the pianist's name the first time around; how common was a name like 'Lelouch' anyway? "Duly noted."

"Yes, and that means I can ask two questions now, right?"

"...At what point did we establish that we were doing this back and forth?"

"I'd say, about five seconds ago," Lelouch murmured, after pretending to think about it. "Well?"

Suzaku raised an eyebrow. Tricky. "Alright. Go for it."

Lelouch smiled, apparently very pleased with this. He took a long, indulgent sip of his coffee, entirely on his own time. "How long have you been living in Pendragon?"

He'd known better than to expect questions that were strictly professional, by now. This was probably for the best, anyway. "Four years," he supplied.

"You have family here?"

"Not in Pendragon, no."

"Where are they?"

"Ah." Suzaku waved the pencil at him, smirking. "Two questions, remember? My turn."

Lelouch rolled his eyes. "And here I was hoping I could sneak that past you."

"Mmmm." Suzaku glanced down at his notes as he sipped at his coffee, black, not quite as strong as he was accustomed to, but close enough. "Would you happen to know anyone who would have any motive or opportunity to commit the murder?"

It was a standard question that may as well have been written on a cue card, and Lelouch seemed to realize as much. "Not particularly. I mean no disrespect to the dead, but Prince Odysseus wasn't really very remarkable." He shrugged. "I suppose I can't imagine why anyone would despise him enough to kill him."

Suzaku nodded; he'd exhausted most of the space on the napkin by this point. "I see."

"So?" Lelouch pressed, clearly not having forgotten. "Family?"

He sighed. "Back in Japan. I'm the only one this side of the Pacific."

The pianist seemed to consider this for a bit. "Married?"

"Good God no." Suzaku shook his head insistently at that, as though the mere idea of it were absurd. Which it was.

"Hmmm." Lelouch took another sip of his coffee, though he was watching Suzaku the entire time, eyes meeting eyes over the rim of the mug. "You don't mind that I'm asking you all this?" he finally said.

He should, really. But... Suzaku shrugged. "You haven't really asked me anything I'm uncomfortable talking about. If that happens, I just won't answer."

"Oh?" His lips curved up in a smile. "And what if you become famous after eventually cracking this case, and I capitalize on this conversation? Would you hate me if I did?"

"What if one of us dies tomorrow?" Suzaku met the pianist's gaze evenly, although he didn't smile. To a certain extent, this was why he no longer made any long-term plans, or even bothered thinking about things too far ahead in the future. It was easier to just coast along, take things as they came - because the most careful of plans could be undone by just about anything, and one of those happened to be a constant of this world. "Or the day after? Then whatever happened here wouldn't matter."

Lelouch eyed him for a very long time after that, with much renewed interest. "Fascinating outlook," he said with a laugh. "Though, I do wonder how such a philosophy doesn't get in the way of you doing your job."

Suzaku simply hummed into his coffee (because on the contrary: it made it easier, but he supposed Lelouch didn't know just what exactly he did at the agency, or what his specialty there was.) "And you?"

He didn't have to expound on what exactly that pertained to. "My family is in Pendragon, but we don't get along." There was a note of finality in his voice that didn't speak quite as loudly as the thin, tight line of his lips, before he broke it with a smile. "And no, I'm not married. And I never will be."

This time it was Suzaku's turn to flash a wry smile, at Lelouch and his elegant fingers (his smooth fingers), his striking eyes. "You don't think you're being a little too hasty with that prediction?"

But Lelouch only returned the smile, taking that moment to lean forward and prop his elbows against the table, cupping his face in his hands. "I wonder," was all he said to that.

And there was something unnerving about the way Lelouch looked at him after that - even more unnerving, but not by much, than how that look didn't just make him uncomfortable, but actually almost... almost...

He coughed, and looked pointedly away. Evening had begun to set in - it was clear from the sky, and how the sunlight was now slowly shifting to a redder color. Not that there was much of it to begin with. "Are you working at the bar tonight?"

Lelouch blinked. "Sure. Six nights a week."

Suzaku nodded. "Right." Then he nodded again. "Let me know."

He never became entirely sure why he made that offer, or why he stayed with Lelouch at the same table, in the same corner of that same cafe, until just past nine in the evening. Until the twilight snuffed out all of the sun and the sky turned black, until the same waitress had graced them with refills twice, until Suzaku realized that the discomfort was still there, but by now just an afterthought. And that if he really thought about it - well, it seemed as though he was actually enjoying himself.

They spoke of less grave things after that - relatively trivial things like the rumors of war, the price of gold, the colorful regulars at Arthur's Castle. Once, Lelouch asked what Suzaku did before becoming a detective; he answered with 'I was a soldier' and thankfully, that was the end of it.

(Or, it was almost the end of it: he'd made the mistake of returning the question to Lelouch, whose answer - "Many, many things" - was even more evasive and closed-off than his.)

But other than that, it was...refreshing, this evening. To get away from the office and the case, in every possible way, for once not worrying about one thing or another and just - making small talk with the pianist of one of the local bars. There were parts of Lelouch that put him at ease, he found: his quiet laughter, the sound of his voice, the way he gestured with his hands when the topic came to something he was very familiar with - those parts.

And then there were parts of Lelouch that were disquieting...or maybe there was just one, the way Lelouch looked at him throughout it all, his eyes never leaving Suzaku for an extended period of time, and a glint therein that Suzaku couldn't read no matter how hard he tried.

Still, he supposed, as they finally pulled over to the side of the street where Arthur's Castle and its lights stood like a familiar haunt (like home): this had been a good night. After that disaster at the piano, especially - this was a better outcome than he'd been hoping for.

(And maybe that counted for something.)

"Not joining us for a drink tonight?" Lelouch asked, and when Suzaku slowed to a stop and glanced his way, he smirked. "Or twelve?"

"Point taken," he chuckled, parking the car and flashing his blinkers. "Not tonight, though. I think I'll head back to the office actually, try to get some work done." There was enough caffeine in his system to keep him alert for at least the next couple of hours; he figured he may as well put them to good use.

"Well I appreciate the ride." Lelouch unbuckled his seatbelt. "I'm in your debt."

"Don't be silly." Suzaku shook his head. "You bought me coffee. And you returned my coat. If anything, I owe you."

"Hmmm." There was the sound of Lelouch reaching for the door handle, then the door itself opening, before: "Suzaku."

Suzaku didn't realize, then, that this was the first time the pianist called him by name. Or, that he pronounced it almost flawlessly, lingering just a split-second too long on the last syllable - or, that he didn't mind. All that happened was that he heard his name, and he turned his head on instinct, and suddenly felt Lelouch's lips pressed against his own.

His hand on the ignition jerked, and as the engine died so did all the thoughts churning in his mind.

A moment - really, that was all it was.

A moment, and all he could see through widened eyes was Lelouch's face, so close to his own, long black eyelashes so stark against his pale cheeks. The taste of coffee, and other things. Lelouch's hand on his shoulder, the other...on his leg, warm, just above his knee (and what was it doing there, what was he doing and what were they both doing - )

But then the lips pulled away, and their owner lingered in the space close to Suzaku as he smiled; something glittered in his half-lidded, alarmingly close violet eyes.

And Lelouch only chuckled, his breath breaking over Suzaku's lips when he voiced the question Suzaku could not: "Why?" His eyes then softened, and his lips curved into a smile. "Because one of us could die tomorrow. And wouldn't that be a shame."

It was just half past nine when Lelouch finally stepped out of the car, sauntering towards the entrance to the bar, with not even a backward glance.

It would take another ten minutes before Suzaku finally recovered, enough to start the engine and pull out of that street, just before the music could start.

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Author's (end) notes: Back from the dead! May is over, so consistent (-ish) nwahr updates should be the norm once more.

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