Disclaimer: What? Really? Does anyone here think I own Code Geass? Anyone? Is anyone that stupid? And, you know, for clarification, the obviously labeled quotes aren't mine. Nor are the obviously labeled songs.
Note: Hark? Doth I hear people complaining about my use of subbing for parts of these stories? /plugs ears/ Ah, it seems I doth not.
"Only the forgotten are truly dead."
-Tess Gerritsen
Only the Forgotten
Chapter Ten
Discoveries
"I hit you and you hit me back
We fall to the floor, the rest of the day stands still
Fine line between this and that
When things go wrong, I pretend that the past isn't real
Now I'm trapped in this memory
And I'm left in the wake of the mistake, slow to react
So even though you're close to me, you're still so distant
And I can't bring you back"
~ "With You," Linkin Park
The first thought Suzaku had was the the world had ended. That somehow, the Eternity that the witch had been harping on about had finally torn itself asunder. He saw an image of Lelouch in a black hooded robe, shimmery like C.C., and pain had exploded in his mind. The headache he'd been suffering from since the attack on the UFN had switched from a grimacing pound to an all-out full-frontal assault. He tried to squeeze his head and found his hands slapping roughly against the mask. The sound of the smacks made the headache roar.
"Zero?"
Oh, hell.
Suzaku forced his head up, only to find a Knight to be frowning up at him, her brows puckered low over her large eyes. "Are you okay?"
He cleared his throat. It wasn't something Zero would do, but he figured his voice cracking and wobbling would be even worse. "I'm fine." His vision was blotchy and his head was killing him.
But in the same instant, he turned and saw Lelouch straightening from a hunched figure of his own, and Suzaku's heart flipped and hammered in his chest.
"Lelouch," he said, his voice a breath, a whisper, a sigh and a plea, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. He stood from Zero's new sofa in his private room in the UFN, his legs nearly not supporting him.
Lelouch shook and gasped. There was dirt all over him. Everywhere, staining his once-white emperor's clothing and turning his hair a horrible mud brown. His eyes, however, were clear and bright and purple, blessedly purple, with no Geass in sight. His chest heaved. "Suzaku," he said, and his voice was not at all the usual strong and assured snark.
Suzaku wrenched himself forward, grabbing Lelouch up. "How... how is this...? I killed you."
Lelouch shook his head as Suzaku's hands wrapped around him, pulling the thin frame to his chest and nearly weeping. It was warm. Then he nodded. "Yes. You killed me. Something's gone wrong. I was afraid it might happen."
Afraid? Wrong? Suzaku laughed; it sounded horrible and wrong through the mask, and suddenly he needed the damn thing off. He moved them around until Suzaku's back was to the door. Then he slammed his gloved fist over the door controls and waited impatiently for the thing to close. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would do. "What are you talking about? No, wait, wait." And he moved Lelouch backward. The man looked like he needed leading. The thought of it made Suzaku shake.
Once they made it to the ridiculously red sofa, Suzaku pulled Lelouch down into it. The man seemed to be getting his wind back; his shoulders straightened and he actually had the nerve to try to get free of Suzaku's hold. Suzaku just made an obstinate noise and pulled Lelouch closer. He huffed. The warm air puffed against the leather of Zero's costume.
"How did you get here without anyone seeing you?" he asked, even as he attempted to one-handedly pull off Zero's mask. It clattered to the floor, and he hugged Lelouch tight once more.
"I didn't, you idiot." But Suzaku could hear Lelouch's smile. "I'm immortal." Suzaku's arms spasmed around Lelouch's sides. Lelouch stiffened. "It was a possibility," he said, speaking quickly before Suzaku could. "When Charles died, he died because I willed it into being. I, in essence, killed him. When I did, it must have been enough to transfer his immortality to me."
Suzaku's brain flatlined. "How?" he asked, but Lelouch only shrugged. He was no longer struggling to get out of Suzaku's grasp, but he wasn't burrowing in deeper, either. "That's... but what about you? Is there a way to... to end it?"
Lelouch shook his head. "No," he said, and Suzaku wished the man could lie and spare him as he had when they had first met again. He buried his nose in Lelouch's filthy hair. "The only way to end my existence, according to C.C. – who's had more than enough time to consider the problem – is to give someone Geass and have them take my immortality for themselves."
Suzaku, who had just been wondering if he could somehow save Lelouch this time, found himself freezing. Take Geass? His entire being balked at the very idea. But then to take Lelouch's immortality and live forever? His mind, ridiculously, went to the idea of a Zero who never aged. Never died. Wouldn't that be exactly what the people needed? But the thought of living forever sounded excruciating, and he didn't know that he had the strength for it.
It was a moot point, anyway, he realized. Lelouch would never allow it to happen.
Another thought occurred to him, and he leaned back a bit. Lelouch seemed to stiffen still more, but he allowed Suzaku to retreat. Suzaku bent down, then reached and held out Zero's mask. "Does this mean that you–"
But Lelouch didn't even let him finish before pushing the mask lightly back to Suzaku. A smile winked onto that face before dripping away, pulling those thin brows low. "No, Suzaku. I meant it when I said you are everything Zero must be. It can only be you."
Almost, Suzaku demanded to know why, if that was the case, Lelouch had even bothered coming back. But god, he couldn't. He couldn't. Lelouch was alive. He hadn't killed him. He snatched Lelouch into another hug, hardly seeing those eyes widen before he crushed Lelouch once more into his chest, the helmet lightly bumping against Lelouch's back. Anything to do with immortality or Geass could wait one more day. Several more days. He dragged Lelouch's head up and slanted his lips fervently upon those below him.
Alive. Alive. They were both alive. He would deal with the rest later.
Suzaku blinked and Lelouch was gone. The hospital hallway was empty. His heart hammered wildly in his chest.
What the hell had that been? He stared for a few moments longer. He could have sworn he'd seen Lelouch, shimmering just as C.C. did, clutching his head as if in a pain mirroring Suzaku's own. Had that been a mirage, too? A false world, a – what had the witch called it? – a different reality. Had it been a different reality?
But why would such a reality be shown to him? Was C.C. still nearby, or was D.D.? Or had it been C.C.'s partner?
Her partner. Who would she partner with? Lelouch, his mind replied, and he reared back at the very thought.
In that alternate reality, in that fake world, that false scene he'd seen or imagined or created (how the hell did anyone make any sense of such madness?), he'd seen Lelouch come back to him just a few short days after assuming the identity of Zero. Had he made such a thing up, or had it held some truth? And if it had held some truth...
His heart hammered in his chest, a something like thick sludge sliding down his spine. Did that mean Lelouch was alive?
A light touch on his forearm made him jump, and he turned to find the petite Knight from before trying to give him a small grin. "It's all right." While he just stood there staring at her, her grin grew. Definitely a reassuring one. "I promise. We'll take care of them."
He had no idea what she was talking about, but he nodded. "Thank you." And he once again turned to that intersection. He had to go see. He had to find C.C. and confront her about this. "I must..." But where to start? If the breaks in Eternity were getting that large, did that mean reality was going to rip apart? And if so, could he endanger the world by going after C.C.?
But the girl before him hadn't seemed to have seen anything, and that smile of hers didn't dim. "Go," she said. "Take care of it. And if you need help, you have your Knights."
He didn't know about that, didn't even half know what she was saying, but he nodded and left, anyway, trying to make his strides seem strong. If nothing else, he still had D.D. to deal with. He would just focus on that.
What the hell had that been?
Lelouch brushed a shaking hand over his face. It had looked as if the world, a planet he actually saw in front of his eyes – had been tearing and cracking apart. He saw faces, millions of them, straining out – the World of C, he knew, somehow, and recognized those faces as the formless unconsciousness he'd seen before – and they had been tearing apart, as if their bodies were melting and ripping like paper, all at the same time.
He didn't even know the term for it, but somehow he understood the emotions it evoked. The world was of one mind, one consciousness. One existence, per se, based on the consciousnesses of humans past and present. Every single person, every single person's desires, made up the world. He'd been right when he'd said that a person's wish was like a Geass – people would demand the world be a certain way, and through everyone's desires, the world would be shaped. Everyone had wanted peace, had been willing to kill for it, and so they had killed, and finally killed him, and peace had been achieved. A world created wholly from peoples' wishes.
They, those people, those living and those who had died, would be in charge of the future – that one gray world where full color can never be achieved because humanity would never be fully and completely alive – always another generation waiting. And something impossible had happened – someone had gone against their intrinsic selves and thus destroyed that one world of pasts and presents.
Impossible decisions. Lelouch took a deep, gasping breath. The headache, he realized, and stilled. It was gone. No, not completely gone, but for the time it had taken for those pictures to explode in his head, the headache had disappeared.
Something was going on. Obviously the headache and the dissembling universe were linked, or else why have it disappear the moment the images came? And it was swiftly building again, now that the images were gone. Something – something linked to proximity? Had he been near the source? He thought of Nunnally, then Suzaku, then the Knights. He'd been near all of them before. This had never been a problem. Then again, the headache was new, as well.
Acceleration of dissemblance, then. A ripping apart of the unconsciousness. Was that possible? And was the unconsciousness known as 'god' somehow directly linked to the world?
He strummed his fingers against the wall behind him and scowled out into the hallway. He needed more answers, and the only source of information he had was C.C., since Schneizel had somehow managed to lose D.D. Something else he needed to be concerned about.
The headache grew steadily as he pondered his predicament. Suddenly it seemed obvious that Suzaku had not been reacting to any sort of attack, but to the same sort of mental assault that Lelouch had gone through. If that was the case, then he was the thing that was causing a sympathetic response within him. Had something around Suzaku altered the 'inevitable' futures created by peoples' wills? How had Suzaku managed to do that?
But of course, if anyone could manage it, it would have to be Suzaku. Who else?
He nearly froze when he heard footsteps clapping against the hospital tiles and realized that Suzaku was coming this way. He checked to make sure he was invisible, then hurried around a corner, into a patient's room. He heard the beeping of a monitor and looked over long enough to see a balding man staring glumly at a sudoku puzzle before turning back to the hall. The headache was getting progressively worse the closer Suzaku got. It was definitely linked to him. If they got too close, would the flashes of the universe run across his vision again? He almost wanted to test it, to see what other information he could recover, but he didn't know what it did to a mortal. Would repeated efforts do unintended harm to Suzaku?
Those footsteps paused, then stopped. Just down the hall from where Lelouch stood. He grimaced. There was a probability that Suzaku could sense the danger associated with the odd blackouts, or perhaps the danger from the headaches. And if that wsa the case, then Suzaku might attempt to ignore the Geass' warning and try to find – and there it was, Suzaku walking toward the room. Lelouch had been invisible to Suzaku the first time they'd met, but the ability didn't seem to be working anymore. A heightening of whatever issue was occurring? Was this due to D.D.'s involvement or, more likely, simply because Lelouch had chosen to get close to Suzaku?
Evidence: close proximity between Lelouch and Suzaku was causing rips in the world somehow. These rips were causing physical pain, visions, and a more symbiotic – or just sympathetic – relationship between the two of them. Suzaku could see him. Suzaku could potentially see the world through the eyes of the immortal, or at least through the World of C's unconsciousness.
As for how to take care of the rising issue, it would have to wait. The room he'd hurried into didn't have a second exit.
The headache pounded thick in his skull, and he scuttled back. Zero would attempt to look strong in front of a civilian, and he wouldn't ask the man anything. But Suzaku was impetuous and obstinate, and chances were high that he would simply walk into the room and look around, ignoring the hospitalized man's indignant squawks. Hiding would be useless. Attack, then? But no; Lelouch's Geass would ensure Suzaku dodge the blow, especially since he was already utilizing it to find where Lelouch had hidden.
Of course, there was also the matter of Suzaku having already seen him. Even if it was just for an instant, Suzaku was at least bright enough to want to further examine the evidence. C.C. had a known accomplice. It would make sense to wonder if that accomplice, who C.C. had helpfully already admitted was a man, could be Lelouch. Though Suzaku wouldn't understand how or why, he would assume judgment before getting all the facts. He'd already proven that annoying habit several times in the course of their acquaintance.
And now Suzaku was just outside the room, and the headache was horrible, nearly blinding, and Suzaku stopped. It felt like the world was crashing upon his forehead, destroying his mind, pulling it apart piece by piece, and yet he felt as if he didn't take that last step, he would die. He needed to move forward. It was not a conscious decision, or even a desire. It was as if the Geass symbol on his hip was pushing, perhaps pulling, at him, as if something wanted him and Suzaku to meet.
It was not a feeling he recognized from anything previous in his short existence as an immortal, but he was still absolutely positive that it was as normal as the headaches – which was to say, not at all. The instinct seemed born from the same place as the headaches, and he realized that the vision he'd received had been a warning, not a punishment.
The same moment he realized that, he felt something else churning around him.
It made him suck in a breath, made him cold and hot and unwitting, and he gritted his teeth. Something was manipulating him physically. What could do that? He was positive C.C. would have warned him of this, at least; the witch knew better than to hide something so damning from him. It wasn't her, anyway; the feeling was powerful, like an intrinsic force.
Intrinsic. Of course. But how? He hurried to the hospital bed and looked behind it. Great. One of the few rooms that didn't leave all the usual paraphernalia lying about. He needed a blood pressure pump. Or maybe an IV? He turned. Great. Attached to the man. Well, he would just have to go without for a little while.
Lelouch ripped the thing out, making the man shout, and wrenched the thing into his neck. It was far more dangerous, but it was faster than the blood pump, so maybe he should be grateful? As if gratefulness had anything to do with anything at this point.
Of course Suzaku came into the room then, but Lelouch quickly ducked down. The pain in his head ratcheted tenfold as Suzaku opened the doors. He didn't manage a single step inside before the pain shot off in his head once more, forcing a rush of adrenaline – of blood – and the IV drip forcing morphine or whatever the man had been on into a body that didn't need it, and he squeezed the bag until a few more drops slithered out, and his breathing started to quicken.
Then as before, the pain was suddenly gone and he saw the earth and its shadow, until it morphed into something almost mechanic – the World of C, he thought, and knew it to be true – and he saw what looked like feathers fly past, and somehow he understood that this was the death of the unconsciousness, of the part of it that watched over everything. He saw flashes – a horde of immortals, each seeming to pray, the planets and the stars forming through their wills – wills, the word whispered, and his existence shook – a rock, the Geass symbol carved in it as if y a lightning blast – and a memory, nearly fleeting, of when he'd first gotten the Geass and made the contract, of how it had felt as if he'd been locking two gears together and about to turn them.
The Geass is a wish. And as the knowledge pounded into his head, he collapsed to the tiled floor of the hospital and felt his heart go into tachycardia.
He had mere moments before his heart went into arrest, and his body still pulsed to get near Suzaku, to grab him and – he didn't know what. All he knew was that Suzaku had been right, horribly right, and he hated the both of them for it.
Your existence is an error.
C.C. could feel it. Deep inside her, like a drug, calling out to her. She'd known the feeling before, had taken solace in it. There was always a sort of solace in the World of C, as if the place was a home beyond home. She knew it was because the Geass was somehow linked to it. The two seemed to share a sort of birth, as if they'd come from the same womb. As if this planet and everything in it was housed by the World of C, and those with Geass were the arms and limbs of its will. The idea of getting back at it, of changing it forever, had been a pleasurable one, if ultimately unsatisfactory. She'd been willing to accept the price of never having found a reason to live if her death could at least arrive.
Of course, Lelouch hadn't seen it that way. When did he ever? But the feeling was one she'd never experienced out in the world before. It was that feeling of standing beside the unconsciousness, of being in its presence. But she could feel it now, and in a distant, remote sort of way, she felt as if it was calling for her.
Not for her, she realized, but for the one like her. Lelouch.
Panic sang through her then. There was no reason for the unconsciousness to want him. She turned from the docks and the men she'd knocked unconscious and hurried away. Schneizel looked to be thinking there by the boat, most likely attempting to find a way to complete Lelouch's order to drag D.D.'s body to the boat without actually having the body anymore – and she couldn't be bothered to deal with the layabout at the moment. "Call for back-up," she suggested, then said, "Zero always relied on Agent Orange, didn't he?" And though there was absolutely nothing to suggest one way or the other, she thought the mindless puppet might have managed to put two and two together there at the very end.
If Lelouch had been targeted by the unconsciousness – if it had found a way to move, or to attack – would it want revenge for what Lelouch did to it? Using its own Geass on itself, forcing it to do as he willed...
She actually stopped at the edge of the docks as the thought consumed her. Waves lapped at the harbor's edge. Could... that be it? Could Lelouch's actions be what caused Eternity to... but no, she thought, relieved. The reactions only occurred around Suzaku. So it had to be something to do with him. But could it be because of Lelouch somehow, as well? Or else, why not react similarly to D.D.? Why just around her? Did it happen around Lelouch? She didn't know; they tried to avoid each other, since the two of them meeting again were on Lelouch's 'Never Gonna Let Happen' list. Which was a stupid and boring list, by the way.
She thought it over a bit more as she slowly made her way toward the feeling dragging her forward. If the trouble was caused by Lelouch and Suzaku together, then obviously the correct answer would be to have them solve it together. Normally, Lelouch would never forgive her for interfering in such a way, and she thought she could understand why. Unrequited love sucked.
The best thing to do would be to arrive as late as possible, and to only get involved if she absolutely had to. Yes, that was definitely the best option. The World of C had never given her the feeling of danger. If anything, if had been comfortable. There was no reason to believe Lelouch was in danger. And if he was, could the World of C kill him? He was immortal. Besides, it had never been sentient. It was just a thing. A bunch of old, dead consciousnesses clumped together.
Maybe. Except Lelouch had managed to use his Geass on it. So...
The uneasy feeling returned, and she altered her plan once more. She would walk, but she would walk quickly. Just in case.
"What do we do?" Suzaku asked, Zero mask still firmly in place as people scuttled back and forth.
"The message was meant to lure us out," Lelouch said, and he smirked. God, Suzaku loved that smirk. "It's simple enough to clear up the message; C.C. will be on top of that." Lelouch waved it away as if it was nothing, his hand almost seeming to shimmer at the movement. Suzaku had almost gotten used to the look of Lelouch hiding himself from the rest of the world, and he was glad that he could see him, though he hadn't understood Lelouch's explanation as to why. Something about the World of C and the fact that they'd had sex while Lelouch's immortality waited inside of him, nesting until he died. Suzaku didn't know for sure, but he thought it might be because a bit of his DNA might have been left inside Lelouch when he'd turned. Which never failed to make him flush horribly and Lelouch to laugh like a maniac.
"But you think the message is more sinister."
"It is," he said, and there was that 'I'll talk slowly so you can follow' tone. Suzaku snarled at it, even though Lelouch couldn't see. Lelouch probably knew exactly how Suzaku would react. His smirk twitched as if he did. "No doubt the person writing these messages intends to confront us at some point. I believe the entire point is to expose you."
Suzaku stiffened. He had enough problems in life, taking over as Zero, dealing with an immortal lover who the world thought – and desired to be – dead. He didn't need any more crap. "So again, what do we do?"
Lelouch's smirk slid into one of those triumphant grins. "You just leave that to me."
And gods help him, he already knew he would.
Suzaku stumbled back, bumping his arm against the side of the door frame and nearly spilling back out into the hallway. He'd ignored the warning of his Geass, had used it to lead him to – to what? To an enemy? To C.C.? To her cohort? To Lelouch? – and had hardly managed to start peering through the haze of his headache before the damn scenery had changed to the UFN again. What the hell was he seeing? Why was Lelouch there? Why had they been kissing?
Stupid question, he thought, especially considering the epiphany he had.
But that thought wasn't his, and he turned.
D.D. stood behind him, perfectly visible to the naked eye, her eyes wide and stance at ease. He whipped out his gun. She merely held up a hand. "That is unnecessary, Protector. I am merely here to help."
Suzaku frowned. "You haven't helped anyone."
She lowered her hand, looking at it for a moment as if unsure quite what it was before looking back up at him. She completely ignored his gun. Why not? he thought, something red-hot bubbling in his chest. She could just walk away from it. "I'm certain she hasn't. Her love of drama is matched only to her love of perceived justice. It has always been a fault of her line." She looked behind Suzaku. "Hm." And turned to him. "Come." She held out her hand.
Suzaku nearly shot it. "No."
She tilted her head once more. "Ah. Of course." She reached for his hand then, and he finally fired. The bullet tore through her palm, destroying cartilage and tendon and even bone. She didn't so much as flinch, but instead touched his wrist, pulling slightly at the sleeve of Zero's costume before finally making contact. He jumped at the coldness of her skin. Like icicles, her fingers wrapped around his wrist. But the hold wasn't hard and painful. It was barely even firm. Her blood soaked the sleeve and glove, but her body was already healing. "You have trouble being in proximity to him. It is understandable. Too much time has gone by. Too much." Her voice slid to a whisper, and her eyes turned dim and glazed. She suddenly looked like a corpse, and he wanted to wrench his arm free.
The man inside the hospital room shrieked a bit, and Suzaku thought he heard the man punching the help button over his head. How wonderful. More witnesses.
But his Geass was no longer firing warning shots, and so he stepped back into the room and felt... nothing. He held his breath, waiting for the headache to roar back up, or for the illusions to take him over once again. But there was nothing. He looked back at the immortal woman, then down to her hand on his wrist. It slid away, and his heart pounded, prepared for everything to return, but it didn't. He frowned. "What did you do?"
The skin of her hand twisted for a moment, then was still. Her hand was completely healed. Only the blood on him remained as proof that she'd ever been hurt at all. The glazed, corpse-like look finally dissolved, and she stared out to the man on the hospital bed – no, just behind it. "You have some time. Fix what you have broken, before it's too late." Her face wrenched, almost as if she was trying to smile but forgot how. It looked like a horrible mix of a snarl and a leer. "You cannot stay like that forever. I'm sure you understand what has happened. I know your brilliance," she said, and pointed to her mind. She was clearly not speaking to him.
Suzaku inched forward.
"But I see you will not allow this to be." She sighed, and his sounded phlegm-y. Her body – because even when stepping forward, he knew enough to keep an eye on the woman who'd been trying to kill him all this time – seemed to convulse where she stood. She held out her hands. "Cooperate," she said, and as she did, he finally got around the edge of the hospital bed. And froze.
His breath stilled.
"Cooperate, and I will leave you like this. I will not manipulate you." Her body convulsed again. "Even this will not do," she murmured, and lowered her hands. Suzaku saw it all as if from a dream.
Down on the floor, unmoving, seemingly dead, was Lelouch. His body hadn't decomposed at all.
His waking dream, he thought, his illusions – his false memories. They were real. True. Whatever.
Lelouch. Lelouch was immortal.
He felt something bubbling up inside him. He was too far gone to label it, but he could feel it nonetheless, a surge of something that made his fists clench and his lips pull back. Suddenly he wanted to empty his clip into the man by his feet. He wanted to rip him apart, tear his body into strips until he couldn't possibly put himself together again. He wanted to drag him to the sea and bury him beneath the water.
And what did D.D. mean, 'manipulate'? He turned his gun on her, only because the body below didn't seem to be moving any time soon – oh, but he was an immortal, he could shrug whatever had happened off, couldn't he? Like it was nothing. So much for keeping his promise of dying!
"Something went wrong."
The phantom voice of the other world spoke, the words searing, understandable now, and damn him, but his finger on the trigger shook. His heart hurt.
D.D. collapsed to the ground.
Suzaku nearly jumped out of his skin. Was there something in the room that was harming immortals? His heart flipped, and damn him, but he turned and fell by Lelouch's side. His hands were nearly on the prone body before he realized just what the hell he was doing. His hands shook inside Zero's gloves. His breath nearly fogged the damn mask. Why the hell was he having such a reaction?
He finally saw the IV bag beside the man's head and realized that Lelouch was visible, just like D.D. He turned to the man on the hospital bed and stood. The IV bag tore in his hands. He heard it squelch out of Lelouch's skin and felt – sick. He took a deep breath. "We need you out of this room. Quickly." He turned to D.D., still prone on the ground. But for how long? He grabbed the man's bed and turned it, quickly putting Lelouch behind the man's head.
"What's going on?" the man asked, and Suzaku looked down on his nearly-bald head. His hands fluttered above a newspaper, where he appeared to have been playing with a puzzle of some sort. "That man down on the ground there suddenly appeared! How is that possible?"
Suzaku let out a long breath. Perhaps the man hadn't noticed. Maybe he'd been too strung out on the thought of someone appearing from nothing. "I'll handle it," he said, not bothering to try to answer questions he couldn't.
The man grunted. "It's a ghost, isn't it? They say the ghost of the soldiers haunt these places."
Or maybe it was because the man was a superstitious idiot. Suzaku nearly heard those words in Lelouch's voice, could imagine the man's haughty smirk, and felt rage boil within him again. He nearly shoved the man out the door, then closed it again. When he turned, both D.D. and Lelouch were twitching.
He turned his gun and shot them both.
