Aurora likened it to recovering from a flu; she was achy and tired in the days that followed, with the cognitive fuzz indicative of intense stress and the healing that inevitably followed. Not to mention, her crazed physical activity had left her feeling like she'd been run over by a truck. So she soothed her bruised pride and muscles with a little light gardening, pruning and weeding with about half of her usual verve.
But it was fine. Suzaku was painfully courteous about the whole thing, conscientious of both her battered state the days after and her exaggerated snarkiness whenever the subject was broached. As he undoubtedly understood, Aurora felt deeply humiliated by her loss of control. That, and the fact she'd all but fallen out of a fucking tree. Still, she got the sense that he found it funny. She could almost find it in herself to be irritated with him for it.
Suzaku, on the other hand, was doing beautifully. The minor strain in his left arm had all but disappeared overnight, and he seemed to be improving daily. As the repeated yanking of an especially determined weed had her breathing harder than she should, Aurora braced her hands against her thighs and leaned back, catching her breath as the sun, glowing through the delicately patterned lace of clouds, brushed her face. Once the rush of her breath faded, Aurora was eventually able to make out music. Slowly opening her eyes, she quickly pinpointed the source of the sound to a window high above.
The studio window. Her suspicion was confirmed when Suzaku appeared there, resting his arms on the sill and bracing his weight against them, gazing at the horizon as he quietly sang along, the agony etched across his face more indicative of his mood than the softly uttered words snatched away by the breeze and distance.
A low-grade worry burned in her gut as she watched the expressions steal across his face, unaware of her watching him. She knew the song; sad, hard, and accusatory. Of course Suzaku was drawn towards it. She would have rolled her eyes if her heart hadn't clenched at the way he buried his face in a palm.
The burning cities and ash of dreams reminded her of Lelouch, as it no doubt reminded Suzaku. But the hidden faces and brutal games made her think of both of them, both facing the world behind Zero's mask. And the smoldering passions, the lessons that would never be learned? Suzaku, without a doubt. Aurora unconsciously sang along quietly under her breath, hurting and angry for both of them. Sighing, she stabbed her trowel into the dark, rich earth. What was she going to do with herself? And him.
Abandoning any further attempt to garden, Aurora let herself inside, trying to cool off emotions heated by a heartfelt song with a tall glass of ice water. Dumb, maybe, but she was just a music sucker that way.
Sometime later, Suzaku came downstairs, carrying a few sketches he wanted to inspect in truer light. As he joined her at the table, looking a little drawn and gnawingly intense, Aurora didn't need to peer over his shoulder to see that the tone of his drawings were fairly dark, and achingly beautiful. Silently, she sipped the water, watching him work.
Aurora wasn't sure why she said it. Maybe she wanted to force Suzaku to realize that the past didn't have to own him. Not if he was honest about what had been taken from him, and what he had given. If nothing else, it was a low blow after watching him laid open by the song earlier. But the words leapt out of her mouth before she had a chance to curb them, flying into the air like black birds with sharp wings.
"Euphie used to drive me crazy." Suzaku froze, shock, then anger rippling through his muscles like the tensing of a predator. It was a testament to the quality of his pencil that it didn't simply snap in his viciously strained grip. When his gaze slowly lifted to hers, Aurora resigned herself to the conflict her big, stupid mouth had just consigned her to. Because a defensive fury swirled in his eyes, licking flames that melted his usual genial demeanor into one of implacable rage.
"What?" he growled. Aurora tried to shrug – her muscles tripped a little as that wrath slid over her like the pass of heated skin against skin. Because this wasn't bad or stupid enough; she had to get a little turned on, too. She kind of hoped Suzaku punched her, because she might just kiss him if he didn't. At the very least, she damn well deserved it.
"I mean, I loved her. A lot. But the girl could get on my last nerve the way no other sibling did. You know what I mean?"
"No, I don't." It was fascinating, she had to admit. Watching him rally his anger into a form of stiff obstinance that nearly veiled the fiery source. Nearly. Like a masochistic moron, Aurora felt her mouth barrel on. This was so odd; most of the time, she was solidly in control of the words she let fly. But for some reason, after watching his hurt at that song, stuff that had been swirling around her subconscious was leaping free like lemmings.
"Oh, come on. No matter how much a couple loves each other, there are always little things that drive them crazy about the other. Like how Chandler thinks Kendra has the worst taste in music, and Kendra thinks Chandler is always kind of a butthead when he comes home from intense debates in the Senate. It usually takes him about a day to settle, but she compares it to living with a snotty, sarcastic teenager until he calms down again."
"Euphemia and I loved everything about each other. Utterly," Suzaku said around gritted teeth. Figuring she was in for a penny, in for a pound, Aurora laced her fingers together and propped her chin on them, dropping her elbows on the table as she leaned closer. Might as well dig out this splinter while she was potentially committing suicide. And Suzaku's iron posture and the warning, furious shine to his eyes promised that he would kill her if she kept this up.
"No doubt. But you're both human. And while she was a saint, she wasn't perfect. Neither are you. It's one thing to love someone because of their flaws – in fact, that's often the best way relationships survive. But you couldn't have found every aspect of her charming."
"I did," he insisted, the timbre of his voice dropping as she trod farther and farther past his tolerance.
"She undoubtedly changed in the years we were apart, but it takes a lot to alter deeply ingrained personality traits. And the Euphie I knew was reckless. Almost all of us were, but she didn't have the cunning or strength of her other siblings, which meant when she did something without thinking it through, one of us had to get her out of it."
"I loved Euphie's impulsiveness," Suzaku said, the hard edge of his voice masking the thickness lurking in his throat. Aurora nearly sighed. And now the guilt lanced through her like a spear. Well, that was inevitable, nudging at one of the most wounded parts of Suzaku's soul.
"Maybe you weren't together long enough to find those things out about each other." Or maybe… Suzaku hurled himself to his feet so fast, that Aurora gulped back the thought that had flickered across her brain, pencils rolling away with the tittering of wood against wood. His shoulders were tight and defensive, the look he pinned her with rife with so much more than rage. Layered in all that emotion was pleading; begging her to stop, to leave this be. To quit dragging something so painful back to the forefront again. So she said nothing as he stiffly strode out of the kitchen, feeling like her heart was being crushed under his swift steps. But Aurora told herself she was somewhat inured to that kind of pain, and one final sentence found sound just as he was at the kitchen's threshold.
"Regardless, you two were beautiful together." He paused, turning his head just enough for Aurora to catch the curl of his long lashes. Then he left, and Aurora found herself alone with her old friend, blame. Pressing her face to her biceps as she curled her arms around her head, she couldn't help but wonder. What was wrong with her?
There had to be something wrong with him. Because…
Because Aurora's questions had unearthed a doubt that had been living inside Suzaku all these years. He loved Euphie. Loved her, enough to die or disgrace himself for her. But their time together had been cruelly short. He'd known her, and she'd known him. But not the way Kendra and Chandler knew each other. It seemed that their feelings for each other were of a whole other breed.
Not necessarily less true, just… less frenzied. And more profound. And just because he'd been choked by fury and hurt didn't mean that Suzaku missed Aurora's subtle point. He'd loved Euphemia, yes. But how had he loved her?
As a woman? A partner? A friend?
As an idea?
Or some sort of amalgam of all those things that solidified into a love for a person? Dropping down onto his bed, Suzaku pressed his palm to his right ear as he tried to hack his way through the forest of implications. Giving them the time and attention he'd never before afforded them, a few undeniable truths emerged with clarity.
He'd loved Euphemia more than he could possibly stand. But they never would have lasted.
Regardless of what they felt for each other, and no matter the failure or success of their dreams for the world, Britannian society would never have softened enough for a Princess to marry her foreign knight of questionable background. And marry she would have, someday. Suzaku knew, without question, that it would have been a slow death to watch the woman he loved bound to another man, someone who had rights to her he could never claim. And even if they'd decided to flout Euphie's marriage vows and become intimate, it would have inevitably destroyed them. For them, fidelity and loyalty were everything, and to knowingly broach it would have poisoned everything they'd had.
Even had fate been marginally less cruel, Suzaku would have lost Euphemia, one way or another. All the more he ever would have had was the chivalrous love of a knight for his princess, aching from the distance and yearning for a simple touch. She would have been too selfless to let him to stay, and he would have been too stubborn to go. It was hard to say who would have broken first, but neither would have survived their connection whole.
There, in his temporary room in Ireland, with the warm summer breeze stroking his skin like a soft breath and the noon sun warming the air, Suzaku could finally admit something. He and Euphemia had loved each other, with a fire and fever of ones so young and foolish. But no matter the determination of their feelings, the intensity of their infatuation, somehow, someway, it would have been taken from them.
They simply weren't meant to be.
Blinking against the sunlight that seemed to sear his eyes as he gazed out to the soft, fertile land, Suzaku drew in a deep, deep breath, one that stretched his lungs and flexed healed cartilage. Holding it for a moment, he felt a quiet settle over a deeply scarred aspect of himself.
Then he dropped his face into his hands, and harshly wept out every wish and hope and dream he'd ever had for himself and his princess. He wept for cruel tides and pointless heartbreak. As tears streamed down his face to drip from his nose and chin, Suzaku knew that just as he was fated never to have her, he'd been fated to know Euphemia. To be the one person in the world to love her just this way, to still mourn her the way she deserved.
As with all his burdens, he greedily accepted the lonely responsibility of it. Perhaps if he had no other point in life, he could be the last bastion of remembrance and love for Princess Euphemia Vivienne li Britannia.
Later, feeling hollowed and raw, having done his best to wash away the ravages grief had wrought on his face, Suzaku came down the stairs and saw Aurora's legs sprawled out on the kitchen floor. Rushing in, worried that an injury or stroke or flaming arrow had befallen her, he stuttered to a halt when he saw enough to realize that she was laying on her back, her head under the sink, hard at work.
There was a clank, a grunt, a hiss, and a particularly violent curse that also applied to the plumbing's offspring. Leaning over the flung-open cabinet door, he felt a smile coyly tease the corners of his reluctant mouth at the chaos. There were cleaning supplies everywhere, a veritable menagerie of bottles. Scattered around the sink on the floor like a gritty halo were tools that he recognized, some he vaguely recalled the purpose for, and some that Suzaku hadn't even known where tools. Just because he'd piloted Knightmares didn't mean he knew a damn thing about the mechanics of them, or any other machinery, for that matter. And then there was Aurora, the knees of her jeans still dirty from the garden, looking slim and earthy and warm. Suzaku curled his fingers around the lip of the sink to resist the urge to touch what he had no right to.
"Son. Of. A. Bitch!" Aurora snarled, her vehemence slightly muffled by metal, porcelain, and wood.
"What are you doing?" Suzaku asked quietly. Aurora jerked like he'd kicked her, the distinct thunk of bone against metal making him wince companionably. When she twisted to peer up at him, rubbing the crown of her head, she frowned, then dove back under the sink. It had been a quick expression, but Suzaku thought he detected the flicker of guilt.
"Fixing it. Drain was getting a little sluggish." One hand whipped out, snatching up some cousin of a wrench before disappearing again.
"I didn't know you knew how to fix plumbing," Suzaku said conversationally, contenting himself with the peek-a-boo of her elbows, careful to look at nothing else inflammatory. Aurora just grunted.
"Just because I know how doesn't mean I like it."
"Then why not just have someone else do it?" Aurora's movements stopped, and for a moment, she simply laid still. Then she wriggled down a little until she was out from under the sink, gazing up at him.
"Because I deserve it for being nasty to you earlier." He could almost see it; a recalcitrant toddler Aurora owning up to a mistake with the bravery she'd learned from her older brothers, voice trembling even as she lifted her chin and tears filmed her starry eyes. She wasn't crying now, nor did her voice tremble. But there was still an aspect of innocent repentance that tugged at Suzaku. Even now, she could no doubt see that his eyes were still red, but said absolutely nothing about it. So he just crouched down, draping his arms along the top of the cabinet door.
"You weren't nasty," he said simply. She'd driven him into an emotional corner, but there was a part of him screaming less brutally with the realizations Aurora had dragged out of him. He wouldn't go so far as to thank her for it, but he didn't feel that she deserved punishment, either. Sitting up so they were separated by only a few inches of air and a panel of wood, Aurora looped her arms over her raised knees.
"But I didn't need to push that hard. I'm sorry." Simple and sincere. Suzaku returned the sentiment in kind.
"Forgiven. But it's all right. Really." She looked at him a long time with that trademark angle of her head. Finally, she must have seen something that satisfied her. Still, Suzaku was more than stunned when she leaned slightly forward and pressed a quick, warm kiss to his cheek.
"OK." Just as quickly, she was under the sink again, clanking away. "Why don't you start some tea? Dinner's still a long ways away." Mutely, Suzaku slowly stood, warmth and shock humming through his system. And just when he thought he'd pretty much figured her out, Aurora went and did something like this. Flicking a finger over the skin of his cheek still tingling from her lips, he glanced down at her again, then smiled. He wasn't even quite sure why.
Later, after a dinner of marinated chicken, fluffy, buttery potatoes, and salad enough to feed a rabbit army, Suzaku and Aurora stood side by side at the sink. Aurora was almost up to her elbows in soapy water, while Suzaku rinsed and gave a cursory dry before setting the dishes in the drying rack. After getting her teeth into the plumbing, Aurora had expanded her scope. He didn't understand hardly any of it, but the gist of it was the dishwasher was getting the night off. A sudden flash of insight had gone through him when Aurora ran over the summary of her under-sink work earlier. This must have been how people felt when he'd bombarded them with KMF tech back in the day. Lost, confused, and, in Aurora's case, a little frightened by the sheer, swerving speed of her articulation.
Not that she was talking now. The speakers of the music dock were cranked, and even standing shoulder to shoulder with her, Suzaku could barely make out her humming along to the music. The hopping, jouncy beat of the song currently playing was impossible to resist, and Suzaku found himself tapping a toe along with it as they neared the end of the chore. That, of course, wasn't going to suffice for Aurora.
Just as the lyrics said it, Aurora threw her hands up in the air, raining water droplets and tiny, filmy bubbles down on them both. But before Suzaku could splutter a protest, Aurora bounced the side of her hips against his rhythmically, grinning and pointing at him like a ham. When he didn't respond, too rocked by her pelvis hitting his, Aurora snatched his wet hand in her soapy one and tugged them around, facing the empty kitchen like it was a dance floor at a club and she was about to destroy.
Somehow both sexy and silly, Aurora moved like a dream and grinned like a goof. His hand still locked in hers, it took Suzaku a moment to realize that her tugging meant she wanted him to dance with her. Not necessarily as a pair, but just to dance together on the same floor to the same upbeat song. Feeling utterly ridiculous, Suzaku couldn't have become any more inflexible.
Aurora, however, was nothing if not determined. Even as the singer told them once, told them twice, Suzaku couldn't do it. He certainly didn't feel like dynamite.
Taking pity on him, Ban had apparently decided to show him how it was done. Delighted that at least one of her crew was cooperating, Aurora turned, Ban obligingly leaping up to drop his front paws in her palms, the two of them bounding and spinning like a couple of happy loons. Smiling despite himself, Suzaku didn't notice when he unbent enough to rock to the beat.
This time, Aurora took his hands when she threw hers up in the air, tilted her head back as she sang along. When he caught sight of the long, exposed column of her throat, something in Suzaku cracked. Maybe it was his mind; he was fairly certain that he was no longer in control of himself when, on the next line, he tossed his head back, and joined his voice to hers.
It was more bellowing than actual singing, but when Aurora's eyes met his, Suzaku was struck by how delighted she looked. So delighted, that how could he not dance with her?
It was spastic, loud, and fun. It was so incredibly far removed from the austere trainings they'd both received for movement to music, but that was the best thing about it. Their athleticism sometimes created maneuvers that were far from graceful, but they had a blast pulling them off. Suzaku felt a little drunk on the stupid happiness that surged through him, the music too loud for guilt to pierce through. For the first time in what seemed eons, Suzaku celebrated.
When the song ended, Aurora loped over to pause the player, leaving them in a quiet that seemed alive. She looked back at him with a grin that could have lit a cavern.
"That was awesome!" she cried, nearly literally knocking Suzaku off his feet when she launched into his arms. It was more than instinct that had him tightening his arms around her, bringing her in close. He wasn't sure what it was, but at the moment, Suzaku couldn't quite bring himself to care. Aurora was warm as the setting sun, she smelled like lavender and life, and there was no other place in the world he wanted to be.
When they mutually drew slightly apart, Suzaku couldn't help but be intrigued by the pink that smudged her cheeks. Now that was an intriguing puzzle; what in the world could make the worldly Aurora Sterling blush?
Well, this was fun. Phoenix turns 3 years old this month – what an adorable little toddler.
I did have something odd happen during the writing of this chapter. Maybe not odd, but certainly thought-provoking which totally jacked my groove and poked at my brain for a good long while.
I got my first bad review. Now, I am no woosy who deletes every comment that isn't glowing, because it's entirely possible that it has merit.
Apparently, Phoenix has no plot, which I feel is only true if you're gunning for the action I hinted at in the beginning, and will be taking the stage in due course again. I do believe I classified this as Romance/Hurt/Comfort. Did I misrepresent?
The pace is no bueño, which, fair point. Probably one of the most contentious things about this piece, but a decision I'm very solidified in and will stick to no matter the cost.
I… I thought I was writing a romance. Maybe I was wrong. I really like the slice of life feel to this, but that's not the only thing Phoenix will offer, nor was it my original intention.
Honestly, I'm not even sure what chick lit is. I feel a little insulted for a genre I didn't even know existed or necessarily how to define. And with a name like chick lit, I don't really want any of my works falling into that category, anyway.
But what do you think, my good readers? Do you feel betrayed? Should I take Phoenix down, rewrite Suzaku as an original character, and "stick to original works"?
After all I've gotten through with this story, it kind of blows that I'm having a stupid little crisis about a grumpy guest review. Would be nice if Tango would grow up, but Phoenix is my heart, and that kind of hit me where it hurts.
So I'm sorry for this stupid a/n. But if I didn't get it a little off my chest, I would have stalled for sure.
Phew. There. Said and done. Moving on. Next chap out by Halloween. Promise. More dancing. Then fighting.
Hope you like it!
Love, Tango