"What are you thinking of?"
The man snapped out his thoughts. The lullaby of the jungle came into focus, a myriad of small animals that gave life to the dark amazonian jungle, somewhere in the frontier between Venezuela and Brazil. The moon, hanging high upon the starlit sky, watched over the couple in their cozy treetop home, their refuge above unwise predators that didn't know better than to stay away (not that some smartass monkeys could get the memo and still continued to raid their pantry).
"What are you thinking of?" the woman, the lime haired witch, asked her warlock again as she pushed the covers off her. Admittedly, the equatorial climate, while not her least, wasn't her most favorite. Too warm, too humid, even during the night.
At least their windows had bug catchers.
"Just about where we're going next. I didn't think they'd commit suicide before we could interrogate them." They, referring to the members of a splinter cell of the defunct Geass Directorate, who'd they still hunted even now. "Were they really that faithful? Or were they geassed to do it? It hardly matters now, but it could mean they're smarting up to us."
"You're going to microwave your brain, with how you're running in circles inside your head," she quipped, resting her head on her arm as she edged closer to him. He grunted with half-baked annoyance and she chuckled to herself, "just sleep on it, you won't get anywhere tonight."
He didn't answer, looking up to the moon through the open window.
"Can you guess what I'm thinking of?" she asked, following his gaze.
"Pizza?" he answered, earning a whap to his chest that he laughed off.
"No. I was thinking I want a vacation."
"A vacation? You? What's next, a domino's pizza?"
Her face scrunched like a sour lemon. "Eww. Never."
"Why, then?"
"I feel like it's about damn time, really," she counted with her fingers, "Your Black Rebellion, part 1 and 2; then Requiem, then the year and a half that I took care of your brain dead ass."
"Ouch."
"Shuush, I did it and I would do it again.
"And then these six months of hunting pests and recruiting new kids. Basically, I think I rather earned a break, don't you think?"
He fell into thoughtful silence. "Well, we surely completely wiped the cells here in South Americana, so I can't exactly find reasons to deny you," he shrugged, but he didn't even try to hide the smile blooming in his face. He continued musing, as his head started to file plans and make new ones, "We'll have to leave some agents here, Maria and Gabriel are on the down low for now, but they'll need a geassed retainer until we come back. We still have our Japanese visas, right?"
"Japan? I thought you would go running to your sister on Neo Pendragon at the first chance you had."
"Quite the opposite, the UNF general assembly will celebrate their annual sessions of meetings in a month from now. I imagine she'll come there at least a week prior to catch up with the rest, unofficially that is. So, it'd give us plenty of time."
"Sounds to me you were already planning a vacation yourself."
"Well, I admit, I was hoping we'd be to the E.U by next week with our next target and then to Japan for the week before the Assembly. But, we have no leads, and as you put it, we deserve a goddamn break."
She hummed, constantly. A stray thought lazy floated to her mind, slightly damping her mood. Already deciding she wasn't going to sleep for the remainder of the night, she bluntly asked: "What are you going to do about Kallen? And Shirley, too?"
His hand stilled. She almost didn't notice, and she wouldn't have if she wasn't so near, and knew by now where to look for his tells. A consequence of living in such close proximity with your accomplice, but also a small joy she took in just by knowing.
Nunally probably knew them too, but what about Kallen and Shirley? Would they learn, given time? Would it feel less special for her, then?
Her inability to answer that left a queasy feeling in her stomach.
"What's there to do?" he asked, rhetorically. "They're living free, happy lives. There's nothing to fix, no enemies to fight. Not for them, anyways. We're just taking a break to visit our friends."
"Friends hopelessly in love with you."
He groaned, loudly, as he sank to the bed like an anchor stuck in quicksand. He took a peek to her face, but it only showed a blank mask. "I think it's obvious that I made my choice when I came running after you, didn't I?" he retorted.
"Is it?" she challenged back, although her voice had no heat, more like as she was actually wondering, "you get all doe eyed when you read their cards."
"I do not get doe eyed."
"And when we do get a secure line your voice goes all soft and gentle."
"That-!"
"Did you know you talk in your sleep?" her Cheshire smirk appeared with unrepenting amusement. "Mostly, you rehearse your speeches for the kids or the poor fool you want to monologue on before killing him, but sometimes you say names," she let that sink in for a vicious second, "mostly my name, but sometimes you go 'Kallen' or 'Shirley'" she moaned the names in the deepest voice she could manage, "sometimes you utter all of our names in the same dream, fitting for your oversized ego."
"... Do you make a habit of watching me sleep?" he grunted, his face burrowing in the palm of his hands.
"I developed quite the light sleep after taking care of you for that year and a half. It was, after all, like taking care of a baby, except you had none of the cuteness and you were quite violently thrashing around during your night terrors."
...
"... It wasn't me, but on behalf of my empty husk, apologies," he uttered as his soul left his body, "Usually, the madame would be furious with her man for dreaming of other women."
"Oh, if it were a random thryst I would bury you up to your neck in sand and leave you for the day. But, they love you, and you love them."
The certainty in her voice silenced him for a moment. He was naked before her, literally and figuratively, and shame was quickly filling his being when her hand reached to his cheek, stilling the bubbling emotions with her cool touch. Her face was open, full of emotion like it was that day 6 months ago when they started this journey, and in her eyes he saw how vulnerable she was in this moment too.
He felt like he was falling in love all over again.
"I want to be faithful."
"But are you being faithful to your feelings?"
"I love you, that too is part of my feelings."
"I love you too, like I'm discovering what it means to love for the first time. I think I am, actually; watching you, I feel like I never understood love at all. You're really an exceptional person."
"There's no way it doesn't bother you. You're too selfish, that's just a fact."
"Not untrue, but lately, I find happiness in your simple smile, so maybe this is also a form of self gratification?"
"You sound unsure."
"I feel uncertain, and I'm uncertain of why I feel that way. Because our time together will be divided? It sounds unbearable, and yet, I would loathe our closeness breeding codependency, until we forget how we used to love."
"Are you scared? That my feelings will change?"
"I know with absolute certainty that you'll continue to love me, now and for the rest of eternity, for whatever long it may last until we decide we've lived enough. They will not get to enjoy that luxury. Somehow, that part doesn't brings me joy, but neither does it make me pity them."
They were quiet, for a moment, before he took a deep breath.
"I tried to suppress those feelings. Tried to ignore them, tried to lie to myself, to convince myself that it was only platonic love, only a simple infatuation, but my heart threatened to rip itself in half."
"Your heart is so big. Too big, and yet it can't hold all the love you have. No one without a heart filled with so much love could have changed the world like you did."
"I've hurt them, so many times, how could I deserve their love?"
"Then what about me? I've hurt you too, more than once. So have they. Am I unworthy of your love? Are you to decide how they feel their happiness? My love, you are King, but the humans that seek you are rebellious individuals by nature. They seek and rebel, seek and rebel..." she trailed off.
The lullaby of the jungle filled the silence.
"What... will you do?" he asked. "Assuming that I will... Begin to court them-"
"Court? From what century are you from, the XVI?" she interrupted, laughing.
Besides a twitch of his hand, he refused to acknowledge the comment. "What will you do?"
She was silent as she considered. "I could tease you and them, for starters, because that is always fun. Then, I guess I'll try to, ugh, befriend them," at that, he laughed loudly as the tension left his body. This earned him another twhap on his chest.
"Sorry, I just, that's so different from you." he apologised.
"As it happens, thanks to you I'm starting to see value in the people near you, so I figure might as well know them better, they might prove to be more interesting than they seem to be below the surface." her Cheshire grin returned. "Who knows, I might seduce one of them into our bed before you do."
He snorted, but didn't provide further comment, lest she'd take it as an actual challenge.
His body started to relax, and he could feel his mind turning down a notch in the stream of thoughts.
"Ah, by the way, you also sometimes moan Suzaku's name. And Euphimia's, but it's something between a groan and a sob those times. So yeah, you sort through that." were her last words before she closed her eyes and snuggled to his arm.
He groaned into his pillow.
Will this continue? Maybe. I've imagined some things with Shirley and Kallen. Suzaku would require quite the Deus Ex for it to be justifiable to me, but what else is new.
I don't hate Kaguya, but she was wholly underused in R1, thus I just didn't care much for her in R2. So yeah, sorry Kaguya lovers, if you do ever read this fic.
...
Not many people do read my fics, but I'm grateful for those that do. Please leave a comment? I'd love to speak to my readers and debate their views on love.