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Chapter Eight:
There was reason to feel thoroughly annoyed.
Yes, Diethard accepted the new African masks from overseas (quite a challenging feat, after all, bargaining with the representatives of the Baule farmers from the Ivory Coast), but in turn to Lelouch's bountiful additions, the older man was — for some reason — refusing to meet his eyes during the shop's exchange.
It did not gladden Lelouch's heart at all when reminded of his earlier capture by the Royal Knights.
He made a mental note of Diethard's behavior as a small commotion nearby attracted his attention as he stepped out. A Britannian woman being dragged along by the Royal Knights ("Knightmares"—a much younger Euphy clung to him, exhaling with a terror-filled breath into his ear canal).
Grayish-black streaks from the woman's coal-dark eye makeup slipped freely down her freckled cheeks.
"Shirley…?" Lelouch murmured to himself doubtful, before breaking out into a full sprint, abandoning his tattered, hooded concealing robes obscuring his view of her.
Two of the Knightmares from the group (the ones restraining her) came to a complete stop to bow to him in the cobblestone street, their pale faces stolid as their prince accused, "What have you done to her? Explain yourselves right now!" Lelouch motioned for them to let her go, and surprisingly, they obeyed.
She immediately clasped to him like a sobbing, rescued child.
"That poor boy… oh, it is all my fault! Please, please go see if he is okay, Lelouch!"
His eyes followed the length of her trembling, ivory-delicate finger towards the semi-dark parting of an almost… familiar alleyway in the marketplace. A pocket of dread rose up in the middle of his chest cavity, pinching his insides, as he left her and peered into the alley's entrance.
A semi-conscious boy sat against a brick wall. A woman with long, pale green hair stood in front of him, bending her face towards him and peeling an bruised-looking orange in her hands. "Feeling better now that you've napped?" She inquired, offering him the whole orange, "What is with you, anyway, and being unconscious in strange alleyways? I can't say I am seeing the merit in repeatedly using this same plot device to build the fairytale's drama—" (She was effectively silenced by unnamed forces, and from nowhere particular, a disembodied voice chuckled evilly.)
When the boy mumbled, bringing back significance to the current scene stretched out in front of everyone, Lelouch painfully recognized that good-natured voice.
He moved forward, "Suzaku!" and stripped off his leather gloves to go to his knees to him, seizing his face. The perspiring, brown-haired boy groaned sleepily at the feel, and Lelouch ran the sides of his bare thumbs along his tan cheeks in comforting circles, "Suzaku, look at me. Don't go to sleep. Come on. Where are you hurt?"
Suzaku flinched as the other boy checked him over, hands now drifting over his shirt.
"No, don't, it's still tender…" He breathed, half-smiling, "…I hope she's okay… that noblegirl. She's important to you."
"She doesn't matter right now." Lelouch dismissed, still examining him over, "She's fine— They shot you…!"
The rhodium pocket watch in Suzaku's lap gleamed with his blood as he spoke to it matter-of-factly, "…protected me a second time." Lelouch glanced down at it.
"You've been shot in the chest before?"
Suzaku's smile remained unfocused.
"That's where the details get fuzzy, Lulu… have you ever been shot? I finally remembered how much it hurt…"
"You've stopped making sense, Suzaku," Lelouch shook his head disapprovingly, worried, easing the fallen, aching boy to his own feet. "We have to get you out of here. Miss, could you—?" He turned to the green-haired woman only to find the space where she had been lingering in abandoned.
"She does that," the dazed, bleeding boy answered Lelouch's dumbfounded look. "…She's like a ninja."
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A passerby was generously bribed for two horses, very generously considering how speedily his patrons required them, and the trio rode to the Waldestein estate a short distance away (Lady Shirley alone on the speckled horse, Suzaku clinging weakly to Lelouch on the other onyx-black).
"They are so lovely," the noble girl observed appreciatively the purplish red gardenias by the front door, descending atop from her saddle.
"…Mom planted them. She said she always wanted to take care of a garden." Suzaku's eyebrows creased confused as his hand rose sluggishly to his head.
"…why would have Mom planted them here?"
"Suzaku?"
"I'm fine," he answered Lelouch, lowering his hand and climbing off their horse. "Really."
"Isn't this your stepfather's manor, though—?"
A gunshot went off inside followed by broken glasses and a girlish scream of writhing.
Suzaku wretched from Lelouch's support on his side, heading around the back of the gates towards the noises. He barely heard Lelouch ordering his fiancée to hide as he pursued the other boy. Outside the back entrance of the manor's kitchen, Lelouch caught him, tugging him away from charging in recklessly.
Normally, the Britannian prince would have never had the brute force, but for the wounded hero of our story, he was more than enough of a match for Suzaku. When the struggling boy opened his mouth, Lelouch clapped his hand over his mouth and pressed their backs to a space underneath a window.
"You made me do it…" Bradley's voice drifted from outside the kitchen window, shaky, uneasy. "You made me do it, you filthy Eleven. You should have done what I said."
What sounded like an enraged Kaguya came after.
"Why? Why did you people do this to us? Why to Suzaku? Why did you kill my uncle, you Britannian bastard?
"Not me. I didn't get to do it. Who cares about high and mighty Eleven scum? That's all he ever was. Some stupid Eleven who got way in too fucking deep. Cinder-idiot is gonna end up the same, just like his Daddy…" Bradley's heavy footsteps faded a little from the window. "I only hope I get to do it…"
"You are a monster—" A loud thump. A pained cry. Suzaku didn't need to see through the kitchen window to know his stepbrother had kicked his cousin to the ground. Bradley's voice strengthened with resolve, "I'll deal with you later. Both of you. Don't think I won't. Now get moving."
Lelouch peered quickly through the window as different pairs of footsteps echoed. "…A girl and an injured man are being led down the cellar. They're both Japanese."
"I have to help them."
"He's locked the cellar door."
He gritted his teeth when Suzaku lurched forward suddenly, straining in the encirclement of skinny, protective arms.
"He knows who killed my Father! Let go of me! I have to stop him!"
"Are you dense? You can't just go in there! He'll shoot you on sight!" Lelouch hissed in his ear, trying to hush him, "We'll get them out alive, I promise you this. You are too weak to fight right now."
"But I didn't kill him!" The whites of Suzaku's eyes grew bigger as he spoke, as his body shook more agitated in Lelouch's tiring arms, "I thought I killed my Father and I didn't…—!"
"—You swore to me that you would survive, Suzaku Kuruugi!"
He froze, meeting darkened, hooded eyes. Lelouch added with a harsher, stung whisper, "You would go back on your word to me?"
"…...No. No, I never would."
"Then make me believe your promise."
Lelouch let out a ragged breath between his lips, releasing the calming boy. "For now, we find you a safe location until we can receive further help," he said.
"Can I be of service to you?"
Lady Shirley appeared from around the edge of the manor, smiling meekly at them.
"Please, if you allow me the honor, you would be welcomed to my Mother's villa…"
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He would never get use to these fancy beds. Suzaku winced, batting away the sheer, mosquito-canopy bed curtains that moved closer to him as he shifted himself carefully on the plush mattress. And the room was freezing… without his tunic, he could see the tanned skin on his chest and stomach rise up and pimple.
The guest bedroom door knocked before a red-haired male servant emerged; trailing after him, the Lady Shirley.
"How are you feeling?" she asked cheerfully, folding her laced-gloved hands together.
He returned the cheerful nature in his… semi-forced smile. "Better with the bandages, thanks."
The boy pretended to pat the clean cloth that wrapped him firmly from his torso to his shoulders.
The servant gently set a polished, brass tray of an assortment of meats into Suzaku's lap before bowing to him (Suzaku muttered uncomfortably a 'thank you' — which the other man did not take kindly to heart as his almond-shaped eyes glared momentarily at the boy's lack of societal expectations) and then bowed to his mistress who made a shooing motion with her hands.
"You may see your way out now..." The servant raised a fine eyebrow at this — the noble Britannian girl alone in a bedroom with a shirtless Japanese male — and she insisted further, clapping her hands together this time as if summoning the idle awareness of a pet, "Come, come, now, you may wait outside if you wish. I will only be a moment." He gave them a last critical look before exiting.
Suzaku warily eyed his tray.
"You must be famished from all of this excitement." She caught the look. "Oh, please, it is not poisoned. This is the least I can do for you after you have saved my life." The orange-haired girl mothered him, walking over, and her olive-colored eyes unwavering from him until he took a tentative bite.
"The servants worry for me constantly, as you have already seen. I fear my Mother had a part in this clever and devious plan." She chuckled at her own joke, picking absently at an orange, soft spiral of hair as she added seriously, "After Father died, she wished to shield me from everything that wasn't familiar to her."
"I'm very sorry..." Her bottom lip trembled slightly at the sincerity in his voice.
"It feels like something is fading out of your life… doesn't it?" Suzaku set down his half-eaten slice of toast, staring back at her as her shoulders concealed by her spring green dress gave an undeniable tremor, "Even now, something that should have been dearer to you than it is continues to fade," he added.
With a small sniff, she collected herself and smiled broadly. "I believe... we were interrupted last time we were having a conversation, but since I have you here with me…" Lady Shirley went into a familiar-looking satchel and cradled his pointy, opaque slipper in both of her hands. "…Do you mind trying this on?"
He took the outstretched slipper silently, compliantly, and gingerly bent down to slip it on with one hand. Once it fit perfectly, it shone a glaringly blonde color around Suzaku's encased foot, before exploding into a thin cloud of sparkling green confetti. The girl waved the remnants of it from her airspace, coughing; wide-eyed; amazed.
"You are the shoe's wearer. I have finally found you."
"Um, miss, why would you have…?"
She wrinkled her nose displeased at the title he used to address her.
"Please, if you will… you are permitted to call me 'Shirley'… I've ordered the servants away for such…—"
"—It would not feel appropriate, considering we are competing for the same attentions of one person," Suzaku said grimly, watching her freckled face tighten, the weight of the truth sinking in.
"Oh… Oh, I see." Lady Shirley clasped her hands in front of her bosom, her knuckles whitening, before separating them and retrieved the now empty tray from Suzaku's knees. "So it is to be like this then…" When her back reached the bedroom doorway, she spun at the heel to him, grinning pleasantly, "I have confidence that my prince will chose what is best for him. Don't you think so?"
Sensing no ill will from her gesture — wonders upon wonders that day — he grinned back silently.
…Perhaps it would not be so terrible to lose to her…
That fleeting thought was purged immediately when Lelouch made his presence known from the corridor, arguing noisily with the ill-tempered servant who resided to glaring at everyone in the room out of a useless and unchangeable annoyance. The Britannian prince managed to shove both his fiancée and the other man out, shutting the bedroom door of them behind him.
When Suzaku tested his left side out, attempting to put his tunic sleeves on, he gasped soundlessly at sharp pain.
Lelouch frowned troubled. "You aren't any better then?" he pointed out.
"It was only a scrape. I'm sure." Suzaku laughed, not sure if he was reassuring himself or not, and cradled his arm closer to his side. "Do not trouble your thoughts on my account, your Highness."
"Don't not claim ignorance, Suzaku, you know very well my name is Lelouch."
Violet eyes rolled peeved as Lelouch joined him on the mattress, an abnormally gentle look on him as he assisted in pulling Suzaku's patched-up tunic on, and moved the open, ragged shirt aside to stare at the bandages, "It hasn't bled through yet. That's good."
His hand remained sprayed over the middle of Suzaku's chest, feather-light, but there.
Something from the warmth of that touch made Suzaku's chest flutter familiarly, excruciatingly lucid.
Of course…
Suzaku acknowledged, "So, I guess if we're caught again, the enchanted slippers won't work since they don't exist anymore." The other boy just looked up from his observation of the bandages to gawk as if he had grown another identical head on his shoulders.
"Wh… what are you going on about—?" An eager mouth attached to his, fleshy and wet and wondrously heated; Suzaku's mouth, kissing the curved space above his top lip and then pressing deliriously to the bottom. The bandaged boy scooted closer to him, nudging their knees together, coiling the fingers in his right hand into Lelouch's hair.
…it was a lie. An elephantine and deceitful lie. Of course.
Suzaku knew he would never give up the effort for Lelouch's heart that easily. He knew that as soon as Lelouch reappeared in the doorway.
His chances may have been dismal, laughable even. But they were absolutely worth it.
When his teeth gently nipped Lelouch's numbing lip, the other boy fell back out of their shared airspace, flushing, bright-eyed with the remnants of carnal hunger, moaning slightly under the fingers fondling his scalp. Despite his own flush, Suzaku folded away that slip of important information for a later date.
He held a firm kiss to the inside of Lelouch's wrist. "The Lady Fenette is lucky to have you."
Lelouch tugged away, decidedly looking frustrated at the statement.
"I'm an embarrassment to my family, you know. Not agreeing with the terms of the traditional betrothal my siblings and I are set to follow… sneaking out when it is forbidden to leave the castle… lying… cheating… gambling in my spare time… working in illegal operations overseas… acquiring strange friends…"
For a moment, the Britannian prince simpered at Suzaku and he did not react to it. "I break every rule that you can imagine a prince would have on his head. I sometimes think my King and my Lady Mother wished that Cornelia was the male heir to Britannia's throne..."
"Without those things, you wouldn't be you, Lelouch." Suzaku's emerald eyes shone strikingly. "Let me ask you: What do you know about the Japanese shrines?"
"…There are a number of them in the mountains, yes?"
"Do you know why they exist though?" He took Lelouch's silence as saying very little.
"They were built on the land for the purposes of worshipping our gods. We come there to pray to them or to receive good fortune. I know I may still find difficulty in remembering my past. But I do remember, one time, I had disobeyed my family's duties. I entered one of our most sacred inner shrines, where even the slightest bit of outside dirt would disrupt its revered nature. For a runaway toy. I was only two. I had removed my muddy shoes and socks but I still managed to get a streak of filth on the floorboards. No one in my family or the clans but my Mother treated me well after it.
"She believed in the sacred upholding of our shrines but she also knew I meant no harm as a child. She encouraged independent behavior from me afterwords... but more so in the ways of being cautious of other people's feelings so they aren't hurt.
"You go against your teachings and the rules, Lelouch, but you aren't a bad person because of it."
A smile crept up the Japanese boy's face as Lelouch smiled back warily.
"You weren't to begin with."
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TBC...
Fluff-tastic end to a chapter? Maybe. :D There you go, Vayle Ravendal. Hand over my damn plushies. lol. I MADE IT TO THE MONTHLY UPDATE. VICTORY SANDWICH. OR ASPIRIN. WHATEVER COMES FIRST. Thanks for putting up with me, guys. You are all troopers. And adorable. -hugs- Suzaku seems to have the winning start in the competition for the Prince, no? Yay. Reviews are nomnomnommy. Hungwry.