Neither of them were quite sure why, but in the days following the Galway visit, Suzaku turned into something of a ghost around the house. He barely had the energy for his walks, let alone responding to any attempts by Aurora to draw him out. He wasn't angry, just… exhausted.
The day after, both of them chalked it up to the physical exertion of the trip. But he found it impossible to shake the sense of bone-deep fatigue, and Suzaku just couldn't bring himself to care about the worry that seemed to live in Aurora's eyes, the way her brows furrowed in that way of hers almost all the time. Slipping through the house with mussed hair and enormous shadows under his eyes, Suzaku ate even less than usual – he couldn't find the energy to be hungry. Sometimes he lazily sketched in his old notebook, reluctant to mar his new ones with anything less than his best. Occasionally, he'd idly read a book, but that rarely held his attention long enough to keep a nap at bay. So more often than not, he'd settle into a couch or his bed, snuggle in, and shut the world out. Suzaku reasoned that he was making up for years of two hours of sleep a night. And those had been nights he was lucky.
Aurora didn't like it. Not one bit.
She couldn't decide if she was angry or scared. She wanted to be mad that he wasn't trying, but whenever she tried to broach anything beyond their basic course of the day, Suzaku would just blink at her sleepily, shrug his shoulders, and shuffle away. It would be like kicking a puppy to get snarly with someone so impassive.
So that left scared. And boy, was she scared. She'd hoped that the day in Galway would instill a sense of drive and hope in Suzaku, but instead, it seemed to have wiped away every emotion instead. If she couldn't be angry with him, she could damn well be angry with herself. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined the trip, which had been fraught with challenges, certainly, but still entertaining and meaningful, would back-fire so terribly. She didn't know what to do. His body certainly needed sleep to heal, and it was easy to guess that his sleeping patterns in the past had been far from healthy. But it felt as if any fragments of him Aurora had earned were slipping through her fingers like sand, being engulfed in that void of sleep.
Finally, after four days, she'd had enough. It was already ten in the morning, and Suzaku had yet to emerge from his room. Reassuring herself that this wasn't an invasion of privacy, that he'd forgive her, and that it was for his own good, Aurora nudged open his door to find him where she usually found him these days – in bed. Suzaku's oaken hair was wild, a matted, tangled mess that coiled away from his skull like he'd been electrocuted. Next to the white sheets, his skin was almost translucently pale. And after he'd finally gotten some color, Aurora thought with a sigh. His brow was smooth, but not in peace. He seemed… devoid.
Gritting her teeth, she stomped into the room and yanked back the lace curtains softening the sunlight. A strong beam of sun cutting through today's scattered clouds landed right on his face. He winced, furrowing his brow before groaning, flopping over onto his right side away from the window and burrowing his face into his pillow. If Suzaku thought that was sufficient to deflect Aurora from her war path, he hadn't been paying very close attention the last month.
She marched over to the bed, and digging her fingers into the white quilt with blue and red rings, whipped it off of him with a satisfactory crack. Suzaku jerked, pulling his knees closer to his chest, grunting with disapproval. But he still remained determinedly asleep. Growling in her throat, she stalked over to the side of the bed and yanked back the sheet.
"Come on, Suzaku. Up and at 'em, slugger, rise and shine, and any other morning greeting clichés you can think of."
Suzaku just hummed into the pillow in a mildly protesting tone, the sound muffled by cloth and fluff and sleep. Tilting her head to calculate how she could heave him physically out of bed without hurting him, Aurora took hold of Suzaku's ankles, slowly straightening his legs out over the edge of the bed. She wanted to tug and pull, literally wrenching him out of sleep, but it would be stupid to genuinely hurt him because she was scared and petty.
Finally, she got his feet on the floor, and worked to extricate his face from its home in the pillow. When his squinting eyes appeared, crowned by a frizz of hair that stood straight up like a frill from his forehead, Aurora managed to choke back the laugh. Barely. Suzaku murmured in a questioning manner, and she decided she could translate. Speech would come later.
"It's past ten, lazy butt. Shower, breakfast, then we're going for a walk. It would be easier to agree with me than argue," she warned when he opened his mouth to protest. His grooming had been a little weak recently, and she fought to keep from wrinkling her nose.
Finally, it seemed Suzaku got with the program, although even conscious, he wasn't much help. Sincerely perturbed that such a titan of a man could be reduced to a hazy blob, Aurora dumped Suzaku in the bathroom, grateful for the first time in days that he'd take forever to shower. Rushing to her room, repeatedly reminding herself not to freak out, Aurora dialed Kendra, something she'd been putting off since his behavior had started to unnerve her. She may be coming tomorrow, but they needed help. Now.
"Kendra, something's wrong with Suzaku. He's been a slug since Galway, I knew he was going to be a little tired out but it's like he's not even there and it's freaking me out, it's like he just evaporated and I'll never forgive myself if this is my fault and I don't know what to do and-"
"Aurora!" Shocked by her avalanche of worry that had flooded through once the click of connection sounded, Kendra finally managed to stop the tirade. "Jesus, girl, calm down. Did you have caffeine?" she asked suspiciously
"No! You know I never stock caffeine in the house."
Kendra just grunted in disbelief.
"Now, let me see if I managed to pick out the salient points from your little verbal vomit. Suzaku's been lethargic since your day out in Galway, correct?"
Clamping her jaw against the urge to repeat said vomit, Aurora just nodded.
Remembering that Kendra couldn't see her, she replied with a terse, "Yes."
"OK. And I'm assuming you guys discussed some tough topics?" Not a difficult guess, since a hard topic came up practically every time they talked.
"Yes. But he was fine afterwards. Thinking, and maybe a little confused, but it's not like he went blank with shock or started screaming. In fact, I thought he was maybe considering what we talked about in a more positive light."
"Alright. Well, here's the thing, Aurora. Suzaku has severe PTSD, which has never been diagnosed or treated. Under that umbrella are a lot of the symptoms you've already seen: panic attacks, difficulty sleeping, hyper-response, addiction, and depression. Now, his depression usually manifests as very active and angry, mostly against himself."
Aurora murmured confirmation.
"If he's taken what you said seriously, then maybe that intense self-hate has started to dissipate. But that doesn't mean his depression is fading along with that cruelty he usually reserves for himself. One of the more common patterns of depression is torpor and apathy. It's less violent than his usual precedent, but it takes a little more cleverness and patience to jolt him out of it. You can't just snarl and lock horns – you're going to have to get him to engage, but without alienating him. You know what that means, right?"
"Ummm…"
"You're going to have to share, Aurora. Reciprocity will help ease him back into actually giving a damn. Bring up something you've been dancing around, and see if the both of you can unearth some of the guilt sludge you carry around."
Aurora groaned and buried her face in her hand. The things she hadn't yet told Suzaku were parts of her life that she was uncomfortable exposing. He wasn't the only one ashamed of his past.
"Dammit. Alright. Thanks for the help, Kendra. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"
"OK. Let me know if things get worse, or if I need to get there ASAP. Your instincts when it comes to Suzaku are unusually sharp – just trust them and keep your temper in check, and it should be fine."
Aurora didn't respond, and set the phone back on the bedside table once Kendra hung up. Ban looked at her with wide eyes, his head inquiringly tilted. She blew out a breath, fluttering the hair freeing itself from her hurried ponytail as she smiled weakly at the worried dog.
"It's fine. It's going to be fine. We'll get him back. Just gotta rattle his cage a little, and then he'll be back to normal, full of piss and vinegar and grumpy as usual."
Bannock padded closer, laying his head in her lap, looking up at her with his soft eyes. She cuddled him close, pressing her cheek against the top of his head.
"I know. I miss Butthead Suzaku, too." Pulling back, she squooshed Ban's cheeks forward, the only way the dog would ever appear even slightly chubby. "What's wrong with us?"
Ban just wagged his tail. Taking that for agreement, Aurora released him and stood, heading downstairs to save the egg and sausage casserole she'd been warming for him.
By the time he finally joined her in the kitchen, oddly frumpy with his hair still somehow a disaster, Aurora just pointed towards his seat and slid the plate in front of him. As Suzaku poked at the mixture of eggs, sausage, cheese, and potatoes, Aurora hid her frown behind her mug of tea, leaning against the counter as she watched him eat. She knew for a fact that the casserole was good – she'd had some that morning herself. So it wasn't the food.
Over the past few days, she'd tried to keep her obvious worry to a minimum, to avoid making Suzaku feel like he was a bug under a microscope. No such consideration now. She all but willed him to eat with her eyeballs, but he hardly ever looked at her, so it didn't seem to matter. When he'd eaten half of the small slice and mangled the rest, Aurora sighed through her nose and set down her mug. He nudged the plate away with a languid poke of his finger, and she worked valiantly to swallow the scream the curled through her lungs. It was difficult, but she had to remind herself that he wasn't like this to irritate her – he was coping, as best as he could.
Briskly, she cleared his plate, retrieved a light jacket and her sunglasses from the foyer, and marched back to the kitchen, where he still sat, gazing dreamily through the window that afforded a view of the garden. Thrusting the jacket out to him as she slipped the glasses onto her nose, she merely lifted her brows when he looked at the jacket, then at her with a slightly bemused expression.
"We're going for a walk. Kendra will kill me if I don't get you out of the house, at least a little bit." That might be stretching the truth a little, but Aurora was going to strangle both Suzaku and herself if she didn't get them out of the house, now. He just shrugged and accepted the jacket. It was irritating her nearly senseless. She didn't like fighting with Suzaku, not really. But Aurora was always game for a challenge, and she'd grown accustomed to their regular heated philosophical debates. Because if he could still argue, then it still mattered to him. But now, it seemed nothing mattered to him.
As they headed out of the house, Ban bounding after them in a panic that they were leaving him behind again, Aurora scented the wind, and guessed that they'd have a few hours until the rain hit. Taking the long way since Suzaku still had a bit to go before he should be vaulting the wall, they wiggled through the gap of broken stone, heading for the hillocks that curtained the house from most of its neighbors.
Aurora steadily led the way up a hill, her hands buried in her pockets and her shaded eyes tipped up towards the sky. As the land slightly leveled, she stopped and turned, waiting for Suzaku to join her as she looked out over the house and land spread before them. He was panting lightly, so she hitched herself up onto a rock, splaying out her limbs to snag a little sun. It would also give him time to catch his breath before she started her campaign.
"No matter how much I love the cottage, I always need a little time outside, rain or shine. Bannock does too, huh, buddy?" she said, raising her voice to address her hound. The dog, already twenty feet away, lifted his head from his studious inspection of the grass, his ears popping up as he panted before trotting away to ascertain the nearby sessile oak's intentions. As obvious a 'yes' as he could manage without the human tongue.
"Although, if it were me, I'd want it a little different. Bigger, for one. Bigger kitchen, bigger studio, obviously. More to the library. More stone, less wood. What about you, Suzaku? What does your dream house look like?" She tipped her head towards him, her smile engaging, and weirdly clever. He just peered at her for a moment before a frown curled over his face, the hurt at the thought blooming like color in quiet water, making its way through the fog that had been blanketing him recently.
"I don't have one."
Aurora snorted.
"Of course you do. Everybody's got a dream house. So? What do yours look like?"
"I've never thought about it, because I can't allow myself one. I don't-"
"Deserve it. Right," Aurora interrupted with a sigh. She ran impatient fingers through her ponytail before straightening. Suzaku fought the instinct to recoil. It had been nice, the soft cocoon of numbness that had been wrapped around him. He didn't want Aurora tearing it to tatters, but she was too vibrant to play at that sort of peace for any length of time.
"Look, Suzaku. This seems to be a concept that you're pretty stuck on, and, to be perfectly frank, it's driving me nuts."
He lifted his brows in surprise. She didn't really sound annoyed, just determined.
"Aurora, considering what I've done-"
"Fuck what you've done."
Suzaku lapsed into a shocked silence as Aurora quietly gazed at him, the ricochet of her stony, matter-of-fact words still vibrating against his skin. He'd tried to patiently explain something that was still extremely painful, and she'd coolly interrupted him. Again. Fighting against the urge to clamp his teeth together as the last of his placid shield cracked and scattered, Suzaku clenched his hand around the head of his cane.
"It's not that easy. I can't just erase my mistakes because they're too heavy to bear. I don't think you can understand," he tried to say diplomatically, despite the fizzle at the back of his throat that hinted at temper. Aurora just grunted, shoving her glasses up to the top of her head so she could pin her disapproving silvered eyes on him.
"I can't understand? I don't think you understand. You don't understand me, or the fact that you're not the only one still carrying chains of guilt."
Shocked by her outburst, the tone of the words both angry and injured, Suzaku blinked, a realization welling underneath the instinctive defense in the face of conflict.
This was what Aurora was constantly holding back, and it was barely the weakest edge of the blade. A thought occurred to him, simultaneously warning and wondering: Temper, temper. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, visibly reining herself back, and Suzaku could barely make out her grumbling to herself. "Although my silence on the matter certainly hasn't helped. Damn Kendra, the know-it-all." Sighing hugely, Aurora pushed to her feet, her shoulders hunched and her hands shoved violently back into her pockets. Glancing at him one more time, she began to pace.
"I've made mistakes too, you know. Mistakes that cost peoples' lives," she hastened to add, no doubt seeing the skeptical glint in his eyes. If possible, her shoulders dropped even lower, like her shame was somehow making her fold in on herself. "I wasn't a very nice person back in the day. I had only one person to defend – myself. And I was damn good at it. Too good." She sighed, and her face screwed up like she was being slowly gutted.
"Sometimes, it was collateral damage. But for people like us, that counts too."
Suzaku didn't nod – he didn't need to. She was still pacing furiously, the grass already flattening along her path.
"Sometimes, it was honest combat or defense. And sometimes…"
Out of the corner of his eye, Suzaku could see that Ban had flopped down in the shade of the oak, his eyes carefully tracking his mistress's agitated movements.
"Well, sometimes I had to make a choice, and looking back, saving my life wasn't the right choice to make. But there's nothing I can do about it now. They're dead, and I'm still here." Her face was resigned and humbled, and Suzaku had to wonder why she was sharing something she clearly didn't want to. Was it just that she wanted to assure him that she really understood? The guilt at the thought of inadvertently pushing her to this painful revelation made Suzaku shift his weight awkwardly.
"It took me a while, but I figured out that it's not about what I do or don't deserve, when weighing what I've done. If it were, I would have put a bullet in my brain a long time ago."
Suzaku felt himself cringe in shock at the cool, callous way she mentioned her own death, even as a part of him curled in envy that she'd at least had the choice.
"It's about what I can amend." She slowed her long strides, and looked over at him intently, her expression shifting from regret to resolve.
"Because maybe, just maybe, I can atone for what I've done, not with suffering, but with maybe I don't have to worry about what I deserve. Because I'm living it at that very moment. I have a responsibility to the lives that were lost because of me. A responsibility to live as they would see fit, to be certain that the life that made it out is one worth the loss."
"It's not that easy," Suzaku whispered as his throat tightened, resisting the eloquence of her argument mostly out of sheer habit. To cope with his life, his brain had carved certain paths of thought, certain lines of reasoning into the stone of his existence. To break them now? It was petrifying, even more so than the hope Aurora offered.
"I know it's not. But regret can be lethal, Suzaku. And I hate to see you swimming in it. Drowning in it," she added quietly, her voice a little fragile. Moved and pained, Suzaku turned away – he had to. He couldn't look at her anymore, couldn't look at this promise of a person who already meant so much to him. She knew more than most, but the sheer amount of lives he'd taken wasn't something so easily dismissed. He had to make her comprehend the depth of his crimes, actions that had taken a loved one from her.
Suzaku bowed his head, leaning heavily on the cane.
"It seems like regret is all I have. I wept when I killed your brother, you know. As if that mattered. Tears rolled down my cheeks when I drove a piece of ornamented steel through Lelouch's ribcage. His bones crunched more than snapped – I could feel it, in my hands. This life, my hell? This is what I deserve. Because of the millions I hurt, I hurt even you. And as desperately as I wish to escape it, I have no right to."
Behind him, Aurora rolled her lips together, the only sound the soft wind that rippled through the grass. With a magnificent effort, she choked it back – her anger and sorrow and frustration. Instead, she just stepped forward, summoning the worry he'd caused over the last couple of days, and flicked Suzaku on the head, just above his left ear. He flinched before spinning to face her, rubbing the spot with the back of the hand holding his cane as he looked at her with huge, confused eyes. Aurora simply turned towards the house.
"O-ow! What was that for?"
She looked over her shoulder at him, and Suzaku was even more confused by her expression. Still a little angry, a little worried. But there was also challenge, and a cool certainty that that seemed to have bled into her very bones.
"That's the punishment you deserve. And now you've suffered it. You'll never convince me that any hardship in your life, past or present or future, is warranted. Not after what you've survived."
He limped after her as quickly as he could, furious for reasons he couldn't name. Someone disagreeing with him had never made Suzaku so agonized before. His benevolent calm had completely evaporated, and the edge of emotions nearly cut him off at the knees. It felt like the desperate anger was the only thing keeping him going.
He caught her shoulder, and dragged her to a stop. Objectively, Suzaku knew he never would have been able to stop her if she hadn't allowed it, not in his current condition, not against her understated strength. But all he could think was that he needed to see her face, see her eyes, when he made her realize the terrible truth about him. It would be horrible, and necessary.
"How can you say that? I have the blood of millions on my hands!" His cry echoed along the hills, fading away until the soil seemed to absorb it. She kept steadily looking at him, and slowly reached up to rest a hand on the one he'd wrapped around her arm.
"I would no more blame you for what happened with the FLEIJA than I would blame a prisoner of war for actions taken after he'd been repeatedly tortured and brainwashed."
He was stunned speechless. Without another word and only a sad look, she squeezed his hand and stepped back out of his grip, heading towards the house, calling for Ban with a whistle.
Had she just defended him… against himself?
After Aurora returned to the house, Suzaku still stood on the hillside, trying to order his tumbling emotions. The dangerous, if energizing, anger had drained away at the flood of stunned uncertainty, leaving him with a frightening bedlam of feeling. The odd passivity that had dominated him was all but gone; Suzaku wasn't sure why it had infected him in the first place, but he could admit to himself that the reprieve from feeling everything so intensely had been a relief. But now, he was left with the harsh truth of the chaos in his own head, and that was no picnic to reacquaint himself with. Damn if this wasn't why he'd started using heroin in the first place.
Ban had dutifully escorted his mother to the door before returning to where Suzaku sat on the same rock Aurora had reclined on earlier. He didn't know if Aurora had sent him or if he'd come back of his own accord, but he found himself glad for the dog's silent, kind company. As he ran his hand down Ban's spine, Suzaku tried to breathe deeply, tried to reach for the peace that had blanketed him. But it slipped through his fingers like mist, leaving Suzaku feeling bemused and frustrated.
What in the world was going on with him?
Deciding that there was simply no answer for that question, Suzaku got to his feet, bracing his hand on his knee before straightening with his cane. The repose had been pleasant, but there was no doubt he'd slid back a few notches in his recovery. He'd traipsed all over Galway less than a week ago; yet now, it was a challenge to stand.
Disgruntled and disappointed, Suzaku started the ponderous way down the hill, Ban a quiet shadow at his side. Aurora was nowhere to be seen when he let himself back into the kitchen, so he shucked his jacket in silence, listening for her location in the house. A faint rustle upstairs warned him less than a second before her voice rang out.
"Suzaku? Up here!"
"Uh, OK," Suzaku acquiesced under his breath, confused by her odd command. As he laboriously climbed the stairs, Ban waited for him at the top long after racing past him on the side with the smaller opening. Looking up, only slightly panting, Suzaku glared at the dog with a crooked smile.
"Why do I get the feeling you're laughing at me?" he asked Bannock, who just wagged his tail and patiently waited. Reaching the landing, Suzaku leaned against the hound's warm weight, his eyes scanning the hallway. He wasn't sure where Aurora was, or why she wanted him to come to her, especially when, at the moment, some time spent alone seemed much more attractive. Sighing with resignation, Suzaku started towards his room, assuming that's where Aurora was. However, Ban blazed past him, loping towards the bathroom instead of wiggling into one of their bedrooms. Behind the ajar door, Suzaku could hear Ban's low, happy barks, and the soft murmur of Aurora's reply
Bemused and wary, Suzaku slowly pushed the bathroom door fully open, staring with an angled head and furrowed brow at the scene before him. Aurora had apparently dragged a chair – it was one he recognized from the study – into the bathroom. Along with a towel and slightly ratty pink blanket, a broom leaned against the sink, the soft breeze easing through the open window ruffling the shower curtain. But what sent a lance of primal masculine fear leaching through his gut was the gleaming pair of scissors balanced on the lip of the sink.
Suzaku felt himself balk, felt the muscles along his back and neck tense with a very male apprehension. But Aurora just smiled with oblivious cheer, gesturing to the chair like it was some sort of grand prize. She acted like she hadn't just reluctantly shared difficult details of her previous life, and Suzaku couldn't decide if it was because she regretted it, or if this was her way of coming to terms with it – being determinedly normal in the face of her not-normal past.
"Ah…" Suzaku quietly hedged, leaning back towards the door frame in a weak attempt to escape. Aurora just rolled her eyes and gestured more emphatically towards the chair. Apparently, the awkwardness that was partially responsible for his paralysis wasn't affecting her.
"Take a seat, hot shot. Time to tame that crazy hair of yours."
Approaching the chair like it was waiting to eat him, Suzaku reluctantly sat down. It was facing the mirror over the sink, and he frowned at Aurora's reflection, his stomach tightening as she whirled the blanket around him and reached around for the scissors once it was loosely secured around his throat.
"If it's so bad, why did you let me go to Galway looking like this?"
She returned his look through the mirror with an arch tilt to her head, her expression simultaneously challenging and teasing. Suzaku tried to imagine Aurora killing someone; it was possible, considering what he knew about her. But the woman in the mirror didn't seem like that kind of person. Maybe that was the point. Maybe instead of a mask of dark like the one he wore, Aurora had chosen a mask of light, instead. The reality was, though, that they both carried masks.
"It's amazing what four days of bed head can do to your look."
Suzaku ducked his head as her sly statement shoved him from his musings, still perplexed over his recent, pathetic display of weakness. Without warning, her wet fingers speared through his hair, almost roughly dragging Suzaku's head back as she dampened the strands. When his eyes met Aurora's again in the mirror, she smiled softly.
"Nothing a little trim can't fix, though."
Suzaku read in her countenance what her words didn't fully say – that it was OK, and nothing to be ashamed of. He wasn't sure if he believed her, but the fact that she held the opinion at all eased something in him, especially since she was still mad at him for worrying her. It wasn't obvious, but Suzaku could almost smell it in the air, the faintest hint of smoke from the burn of temper. As she wet his hair, somehow stroking his scalp and easing the worry and ache inside, Aurora faintly winked at his reflection. Yeah, she was still pissed, but she didn't hate him. The fact that those two emotions weren't instantly paired in someone's mind when it came to him was not something Suzaku was accustomed to.
Their emotionally-charged disagreement on the hill seemed worlds away, like the sky had sucked up the words and left only an echo behind. Deciding that if she was game to move beyond her harsher emotions, then he was too, Suzaku reached for something he hadn't accessed in years: his ability to tease. Finding his spine relaxing as she continued to manually wet his hair to avoid bending him backwards over the sink, Suzaku lifted an eyebrow at her, the urge unfamiliar but strangely enjoyable.
"You sure you know what you're doing with those things?" he murmured with a half-smile, still somewhat serious in his concern for his hair's fate.
"Not really," she said with insouciant cheer and a jaunty tip of her hip. At Suzaku's wide-eyed, apprehensive expression, she relented. "Just kidding. I've cut my hair before, and you don't see me walking around with a hack job. Although I've never done anyone else's, so this should be fun."
The way Aurora said "fun" was a little evil, and he realized that this was a very mild form of punishment for worrying her, for callously assuming something that he couldn't begin to understand.
What he didn't know was that this was also a form of atonement for her flash of temper, a breach of control that had made Aurora sit at the table and bang her head down against her folded arms in disgrace when she'd first returned to the house. It wasn't much of a surprise, not when she'd slept terribly the last few nights, and all the emotional weight she'd weathered with Suzaku was starting to catch up to her. But when combined with helpless worry and frustration, she hadn't realized how compromised her control had been. Snapping at him like a five year old like now.
So she vowed to be better, to be stronger. She had no way of knowing that such ruthless expectations of herself had once similarly guided her charge, with equally disastrous results.
Now, she decided to do something for him, to give Suzaku back a piece of himself that had been lost in the neglect that he'd suffered for far too long. Aurora was slowly beginning to realize just how abandoned Suzaku had been, left to writhe in his own suffering and guilt practically all his life. She wanted to demand who had made that decision, who had allowed such incredible pain to occur without check or concern. Who had handed a grieving teenager the keys to the universe, then sat back in shock as the broken-hearted boy made terrible mistakes and wrenching decisions, and had the audacity to judge and condemn? But she knew it was pointless. Because that wasn't the problem anymore; that crime was long past its statute of limitations. The problem was how Suzaku believed that such a pitiless audience still existed, that everyone only cared about the actions of the mask, and couldn't give less of a damn about the young man inside.
He may irritate the shit out of her occasionally with his noble stubbornness, but Aurora was determined to prove that the only thing about Suzaku that mattered to her was who he was inside his skin, not under the mask of Zero. And since the mask didn't carry an ounce of weight with her, she wanted him to be comfortable with how he looked without it. And the shaggy, crazed look was definitely not flattering to his pretty face.
Combing his hair into some semblance of order, Aurora began carefully snipping away at the ends, cautiously edging her way up the strands. For all her bravado, she really didn't want to have him end up with an embarrassingly bad haircut, and so slowly made her way through his hair. To distract him from her deliberate process, Aurora attempted again to draw Suzaku into what would be considered normal conversation.
"So. What music do you like, Suzaku?"
Since he'd been watching her progress with precise eyes and intense concentration, it took a few seconds of blinking to have him engage in what she was saying.
"What?"
Moving to the nape of his neck, Aurora met his eyes in the mirror with a crooked smile before returning to his hair, repeating her question. He shrugged, and even as Aurora rationalized that the reason for his lack of an answer was similar to his lack of opinion on house styles, she couldn't quite swallow her disbelief.
"Favorite band?"
"Uh… I don't really know any. Bach was my preferred classical composer," he added, no doubt in an attempt to not sound like an alien. Aurora was more of a Mozart fan herself, and while not surprised that a political figure's child would have at least some exposure to classical music, his complete lack of knowledge about modern offerings was almost beyond her comprehension.
"Seriously? Last song you listened to that you liked. Anything," she prompted at the perplexed look on Suzaku's face. But he just shrugged under her hands, and Aurora tried to keep the astonishment from showing on her face.
"Oh, we've got to fix that," she murmured with determination. Suzaku tried a mollifying smile, but as Aurora snipped at his hair, she was already making plans.
"It's no big deal, Aurora. It's just music."
Aurora froze, the scissors poised to trim a chunk of hair she was carefully layering. Looking up slowly from the soft russet strands, she pinned Suzaku with a look that even she knew was tinged with an edge of scary, evangelical dedication.
"There is no such thing as just music, Suzaku. Music," she said with emphasis, carefully moving the scissors away from his hair as she felt the righteous burst of energy filling her chest, just to avoid any unfortunate accidents, "is spirit made manifest. It is the most articulate representation of the human soul, and one of the purest ways we satisfy the demand to feel. It is a part of every one of us, a uniting factor that belies its own vast differences. Music is our moral law."
In the hush that followed her ardent speech, Suzaku looked a little dazed. As for Aurora, she worked to quell the wave of fervor, knowing already that if she didn't get in a work-out set this afternoon, she'd be a basket case. That, and talking about music make her miss dancing at a visceral level she'd once believed herself too hardened to feel.
With precision, she returned to cutting Suzaku's hair. Finally, he managed to speak.
"Wow. You're… passionate."
Her skin may still be humming, but Aurora was pleased to see that her expression was appropriately equable.
"Yeah, well. You just surprised me. Even had me quoting Plato, there."
He just shook his head lightly, Aurora carefully waiting out the movement before cutting again, the small smile back on his face.
"I think music must mean more to you. Since you're a dancer."
Impressed that he recalled her mention of it during that long ago lunch, Aurora shrugged.
"Maybe. But music matters to everyone, somewhere in us nothing else can quite touch."
They chatted about the subject for a few more minutes as Aurora finished the final touches on his hair. When she tugged the blanket covering him away and shook it out, Suzaku leaned forward slightly, tilting his head side to side as he inspected her work. As for herself, Aurora was actually a bit impressed.
His hair, freed from some weight, curled like it used to, his eyes unfettered by the fringe that usually veiled them. The neater cut appealed to the strong bones of his face, and it was almost like seeing a sword sanded free of rust. Suddenly bright and sharp and beautiful.
Suzaku frowned slightly at her in the mirror.
"I look like I'm twelve."
Aurora just rolled her eyes. He didn't sound disappointed, just startled, like he'd forgotten his face was in there somewhere. She settled her hands on his shoulders and leaned down slightly, their faces drawing closer in the mirror. He did look younger, but not like a child. He looked… right, as if the weight of grief no longer shadowed his face so heavily. Like he once had, before his world had disintegrated around him in the flames of war.
"You look like you're almost twenty-one, which is exactly what you are."
Leaning back in a move of self-preservation when the scent of his skin and soap started to make her heart clench, Aurora ruffled Suzaku's soft, newly shorn hair, rather pleased with herself and indulging in the contact neither of them were usually sure enough to allow.
"And if I do say so myself, you look fucking great. Now off with you while I clean up. You could thank me by getting out the sandwich fixings. I'm feeling roast beef today."
Suzaku smirked as he left, and Aurora almost dropped the blanket, so shocked by his teasing expression.
Ban trundled after Suzaku, no doubt waiting to ambush the unsuspecting sucker for a noon-day snack, knowing his mama was impervious to his goo-goo eyes. As she swept up, Aurora found herself musing over what Suzaku had revealed during the strange events of the day. Most importantly, he was once again a member of the land of the living. The sheer relief made her a little weak-kneed and Aurora allowed herself to brace her weight against the broom, no one but a chair to bear witness as she pressed her forehead to the staff of wood.
Once that chore was complete, Aurora stopped by her room to grab something before galloping downstairs. When she joined the boys in the kitchen, the neat array along the counters drew her to a halt, helplessly impressed. Ban's tall nose was almost too close to the food for comfort, the temptation nearly driving him to distraction. Suzaku had taken her at her word and had emptied the fridge and cabinets of everything to put on a sandwich, even the pickles he wrinkled his nose at and the cooked onion Aurora could only tolerate with a heavy red sauce over pasta. He'd not only pulled out the thicker brown bread he favored, but also the sourdough Aurora usually chose.
His careful observation made Aurora want to hug him, resisting the urge at the wary look on his face that reminded her of a soldier trying to exceed standards during an inspection. Instead, she stepped closer, smiled with a warmth she reserved for few before diving into the construction. Since he'd pulled so much out, Aurora made a few interesting additions to her roast beef sandwich, such as avocadoes and fresh spinach. Suzaku's definition of adventure was barbeque sauce and sautéed mushrooms.
He was a little surprised how easily he fell into rhythm with Aurora again. Following days of drifting on the edges and then being jolted back into their shared orbit, after a few minutes of occasional bumps and minor collisions, they settled into the cadence they'd be developing over the weeks. Repeatedly running his fingers through his hair, acclimating to the shorter cut, Suzaku wondered how he could disagree with her and trust her simultaneously. He couldn't even be sure their exchange on the hill was a fight; what exactly it was, he didn't know. But it was proving pointless to try and summon anger at someone on his side.
Their creative sandwiches were enjoyed in relative silence, Ban joining them with a knuckle bone the size of a grapefruit Chandler had snuck into his goodies cabinet during his visit. It had been the first thing Suzaku had seen in the cabinet, finding the begging intensity of Ban's eyes intolerable after less than thirty seconds. After, Suzaku leisurely sipped water and Aurora threw bits of roast beef at Ban where he lay on his bed, watching him eagerly snap at the meat and miss, every single time.
"Not terribly coordinated, is he?" Suzaku murmured kindly with the bemusement of the physically gifted.
"No, but he has other talents."
This time, Aurora held a piece away and asked for Ban to say "please." After a few unsuccessful, ear-splitting barks, wound up by the promise of beef bits, Ban settled down and proceeded to sing, wagging his jaw as he softly howled to somehow emulate syllables. Aurora mimicked him, and soon the pair were engaged in a bizarre, oddly harmonious symphony.
"Way too much time together," Suzaku agreed, rubbing Ban's ears as he leapt up to greedily chew his reward. Aurora hitched up her hip and produced what she'd grabbed from her room earlier from the pocket of her jeans. She slid her mp3 player, crowned with it wreath of headphones, over next to his plate smeared with sauce and speckled with crumbs, the final leaf to her olive branch.
He didn't even have to say anything – Aurora could read his expression like a book, and hurried to relieve his worries.
"Oh, no, this isn't a gift. That's a decade worth of collecting, right there," she said with a level of pride and warning as she poked the device with her finger. "I'm going to want it back. It's more like… a loan with visiting rights. I just…"
For the first time since the idea had occurred to her, she felt a little unsure, sharing another part of herself with Suzaku that felt a little raw and fragile. Swallowing, Aurora rallied.
"I wanted to give you a chance to at least establish some sort of preference. Whenever you want to use it, it's yours. My collection pretty much runs the gamut. Even a little Bach."
Hesitantly, Suzaku's long-boned hands carefully gripped the device, the expression in his eyes unreadable.
"Thanks. Seriously, Aurora, thanks."
"No prob," she said, waving away his seriousness. Probably as a way to make up for his lethargy, Suzaku helped Aurora clean up, even though Aurora ordered him to take a break when she noticed the way his hand was shaking faintly. Once that was seen to and Aurora started brewing tea, Suzaku stood from the table, carefully depositing her music in the pocket of his shirt. He said something about grabbing a book to read, and, for a moment, Aurora's knuckles vised brutally on the mug she'd just pulled out of the cupboard. Visions of Suzaku leeched of color and energy flashed through her head, and her pulse hammered against her skin. She stiffly looked over her shoulder when Suzaku said her name.
"Thanks," he said quietly, running his fingers through his hair before walking away. It was a broad acknowledgment for the whole day, including his hair cut, his eyes expressing something Aurora couldn't quite discern. She nodded in return, her voice sapped as relief swept searingly fast through her system. He was still there, fighting and living and, thank God, trying. She braced her wrists against the counter as her head dropped, breathing quickly through her nose.
Holy shit.
When she managed to stand without supporting her weight on her hands, Aurora lifted the cup to fill it with the waiting tea. The faint grate of ceramic drew her attention. Dammit, she'd cracked the mug.
Later than night, after dinner and a superb work-out that had been part dance set, part flexibility competition with herself, Aurora indulged in a long shower, almost boneless from the settling weight of the day's physical and mental exertions. Suzaku had been pretty quiet throughout the afternoon, but that was well within his norm.
When he'd finally cracked open one of his new sketchbooks, Aurora had turned away and lifted her eyes to the ceiling in a silent prayer of thanks. With her encouragement, Suzaku had claimed a very small corner of a desk in the upstairs study for his art supplies, the natural light in the room exquisite and an excuse for him to hibernate somewhere besides his own room. When he'd made his way downstairs for dinner, Aurora had almost done a double take when she'd caught sight of him.
He'd stripped down to a gray t-shirt and it looked as if he'd been scooping up fists of gunpowder by the hand full. There'd also been faint traces of black on his forehead and chin, and some along his temples and in his hair. Aurora shook her head as she rinsed her hair of shampoo, remembering the way Suzaku had looked so perplexed at her shocked stare, then oddly impressed with himself, explaining that he'd been working in charcoal today.
She'd noticed how Suzaku kept running his fingers through his hair during dinner, as if he kept forgetting that it was short, and the tiniest shift of his head would suddenly remind him. There was no doubt he looked more like the young soldier back before the Rebellion, rather than the hard-hearted knight who'd toppled an empire or the broken shadow who stood guard over legacies.
As Aurora dried off and changed into yoga pants and a teal tank top, she heard the first chords of guitar filtering down from the hallway. For a moment, she was bewildered. Normally, she was the source of music, either playing it or controlling it. But she'd relinquished control to Suzaku, she remembered, along with a dock to connect the player to. Scrubbing at her hair, giving it time to dry, she silently padded down the hallway to where the music was emanating from.
As she drew closer, she recognized the song, and her sternum felt like it was pressing down on her lungs. But what made Aurora press her fingers against her lips and slowly lean against the door frame, barely peeking around the jamb, unwilling to interrupt, was the soft voice of Suzaku singing along.
He'd been wrong. He did know some modern music, because he sang along with the lyrics with the heartfelt intensity that came from knowing the words, and relating to them on a deeply personal level. Sitting in a soft gold nimbus of light thrown by the lamp on the armoire, Suzaku leisurely sketched, the light gilding his hair and softening the strong edges of his cheekbones.
Hearing Suzaku sing of being lost, of being barred from heaven, being destroyed by it, was much more difficult than Aurora could have guessed. The millions of things seen, and the burden of countless shattered dreams, all of it so painfully applicable to his life. And the faces of those who'd been lost, never again finding his way home from the fog of grief.
He wasn't singing very loud, his smooth voice low and rough with inexperience being used this way, but pleasant. Briefly closing his eyes, Suzaku tipped his head back against the wall, and Aurora watched as he surrendered himself to the music as he never could to her, to a heartbreak expressed that matched his own. It occurred to her to be worried that this would simply exacerbate the wounds within him, but when Suzaku opened his eyes and turned them back to the notebook, Aurora realized that she should have trusted the music, trusted her own belief in it.
There was a catharsis visible in the soft set of his eyes, the lids low with emotion felt and released. Carefully, Aurora drew back from the doorway, leaving Suzaku to the privacy of the moment while she crept to her room.
Once there, she turned back the covers, then simply sat on the bed, smiling to herself. She'd seen him bleeding and broken, but never before had Suzaku seemed so… real. Eventually, Ban nosed his way into her room, no doubt after gleaning a goodnight from Suzaku. For the first night in a while, Aurora went to bed without a book. She didn't need to. Settling down under the covers next to the warm lump of Ban, she slept better than she had in weeks.
So no exciting news like I said. The news gets its own chapter. Well, you guys were looking for Aurora to crack a little. You got a taste of it a few times. Nothing too dramatic, but we'll get there.
On another front, I made an amazing discovery recently that almost made me laugh out loud at the wonder of it. Bannock, as was explained before, is named for his silly scone-stealing. When I was designing the character, the word appealed to me (it's a street in the city where I live), so I ran with it. His name is easily shortened, so quick nick-name right there, boom. While reading a great book by Harper Fox, I discovered something. Ban is also the name of Lancelot's father.
…
Right?! I swear upon my honor that was never how I intentionally named that dog, but sometimes the stars align and the coolest shit happens when you're crafting a story. I have included some other minor Arthurian hints, and I have a few more ready for later on. But one so close to home? That one came out of left field, and made me giggle like a nerd.
Hope you like it!
Love, Tango