Something was up with Suzaku.
Aurora was sure of it. She just had no idea what, exactly. He'd been acting oddly. The pictures were finished, and he'd done a beautiful job. Everything else seemed to be moving along at a usual pace, nothing out of the ordinary to throw off his stride. Nothing he was telling her, at least.
What was really weird was the way he'd started acting around her. She'd been making breakfast when he trotted down, looking a little worse for wear after what should have been a full night's sleep. In the kitchen doorway frame, however, he'd frozen, still in the process of scrubbing his newly washed hair out of his eyes. Aurora had turned to say good morning, but the greeting had died on her lips. He was staring at her shirt.
If it were any other guy, she would think he was staring at her breasts, which were only slightly enhanced by the cut of the top. But his eyes moved over the entirety of it, as if the color or shape had taken him aback. Although what was offensive about silky dark navy with a little glimmer at the hem, she had no idea. It was nothing extravagant or overtly sexy, nothing to completely capture his attention. And, of course, this was Suzaku, who apparently liked to forget on a regular basis that his system was thrumming with that horny little devil known as testosterone. What was weirdest of all was when he finally met her eyes, Suzaku did something quite bizarre
He blushed, ducked his head, and marched to his seat like Aurora had caught him with his hand down his pants. Because of her shirt? She looked down at herself as he clumsily sat – no, her boobs were not on wild display, nor was there a giant blotch of flour or some other stain to catch his eye. She wanted to ask him, but took pity of him considering the beet red color of his face, and did her best to behave normally. Because he certainly wasn't.
Aurora thought it was a bizarre, singular incident. Something had tripped into Suzaku's brain long enough to humiliate him, and should trip right back out soon enough. But it didn't. He was quieter than usual, awkward around her, and seemed to swing between guilty, sad, and mortified. If it was just the embarrassment her presence had suddenly started to elicit, it would almost be funny. As if, after all this time, Suzaku had suddenly realized Aurora was a female and capable of sex appeal.
But it was more than that. Whenever she noticed Suzaku drawing, he was always drawing the same thing: Euphemia. It was so consistent, Aurora almost had to wonder if Suzaku was trying to reinforce fading memories, to capture images that could have been softened by time. Like he was still holding fast to something he was afraid could slip out of his fingers if he even slightly softened his grip. Aurora couldn't blame him, but it was… frustrating. To watch him so willingly submit to the torture her memory caused him. To see Suzaku cling to the guilt that was strangling him, slowly leeching him of life the way a bound limb was gradually destroyed by oxygen starvation. And the choice was either to hack it off or to let it kill him.
Maybe she was being a bit extreme, Aurora tried to reason with herself as she carted a pile of blankets back upstairs. They were normally stored in the window seat in the study, and she'd decided the other day that they'd benefit from a good washing. Maybe this last burst of desperation to hang onto Euphemia's memory was a natural part of the grieving process, and it would lessen to a more manageable state with a little time. But as Aurora headed down the hall, she slowed at the sight of the sight of the closed study door.
Just as she started to turn back downstairs, she heard soft, simple guitar chords humming behind the closed door. Aurora recognized the strains instantly, her heart clenching in a sort of habitual reaction to the song. It was a sad melody sung by an old classic, the last single he released before his death. Slowly stepping closer, Aurora could make out the haunting lyrics, the tired admission of a broken man's self-destruction, and the simple wish to feel that drove the downward spiral. When she could make out Suzaku's voice, trembling but timbered and determined, raised in song, she closed her eyes against the welling tears. When he sang of being alone in the end, she couldn't help it – Aurora pressed her hand to the door, a silent, impossible offer of aid that was as ineffective as it was hopeless.
Amidst the inheritance of dirt empires and the laments of the damage done to others, Aurora pressed her spine to the door frame, careful to not alert Suzaku to her presence. The sounds she heard through the door felt like a confession, one given to saintly wood and stone. It felt almost criminal to disturb it. So she silently slid to the floor, clutching the blankets to her chest as she drew her knees up, surrounded by the stains of time. As she heard him ask his sweetest friend what he'd become, Aurora tipped her head back against the wall as tears silently slipped down her cheeks, passing over her beating pulse as she hurt for everything in Suzaku that she couldn't change, and couldn't heal. For the path that he'd walked so terribly alone, and his enduring need to push everyone who held out a hand away.
She couldn't know that as Suzaku sang along to starting again, to keeping himself, to finding a way, he sat in an almost perfect mirror to Aurora; back to the wall by the door, head tipped back. Tears trailing down over his cheekbones, awash in memories and mourning.
Suzaku didn't know what he was looking for. Catharsis, maybe. Absolution, perhaps. No matter how little he deserved it, the desperate, lonely child in him still yearned for it. He hadn't seen Aurora since before breakfast that morning, which was just as well. He wasn't sure what he'd do if she offered the warm sympathy or quiet understanding ingrained in her bones. There were a few options; laugh in her face, burst into tears – that would firmly erase whatever self-esteem he had left –, or scream until he vomited up his lungs. Of course, that all felt entirely possible even without the catalyst of her presence, so Suzaku decided that he would be better served outside, away from the woman and dog that his overwhelming, self-inflicted guilt could harm.
And since his brain felt so utterly incapable of forming emotions or thoughts on its own with any sort of coherence, he took the music player and headphones along. This time, once he started to walk, he didn't let anything stop him. He climbed over walls, clambered up rocks, muscled his way through groves of trees. Suzaku had no idea where he was going, figured that if he hit the sea, he'd gone far enough. He didn't even know if he was heading west. The music pounded into his eardrums, a mild abuse that felt good. Ever since the somber song that morning, so perfectly encompassing his struggles and sorrows, he'd felt as if it was a mistake to let that music player go. Like the song had given voice to an aspect of him he hadn't even known was struggling to speak, and something important would always be silenced if he stopped now.
Aurora's music collection was vast, but Suzaku had Rivelz to thank for the fraction of songs that he'd already known. By now, though, he'd been listening to her playlists long enough to start picking out favorites of his own, easily memorized and weirdly enjoyable to sing. Not to mention, singing along seemed to mitigate the urge to rip his own heart out at his shameless treachery to Euphie's memory. God, what was wrong with him? He could still see her, the image of Aurora flushed and panting overlaying what he saw in real-time.
As the list moved to the next track and drums pounded into his ears, Suzaku felt his face screw up into an expression he couldn't control. And without Aurora here to worry, he didn't have to try and control it, afraid that it would worry her. Because even though he wasn't exactly sure how his face had contorted, Suzaku knew that it was elementally a grimace of pain. Pain welling up through his guts into his lungs to squeeze his throat, a well-meaning fist.
In a last ditch effort to loosen his larynx enough to allow oxygen to seep through, Suzaku started to sing. At first, he could do little more than wheeze along with the song beating into his ears, paired with the pounding of his heart. His determined march trailed to a stiff halt in the middle of a field, the cup of wildly green grass waving around him like mermaid's hair. Blindly, Suzaku stared at the stalks caressing his ankles, the words to the song weakly spilling out of his mouth gradually softening muscles gone oak-hard.
His voice gained strength, though, as Suzaku sang of far-away heavens now that someone had gone away. He plopped down a little suddenly in the grass, a show of lingering care with the gift of flowers at a grave drifting into the air. But not even black roses or Hail Marys could bring back what was lost. Moving to the words more instinctively than consciously, Suzaku flung his hands up into the air, tipping his head back and screwing his eyes shut, promising to trade places if he could in a wild declaration to an absorbent sky.
Bouncing his palms off his knees and swaying with the cold, stinging world left behind now that she'd gone away, Suzaku poured all that gut-deep guilt into the words, clenching his eyes against the striking scenery. Instead, Euphie filled his sight, every image he'd managed to salvage from the ravages of time and his own failing mind passing over the insides of his eyelids like frames to a film. Chest aching as he threw open the doors to memories he kept safely tucked away, Suzaku saw Euphemia again in any way he could. In all the ways he had left.
Eventually, though, the final, lingering guitar chord sounded in his ears. Blindly, Suzaku reached up, tugging the ear buds out before the next track could start. Something was welling up through his lungs, something that felt more insane than tears. Trying to choke it back was like trying to stop a freight train with tissue paper, though, and eventually it barreled free.
The scream tore out of him like a wild animal from a trap, leaving a spray of damage in the wake of its desperate bid to escape. He'd used to do this as a child; scream his frustrations to the impartial sky when alone, giving vent to emotion he couldn't otherwise express or continue to bear. But that habit had been strangled out of Suzaku by the time of his father's death. Now, though, he unconsciously resurrected the urge with a determined vengeance.
The scream rattled the nearby trees and stones, shooting its way up into the stratosphere. And it flew in the form of Euphemia's name.
It felt like it could go on forever. But, even when he'd been at peak condition, Suzaku's lungs couldn't have handled the strain eternally. Eventually fading to a shaky wheeze, he sucked in all the air he'd forcefully evacuated, returning to himself enough to find his fingers clenched around the grass like he planned to draw swords from the soil, tears dripping down his cheeks to dot his jeans.
Finding himself quite suddenly tired and replete and empty, Suzaku flopped back on the grass, throwing his good arm over his eyes. He told himself it was to block out the sun's glare, but it was also to wipe away tears he didn't want to admit even existed. He stayed that way for a while, enjoying the cool brush of grass and sweet warmth from the sun, even as the dirt made the seat of his jeans and the spine of his shirt damp. Suzaku didn't know how much time had passed when he felt more than heard the thud of approaching footsteps.
He didn't move, though – not when the faint hint of sakura floated through air that never otherwise carried the scent of such blossoms. As Aurora sat down next to him, he shifted his arm just enough to squint at her through the crook of his arm. Reaching over, she paused the music player he'd neglected before propping her elbow against an updrawn knee, managing to watch him without actually watching him in a way he was sure was uniquely a skill of hers. Her tumble of golden hair had been woven into a braid, but that didn't really help. Not when the desire to muss it flamed through Suzaku at inopportune moments. Not when that pretty dark blue shirt dredged up memories of pliant flesh dewed with sweat. But that had to stop. If for no other reason than the remainder of his tattered sanity just couldn't take it.
Slowly, Aurora leaned back, until she lay at his side, her hands laced over her stomach, the grass just tall enough to hide them. Because the dragging silence made Suzaku want to twitch, he spoke first.
"How did you find me?" He lifted his arm just enough to glance over at her in time to see her tilt her head towards him, her brows ever so slightly raised. Stupid question when he was screaming at the sky like an asylum patient.
"I take it you're not feeling so hot," she said in lieu of an answer.
"I wasn't," he managed, his rough voice manifesting his rampant abuse of it earlier.
"How about now?"
Suzaku shrugged as he finally gathered his brain enough to examine himself mentally. No magic fixes. No reversion to his personal version of innocence or good health. But maybe he didn't feel quite so… horrific. Guilt-ridden. Horse-whipped.
"Can you tell me what was wigging you out earlier?" Her voice, like her question, was gentle. That paired with the dream sent heat flooding to Suzaku's cheekbones as he dug his forearm into his eye sockets harder, stars sparking against velvety black. No way in hell was he telling her about the unbidden fantasy that had taken over his brain like a disease.
"Nothing. Nothing important, anyway," he eventually said. Her lingering silence had him tensing, so he risked a glance at her. Aurora had rolled her head towards him, those penetrating eyes trained on him like drills. Suzaku quickly looked away before they could dig the truth out of him.
"It's not a big deal. Trust me." He didn't know why he said that second sentence. It came out of his mouth casually enough, but it rang in his head like a bell. Like a plea. Lowering his arm to his side, Suzaku looked over, reluctantly vulnerable but needing to see her reaction more than he wanted to admit. Surrounded by a forest of grass, her eyes looked like perfect skies. She searched his gaze with an intensity that dug down into his bones. Finally, though, she nodded.
"OK."
That simple, trusting response softened everything that had gone unconsciously tense in him. Aurora looked back up to the sky, presenting her classic profile to Suzaku before he remembered he wasn't interested in her that way, and trained his eyes on the harmless spread of blue that arched over them.
It should have been silent, as neither of them were talking. But it wasn't. The grass whispered with the wind's voice, the leaves of the trees singing much better than Suzaku ever could. And as they relaxed, his and Aurora's breathing fell into the same soft tempo. Eyes drifting closed, the sun bloomed pink flowers against his eyelids. He'd almost fallen asleep when a warm breath fanned over his face. Floored by the fact that Aurora would do something so audacious, something he wasn't necessarily sure he could refuse, Suzaku's eyelids whipped open.
The eyes looking into his, however, weren't blue. They were dark brown, and delightedly laughing. Ban snuffled his face and hair before panting with a wolf-like grin, the blast of dog breath nearly driving Suzaku deeper into the dirt. Managing to meld the shove with a pat, he directed the dog to his much more understanding mother. Her laughing growl of complaint, however, didn't paint her as very understanding. Looking over in time to see Aurora wrestle her dog's butt away to keep him from plopping it down practically on her face, Ban adjusted with a beleaguered expression, his head almost draped over Aurora's shoulder while his tail tickled Suzaku's ear. Their chuckles were muffled by palms, as if they were reluctant to break the atmosphere. He felt, maybe for the first time since his dream, that perhaps he'd imagined everything. Aurora was his friend, a person of incredible trust. Who else could he just be with in this kind of tranquil comfort?
But the quiet couldn't last forever. Aurora was the one to break it, almost breathlessly soft.
"Vivienne."
"What?" Suzaku croaked, looking over in time to see a single tear track down her temple to slide into her hair.
"That was Euphie's middle name."
Speechlessly, he met Aurora's eyes, misted and pained, absorbing the information into a bruised heart. For all that he'd used Euphie as a framework for his existence, Suzaku hadn't known that tiny fact about her. He clutched the knowledge close, an intimacy that was only glaring in its absence once he'd been given it.
Euphemia Vivienne li Britannia. It was beautiful. It suited her.
And like her half-sister, it carried the tradition of Arthurian middle names. Even from a very young age, the Lady of the Lake had always been one of Suzaku's favorite characters to the old legends. How ironic that the love of his life would bear one of the versions of the Avalon queen's name.
He reached up to pat Ban's rump, because he felt like he could die from the wave of loneliness that swept through him, and Suzaku was too much of a coward to reach for Aurora. Because it wasn't ironic. It was achingly, brutally sad. God, he missed her. So fucking much.
Two real world songs in this chapter. Cookie if you can guess them. I made up Euphemia's middle name. Then again, who's to say that Vivienne wasn't her middle name?
Short but sweet. Inspired to finish this by inching my way through a re-watch, paired with the realization that Suzaku is largely inspired in my mind by Bruce Wayne, and Aurora draws heavily from both Selina Kyle and Elektra. At the very least, Aurora's physicality is super close to Elektra's. Graceful, lethal machines. Any more casting guesses?
Hope you like it!
Love, Tango