IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD

[sue_zaku]

Who: Suzaku, Lelouch, sooprise ninja
When: Thursday morning
Where: Lelouch's room
Summary: The bondage is DONE with. Lelouch wails and laments his lost brother. Wallzaku holds strong. Some crazy lady tries to kick him in the head.
Rating: PG-13, maybe? Possible cursing. Possible fail violence. Probable angst.
Warnings: ...See the above! :|b

Comments

[ledouche_zero]

Monopoly. Honestly. Could Suzaku have picked a worse game? Not only was now not the time for games -- literal games -- but Monopoly was one of the ones Lelouch had played with his siblings as a princely youth. Except that Cornelia had told them to envision the various colored squares not as property, but areas to conquer. She usually won, as well, in her trademarked cutthroat style, which was why Lelouch had preferred to stick to chess

[sue_zaku]

It was the longest game he knew. Save for Risk, of course, but if he'd gotten under the mindset that a war game, in which total and complete tyranny over the entire world was the goal-- He wasn't stupid. At least Monopoly was fairly innocuous. Moreso than Risk. He just needed something to pass the time for a while. Lelouch was winning anyway. And... hadn't gone into some megalomaniacal episode because of some plastic pieces and some dice rolls.

So, yes, he could have picked a worse game.

As it was, he was hesitantly reaching for the dice on his own part, peering up at Lelouch's question. "Well, no, I mean-- We could always play another game." Lelouch hadn't been talking about the game, but so long as they weren't discussing anything remotely relative to hearts, it was okay.

[ledouche_zero]

Lelouch threw himself back against the bedframe to which he'd been spending so much time tied to and ran his hand through his bangs and down his face. "Don't act so clueless, Suzaku. You know what I mean. This is a suicide watch, pure and simple. No amount of cheesy board games is going to change that."

He had a sudden and juvenile urge to overturn the board right into the floor, but he repressed it. He knew it wasn't really Suzaku's fault. His friend was just trying to help; it was just never in the right ways. That was the story of Suzaku's life.

[sue_zaku]

He was so used to the overdramatics. In his defense, he didn't even roll his eyes when Lelouch threw himself back, just grabbed the game board fast so that Lelouch wouldn't knock it off the bed. Maybe a little in the false pretense that Lelouch might flip over the board in some childish fit, if he was pissed off enough. It was hard to read on him, sometimes. But he looked like he wasn't going to do anything too rash.

"Suicide watch? That's a little harsh." But, no, that was essentially what it was. Speaking of 'too rash'. This was all to keep Lelouch from getting his HEART ripped out at his own discretion. "We don't have to play it if you don't want to. Staring at each other in one, lonely bedroom is a little dull, though. Maybe it was a bad idea."

[ledouche_zero]

And there Suzaku was, grabbing the board. It irritated Lelouch, how well Suzaku seemed to understand him these days. As if they had worked out a decade's worth of differences in a few short months... short months which ended in his death, ultimately.

He crossed his arms against his chest and glared up at the ceiling. "It may be harsh, but if the shoe fits, Suzaku..."

He sighed again. He hadn't had contact with Rolo in days, and other than the pleasant little dinner conversation he'd had with Sebastian, there'd been no contact with a would-be executioner, either. So even if he wanted to find a way to beat Rolo to his death, his options weren't looking very good.

"I don't see why there's all this fuss being made about me. If they want to kill me, I accept my fate. If I'm to die soon back home anyway it doesn't seem like it matters much. There are obviously those who would carry on without me." And somehow that ended with Suzaku in a Zero costume. His friend had seen the light, one way or another.

[sue_zaku]

He... just wanted to save the board? ...Okay, so maybe it was a little confusing, how well Suzaku knew Lelouch, even when the two had spent years apart, once Lelouch was sent to Jap-- Area Eleven. Maybe it was just Suzaku's ability to read near everyone he interacted with - he knew people, and he knew them well. Maybe Lelouch was just easy to read in general, his emotions right on his face. Or maybe it was just because the two of them were so damn much alike

[ledouche_zero]

Oh, now listen to Suzaku rattle off that list of indiscretions. Lelouch rolled his eyes. This was reminding him of the Suzaku he knew, the one who dragged him to his father just for the greater good. Lelouch sat up again and began packing up the game. Colored money into the right slots, then the Chance cards.

"If I only return home to die anyway, I don't see what the whole fuss is," he grumbled, mostly under his breath.

[sue_zaku]

But he'd definitely heard it, his eyebrows furrowed, and how much he was bothered by that was sudden very readable on his face.

"Hey!" Suzaku's voice raised a little, warningly. "I didn't tell you that so that you could go spiraling off into some--" ME episode? There was something deeply worrying about this, and Suzaku wasn't entirely sure if it was because Lelouch had sounded as if he'd just given up, or because... Well, he sounded like Suzaku himself. "I shouldn't have told you at all. It was a mistake, and you're paying for that error yourself. It's not fair.

"But you have no idea what goes into that, Lelouch. You don't know what happens, because you haven't experienced it yet. You, specifically, aren't there!" He handed Lelouch his own money with a frown, so that he could put that away as well. "So don't belittle yourself. None of it would have been possible without you there. You've so much more worth than you even realize."

[ledouche_zero]

Lelouch was quiet as Suzaku berated him, stewing in the words being thrown about. He accepted the money and tucked it neatly away with the rest. Sometimes cleaning helped. Everything in its right place and... such. Recalling a time when he'd needed to act like an adult way before he was an adult.

He sat with his head bowed. The hair obscured his face; maybe he was hiding his features on purpose, so Suzaku couldn't see. He felt very small in that moment, very lost. He hated the times when everything seemed so much bigger than him, and he was just a marionette on strings.

"I want to be in charge of my own fate," he said, keeping his head down. "I'm in control of nothing here and it... it..." His hands tightened into fists.

It drove him mad.

[sue_zaku]

Suzaku was very carefully watching Lelouch's hands as he put away the money, separated each of the bills into colors, methodically and slowly, if not just so he didn't have to look at Lelouch's face right now.

Of course something like that would be what was most deeply bothering to him. The lack of control. Even as a child, Prince Lelouch, he'd felt a need to be in charge of everything, constantly trying to order everyone around. Suzaku was very strongly reminded of the other week, the child one, how quickly they'd seeped from one side to the other - arguing, fighting, despising, and then back to friendship again. So damn quickly too. Kind of a mirror of their adult situation right now

[ledouche_zero]

Goddammit, when did Suzaku's logic start making SENSE? Where was all that idiotic blabber about rising through the ranks like a good lap dog and "inciting change" from within? That was much easier to counter.

Lelouch said nothing; he put the top back on the Monopoly box and then drummed his fingers restlessly against his thighs. After a moment, a hand reached up to feel the healing cut on his cheek, courtesy of the demon. When he had demanded death and been denied it. Even then he hadn't been in control.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "No one knows what they're submitting to at the point of death. But it's not Rolo's or anyone's responsibility to submit to it for me."

[sue_zaku]

"No. They don't. There's ideas and theories, obviously, but I guess nobody can ever really know until they get there." Suzaku rubbed at the back of his neck, eyes flickering from the Monopoly box and back upward to Lelouch. Warily, questioningly.

"But Rolo did make it his responsibility. Despite not knowing what comes after this, and being fully aware of how painful it was going to be. It's his responsibility to watch after you, and he is, in his own, extreme way."

He sat up a little, a frown creasing at his face. He may not have liked Rolo, and he certainly didn't trust Rolo as far as he could spit, but he knew just what the guy meant to Lelouch, false memories or not. And he knew that, first and foremost, Rolo's concerns contained Lelouch. He would do anything for the guy. "Lelouch, he wouldn't have done it unless he loved you. People do crazy things for those that they care about."

[ledouche_zero]

"I know why he did it!" Lelouch snapped. "I know he loves me, and that I'm the only person that's ever mattered to him. So of course I exploited that. I was twisting him for my own ends and fully intended to dispose of him when I was done. And then he... goes and does something idiotic like this."

He was shaking again, in the hands. He clasped them together, and dropped them to his lap, trying to steady them.

"So you can't tell me he deserves to die this way. Not for a brother as horrible as I am."

[sue_zaku]

There was a brief second where Suzaku's eyes flitted down to Lelouch's hands again, watching them clasp together as Lelouch spoke and the words sort of sunk in. Yeah. He wasn't the only one who'd used him as such anyway - it didn't make it OKAY, but, well. Rolo had spent more than enough time being constantly utilized. Suzaku didn't even rightly think of Rolo as-- human, sometimes. He was so damned comfortable with killing. So detached.

"Nobody deserves to die this way, Lelouch. None of these people do, but they are anyway! It's not about who deserves what! If it was who deserved it who was on that list, twenty-five totally different people would be on it right now." And Suzaku might have been one of them, so far as he was concerned. "You can't think of it like 'deserving'. It's that you're so damn important to someone that he's willing to get his HEART ripped out for you."

Suzaku sighed, frustrated, scrubbing at his forehead. "Jesus, Lelouch, if he hadn't done it, I'd have FOUND some way to do it myself."

Enter ninja. :|b

[4thegoodofwutai]

Rolo was in the Biodome. C.C. was distracted. So far, so good.

Yuffie knelt outside Lelouch's bedroom door, the air almost physically forced from her lungs out of sheer relief. Walking around was just so painful this week. Running was even worse. She didn't know how she managed it, but bolting across the hallway to this suite was the only way to guarantee that she'd be here and gone before C.C. got back

[ledouche_zero]

Lelouch was about to retort to Suzaku against his own foolishness -- like Suzaku could get himself killed if he wanted to -- when Lelouch became distracted by an odd noise. He turned his head toward the door. The locked door.

That seemed to be the origin of said noise. Like metal on metal.

Was someone trying to break in?