Fanfic: King of Spades (Schneizel/Suzaku)
Title: King of Spades (Infinity Part 15)
Fandom: Code Geass
Characters/Pairing: Schneizel el Britannia x Kururugi Suzaku
Rating: PG-13
Warning: More plot and lack of romance 8D
Word Count: ~2200
Challenge: 30_romances #07. Blow
Notes: As always, thank you to xoxeskel for beta-ing this series <3
Previous Installation: Marked for Life
See the complete list of stories
-----
Zero.
The name rang like a curse in her ears. Cecile frowned and increased her pace, weary of the restless rumours which hadn’t ceased to spread like wildfire since yesterday’s attack. The military headquarter had been buzzing with excitement, concern, and perhaps also fear, only to mention some. But of course; they were now officially under attack.
She inwardly scoffed. It was a charitable description - an attack. Personally, she would rather call it a trial-and-error shot, and a very small if not pointless one at that. An attack should be able to endure at least one rushed attempt of retaliation, but this one, it had crumbled even before the opposing army could assemble their full force - although, she must admit, the fact that they had Suzaku on their side must count as something, possibly a causal factor.
There was the common knowledge, that desperation called for desperate measures at desperate times. But what she had seen yesterday was plain recklessness, even stupidity at its paramount. What they had intended to achieve with five rogue Knightmares and a handful of stolen weapons she didn’t know. It seemed like a bad joke, and she would have thought it was one if they didn’t have sixteen dead bodies in the morgue.
“Miss Cecile!”
She turned around at the call of her name and noticed a man wearing a white lab coat running after her. “I’ve been...trying to reach you...” he said, punctuated by wheezes of breath, “for the past hour...”
“I’m sorry, I had a meeting with General Bartley,” she explained quickly. “Roxley from Maintenance, right?”
“Yes,” he breathed in some relief, smoothing the tired lines on his boyish face. “I take it you got our note?”
“Just before I left. Something about the prototype you’ve been developing, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yes,” he said nervously. “And you are the one who knows everything about Lancelot best after Professor Asplund. Please. You know we won’t bother you if we’re not really in a jam.”
“I don’t mind,” Cecile assured him. “I’ll get my notes first and meet you back at the lab.”
He nodded his gratitude and retreated in the direction he had come from. Cecile sighed, mourning the few scant minutes she had planned to steal for a little rest before plunging into her next work. Now, even that seemed to be denied from her.
She was just passing the atrium when she noticed Suzaku, standing close to Lieutenant Colonel Sedgwick in front of the elevator. She raised a hand, lips curving into a smile, but her greeting was stalled when she noticed his expression. It wasn’t fury as much as determination, his lips set into a grim, iron-cast line as Sedgwick spoke to him in a low voice. They disappeared into the elevator when it arrived, not once glancing at her direction.
Cecile was frowning when she continued on her way. She still remembered the exhibition tournament five days ago, the hard-earned victory after one long hour of struggling and tumbling to the edge of defeat far too many times, and then the deafening cheers when the crowd had finally fallen for him. Awe, for once, had eclipsed looks brimming with hate and disgust, and she had sat there amidst the cheers and shrill whistles, eyes blurred by tears that mingled quietly with her laughter. It was all she could do to show oh how very proud she was of him. He was their champion, once and for all, and the grudging acknowledgment he had earned after the exhibition tournament from the rest of the knights only sealed his victory.
But then, the attack had happened.
No name had been mentioned. No one had come forward to claim responsibility, but everyone had their guess and it was most likely correct. She didn’t like to think about Zero. Suzaku always reacted much too strongly when it concerned the masked terrorist. He had come this far, to this height no honorary Britannian had ever reached before, but one wrong move could grind it to dust.
Sometimes, Cecile reflected as she settled behind her desk and started gathering her notes, sometimes she wished that she could do something more.
-----
The office smelled of fresh paint, new furniture and, curiously, flowers. Jacques noticed the shades of white, yellow, and pink, arranged in a rather amateurish but pleasing manner in a china vase on the side table, and was about to inquire about their presence in the room when Suzaku’s sharp voice cut into his meandering thought.
“What did he say?”
Suzaku was standing with his back to the desk, eyes trained on him with terrifying intensity, the same kind which had brought down Lord Vandewalle’s Knightmare to its knees. Jacques had learnt to choose his words carefully every time his friend-cum-superior gave him that much attention. The issue with this prisoner they were interrogating was sensitive enough as it was.
“The same thing everyone else has been humming since yesterday.”
“The Black Knight.”
“A little more specific.”
“Zero.” Suzaku’s voice was flat, passionless in a way that sent a nervous tick down to the tip of his fingers. Jacques nodded, a perfunctory gesture.
Silence slipped in. Suzaku looked like he was itching to kick his desk, but the expression quieted down into something less vindictive after a few forced deep breaths. “It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it.”
It wasn’t a question, but Jacques answered anyway. “Zero is a symbol, nothing more,” he said in what he hoped to be a calm, reasonable voice. “He doesn’t even have a face. Everyone can claim to be Zero and some will always believe the claim just for the sake of it.”
He bit his lips, but didn’t try to cover the ugly fact with roses. Japan was still rotting, despite everything Suzaku had done - had tried to do, was still trying to do - and it was useless to pretend otherwise. When he saw that his friend’s face didn’t change, Jacques hid a frown and gathered his fingers stiffly behind his back.
“But we cannot dismiss the worst scenario,” he continued, watching Suzaku intently. “If he’s the real thing, then we’re in big trouble.”
A heavy, reserved look returned his close scrutiny. “He- the prisoner, didn’t he say anything else?”
“It will take more time,” Jacques said after a pause, and pretended that he hadn’t caught the flash of disgust on Suzaku’s face, “but I doubt he knows anything more worth gouging. He doesn’t seem to be involved very deep, just a limb to do the job.”
Besides, he didn’t think the man could stand more torture, but Jacques kept it to himself. There was an art to this method of interrogation. The pain must be quick, sharp, enough to frighten and debilitate, but not to the point where the subject would be begging at the feet of delusion, or it would defeat the whole purpose of digging up for information in the first place.
But even then, one could only stand so much.
“I’ll be in my office if you’re going to report to His Highness,” Jacques said, clicking his heels together, and then added, for good measure, “Sir.”
Sometimes it helped to remind his friend of his place, lofty and far too visible it was now. But when Suzaku abruptly looked up at him, eyes dark and austere, Jacques realised it was a wrong step to take.
“You knew about Takagi.”
There was something in the way Suzaku pronounced the name, a sort of lilt that enveloped each syllable like silk, quiet, protective, the kind only people like him, with his blood and his Japanese heritage, could put together. It almost made Jacques feel jealous. “No,” he answered quickly, perhaps a bit too hastily. “No. I heard things, but they were the same things that had been going around for years. I’ve never seen anything concrete until this afternoon. With you.”
He was rewarded with a cold silence for his effort. So much for honesty. Jacques released a frustrated sigh and spread his arms in a helpless gesture. “What do you want me to say?”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t look away, meeting the accusing gaze head on. “You went through that sort of treatment yourself, didn’t you?”
Suzaku’s fingers were curled tight, gripping the edge of his desk. There was nothing pretty about the subject and Jacques wasn’t proud of his ignorance. They rarely came to the communal showers anymore, their elevated ranks granting them certain privileges on the domestic side, but this day had been a series of unfortunate incidents. Suzaku had had a paint stain on his gloves, and Jacques had been there on an entirely different mission, but neither had expected to stumble into this scene of Private Takagi being subjected to a ‘treatment’ in the middle of the day.
It wasn’t new and certainly wasn’t surprising once they had recognised the subject of the abuse, but it hadn’t stopped Suzaku from snarling and shoving the largest of the four assaulters to the wall. The other three had only stared, frozen in place as it had dawned on them fast how badly they had screwed up in front of their superiors.
“Was I the only one stupid enough to think that things like that would stop once I became His Highness’s knight?”
Suzaku’s voice wasn’t plaintive or melancholy, just dry. Jacques refrained from answering - really, it was a rhetorical question if there ever was one. Suzaku must have known better, but he only laughed at his silence.
“I was, wasn’t I?”
“People need time to adjust to certain changes,” Jacques said quietly, an effort to ease the tension.
“Of course.”
“You can punish those you caught earlier though,” he added quickly. “You have the power for it. Hopefully it will make the others think twice before doing any bullying.”
“It can make things worse too,” Suzaku said darkly.
“Then they either need to hold on and survive, or just take the easy way out and give up.” His voice was rising now and Jacques didn’t care. “Frankly, it’s a matter of choice. And yes, it’s not easy, but we all know there’s an example to the first.”
Suzaku shot him a sharp, wry smile. When he spoke again, his voice was bitter, frustration scrawled on palimpsest ages old, suppressed, kept hidden until it shrivelled, rotted, dried.
“Climbing into His Highness’s bed will certainly guarantee your survival, I suppose.”
Jacques was surprised, and more than a little incredulous - and that smile, he’d be damned if he said it wasn’t on Prince Schneizel’s face where he had seen a similar one before. The fact that he was now seeing it on Suzaku’s was more disconcerting than what he had just heard.
“That isn’t what I meant,” Jacques said stiffly. Suzaku now refused to look at him, clinging to the silence much like a petulant child. He pursed his lips, decided that it was a futile effort and was about to excuse himself for the second time when the phone on his friend’s desk decided to interrupt.
“Yes?” Suzaku answered the speaker.
“Suzaku-kun,” a familiar female voice responded. Jacques couldn’t quite place a name or a face, but he stood there listening, not missing the frantic note in her voice. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard about Area 18. It’s all over the news.”
-----
The details were clear enough; a dangerous, mutinous region since its subjugation by the late Princess Cornelia, Area 18 was a land ripe with agitation and possibilities. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been at all surprising that Zero would rather turn his eyes to the restless desert than risking a direct headbutt with the most dangerous prince of Britannia.
Although the title might describe him just as well, Suzaku reflected numbly, staring at the black mask that took over practically every news slot, and more.
“No longer the King of Elevens, is he?”
Schneizel sounded more amused than anything. It never ceased to amaze him, how his lord could treat everything as little more than trivialities and still emerge triumphant in the end, one finger in every pie, the rest pulling every string.
“What will be our course of action, Your Highness?” he asked, keeping his voice as calm as possible.
“Nothing.” Lips curled upward, a faint smile. “As of now. Area 18 is not under my jurisdiction.”
“But Zero...” Suzaku paused, shuffled the guilt around before noticing that it was on every card no matter how hard he tried to lose it in the stack. “It was my fault that he managed to escape a year ago.”
“Be that as it may, I am certain His Majesty will be able to deal with him just fine.” It was a challenge, not certainty, but Suzaku kept his silence. “You may seek to redeem yourself another time.”
“Yes, sir,” he muttered, swallowing his frustration. It tasted almost like relief, some distorted, mangled version of it.
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
The question caught him off-guard. There was enough implication in it to set off the alarm in his head, but surely, surely his master couldn’t know...?
“No, sir,” Suzaku answered quietly, avoiding the prince’s waiting gaze.
It might not be Lelouch, he reasoned with himself. It might be an impostor - but even to his own ears it sounded too much like an excuse.
End Part 15
-----
Fandom: Code Geass
Characters/Pairing: Schneizel el Britannia x Kururugi Suzaku
Rating: PG-13
Warning: More plot and lack of romance 8D
Word Count: ~2200
Challenge: 30_romances #07. Blow
Notes: As always, thank you to xoxeskel for beta-ing this series <3
Previous Installation: Marked for Life
See the complete list of stories
-----
Zero.
The name rang like a curse in her ears. Cecile frowned and increased her pace, weary of the restless rumours which hadn’t ceased to spread like wildfire since yesterday’s attack. The military headquarter had been buzzing with excitement, concern, and perhaps also fear, only to mention some. But of course; they were now officially under attack.
She inwardly scoffed. It was a charitable description - an attack. Personally, she would rather call it a trial-and-error shot, and a very small if not pointless one at that. An attack should be able to endure at least one rushed attempt of retaliation, but this one, it had crumbled even before the opposing army could assemble their full force - although, she must admit, the fact that they had Suzaku on their side must count as something, possibly a causal factor.
There was the common knowledge, that desperation called for desperate measures at desperate times. But what she had seen yesterday was plain recklessness, even stupidity at its paramount. What they had intended to achieve with five rogue Knightmares and a handful of stolen weapons she didn’t know. It seemed like a bad joke, and she would have thought it was one if they didn’t have sixteen dead bodies in the morgue.
“Miss Cecile!”
She turned around at the call of her name and noticed a man wearing a white lab coat running after her. “I’ve been...trying to reach you...” he said, punctuated by wheezes of breath, “for the past hour...”
“I’m sorry, I had a meeting with General Bartley,” she explained quickly. “Roxley from Maintenance, right?”
“Yes,” he breathed in some relief, smoothing the tired lines on his boyish face. “I take it you got our note?”
“Just before I left. Something about the prototype you’ve been developing, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yes,” he said nervously. “And you are the one who knows everything about Lancelot best after Professor Asplund. Please. You know we won’t bother you if we’re not really in a jam.”
“I don’t mind,” Cecile assured him. “I’ll get my notes first and meet you back at the lab.”
He nodded his gratitude and retreated in the direction he had come from. Cecile sighed, mourning the few scant minutes she had planned to steal for a little rest before plunging into her next work. Now, even that seemed to be denied from her.
She was just passing the atrium when she noticed Suzaku, standing close to Lieutenant Colonel Sedgwick in front of the elevator. She raised a hand, lips curving into a smile, but her greeting was stalled when she noticed his expression. It wasn’t fury as much as determination, his lips set into a grim, iron-cast line as Sedgwick spoke to him in a low voice. They disappeared into the elevator when it arrived, not once glancing at her direction.
Cecile was frowning when she continued on her way. She still remembered the exhibition tournament five days ago, the hard-earned victory after one long hour of struggling and tumbling to the edge of defeat far too many times, and then the deafening cheers when the crowd had finally fallen for him. Awe, for once, had eclipsed looks brimming with hate and disgust, and she had sat there amidst the cheers and shrill whistles, eyes blurred by tears that mingled quietly with her laughter. It was all she could do to show oh how very proud she was of him. He was their champion, once and for all, and the grudging acknowledgment he had earned after the exhibition tournament from the rest of the knights only sealed his victory.
But then, the attack had happened.
No name had been mentioned. No one had come forward to claim responsibility, but everyone had their guess and it was most likely correct. She didn’t like to think about Zero. Suzaku always reacted much too strongly when it concerned the masked terrorist. He had come this far, to this height no honorary Britannian had ever reached before, but one wrong move could grind it to dust.
Sometimes, Cecile reflected as she settled behind her desk and started gathering her notes, sometimes she wished that she could do something more.
-----
The office smelled of fresh paint, new furniture and, curiously, flowers. Jacques noticed the shades of white, yellow, and pink, arranged in a rather amateurish but pleasing manner in a china vase on the side table, and was about to inquire about their presence in the room when Suzaku’s sharp voice cut into his meandering thought.
“What did he say?”
Suzaku was standing with his back to the desk, eyes trained on him with terrifying intensity, the same kind which had brought down Lord Vandewalle’s Knightmare to its knees. Jacques had learnt to choose his words carefully every time his friend-cum-superior gave him that much attention. The issue with this prisoner they were interrogating was sensitive enough as it was.
“The same thing everyone else has been humming since yesterday.”
“The Black Knight.”
“A little more specific.”
“Zero.” Suzaku’s voice was flat, passionless in a way that sent a nervous tick down to the tip of his fingers. Jacques nodded, a perfunctory gesture.
Silence slipped in. Suzaku looked like he was itching to kick his desk, but the expression quieted down into something less vindictive after a few forced deep breaths. “It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it.”
It wasn’t a question, but Jacques answered anyway. “Zero is a symbol, nothing more,” he said in what he hoped to be a calm, reasonable voice. “He doesn’t even have a face. Everyone can claim to be Zero and some will always believe the claim just for the sake of it.”
He bit his lips, but didn’t try to cover the ugly fact with roses. Japan was still rotting, despite everything Suzaku had done - had tried to do, was still trying to do - and it was useless to pretend otherwise. When he saw that his friend’s face didn’t change, Jacques hid a frown and gathered his fingers stiffly behind his back.
“But we cannot dismiss the worst scenario,” he continued, watching Suzaku intently. “If he’s the real thing, then we’re in big trouble.”
A heavy, reserved look returned his close scrutiny. “He- the prisoner, didn’t he say anything else?”
“It will take more time,” Jacques said after a pause, and pretended that he hadn’t caught the flash of disgust on Suzaku’s face, “but I doubt he knows anything more worth gouging. He doesn’t seem to be involved very deep, just a limb to do the job.”
Besides, he didn’t think the man could stand more torture, but Jacques kept it to himself. There was an art to this method of interrogation. The pain must be quick, sharp, enough to frighten and debilitate, but not to the point where the subject would be begging at the feet of delusion, or it would defeat the whole purpose of digging up for information in the first place.
But even then, one could only stand so much.
“I’ll be in my office if you’re going to report to His Highness,” Jacques said, clicking his heels together, and then added, for good measure, “Sir.”
Sometimes it helped to remind his friend of his place, lofty and far too visible it was now. But when Suzaku abruptly looked up at him, eyes dark and austere, Jacques realised it was a wrong step to take.
“You knew about Takagi.”
There was something in the way Suzaku pronounced the name, a sort of lilt that enveloped each syllable like silk, quiet, protective, the kind only people like him, with his blood and his Japanese heritage, could put together. It almost made Jacques feel jealous. “No,” he answered quickly, perhaps a bit too hastily. “No. I heard things, but they were the same things that had been going around for years. I’ve never seen anything concrete until this afternoon. With you.”
He was rewarded with a cold silence for his effort. So much for honesty. Jacques released a frustrated sigh and spread his arms in a helpless gesture. “What do you want me to say?”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t look away, meeting the accusing gaze head on. “You went through that sort of treatment yourself, didn’t you?”
Suzaku’s fingers were curled tight, gripping the edge of his desk. There was nothing pretty about the subject and Jacques wasn’t proud of his ignorance. They rarely came to the communal showers anymore, their elevated ranks granting them certain privileges on the domestic side, but this day had been a series of unfortunate incidents. Suzaku had had a paint stain on his gloves, and Jacques had been there on an entirely different mission, but neither had expected to stumble into this scene of Private Takagi being subjected to a ‘treatment’ in the middle of the day.
It wasn’t new and certainly wasn’t surprising once they had recognised the subject of the abuse, but it hadn’t stopped Suzaku from snarling and shoving the largest of the four assaulters to the wall. The other three had only stared, frozen in place as it had dawned on them fast how badly they had screwed up in front of their superiors.
“Was I the only one stupid enough to think that things like that would stop once I became His Highness’s knight?”
Suzaku’s voice wasn’t plaintive or melancholy, just dry. Jacques refrained from answering - really, it was a rhetorical question if there ever was one. Suzaku must have known better, but he only laughed at his silence.
“I was, wasn’t I?”
“People need time to adjust to certain changes,” Jacques said quietly, an effort to ease the tension.
“Of course.”
“You can punish those you caught earlier though,” he added quickly. “You have the power for it. Hopefully it will make the others think twice before doing any bullying.”
“It can make things worse too,” Suzaku said darkly.
“Then they either need to hold on and survive, or just take the easy way out and give up.” His voice was rising now and Jacques didn’t care. “Frankly, it’s a matter of choice. And yes, it’s not easy, but we all know there’s an example to the first.”
Suzaku shot him a sharp, wry smile. When he spoke again, his voice was bitter, frustration scrawled on palimpsest ages old, suppressed, kept hidden until it shrivelled, rotted, dried.
“Climbing into His Highness’s bed will certainly guarantee your survival, I suppose.”
Jacques was surprised, and more than a little incredulous - and that smile, he’d be damned if he said it wasn’t on Prince Schneizel’s face where he had seen a similar one before. The fact that he was now seeing it on Suzaku’s was more disconcerting than what he had just heard.
“That isn’t what I meant,” Jacques said stiffly. Suzaku now refused to look at him, clinging to the silence much like a petulant child. He pursed his lips, decided that it was a futile effort and was about to excuse himself for the second time when the phone on his friend’s desk decided to interrupt.
“Yes?” Suzaku answered the speaker.
“Suzaku-kun,” a familiar female voice responded. Jacques couldn’t quite place a name or a face, but he stood there listening, not missing the frantic note in her voice. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard about Area 18. It’s all over the news.”
-----
The details were clear enough; a dangerous, mutinous region since its subjugation by the late Princess Cornelia, Area 18 was a land ripe with agitation and possibilities. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been at all surprising that Zero would rather turn his eyes to the restless desert than risking a direct headbutt with the most dangerous prince of Britannia.
Although the title might describe him just as well, Suzaku reflected numbly, staring at the black mask that took over practically every news slot, and more.
“No longer the King of Elevens, is he?”
Schneizel sounded more amused than anything. It never ceased to amaze him, how his lord could treat everything as little more than trivialities and still emerge triumphant in the end, one finger in every pie, the rest pulling every string.
“What will be our course of action, Your Highness?” he asked, keeping his voice as calm as possible.
“Nothing.” Lips curled upward, a faint smile. “As of now. Area 18 is not under my jurisdiction.”
“But Zero...” Suzaku paused, shuffled the guilt around before noticing that it was on every card no matter how hard he tried to lose it in the stack. “It was my fault that he managed to escape a year ago.”
“Be that as it may, I am certain His Majesty will be able to deal with him just fine.” It was a challenge, not certainty, but Suzaku kept his silence. “You may seek to redeem yourself another time.”
“Yes, sir,” he muttered, swallowing his frustration. It tasted almost like relief, some distorted, mangled version of it.
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
The question caught him off-guard. There was enough implication in it to set off the alarm in his head, but surely, surely his master couldn’t know...?
“No, sir,” Suzaku answered quietly, avoiding the prince’s waiting gaze.
It might not be Lelouch, he reasoned with himself. It might be an impostor - but even to his own ears it sounded too much like an excuse.
End Part 15
-----