Title: Retribution
Author: Spare
Word count: 1,158
Status: One-shot, complete
Rating: hm, PG-13
Notes: Second Code Geass fanfic—and I don't really know what the hell this one is about. Sad. It's been a while since I've done fiction in English. Still no working plot whatsoever. Still Suzaku x Lelouch. Meant as a companion fic to 'Atonement', which is a friends-only post at the SuzaLulu in livejournal.
Warnings: Yaoi, most probably AU, with bits of angst and fluff on the side. Implied season one spoilers. SuzaLulu.
Disclaimer: Code Geass and corresponding characters are not mine.

Retribution
by spare

He'd meant to punch him. Of course he did.

"I can never forgive you for what you did."

—He'd said that, hadn't he?

And 'did' meaning a lot of things between them—Euphemia, the Order of the Black Knights, the war that had claimed thousands upon thousands of Britannian and Japanese lives alike, that damned curse that made him deny death even if he wished for it, had been wishing for it for years and years.

"Me neither," Lelouch had replied, with a soft, bitter smile that made Suzaku hate him even more. Because that smile held many things as well. I had to. There was no other choice. And even if there was and I'd made a mistake, what's done is done and the dead won't come back to life, Suzaku.

But somewhere between grabbing Lelouch by the collar of his shirt and shoving him against the wall and glaring into his eyes—one violet, the other glowing red even in the dim light, Suzaku had miscalculated. Their faces were much too close, for one, and Lelouch's head had tilted down at the exact moment Suzaku had craned his neck forward, for another; and so they ended up with their lips pressed quite intimately together.

Lelouch had blinked at him for a second or two right after that, a rare expression of confusion in the former prince's features that might have mirrored his own.

Then Lelouch had opened his mouth, perhaps to speak, perhaps to gasp at the sheer absurdity—and that's when Suzaku had finally lost it.

They'd kissed, if touching tongues and knocking teeth and sucking awkwardly on each other's bottom lips could rightly be called kissing. Suzaku's fingers had twisted in Lelouch's hair as the slighter youth's own hands settled on his chest, gripping the thin material of his cotton shirt firmly.

Lelouch's hair was soft. He'd moaned—in shock, protest, abandon, perhaps all three—at the back of his throat. His mouth tasted like barley tea.

Suzaku remembers that much, so far.

The rest, between Lelouch gripping the thin material of his shirt firmly that night and Lelouch laying nude and asleep beside him this morning, on the musty floor, is a vast, cloudy haze, abetted in no small way by the near-incessant pounding in his head. Suzaku sits up groggily and makes an attempt to sort his thoughts right through it. His shirt, he notes, is missing. And the button fly of his jeans is gaping open, making it dangle low against his hips. Emerald eyes wander to where Lelouch still lay unconscious, back turned to him, and tries not to linger too long at the curve of his buttocks, at the pale, slender back.

And then he notices the bruises.

On Lelouch's thighs, mostly, but also quite a few on his back, and what may or may not be a bite mark on the juncture between his neck and his left shoulder.

Suzaku blinks, and wonders why he should wonder exactly why it made perfect sense. He'd meant to punch him, hadn't he? Meant to beat him to a pulp, make him pay. Except the bruises were placed wrong and there was a dried-up streak of blood between Lelouch's legs and—something else. Something awfully familiar.

Very familiar, since it stained the crotch of Suzaku's own pants as well.

Never has the sight of dried cum filled him with so much dread.

My god, he thinks, putting two and two together and coming up with something that made his blood run icy-cold, I raped him.

Everything comes rushing back right then, bits and pieces of memories that seemed surreal in the sobering light of the morning. Tearing Lelouch's clothes off. Throwing him to the floor. Brutally thrusting between his legs. It all made perfect sense back then.

Now—

Lelouch stirs, and Suzaku stifles a near-overwhelming urge to bolt. Because he'd meant to punch him, meant to hurt him, but not that way. Never that way. He hated Lelouch for the million things he did and didn't do, and there were days when that hate seemed like a living thing, breathing the same rank air that kept Suzaku alive, crawling beneath his skin, seeing through his soldier's eyes, and neither the passage of years nor his prisoner-of-war status under Kirihara's wing has dulled it. But he loved him still, nevertheless. Loved him because he was Lelouch, the young Britannian boy he had played and confided with as a child, the prince who had renounced his title for his little sister. He had meant to punch him, meant to hurt him, and ended up violating him in the most basic way.

Lelouch stirs, and sits up, blinking blearily around the room—and winces. His eyes settle on Suzaku, and again there is that confusion, the one rarely seen on the precocious youth's face, until he notes the pallor on the soldier's cheeks and his own disheveled appearance, and looks away, hurriedly drawing his knees to his chest. Suzaku does not.

Lelouch allows this for a moment or two, until he says, voice carrying a note of exasperation beneath its dull, reticent tone, "It's impolite to stare, you know."

"I know," Suzaku responds, just as quietly. He keeps staring anyway, until Lelouch gives up and crawls over the floor to gather his scattered clothes. He watches the Britannian youth get dressed in less-than-companionable silence, mostly violet gaze studiously avoiding his, and wonders why he should feel bothered by this deliberate disregard, this sudden shyness. Hadn't he seen enough last night? And yet, why isn't it enough just to see him? "Lelouch," he calls out softly.

It startles the former prince enough to make him fumble with the last two buttons of his shirt. "What?"

"Look at me."

A beat. And then—

"I can't."

Suzaku blinks. Fights back the lump rising in his throat. "What happened last night was—"

"Not your fault." Now fully clothed, Lelouch turns to face him, eyes riveted to the floor.

Suzaku studies his profile gravely. "I hurt you."

"You did."

A frown. "I…" His voice cracks, but just a little. "I'm sorry."

"I forgive you." And the way Lelouch says it, it seemed matter-of-fact, a fundamental truth in the universe. Much like his next statement. "We were drunk."

"Yes," Suzaku agrees, and finds little comfort in that point. "So we were. But still—I'm sorry." He stands up, takes a tentative step forward to where Lelouch was. He half-believed the Britannian would move away, but Lelouch stood his ground, looking at him with something like alarm. Looking at him, yes, finally. "I only wanted to punch you," he adds, the words coming out before he could register how absurd it sounded.

Lelouch appears not to notice. "I know," the youth agrees, and there is the old half-smile there, in his voice, even as he shifts his gaze once more to the wall and coughs discreetly. "Button up your pants."

END