Shakespearean

Zero Requiem had gone down without a hitch.

Late at night under the stars, a figure knelt on one knee, the lump of a bag shadowed beside it, the other raised up from the cold spikes of grass on the knoll. The figure was dressed in black, from the collarbones down. Atop the blackness was a head, the head bearing the visage of a shell of a man. Chocolate-brown curls had dulled to a gray under the moonlight, exposed skin completely white. Green eyes were a deep color, flat and shallow.

Suzaku Kururugi had always considered himself a dead man. In the chilliness of the night, in the aftermath of what may have been the greatest mindfuck ever to be written in the history books (though, quite obviously, the gritty and secret details would be forever written in invisible ink), in the wake of all the exhausting tears he had shed, he truly felt like one.

Even if his heart still pounded angrily beneath his breastbone.

Even if Lelouch's had come to a sudden, painful stop.

he'd tried to make it quick did he miss lelouch could talk and tumble and die

The final sounds of a city falling into slumber whispered somewhere far from the rolling hills behind him. Suzaku expected the accusations in his head to jump to life, to weigh him down and drive him mad with only the stars to witness his falling. But all the clashing chatter was quiet, leaving Suzaku feeling empty and bizarrely heavy, weighing down on his mind and his eyelids.

running like a coward, kururugi? hiding in the hills won't save you forever no one knows you survived! you're a dead man walking!

Such echoes never happened. His mind was still.

It was a dreamlike peace he didn't want or deserve.

With a hand that felt too numb to move but acted just as he wished it to, Suzaku fished into the satchel resting at his ankles, only knowing he'd found what he desired by the corner poking into his palm. He removed a hardcover novel, light by most standards, but for the citizens of Japan – Area 11? Japan? Lelouch what have you done – the book could have been a weighty school textbook or other reference text.

It wasn't as if Shakespearean came easily to native Britannians, but Suzaku hadn't even that background.

But Lelouch could read Shakespeare. He could read it like a damned picture book, or some unlucky opponent's pokerface. He'd read it like he'd read Suzaku.

even in the bedsheets, even as lelouch clawed at his back as suzaku thrust just right...! and suzaku, does that feel good? you can't hide from me! you can't lie!

Slowly Suzaku shifted from his kneel, coming to sit on the grass fully.

He didn't know where they'd bury Lelouch. If they'd bury Lelouch. Would they bury Lelouch? Gods, he hoped that Lelouch got that small token for saving this world, whether it realized it or not. However, the fact didn't change that, buried or not, Lelouch wouldn't hear him.

The knoll seemed just as good a place to honor the few fleeting welcome memories of an old friend.

"It was the only one I could find on short notice," Suzaku murmured to the wind. "Things have been hectic. I'm sure you've read this one a million times. I think Rivalz said it was part of your freshman curriculum. But..."

Suzaku cracked the book open, biting his tongue against the realization that he had been converted, holding the book like the Britannians did, prepared for the words that read from left to right. The prologue blinked back at him in the most baffling version of the Britannian language he could ever hope to stumble upon, even translated as it was to something much more modern. The phrases still didn't make a whole lot of sense at first glance.

He was sure Lelouch would laugh. Then, he would kindly-only-not-really show Suzaku up with something even more boggling.

He read it aloud, giving his brain the time to figure out the fancy cut of Shakespeare's words, slowly gathering his wits and understanding each line he read with an empty kind of relief.

"Two households, both alike in dignity,"

Britannia? Japan?

"In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,"

Tokyo? The Kururugi Shrine? Pendragon? Kamine Island?

"From ancient grudge, break to new mutiny,"

lelouch zero knight of zero lelouch zero knight of zero lelouch zero demon emperor traitor demon emperor traitor Suzaku Kururugi, I accept this - DEAD

"Where civil blood makes civil hands...unclean..."

Father? The Black Knights? Lancelot? Motherfucking Lelouch?

Suzaku stopped, the iambic pentameter staring back at him like a taunt. He understood this way too well.

Britannia and Japan had gone to war. Thousands lost their lives in the effort to either uphold or expand their gracious lands. They were two countries with insurmountable egos.

The insurrection had finally crashed upon his and Lelouch and Nunnally's heads (previously filled with the kind of hope only children could dredge up) when the war turned the proud Kururugi Shrine into a pile of burnt matchsticks. Tokyo had been settled quickly. Kamine Island wrought all sorts of hells upon the fate of Area 11 – Japan? And Pendragon? The capital of Britannia itself. The core of the whole feud between Capulet and Montague.

Even if Lelouch had been less disturbed by his mother's assassination attempt (And ha! How that had been a fumble for everyone!), the smoking mess of the Shrine and the leagues of flatland littered with corpses, stony and locked forever in their agony and fear, had spurned a hate in Lelouch so strong that it burned hotter than the sun's rays on their backs as they stumbled over a rigid arm or fractured skull. Seven years had not quelled Lelouch's thirst for retribution. And, finally, C.C. had set him up with the tools to extract it. and he had paid for it with his life

Memories of a knife handle in the mass that had been Genbu Kururugi, of Lake Kawaguchi, of slash harkens and MVS's, of watching through a red haze of Berserker's Rage as Lelouch revealed the sakuradite bomb, the pointing of two loaded guns and blood blood blood so much fucking blood...!

Suzaku shut the book. "I'm sorry. I can't read this book."

Romeo and Juliet dropped onto the grass. Suzaku reached into the bag again, but his hands no longer felt numb. Instead, they felt perfectly fine.

Until his fingers brushed against the mask. Then, they burned.

He didn't recoil. He picked up the mask like it wasn't hurting him, like it wasn't the embodiment of Japan's hope and rebellion and Suzaku's ultimate despair. He pulled it from the bag.

The moon reflected off it.

And suddenly the clamor of voices began yelling in his head, all at the same time. But one rang louder than the rest, a soothing balm over the roughness of his shattered psyche.

"Live, Suzaku Kururugi. This Geass...This command...No, this wish. I order you to live, Suzaku!"

Suzaku slid the mask over his head and heard the pneumatic hissing of it locking shut.

"Juliet took a sleeping potion invented by William Shakespeare himself. It was supposed to draw her into a death-like sleep, halting her breathing. But no such thing is possible."

"Is that so?"

"Everyone assumed she was dead in the story, of course. And that ultimately led to Romeo's downfall."

"Are you trying to tell me you're Juliet? 'Cause I'm sure by now you've brought your Romeo to his knees."

"Shut up. I'm Romeo, clearly."

"How do you figure?"

"Romeo has been turned into a figure known for being charismatic and good to women. You can hardly call him that. He's..."

"Not into women?"

"Witch, be quiet. However, he's clearly not Juliet."

"Who is Juliet?"

"You can be Juliet. Don't think you haven't pulled the 'play dead' card. You're also a woman. Maybe."

"So if you're Romeo, and I'm Juliet, who is he?"

"He is Mercutio. Mercutio was Romeo's best friend and confidant. Mercutio even put his life on the line to help Romeo."

"I'm willing to bet Mercutio didn't fuck Romeo in the ass, however."

"Quiet. Please? Mercutio, Romeo, and Juliet were all dead by the end of the book, anyway. Not so different from us, huh?"

"Whatever you say. Hey, wasn't there a catchy little rhyme at the end of that play?"

"Yes. 'For never was a story of more woe...than of Juliet and her Romeo.' Is that what you meant?"

"For never was a story of more woe than of Mercutio and his Romeo."

"...Quite."

"You're a sore loser, Lelouch."

A/N: For the record, I'm on Team Lelouch is Dead. But for writing's sake, I can pull the "but what if..." card.