Okay, so, this... is just a little thing I wrote because, in response to exactly where Suzaku stabs Lelouch during the Zero Requiem, wouldn't it have totally sucked if Suzaku had had to kill not only his best friend, but also their child?

You may have noticed, however, that this is referred to in the summary as "speculative mpreg". Observe.

This is 4udball's betaing debut. She did very well, although she compained that I didn't give her much work with. ;) So, yeah, if you need a beta, look her up. She has a beta profile and everything.

Complex

He'd say something, only…

Well. That's it. The hesitation. He'd feel stupid to say it. Because it is stupid.

(Not to mention completely nuts.)

The thing is, Suzaku has noticed that Lelouch has been acting kind of oddly for a while now. He's made excuses for him because there are excuses to be made; Lelouch took over the world almost two months ago and has been ruling it with an iron fist ever since. He's probably stressed. Overworked. Tired. They're all valid reasons for why Lelouch's behaviour has gone a bit funny lately. Working so hard to turn the world against you can't be an easy job.

Oh. And there's the Zero Requiem. That might also be the reason that he suddenly seems strangely distant from Suzaku. They decided on it a while ago – so long ago that it feels like years now. But it's only been a few months. It really has.

The fact that he promised that Suzaku would kill him is maybe why he squirms out of his grasp whenever his (deceased) knight tries to embrace him. It didn't seem to bother him too much at first, but perhaps the closer the chosen date draws, the more uncomfortable he is in the arms of his murderer. At night Suzaku has to really hold onto him tightly to keep him from escaping.

Suzaku thinks that maybe he hates him for it. After all, Lelouch is all he has left. "Suzaku Kururugi" officially died almost two months ago, and Lelouch and C.C. are the only ones who know the truth. The culmination of the Zero Requiem is less than a week away and, after that, Suzaku knows that he won't have anyone.

He'll be Zero and he'll have nothing.

So he wants to hang onto Lelouch as tightly as he can for as long as he can, and when Lelouch pushes him away, he doesn't even feel rejected. He feels angry. He feels determined. He clings to Lelouch even tighter and Lelouch resents it and goes very still and stiff and won't let Suzaku touch him.

In the morning, Lelouch doesn't say anything about the bruises and Suzaku doesn't say that he's sorry.

("Do you think that I don't care?" Lelouch whispers one night. He's pinned beneath Suzaku and says it into his neck. "It isn't that, Suzaku."

Suzaku simply wraps his arms tighter still around the smaller boy and doesn't answer.)

Suzaku might be content to simply make excuse after excuse for Lelouch's behaviour – however angry said behaviour makes him – except that now he's suspicious. Lelouch is very good at hiding things but he's let Suzaku come far too close. Even if he isn't spending his mornings throwing up anymore, he can't hide this from his lover and his best friend and his knight and his killer.

The only thing he has going in his favour is that Suzaku thinks his suspicion is so idiotic that he can't even find the right words for it.

"Is he?" Suzaku asks.

C.C., sprawled on a couch in the sun, the gold mid-afternoon light streaming in through the high windows and brightening the colour of her hair, glances up at him lazily.

"Is who what?" she asks by way of reply.

"Lelouch," Suzaku snaps.

C.C. blinks.

"Is Lelouch what?" she presses.

Suzaku sighs and leans his weight against the doorframe irritably. He'd rather been counting on so-called Women's Intuition here, hoping that C.C. would simply know what he meant from a two-word question.

Additionally, Lelouch and C.C. have a weird bond of trust. He thinks that maybe… maybe Lelouch might told her if he was…

Apparently not. On both counts. Damn.

"Is he…?" Suzaku trails off again and huffs crossly. He can't say it. It sounds too ridiculous.

"I don't understand what you're trying to say," C.C. tells him languidly. "Do you want to know where he is?"

"No," Suzaku says frustratedly. "I want to know if… if he… well, if he maybe told you that he was…"

C.C. is bored with this "conversation". Suzaku can tell, because she rolls her gold eyes and flops back onto the couch again, nestling into the cushions like a cat.

"Ishepregnant?" Suzaku blurts it all out as one word and folds his arms, looking away fiercely and hoping against hope that she heard him the first time and won't ask him to repeat it.

For a long time she actually doesn't say anything. Finally she raises her head a little again to look at him once more.

"Didn't you learn anything in school?" she asks flatly. "He might be the girl in your peculiar little relationship, but—"

"I know it sounds stupid!" Suzaku interrupts, glaring at her. "But it's the only… well, I mean, the way he's been acting…"

C.C. arches an eyebrow. Suzaku unfolds his arms and flaps them at her dismissively.

"Oh, just forget it," he mutters blackly, turning on his heel.

He takes a few steps; but then C.C. speaks:

"If he was," she says, "why wouldn't he have told you? It would be your baby. It's highly unlikely that he's been cheating on you, right?"

Perhaps she's joking. He doesn't much like the tone of her voice either way and doesn't deign to reply, stalking away.

She has a point – but he has a different answer to her "question". Lelouch certainly wouldn't have a soap opera-style reason for not telling Suzaku.

But he does have a reason.

Suzaku still can't ask him.

Perhaps it is C.C.'s words that keep him quiet. Wouldn't he have told you? If he was, why wouldn't he have told you? He'd have told you, right?

But Lelouch doesn't tell him anything. That evening Suzaku sneaks up behind him and catches him around the middle, not letting him go when he struggles and protests that he has work to do and doesn't have time to mess around.

Suzaku simply holds him and eventually Lelouch gives up and falls still. There is total silence between them, the kind that opens up a perfect opportunity for Suzaku to lean down and whisper in his ear "Tell me the truth".

But maybe he's afraid that Lelouch will just lie the way he always does.

Still, his body can't hide things the way his words can. Suzaku runs his hands over him, disguising his investigation as lust. Lelouch doesn't seem to have much more weight on him than before, but Suzaku rather feels that those silly robes are in his way; and he comes to the decision to relieve the violet-eyed boy of them when Lelouch's breathing hitches ever-so-slightly upon his perception of Suzaku's hand firmly exploring his belly.

(Well, perhaps it was a little lower. Suzaku isn't exactly sure himself. The heightening paranoia is making it difficult for even him to keep track of where his hands are on Lelouch's body.)

The undisputed ruler of the world is pushed to the bed by a boy seven months younger than him – dressed unspectacularly in loose jeans and a grey hooded sweatshirt – and looks up at him, his expression a strange brand of morbid curiosity. Suzaku holds him there for a very long moment, white and gold spread across the bedsheets like wings. He's like a butterfly pinned to a collector's board and Suzaku is the cruel captor who has absolutely no intention of letting him go.

Eventually Lelouch opens his mouth to speak but Suzaku knows that it isn't going to be a confession (it isn't going to be the answer he thinks he wants to hear), so he leans down and takes the words right out of the young emperor's mouth, spiriting them away with a tongue that also trips over the truth.

Lelouch eventually gives in to him, looping his long arms around Suzaku's neck like a noose; and even when Suzaku is later peeling back layer after ornate layer of emperor-robe, he can still feel the weight of them, a ghostly reminder of the way he will always remember Lelouch.

He looks at Lelouch's stomach. Perfectly flat. His hips are very narrow, too. It's unlikely that he would be able to carry a child. Even if he was a girl, he's not built for it. He would probably break.

Suzaku does an experiment. He doesn't know if he would christen it in the name of Science, exactly – but it's certainly an experiment of sorts. He lowers himself between Lelouch's thin legs and bends over him and takes him into his mouth and wonders if Lelouch's stomach will hit his forehead.

His reasoning is that if there is any merit to his other reasoning then it should because it usually doesn't.

(But he can't remember if it does.)

He has a feeling that Lelouch knows what he's up to – what he suspects, whether there is truth to it or not. Maybe the older boy is just confident that Suzaku won't feel anything, won't find anything, but that night he sleeps wrapped in Suzaku's arms without struggling once.

He doesn't even seem to mind the fact that Suzaku's hand is on his belly, nor that it stays there all night.

(Perhaps it's nothing but a complex: Suzaku is so used to Lelouch hiding one thing or another from him that now he expects him to.

No matter how outlandish it is.)

Hesitation is no longer the issue. His grip had quivered on the hilt of the sword more than once, but now the damage is done. In front of what seems like the entire world, Lelouch stumbles against him, his hand clutching at the wound in his stomach.

Are you? Suzaku can't speak to him, but he asks the question silently, his lips barely moving behind the mask. Are you carrying our child, Lelouch?

If he'd known, if he'd had a definite answer – and if that answer had been "yes" – then that might have changed everything.

As it happens, with his fingers numb around the metal of the hilt, he has his answer now, and he no longer needs Lelouch to say it.

No, Suzaku. Not anymore.

...But was Lelouch actually pregnant, or was Suzaku just being his usual loony self?

;)

RR xXx