:::: Rotten Roses::::

Chapter Four- "The Thorns"

"But he that dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose."

-Anne Bronte

~Skiperella

In his office, a sweating Suzaku violently coughed into his long royal-purple sleeve at his desk. A platinum blonde haired man that was once even given the title of Prime Minister of the Holy Britannia Empire rushed over to the unmasked Zero in a hurry. "Sire, you shouldn't use your arm sleeve like that, my lord", he complained, protruding his hand into his pocket to look for something.

Suzaku's emerald-colored eyes grazed over to the zombie-like slave in pity. Even though he didn't have to be masked around the purebred royal, (hey, he wasn't going to against Zero's orders with Lelouch's geass placed over him, so why should perform up to the role around him anyways?) he still felt trapped in it whenever he was ever by people. Hell, he felt trapped when he was even by himself.

"Ah, here it is, I forgot I had the maids put it in the wash," Schneizel announced, pulling out a ruby red handkerchief with the the number zero sewed into a corner of it. He handed the silk napkin to Zero, who snatched it out of his calloused hands to cough into it without warning. As Suzaku set the napkin back down next to a pile of paperwork he had to fill out by tomorrow, Schneizel looked over to the napkin with a look of pure disgust plastered on his face.

"Sire, your napkin-" he said in a soft whisper.

"What about it?," Suzaku asked, not even bothering to look up to him since he was more concentrated into finish signing these papers early to get back to his ex-lover.

"It's cov-covered in blood, my lord."

Suzaku looked over to the napkin which found the mid-aged ex-prince correct. The tiny dew of wetness that covered the napkin all over in a splatter pattern indeed matched the same shade the handkerchief had been artificially died with. Dark, ruby red.

"Ive also noticed your sweating a lot and your face has become even more flush. This is not normal my lord; you should go to the infirmary," Schneizel asked with a look on his face that matched his worried tone.

On the outside the young Japanese gave this unaffected and rigid expression, but on the inside he just kept asking and asking himself why was he getting so sick. He hadn't had a cold in oh so long and he didn't remember any diseases with blood disorders being passed down through the Kururugi line. He stood up, wiping some of the sweat from his forehead off using the blood-damped handkerchief.

"Pardon myself, I have to go to the washroom for a moment". Schneizel didn't even have a minute to spare, because by the time he turned his head to retort, Suzaku had vanished into the hall way.

The clacking of the same one and a half inch heels Lelouch used to strut powerfully in, made only light sounds as they were picked up from the ground in a rush from the eleven's running. Luckily, their were no servants or maids wondering around at this hour so the hall was practically empty as he ran towards the bathroom, unmasked. Finally reaching the grand washroom, flourished in white stalls and blanch Italian marble tiling, Suzaku stopped straining against the urge to gag and regurgitated all over one of the stall door's before he could reach the porcelain throne.

Drenched in his own bloody vomit, he attempted to wipe some of the sweat that was begging to perspire once again. While leaning over a urinal, trying to catch his breath, a voice appeared out of nowhere.

"Well, well, well. Zero doesn't seem to be looking to swell."

Suzaku could recognize that sedative, playful purr anywhere. "C.C?"

"Kururugi," the witch replied as she walked out from a bathroom stall, dressed in an white silk dress that went all the way down to the floor and with her hair tied into a ponytail by a white silk fabric holding it in place. If anyone else could of saw her, they would of thought she was fit the part to be a bride in a wedding. "Under the weather?"

"Leave me be, witch."

"Oh, but if I did that then you wouldn't be able to understand how you got sick." The asian's tanned ears perked up at the persuasive statement, "...I'm listening."

The sorceress beamed from ear to ear, "Well simply put, you should even know that when you drink spoiled milk or rotten meat it will make you ill". Suzaku finally raised his head up to see into the woman's bright golden eyes for the first time since she entered the men's washroom.

"This is beacause of Lelouch?"

"Bingo," she said, nonchalantly. "And its only going to get worse." Suzaku gulped at the statement, sliding down to the floor as his body and now his mind felt totally defeated. "What should I do?" he asked the witch, and for the first time stared into her eyes with deep concern and vulnerability. She stopped smiling and gave the eleven a cold look that was unlike her usual mocking aura. "Spend the rest the time you have together...since you only have a small amount left."

Suzaku stood up at the later statement in a flash. "What do you mean I dont have any more time?" he nearly growled at the immortal witch through his teeth. He walked over to her and grabbed her shoulders with so much adrenaline and anger running through his body that it even shocked the old witch. When her hazel brown eyes avoided looking back into his glowing emerald ones, he knew it didnt involve him neccassarily by how she was reacting. "Whats wrong? Did something happen to Lelouch?" he asked in a chokey-panic.

C.C chuckled a bit as she faced away from the eleven, suprisied he could catch on so fastly. However, her chuckles died instantly when he ran into the back of the brick bathroom wall which made her vision become a tad hazy as blood trailed down from her scalp down over her cheeks. "What did you do to him?" he screamed at her, as she could new veiw clearly the small fine lines forming between his eyes and on his nose that expressed his hate for the woman. She just couldnt process how the two partners bond has been unbreakable and strong through all they had been through.

"It was his choice, so you should go see him about it before it too late" she said in a low voice, noticing that it became harder to even see or hear as she watched the eleven let her go and uan out of the stall towards his doomed fate afore she lost cousiness.

'I have to find him-' He thought to himself as he ran to his private quarters down at the end of the hallway. He went to the empty wall spot that a the painting of the creation of Adam painted by Michaelanglo covering the camaflauged bedroom door and typed in the password to the room in a panic quickened fashion. 'I have to find him before its too late'.

After the door registered the entered code, it unlocked and exposed Suzaku to a sight that literally left him stunned at the entryway being unable to move a single muscle. In the dark bedroom that was only being illuminated by dozens of white candles that were placed in every nook and cranny of the spacious living quarters, there was thousands of the bright roses that were there this morning still left around the room's floors but instead of being painted with their blood-soaked red coloring they were all white as the beautiful creature crawling towards Suzaku on the blood stained mattress. He had no mucus dripping from his nose other holes visible to the eleven or even the hint of a delyaed movement in his face or body although Suzaku could still feel and smell the scent of a dead man on him. With his wet black hair curling around his rosey cheeks from and forehead, and with the drenched oversized blanc dresshirt the eleven had given him earlier in the day now sagging off his scrawny frame down to his pink nipples and elbows, he licked his cracking lips and looked at his lover with lust and need through his dialated, violet dead eyes.

Sorry about the delay everyone. Ive been working on this for over a year now. The next chapter shall be the last, so be prepared ladies and gents.

~Ciao