An AU written on request for cgkinkmemeii at livejournal. Prompt was a sex-addicted Suzaku beginning a relationship with a virginal Lelouch.

Becoming Clean

Suzaku takes a deep breath.

(Monday: Gino. They went clubbing and got drunk.

—Suzaku remembers going to the darkest corner of the already dark establishment. He backed himself against the wall and undid his pants, already hard. Under the pretense of an intimate conversation, Gino slipped a condom over him, then turned around, pulled down the back of his already low-slung pants, and wiggled himself on. They danced to the deafening pulse of music.)

He is freshly showered; his breath smells like mint; his hair is combed; his clothes are ironed.

(Tuesday: Alone. He masturbated to the discreet video of Gino he had taken the previous night.

Wednesday: Kallen. They did it in the shower.

—Suzaku remembers the water running down and between her large breasts, little waterfalls jumping off her skin or pooling into the valleys of her body. He pinned her against the tiles and her voice sounded lovely, reverberating around the bathroom.)

And most importantly, the pictures, texts, and call logs on his phone have been wiped clear.

(Thursday: Alone again. Masturbated again.

Friday: today.)

Suzaku has been standing here for quite some time, finger raised, one inch from the doorbell. Lelouch: charismatic, intelligent, kind, noble Lelouch is behind this door, waiting for him. (These are the sorts of traits that Suzaku noticed in Lelouch when they met, and he takes that as a verygood sign. )

Okay, no, to be honest, Suzaku couldn't stand the guy at first. But that was half a year ago, when they met at one of Milly's insane parties. In just one month, Lelouch had become the closest friend he'd ever had, and just one and a half months ago, Suzaku had worked up the gumption just to ask for a date.

(Lelouch looked him in the eyes, searching for deceit of any kind, a habit long ingrained into him since childhood. But Suzaku for once in his adult life was honest, and a small, gentle, reluctantly-shown smile cracked his friend's usual stoic mask.)

And now here Suzaku is, on Lelouch's doorstep- and yet he just can't do it. Can't convince himself to just get over it all, block it all out, enjoy this date. A very serious date. (The most serious date Milly had ever seen Lelouch agree to. She said, "You'll be his first, Suzaku." Suzaku asked, "He's a virgin?" Milly snickered. "That too, but I meant—you know what, never mind. Figure it out yourself.")

He's never been to Lelouch's house before.

(Lelouch called him last week when he was in the middle of getting a blowjob from—never mind, he doesn't remember the guy's name anymore.)

So why can't he just stop being such a chickenshit? Why can't he stop, well, everythinghe's been doing? Why won't he just—

Suzaku reaches out and rings the doorbell.

Lelouch opens the door seconds later, and that same smile cracks. "Hello," he says, voice smooth.

"Hi," Suzaku says, and holds up the basket he brought—bread and cake and wine: Lelouch's eyes light up even though it is not a very expensive bottle.

"Come in," Lelouch says, and as Suzaku is stepping in, Lelouch makes him pause so that he can give Suzaku a hug. Suzaku responds in kind, and feels his heart do the tell-tale little flutter that he has only heard of as described in girls' romance novels.

Of course Lelouch's house is immaculate; of course it's well decorated; of course Lelouch is dressed sharply and groomed perfectly; of course the chicken he prepared is the most delicious thing Suzaku has tasted in a long, long time.

Of course. Lelouch is so high-class, all around, that Suzaku just wants to bang his head against the wall and ask why Lelouch said yes.

The movie they decide to watch isn't half as interesting as watching Lelouch from the corner of his eye, he feels. About halfway through, Lelouch shifts on the sofa, apparently tired of sitting still, and his arm ends up across the back of Suzaku's portion of the sofa. (They aren't even in the movie theater and it's the oldest trick in the book.) But Suzaku smiles, feeling warm inside, and obliges Lelouch by leaning into his shoulder.

And they've kissed a couple of times before, so when the room gets dark as the black credits screen plays, it doesn't agitate him too much that Lelouch turns and waits and then kisses Suzaku. A kiss without much passion, but a kiss, a little wet and by the movements, Suzaku knows that Lelouch is not used to kissing people. It makes it all the more special.

Suzaku can also tell, when he slides he hands up Lelouch's neck to cup his face, that Lelouch is as nervous as a rabbit faced with a circling hawk.

—but he smells so, so nice. And his skin is so, so soft—how does he shave so smoothly?—So Suzaku just can't hold himself back from licking—gently, at least, gently—at Lelouch's lips, asking for something deeper, something more. Lelouch is hesitant, but he eventually sighs and lets him in.

—Suzaku can feel...it building up inside of him. Can feel his brain, like butter in a pan, begin to tilt and all thoughts drip to one side. To gather and pool slowly, like blood to his groin. A tidal wave reaching up. The fog rolling in.

He is only content, then, to stay at this level for so long—though Lelouch is responding pleasantly, and Suzaku can see his passion building, through his expression and the increasingly bolder strokes of his tongue against Suzaku's—and Suzaku presses him against the couch, taking charge. At each jump, from hugging to kissing to kissing with tongue to this, there is only the slightest bit of resistance from Lelouch, a wall easily shattered, and Lelouch manages to keep up fairly well.

—until, that is, Suzaku gets a little too bold for Lelouch's taste by reaching down and cupping a hand lightly on the curve of his butt. Lelouch jumps and flushes, his eyes flying open and his hands, which had at some point curved to clutch Suzaku's shoulders, retracting to his own body, as his tongue withdraws into his own mouth.

But damn, Suzaku doesn't want to stop now—he plants a kiss on Lelouch's neck. Lelouch groans in quiet pleasure, but clears his throat and says, "Suzaku."

His name from Lelouch's lips is a spell-breaker. He freezes, lingering where he is—hovering over Lelouch—before forcing himself to sit back, to fold back in upon himself, to hide the hunger. "Sorry."

"You're alright," Lelouch says, still blushing a little and looking somewhere near the button of Suzaku's shirt. "I'm just... not used to..."

"Lelouch," Suzaku says slowly, and because they were best friends before this dating thing they've got going now, he continues, "you've never made out with anyone before?"

Lelouch looks annoyed, but Suzaku knows that it's just to cover his faltering pride and self-consciousness. Nevertheless, he admits quietly, "No."

What, oh pray, what has Suzaku gotten himself into?

It's not all that late when Lelouch takes him to the door. "You can stay, you know. If you want."

Suzaku grins at him. "No, but thanks. I really ought to get going."

"I just don't," Lelouch struggles with the words for a second, then sighs. "I just don't want things to get awkward with us. After I pushed you away."

Suzaku chuckles warmly and reaches out to Lelouch to rub his shoulder. "Of course we're cool. I just really gotta get going. Work in the morning, you know? Thanks so much for dinner. I'll see you later."

Lelouch smiles at him, encouraged, and leans toward Suzaku. Suzaku is only too happy to kiss Lelouch again. There is a lazy contentedness to Lelouch when they pull back.

"Goodnight."

"Night."

Truthfully, Suzaku wants to stay. Really, really badly. But he knows a bad idea when he thinks of it.

As soon as Suzaku comes home to the one room apartment he shares with Gino, Suzaku flops on Gino's bed until the guy wakes up.

"Dammit, Suzaku," Gino grumbles.

Suzaku leans into Gino's back, pressing himself against the taller man and dipping to whisper in his ear, blow warm air against his sensitive neck. "You're in bed too early."

Gino sighs in exasperation but doesn't move away. "Getting an apartment with you was the worst idea ever," Gino says thickly. As always, though, there's a hint of fondness lacing his tone.

"I don't bother you that much," Suzaku murmurs.

Gino hums and allows Suzaku to reach around and wrap his hand around Gino's penis- but only momentarily. "Dude, weren't you going on a date with Lelouch?"

Suzaku grunts, irritated, and withdraws. Gino celebrates his victory with a long snore. All Suzaku has left is to jack off alone in the shower, but when he does, he goes over and over in his mind the tentative strokes of Lelouch's lips and tongue.

The thing is, Lelouch makes him feel so incredibly... normal. (Suzaku thinks this with as little irony as possible as he feels—he just—he can't stand it, and he excuses himself to the bathroom and pulls himself in long, hard strokes over the toilet.)

Suzaku can't understand how a twenty-three year old could possibly be such a virgin, in every sense of the word. To have never even made out—and how had he managed to avoid such a thing, with how handsome the guy is? Lelouch's brain is wired entirely different from Suzaku's: Lelouch doesn't give sexual things a single thought on even a weekly basis, perhaps monthly; Suzaku can't imagine not thinking about it.

Even here at work, Suzaku can't escape it. Just watching Cecile bend over in that skirt, filing some paper in the air conditioned office, and her milky thighs being exposed more and more—

Suzaku adds a twist to his pumps, breath coming out in a hiss, hips twitching in time with his hand.

Yeah, Lelouch is all about nice things, normal things. About education—he goes to a really nice university—about gardening and playing piano and watching the news. Suzaku has never seen him drunk or in a compromising position. Lelouch plans for his grocery shopping trips, lives in the house his dead mother left him, and he takes tender care of his little sister.

All such ordinary things, no, extraordinary things. Lelouch is a lotus emerging from the muck. Suzaku and his ilk being the muck.

Suzaku didn't even believe he had a problem until last year, when Anya mentioned it in the entirely dispassionate way she had about her. And then he had asked Gino and Kallen, and they had looked at each other, winced, and then nodded at him in confirmation.

And the worst part is that, even though he knows now, he can't stop. He has his little black book, and he can't bring himself to relinquish the numbers to the fires of deletion. He realizes that he does these sorts of things far too often—realized since Anya told him to pay attention and count how many times he gets off a week—

(every day)

(and he asked, "What, you don't?" Anya said, "Twice a week. Tops." And similar stories from Kallen and Gino, his two closest friends, and the more he heard, the more he felt like a freak.)

But no. A freak? Probably not. Having sex more often that other people does not make Suzaku a freak. And it's subjective anyway, right? Different cultures have varying amounts of sex that is normal to them. It isn't a problem, not really, this doesn't take long, just the regular break time, and Suzaku works through lunch break so it isn't a detriment to his work. Social relationships? His friends are still his friends, after all, even though he occasionally has sex with them, and- those people, the people those sites, that book, that TV showdescribed, those people—don't have emotional relationships with the people they have sex with. Suzaku has emotional relationships with Gino and Kallen and Anya and Milly and Shirley—and they keep his secrets.

Suzaku releases without so much as a grunt over the toilet. Some of his come hits the toilet seat. He wipes it with a tissue and tucks himself back in. He washes his hands.

So. No detriment to work. No detriment to social relationships. No money to buy porn, so he never started; prefers to make his own, in fact. So no detriment to his financial situation.

He walks back out into the workshop, the roar of motorcycles all around, and goes back to work on his customer's bike. He thinks, The only problem—

is Lelouch.

Nonette settles back into the pillows, looking lazy and satiated. She's the kind to engage in the traditional after-sex cigarette. She offers him a drag, which he takes and then he rolls off the bed. He rubs his softened dick and sighs before jumping into his jeans. He likes Nonette: She's on contraceptives, so she doesn't mind not wearing a condom.

But she's also got a big mouth: "Does your boyfriend mind?"

He looks over his shoulder while expertly fastening his jeans. He says with a warning tone, "I don't have a boyfriend."

"Oh?" She's an older lady, wise and sharp-eyed.

Suzaku glares. "I went on a few dates. That doesn't make us a couple."

"Whatever you say."

Kallen is much the same, draped over Gino by next Wednesday, and for once the three of them are just hanging out. Well, Suzaku wouldn't mind—but it's not urgent, him having visited Monica earlier. Anyway, his friends are great enough and sexually adventurous enough to let Suzaku into their relationship, so Suzaku doesn't want to take advantage of this. (But they do look hot there, together, Gino on his stomach, in boxers and a wife beater, reading something for school. Kallen with only jeans on, laying across Gino with her head propped up to look at Suzaku—nice cleavage, her tits pressed to Gino's back, it's great—)

"So how are things going with you and Lelouch?" she asks civilly, honest and innocent.

But Suzaku is distracted by—ahem— "Uhm, who?" he says vaguely.

"Don't be an idiot," she snaps.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Lelouch. He invited me over to his house last week."

Kallen smirks, and Gino raises and eyebrow to show he's listening and amused, but not enough to take his eyes away from work.

"...we didn't do anything," Suzaku adds.

Gino's head whips around.

Kallen looks surprised, too. "What, you just... what?"

"We, uhm. We talked," Suzaku says slowly. "We had dinner together, and we watched a movie." Kallen and Gino stare. Suzaku clears his throat. "You know, just... a normal date."

After a second or two of incredulous staring, Gino and Kallen both start to clap, Gino impeded by the book in hand. Suzaku huffs. "What?"

"Our little Suzaku is growing up," Kallen says, smirking.

Gino, more of a mediator, says, "Well, I've personally never seen you in any sort of relationship without sex. You try to get into even your friends' pants after so long. ...and you usually succeed, at that.

Suzaku feels a pang somewhere in his gut—

(guilt: he fucks Gino's girlfriend, fucks Kallen's boyfriend. He rolls around with Shirley every now and then, and she's such a sweet girl, looking for a nice boy. And all the rest of them, he's constantly—is he annoying? Persistent, invasive, is he forcing them simply by pressure?)

—but he ignores it, pushes it away.

"Lelouch is a virgin," he says, as if that defends him personally.

Kallen's smirk falls, and she studies him for a moment seriously. Eventually she leans back and says, "Are you two official?"

Suzaku opens his mouth even though he doesn't really know the answer—

"Because if you are," Kallen interrupts, "I think maybe you should cool your jets a little. If you know what I mean."

He doesn't, and lets her know. So she rolls her eyes in actual anger rather than just annoyance, as in, How could you possibly not know?

"If you're getting into a long-term relationship, you shouldn't sleep around like you do. Especially if the guy's a virgin, and especially if he doesn't know. He doesn't know, does he?"

Suzaku shakes his head to the last question, but frowns in the beginnings of his own anger. Like Kallen has any right—

"You two are in a long term relationship, and you both sleep with me," Suzaku points out with an edged tone.

Gino snaps and points at him in warning. "That's different. Kallen and I talked about it. You didn't talk to Lelouch."

"You're our friend," Kallen butts in. "Lelouch has no clue about the people you sleep with."

"And," Gino adds, "we only sleep with you, and we both use protection. You fuck multiple people, condom or no."

Suzaku flushes, his head starting to pound with an upsurge of anger. How dare they, righteous- acting like they're more acceptable, somehow—they aren't, most guys don't let their girlfriends suck someone else's cock in front of him—cheating is cheating—

Suzaku is so angry that he isn't thinking straight, that he can't even speak, but that last thought—cheating is cheating—is like a bucket of cold water.

Just dates. Lelouch is still his friend, not his boyfriend—(the friend he never let know about his sexuality, why not? Because...?) —but still. Most people expect that someone they're dating is not fucking other people without their knowledge. Most people consider that 'taken' status. (Suzaku learned that the hard way, with Mariel.)

Suzaku isn't cheating on Lelouch. They aren't...

That night, once Kallen has gone home, Suzaku masturbates quickly in the shower—just masturbates, and that's fine, isn't it, because it's not with someone else—because he only got a blowjob early that morning, so he needs a little something extra in the night to fall asleep. And then he flops into bed and watches Gino snore for a while, and eventually pulls out his cellphone.

First, he texts Dorothea:

hey girl, cant make it friday i have somewhere to be. im sorry :(
aw ok. but i bought that toy just for us

He sighs, staring at that message and feeling his heart sicken. How can he leave her hanging when she spent money for him? He texts back,

are you free tomorrow?
yeah, u comin over?
i'll be there if i can spend the night
sure. see u ;)

And then he sets out on his original mission and texts Lelouch.

you awake?

It takes a moment, like maybe the phone was in another room, but Lelouch sends back:

I am. What's up?
just wondering if you want to hang out again this friday. maybe we can make fridays our days? since you get out of school early and i dont work that day
I'd really like that, Suzaku. Sure, come on over. I'll be waiting.

Suzaku smiles at the phone, feeling that silly happiness he often feels around Lelouch, and they say goodnight. Tomorrow he will go see Dorothea. If it's before the next date, it isn't cheating, is it? And Friday will be dedicated solely to Lelouch.

Lelouch Lelouch Lelouch.

He is horrified to find himself thinking this on Thursday night, as Dorothea pegs him good and hard with her strap-on. He groans aloud, she gasps, and he comes.

Same thing in the morning, when he wakes up with his face pressed to her lovely black skin. He kisses and licks her breasts, unable to help himself. She offers him a quick goodbye-handjob, a way to send him off to the day.

Lelouch Lelouch Lelouch.

He declines.

Now Suzaku isn't a music man; he works with his hands in an environment totally opposite to this sort of thing. But even he knows what beauty is, and Lelouch's piano playing is truly beautiful. And also, he knows enough about people who are flirting to know that when Lelouch offers to teach him, he should say yes, whether or not he really gives a damn about learning to play.

Lelouch hovers perhaps too close for pure necessity's sake, and his hands linger too long over Suzaku's. But he smells amazing, and his skin is so soft compared to Suzaku's rough mechanic's hands. Suzaku has to admit that most of the mistakes he makes are because he's too distracted by Lelouch.

And not, he is surprised to learn, in thatway. He isn't thinking about Lelouch like that, he's just... thinking about Lelouch. About the whiteness of his teeth, about how handsome his smile is, about how Suzaku so ever rarely sees this gorgeous smile. And if Suzaku hardly ever sees it, he's fairly confident that almost no one else has seen it at all.

Suzaku finds himself kind of wanting to change that, despite also having pride in being the keeper of Lelouch's smile. He thinks, The world needs more beautiful smiles like this one. They need to see Lelouch's smile. Not just those mysterious, closed-lipped ones that he will give out on occasion, but these blinding, whole-mouthed smiles that pull his face and push out his cheekbones and make his eyes gleam.

So maybe it's up to Suzaku. Maybe he can make Lelouch smile in public. Maybe.

So when Lelouch sits back down beside him on the bench, he kisses Lelouch, long and slow, with lips and tongue and closed eyes, and a hand, as gentle as Suzaku can possibly get, resting against Lelouch's neck. He's never kissed anyone like this before, like he's trying to imprint a message with just a kiss. Because he's trying to communicate something to Lelouch, something of his true feelings: I'm so sorry, you are greatness, you are beautiful, you are my best friend, thank you.

I love you.

And this time, Lelouch kisses back without hesitation.

.

.

.

Thanks for reading!