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damned_lounge2009-11-01 02:37 am
golgibody.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_lounge2009-11-01 02:37 am
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UMM I'M REALLY CONFUSED ABOUT THIS TIME CHANGE THING BECAUSE. LIKE. I literally ran home from partying with friends to post this before 3 AM EST (I was actually like G2G SORRY GIEZ, I HAVE TO GO POST FIC TO MY ROLEPLAYING COMM SO I CAN GET AN OUTFIT FOR MY CHARACTER and they were like wtf) and that's when I realized that it had suddenly become 1:50 instead of 2:50 because of daylight savings. BUT I KNOW THE TIME CHANGED AT 2 AM HERE, AND IF IT ALSO CHANGES AT 2 AM ON THE WEST COAST, THAT MEANS IT'S 12:50 THERE RIGHT NOW AND NOT 11:50. ALSO I AM KIND OF DRUNK AND MY COMPUTER WON'T STOP FUCKING FREEZING, WHICH EXPLAINS THE EXTRA HOUR IT TOOK ME TO TYPE ONE MORE SENTENCE. So. I hope this counts? If not, well, it's just fic, then.
Title: Certain Unalienable Rights
Author: Sonya (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
golgibody)
Beta: Uh. . . me? I read it over like 20 times, I'll be so pissed if there's a typo.
Word Count: 3708
Rating: PG-13 for violence and stuff
Character(s): Kururugi Suzaku, Anonymous Doctor, Euphemia li Britannia, Lelouch Lamperouge, Teresa
Pairing(s): N/A, though I kinda ship Crazy Doctor/Suzaku in that order
Summary: You are all the things you hate. M-U for Suzaku, because I can't do it in-game.
Notes: Um, I actually. Really hate this fic. But that's what I get for starting it at three in the morning last night and posting it like fifteen minutes before/forty-five minutes after (???) the deadline. I figured since I finished it I might as well just post it even though I hate it. Ugh. I WANTED to have more characters in here, but that would have required way more scenes and I didn't have time, so I'm just going to be lame and focus on my own character.
Light, and Suzaku's head rolls back frantically against frigid steel, a clang and white bursting across the back of his skull. The light isn't so bright once his skittish eyes become accustomed to his surroundings, but the clink of some metal instrument, the oppressive breath of another human keeps his initial instincts alive. It's only after the sounds align themselves into something his panicked mind can recognize that he notices the leather biting into his wrists. More than his wrists, straps across his chest and abdomen, wrapping his legs up neatly. He can tell, because when his body jerks with as much of his considerable strength as he can muster, the straps don't even budge. The table does grate across the floor a little, and his companion for the night laughs.
She comments that he's awake -- she sounds strong, matronly, and says his given name with too much familiarity -- and goes on to marvel at his level of fitness, her tone blatantly patronizing. If only his mind were as fit, but he isn't listening, resting his head back and staring fixedly at the ceiling with eyes harder than granite. He knows what's coming, and knows that she can't possibly devise any pain worse than the one already eating him from the inside out. Action, the scene is set.
Now she's murmuring something about the marvelous intricacy of the human eye, a tangible biological link between human perception of the physical and the metaphysical -- something about the different layers of vitreous whatever, but Suzaku couldn't care less. It's not so much that he's never been an academic, more that all that matters right now is what she's going to do to him. No amount of pseudo-philosophical theorizing can save her from the truth of how her actions have probably affected the other patients, people more innocent than him, and his blood thickens with hatred.
She seems to realize he's been paying her no mind, and the words slow into a hum. He hears a soft squeak of wheels, and a tray looms into his range of vision. It's the kind a dentist might use, off-white and unassuming, except he doesn't think dentists usually use scalpels. "Suzaku," she says so casually, slipping on a pair of gloves and not looking at him, "do you know what Geass is?"
She probably feels terribly self-satisfied now that he's gazing at her with rapt, startled attention. They must know something, that much is obvious, but if she's asking it must mean they don't know everything. And he won't give her a thing, no matter what. She's blunt, too blunt for it to be a straightforward interrogation, but with his mind still fogged from the sedatives and that feverish light still burning into his eyes, all he can think is that he can't let her know anything. And so he spits out the stunningly original, "I don't know what you're talking about."
She laughs again, and he's rarely wanted to throttle someone so much. It scares him a little, to know his own feelings like that. He shouldn't want to throttle his enemies, because the greatest enemy is within. "I don't mean it that way, dear. Do you think I don't know all the secrets of Geass? I merely wondered if you knew -- what it really is, I mean. Its source, its composition, and the like."
His breath comes up short, and it's a victory for her, because his face has always been an open book. Of course, if they could tinker with Lelouch's Geass, they must understand something about it. Understand more than him, probably, even though he should know more, as involved with that awful power as he's been. No, dammit, she's trying to get under his skin, trying to find a crack in his composure. He would give her none. The Knight of Seven has no cracks, and if she knows Geass and knows him, there's no point in hiding anything other than his own insecurities. Certainty is the only defense he has.
And Geass? Geass killed the people he loved, Geass destroyed his own heart and drowned his best friend in darkness. But he knows better now, he knows it's something more, and he remembers what Lelouch said in the World of C. In the end, it was nothing but a weapon, one only a human being could wield. "Geass," he says slowly, looking at her and her scalpels unflinchingly, "is a wish."
"No," she replies without missing a beat, and in that moment their eyes are locked in a steady contest. Her features are as strong and matronly as he imagined; she's the kind of woman he might like if he didn't know better. "Geass is a usurpation. Each use of Geass transgresses the intrinsic rights of its victims. Each use steals and claims a piece of their humanity, a parasitic exchange that builds the power of Geass -- a power fueled by the appropriation of souls. Don't you wonder," she continues with a smile, now that she's got him, "how, exactly, the Power of Kings derives from the World of C? Divine Right is unequal because it has built its throne of skulls on the stolen rights of others. It's an unequal division of what should be a universal consciousness." She must have seen his face, because she's quick to backtrack and make her opinion on the matter clear. She doesn't want him to get an unfairly negative understanding of the matter, after all. "It's the perfect incarnation of human power, you see. Think of all the things it can do to shape the world. You of all people should know, only by an unequal division of rights can the world be molded and directed."
Later, he'll think that her speeches are worse than Lelouch's. Right now, he can't breathe, because it makes so much sense, and if that power didn't feel dirty before. . . He hasn't even used it himself, and he wants to wash and wash and wash his hands, until the flesh melts off and the water wears his bones away. And Lelouch -- oh, Lelouch -- Lelouch probably understood that the whole time. Suzaku doesn't want to let him break himself, and he would take that pain from Lelouch if he could, but it's too late; Suzaku's always been too late. He wants to run, right then, run so fast he leaves himself behind on the table. But the straps are too tight.
Her eyes say she knows, probably because he doesn't respond. And maybe he's being stupid, because she probably made it all up, but he's always been bad at not believing people. That's it, then, and before he's done staring in shock he's assaulted by the smell of latex and isopropyl alcohol. The cotton is rough around his left eye, and then she's ripping off a strip of medical tape with an easy, practiced flick of the fingers.
He tries to twist away when she pulls his eyelid back, knowing this isn't going anywhere good even if he doesn't understand what's happening, but she tsks in matronly disapproval. "Relax, I'm not going to let your eye dry out. I have eye drops." Right. As if that was what had been worrying him. She grabs his jaw with a hand much stronger than it looks, however, and next thing he knows is that twitching, unnaturally cold sensation of having an eye forced open far too wide. He's feeling nervous now, as much as he tries to calm himself, because he's not a fan of other people touching his eyes. He doesn't know what she's trying to do, but why couldn't it have been anywhere else?
"I'm sorry, I don't have access to a Code," she says as she makes use of the aforementioned eye drops and wipes away the excess that wells up thickly against his cheekbone. "So we're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way."
Old-fashioned. . . ? He can't hold back a gasp of realization as her meaning becomes clear. She must be lying, right? She couldn't possibly have the ability to -- suddenly something else is being dripped into his eye, and as if it weren't bad enough that he was already twitching and tensing with the desperate need to blink, this stuff burns.
Don't think about it, he tells himself. Don't think about any of it, think of something far away. He tries to think of Ashford, of the mechanical pleasure of digging in the rooftop garden, of the carefree laughter of his friends. He tries to think of the way Euphie smiled at breakfast that morning, of how soft her hands are and how it seems she'll never stop smiling at him, no matter what he does. But it's no use; his eyes are no longer his own and it's not his choice what to see or not to see.
"He thought you'd died for him," she says suddenly. He doesn't think about what she means at first, he only lies still with liquid dripping down both cheeks, every muscle in his body wound tight as a rubber band about to snap. He can't see anything because one eye is wide open and shuddering under a blur of tears and fractured light, and the other is squeezed shut and streaming. He doesn't know she's finally picked up the scalpel until the edge brushes his cheek, making him jump enough that the blade draws its first blood. "That's why he accepted it."
It all came down to Suzaku's own actions, and there was no root of evil except in his own power to choose. He's accepted this, but his face still twists at hearing it from a stranger, a stranger who holds his cheeks like a lover and talks about things no one should know but him and Lelouch and C.C. He's been so selfish, so he holds still like she tells him when steel caresses the surface of his eye, so light he barely feels it. What has he ever been able to see? He's alive by selfishness. He had no right to carry the pocket watch of someone he had murdered, as if he were any other grieving son, and he should have died that day. It was wrong and unnatural for there to have been any other outcome, for Lelouch not to have had his happy victory in vengeance for what he thought to be an honorable mother and an honorable friend. Ignorance is bliss, and so is blindness. Suzaku holds still when the scalpel begins to cut, and doesn't scream.
It doesn't take long at all, the edge lifting gently under the cornea, and Suzaku can't afford to think of other things any more because his whole mind runs red with pain. It's a tiny fraction of what he's caused to others, but it's still all he can do not to scream and thrash on the table, because even now he's far too human for his own liking. He can't pass out, that's the most important thing; he must be able to experience this. And he won't give her the satisfaction.
And yet, the pain flows together so seamlessly that he hardly notices more chemicals being dripped onto the exposed whatever-layer of his eye, or the way she's nudging something foreign against the surface with another delicate steel tool. He's shaking uncontrollably, but he still manages to focus every ounce of sanity and consciousness he has left on keeping his head still -- on letting her. It's the only thing he can do in this world, not that he did any better when the theoretical scalpel was in his hands.
"That power will be yours," she says with her smooth arch-villain words that don't fit the kindly tone, "to shape the fate of those weaker than you. You've always wanted control." She replaces the top layer of his eye, and proceeds to thread a needle, though he can't see the prelude to this new pain. She only makes a couple tiny, immaculate stitches, and yet his world explodes with white-hot fury. This time he screams, but not entirely because of the pain. He's never lacked control like this, and the worst part isn't that she's literally injecting his body with the essence of evil, it's that it's completely against his will. Would he contaminate himself if he had to, to save the people he loved? Probably. But that's not what's happening here -- he's being shaped into a monster by forces he's too weak to master. He's not saving Lelouch by taking on his burden, he's just needlessly being given a redundant one. And she has the nerve to twist his purposes around so it seems like it's something he wants. When this is the last thing. . . is it, though? "Being the Knight of One is child's play compared to the force this will give you. It's up to you, how to make the world into something that satisfies you, but. . ."
Is what he's been doing this whole time no better than what Charles and Marianne wanted to do? He made decisions for his people without their consent, and stepped on the backs of his loved ones to get the power to carry out those decisions. It's in the past, that's what Lelouch would say, but it isn't, not really. Every decision he makes is one that affects the people around him. If he makes those decisions with an unfair weight to his orders, with a near-absolute power backing his words -- there is no autonomy, and he's no better than any of his enemies. He never was, of course, but it seems he has to relearn this over and over. He must be too stupid for the lesson to stick.
"The emotions of others will belong to you now, to use as you would. You will live through them, invade their most private thoughts, and thus you will be able to turn their hearts to what you think is best. It's ironic, isn't it? Because you've always said you want to die so others don't have to, and what you mean is that you want to decide who can die and who can't. So, " she finishes almost cheerfully, making a brief attempt at mopping up some of the fluid around his eye, "would you like to see?" He doesn't have a clue what she's talking about, all he knows is that he doesn't want to see and he isn't sure he can see anything anyway.
She wouldn't listen to him either way, though, so he doesn't say anything. And then a mirror is hovering over him, big and framed in tacky purple plastic, like one a doctor might hand to a child so he can see his new braces. Except. . . His face looks bleary even through his right eye, the glaring light shimmering through tears and God knew what else. But he can see that his cheeks are streaked with blood and something brownish-purple, almost the same color but not as viscous, and both his eyes are streaming involuntarily. And framed against the mess, an impressionist's battlefield in miniature, his once-green eye stands out redder than anything. Glowing with an unholy light, it's probably supposed to look like a bird, but it just makes Suzaku think of the fires of hell. It doesn't look right on his face. It's not supposed to be there. It's like someone cut out a picture of everything he hates and pasted it over his own face, and he can't make himself understand that this is real.
"You know why it's red, don't you?" He hates that whisper, hates its ring of truth, hates the immaculate words not even he has the courage to say to himself. "It's from the lifeblood of the souls you violate, in the World of C where nothing can protect itself from you. You," and she puts the mirror away, turning back to caress his cheek with a single fingertip. He flinches away from her at last. "You will enjoy this."
And with that, she's packing up her things and wheeling the tray away, without paying him a second thought. He can barely move, and a distant part of his brain says that if he throws up in this position, he could choke to death. Not the best death and certainly a coward's escape, but -- "Oh." She turns once again, drawing near the table one last time. He wonders if he'll ever see her again, ever learn her name. If he'll ever kill her. "I almost forgot -- have a souvenir." She tosses something onto his chest, and if he bothered looking at her he would see her smile in something approximating fondness. And then she's gone, through some door behind him that makes a loud clicking sound a moment later.
He can't believe that she's just going to leave him here, but that's a little ridiculous, isn't it? After she cut his eye apart without anaesthetic, did he really expect full post-operation care? After another moment of staring dully at the ceiling, Suzaku grits his teeth against the way the room spins and manages to lift his head enough to look at the the object weighing ominously against his chest. The scalpel. Dammit, she actually expects him to. . . He doesn't want to try to escape. He doesn't even care, not when he's already lost everything. But there's a reality outside of this room, he can't forget that. Euphie and Lelouch need him, and if he just waits for some monster to come along and eat him -- no, he'll always have to keep moving forward, no matter how ugly the path gets. That's his curse. His Geass.
Waves of nausea and dizziness set him adrift as he slowly, carefully inches his hand over, underneath the straps. It takes a lot of fumbling and he nearly passes out, but he doesn't allow himself sweet oblivion, and then the stupid thing is finally secured within his trembling grasp. He loses track of time as he works at the straps with the delicate blade, trying not to break it and trying even harder to clear his mind of anything but the task at hand. When he finally gets them loose enough that he can free himself from the table, it comes as a surprise, an abrupt end to the interminal haze of pain and half-formed thoughts. A greater surprise is that he can't even stand up, the lightheadedness forcing him to his knees before he understands that he's falling. And moving from here is more difficult. He can defend himself, if the need arises, but why bother to keep moving? From what to what? From being a monster to being a monster? He committed himself to the future of others, but right now he can see none. All he can see is red.
And that's how they find him, shaking and barely conscious on the floor, the scalpel used to mutilate his own body still clutched in his fingers. He doesn't look up at the distant sound of familiar voices, and only becomes aware of his surroundings once again when he feels gentle arms around him. Her touch is as perfect and undeserved as ever, and he tries to push her away, because she doesn't know that she's touching something that will cut her. Yet she clings on, persistent enough to overcome him in his weakened state, and he can't help giving up. That's what Euphie will be, always there even though she shouldn't, and he's suddenly drowning in a wave of fear and worry and simple, simple love. It doesn't come from within him, somehow he's aware of that. The love doesn't belong to him, as much of it as he might have, and he's absorbing and possessing things that are not his own. Marking himself upon them, forcing his identity upon the most private of --
"Suzaku." Lelouch's voice is tight with worry, and Suzaku is a black sea of rage and guilt and other things he's too dazed to define just yet. He let them take his best friend, his knight, the person he should be keeping from harm -- no, what? Who. . . it's a moment before Suzaku remembers which one is Suzaku. "Suzaku, what did they do to you?"
Suzaku hesitates, thinks; he worries and loves, and then raises his head. His breath is steadying with Euphie's solid comfort pressing against him, but he looks forward, hard and straight at Lelouch and no one else. Lelouch gasps, eyes widening, and Suzaku feels horror. Suzaku feels blood on his hands and in his eye and doesn't know whose it is, his or Lelouch's or Euphie's. They both belong to him now, more than they ever should have, and he wants to laugh because the idea of stealing their humanity hadn't been quite so literal before.
Euphie doesn't understand, she's confused and just wants him to be okay, but Lelouch. . . Suzaku does laugh now, shortly, because he's Lelouch and Euphie and Suzaku all in one. Their consciousness is his for the taking, his for the reaping. He's aware he's starting to lose it again, and this time it's in front of the others, but it's hard to remember where the borders of his own identity lie.
"We should take him and go," says another female voice, hard and practical. Teresa. Relief that might be his own, either purposefulness or a lack thereof that isn't his own, and for a second he wishes he was alone with her. And not with two people whose thoughts he doesn't have the right to touch. "We can find out what's wrong with him once we secure a safer position."
Cold logic, he likes that, it feels soothing. He's feeling too much, far too much, but maybe that crazy bitch was right. Maybe it's the perfect weapon, or at least the perfect fall. He's already damned to hell and back, so he might as well enjoy it, right?
The thought is ludicrous, and that much belongs to him and him alone. Whatever good it does him.
............. and then, of course, my computer froze when I was trying to post. So now it's definitely not on time. Um. PLEASE TAKE PITY ON ME AND MY FAIL TECHNOLOGY AND MY MIDTERMS AND MY FRIENDS WHO MAKE ME DO THINGS. Brb, I'm going to go crawl into a corner and die now.
Title: Certain Unalienable Rights
Author: Sonya (
golgibody)Beta: Uh. . . me? I read it over like 20 times, I'll be so pissed if there's a typo.
Word Count: 3708
Rating: PG-13 for violence and stuff
Character(s): Kururugi Suzaku, Anonymous Doctor, Euphemia li Britannia, Lelouch Lamperouge, Teresa
Pairing(s): N/A, though I kinda ship Crazy Doctor/Suzaku in that order
Summary: You are all the things you hate. M-U for Suzaku, because I can't do it in-game.
Notes: Um, I actually. Really hate this fic. But that's what I get for starting it at three in the morning last night and posting it like fifteen minutes before/forty-five minutes after (???) the deadline. I figured since I finished it I might as well just post it even though I hate it. Ugh. I WANTED to have more characters in here, but that would have required way more scenes and I didn't have time, so I'm just going to be lame and focus on my own character.
Light, and Suzaku's head rolls back frantically against frigid steel, a clang and white bursting across the back of his skull. The light isn't so bright once his skittish eyes become accustomed to his surroundings, but the clink of some metal instrument, the oppressive breath of another human keeps his initial instincts alive. It's only after the sounds align themselves into something his panicked mind can recognize that he notices the leather biting into his wrists. More than his wrists, straps across his chest and abdomen, wrapping his legs up neatly. He can tell, because when his body jerks with as much of his considerable strength as he can muster, the straps don't even budge. The table does grate across the floor a little, and his companion for the night laughs.
She comments that he's awake -- she sounds strong, matronly, and says his given name with too much familiarity -- and goes on to marvel at his level of fitness, her tone blatantly patronizing. If only his mind were as fit, but he isn't listening, resting his head back and staring fixedly at the ceiling with eyes harder than granite. He knows what's coming, and knows that she can't possibly devise any pain worse than the one already eating him from the inside out. Action, the scene is set.
Now she's murmuring something about the marvelous intricacy of the human eye, a tangible biological link between human perception of the physical and the metaphysical -- something about the different layers of vitreous whatever, but Suzaku couldn't care less. It's not so much that he's never been an academic, more that all that matters right now is what she's going to do to him. No amount of pseudo-philosophical theorizing can save her from the truth of how her actions have probably affected the other patients, people more innocent than him, and his blood thickens with hatred.
She seems to realize he's been paying her no mind, and the words slow into a hum. He hears a soft squeak of wheels, and a tray looms into his range of vision. It's the kind a dentist might use, off-white and unassuming, except he doesn't think dentists usually use scalpels. "Suzaku," she says so casually, slipping on a pair of gloves and not looking at him, "do you know what Geass is?"
She probably feels terribly self-satisfied now that he's gazing at her with rapt, startled attention. They must know something, that much is obvious, but if she's asking it must mean they don't know everything. And he won't give her a thing, no matter what. She's blunt, too blunt for it to be a straightforward interrogation, but with his mind still fogged from the sedatives and that feverish light still burning into his eyes, all he can think is that he can't let her know anything. And so he spits out the stunningly original, "I don't know what you're talking about."
She laughs again, and he's rarely wanted to throttle someone so much. It scares him a little, to know his own feelings like that. He shouldn't want to throttle his enemies, because the greatest enemy is within. "I don't mean it that way, dear. Do you think I don't know all the secrets of Geass? I merely wondered if you knew -- what it really is, I mean. Its source, its composition, and the like."
His breath comes up short, and it's a victory for her, because his face has always been an open book. Of course, if they could tinker with Lelouch's Geass, they must understand something about it. Understand more than him, probably, even though he should know more, as involved with that awful power as he's been. No, dammit, she's trying to get under his skin, trying to find a crack in his composure. He would give her none. The Knight of Seven has no cracks, and if she knows Geass and knows him, there's no point in hiding anything other than his own insecurities. Certainty is the only defense he has.
And Geass? Geass killed the people he loved, Geass destroyed his own heart and drowned his best friend in darkness. But he knows better now, he knows it's something more, and he remembers what Lelouch said in the World of C. In the end, it was nothing but a weapon, one only a human being could wield. "Geass," he says slowly, looking at her and her scalpels unflinchingly, "is a wish."
"No," she replies without missing a beat, and in that moment their eyes are locked in a steady contest. Her features are as strong and matronly as he imagined; she's the kind of woman he might like if he didn't know better. "Geass is a usurpation. Each use of Geass transgresses the intrinsic rights of its victims. Each use steals and claims a piece of their humanity, a parasitic exchange that builds the power of Geass -- a power fueled by the appropriation of souls. Don't you wonder," she continues with a smile, now that she's got him, "how, exactly, the Power of Kings derives from the World of C? Divine Right is unequal because it has built its throne of skulls on the stolen rights of others. It's an unequal division of what should be a universal consciousness." She must have seen his face, because she's quick to backtrack and make her opinion on the matter clear. She doesn't want him to get an unfairly negative understanding of the matter, after all. "It's the perfect incarnation of human power, you see. Think of all the things it can do to shape the world. You of all people should know, only by an unequal division of rights can the world be molded and directed."
Later, he'll think that her speeches are worse than Lelouch's. Right now, he can't breathe, because it makes so much sense, and if that power didn't feel dirty before. . . He hasn't even used it himself, and he wants to wash and wash and wash his hands, until the flesh melts off and the water wears his bones away. And Lelouch -- oh, Lelouch -- Lelouch probably understood that the whole time. Suzaku doesn't want to let him break himself, and he would take that pain from Lelouch if he could, but it's too late; Suzaku's always been too late. He wants to run, right then, run so fast he leaves himself behind on the table. But the straps are too tight.
Her eyes say she knows, probably because he doesn't respond. And maybe he's being stupid, because she probably made it all up, but he's always been bad at not believing people. That's it, then, and before he's done staring in shock he's assaulted by the smell of latex and isopropyl alcohol. The cotton is rough around his left eye, and then she's ripping off a strip of medical tape with an easy, practiced flick of the fingers.
He tries to twist away when she pulls his eyelid back, knowing this isn't going anywhere good even if he doesn't understand what's happening, but she tsks in matronly disapproval. "Relax, I'm not going to let your eye dry out. I have eye drops." Right. As if that was what had been worrying him. She grabs his jaw with a hand much stronger than it looks, however, and next thing he knows is that twitching, unnaturally cold sensation of having an eye forced open far too wide. He's feeling nervous now, as much as he tries to calm himself, because he's not a fan of other people touching his eyes. He doesn't know what she's trying to do, but why couldn't it have been anywhere else?
"I'm sorry, I don't have access to a Code," she says as she makes use of the aforementioned eye drops and wipes away the excess that wells up thickly against his cheekbone. "So we're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way."
Old-fashioned. . . ? He can't hold back a gasp of realization as her meaning becomes clear. She must be lying, right? She couldn't possibly have the ability to -- suddenly something else is being dripped into his eye, and as if it weren't bad enough that he was already twitching and tensing with the desperate need to blink, this stuff burns.
Don't think about it, he tells himself. Don't think about any of it, think of something far away. He tries to think of Ashford, of the mechanical pleasure of digging in the rooftop garden, of the carefree laughter of his friends. He tries to think of the way Euphie smiled at breakfast that morning, of how soft her hands are and how it seems she'll never stop smiling at him, no matter what he does. But it's no use; his eyes are no longer his own and it's not his choice what to see or not to see.
"He thought you'd died for him," she says suddenly. He doesn't think about what she means at first, he only lies still with liquid dripping down both cheeks, every muscle in his body wound tight as a rubber band about to snap. He can't see anything because one eye is wide open and shuddering under a blur of tears and fractured light, and the other is squeezed shut and streaming. He doesn't know she's finally picked up the scalpel until the edge brushes his cheek, making him jump enough that the blade draws its first blood. "That's why he accepted it."
It all came down to Suzaku's own actions, and there was no root of evil except in his own power to choose. He's accepted this, but his face still twists at hearing it from a stranger, a stranger who holds his cheeks like a lover and talks about things no one should know but him and Lelouch and C.C. He's been so selfish, so he holds still like she tells him when steel caresses the surface of his eye, so light he barely feels it. What has he ever been able to see? He's alive by selfishness. He had no right to carry the pocket watch of someone he had murdered, as if he were any other grieving son, and he should have died that day. It was wrong and unnatural for there to have been any other outcome, for Lelouch not to have had his happy victory in vengeance for what he thought to be an honorable mother and an honorable friend. Ignorance is bliss, and so is blindness. Suzaku holds still when the scalpel begins to cut, and doesn't scream.
It doesn't take long at all, the edge lifting gently under the cornea, and Suzaku can't afford to think of other things any more because his whole mind runs red with pain. It's a tiny fraction of what he's caused to others, but it's still all he can do not to scream and thrash on the table, because even now he's far too human for his own liking. He can't pass out, that's the most important thing; he must be able to experience this. And he won't give her the satisfaction.
And yet, the pain flows together so seamlessly that he hardly notices more chemicals being dripped onto the exposed whatever-layer of his eye, or the way she's nudging something foreign against the surface with another delicate steel tool. He's shaking uncontrollably, but he still manages to focus every ounce of sanity and consciousness he has left on keeping his head still -- on letting her. It's the only thing he can do in this world, not that he did any better when the theoretical scalpel was in his hands.
"That power will be yours," she says with her smooth arch-villain words that don't fit the kindly tone, "to shape the fate of those weaker than you. You've always wanted control." She replaces the top layer of his eye, and proceeds to thread a needle, though he can't see the prelude to this new pain. She only makes a couple tiny, immaculate stitches, and yet his world explodes with white-hot fury. This time he screams, but not entirely because of the pain. He's never lacked control like this, and the worst part isn't that she's literally injecting his body with the essence of evil, it's that it's completely against his will. Would he contaminate himself if he had to, to save the people he loved? Probably. But that's not what's happening here -- he's being shaped into a monster by forces he's too weak to master. He's not saving Lelouch by taking on his burden, he's just needlessly being given a redundant one. And she has the nerve to twist his purposes around so it seems like it's something he wants. When this is the last thing. . . is it, though? "Being the Knight of One is child's play compared to the force this will give you. It's up to you, how to make the world into something that satisfies you, but. . ."
Is what he's been doing this whole time no better than what Charles and Marianne wanted to do? He made decisions for his people without their consent, and stepped on the backs of his loved ones to get the power to carry out those decisions. It's in the past, that's what Lelouch would say, but it isn't, not really. Every decision he makes is one that affects the people around him. If he makes those decisions with an unfair weight to his orders, with a near-absolute power backing his words -- there is no autonomy, and he's no better than any of his enemies. He never was, of course, but it seems he has to relearn this over and over. He must be too stupid for the lesson to stick.
"The emotions of others will belong to you now, to use as you would. You will live through them, invade their most private thoughts, and thus you will be able to turn their hearts to what you think is best. It's ironic, isn't it? Because you've always said you want to die so others don't have to, and what you mean is that you want to decide who can die and who can't. So, " she finishes almost cheerfully, making a brief attempt at mopping up some of the fluid around his eye, "would you like to see?" He doesn't have a clue what she's talking about, all he knows is that he doesn't want to see and he isn't sure he can see anything anyway.
She wouldn't listen to him either way, though, so he doesn't say anything. And then a mirror is hovering over him, big and framed in tacky purple plastic, like one a doctor might hand to a child so he can see his new braces. Except. . . His face looks bleary even through his right eye, the glaring light shimmering through tears and God knew what else. But he can see that his cheeks are streaked with blood and something brownish-purple, almost the same color but not as viscous, and both his eyes are streaming involuntarily. And framed against the mess, an impressionist's battlefield in miniature, his once-green eye stands out redder than anything. Glowing with an unholy light, it's probably supposed to look like a bird, but it just makes Suzaku think of the fires of hell. It doesn't look right on his face. It's not supposed to be there. It's like someone cut out a picture of everything he hates and pasted it over his own face, and he can't make himself understand that this is real.
"You know why it's red, don't you?" He hates that whisper, hates its ring of truth, hates the immaculate words not even he has the courage to say to himself. "It's from the lifeblood of the souls you violate, in the World of C where nothing can protect itself from you. You," and she puts the mirror away, turning back to caress his cheek with a single fingertip. He flinches away from her at last. "You will enjoy this."
And with that, she's packing up her things and wheeling the tray away, without paying him a second thought. He can barely move, and a distant part of his brain says that if he throws up in this position, he could choke to death. Not the best death and certainly a coward's escape, but -- "Oh." She turns once again, drawing near the table one last time. He wonders if he'll ever see her again, ever learn her name. If he'll ever kill her. "I almost forgot -- have a souvenir." She tosses something onto his chest, and if he bothered looking at her he would see her smile in something approximating fondness. And then she's gone, through some door behind him that makes a loud clicking sound a moment later.
He can't believe that she's just going to leave him here, but that's a little ridiculous, isn't it? After she cut his eye apart without anaesthetic, did he really expect full post-operation care? After another moment of staring dully at the ceiling, Suzaku grits his teeth against the way the room spins and manages to lift his head enough to look at the the object weighing ominously against his chest. The scalpel. Dammit, she actually expects him to. . . He doesn't want to try to escape. He doesn't even care, not when he's already lost everything. But there's a reality outside of this room, he can't forget that. Euphie and Lelouch need him, and if he just waits for some monster to come along and eat him -- no, he'll always have to keep moving forward, no matter how ugly the path gets. That's his curse. His Geass.
Waves of nausea and dizziness set him adrift as he slowly, carefully inches his hand over, underneath the straps. It takes a lot of fumbling and he nearly passes out, but he doesn't allow himself sweet oblivion, and then the stupid thing is finally secured within his trembling grasp. He loses track of time as he works at the straps with the delicate blade, trying not to break it and trying even harder to clear his mind of anything but the task at hand. When he finally gets them loose enough that he can free himself from the table, it comes as a surprise, an abrupt end to the interminal haze of pain and half-formed thoughts. A greater surprise is that he can't even stand up, the lightheadedness forcing him to his knees before he understands that he's falling. And moving from here is more difficult. He can defend himself, if the need arises, but why bother to keep moving? From what to what? From being a monster to being a monster? He committed himself to the future of others, but right now he can see none. All he can see is red.
And that's how they find him, shaking and barely conscious on the floor, the scalpel used to mutilate his own body still clutched in his fingers. He doesn't look up at the distant sound of familiar voices, and only becomes aware of his surroundings once again when he feels gentle arms around him. Her touch is as perfect and undeserved as ever, and he tries to push her away, because she doesn't know that she's touching something that will cut her. Yet she clings on, persistent enough to overcome him in his weakened state, and he can't help giving up. That's what Euphie will be, always there even though she shouldn't, and he's suddenly drowning in a wave of fear and worry and simple, simple love. It doesn't come from within him, somehow he's aware of that. The love doesn't belong to him, as much of it as he might have, and he's absorbing and possessing things that are not his own. Marking himself upon them, forcing his identity upon the most private of --
"Suzaku." Lelouch's voice is tight with worry, and Suzaku is a black sea of rage and guilt and other things he's too dazed to define just yet. He let them take his best friend, his knight, the person he should be keeping from harm -- no, what? Who. . . it's a moment before Suzaku remembers which one is Suzaku. "Suzaku, what did they do to you?"
Suzaku hesitates, thinks; he worries and loves, and then raises his head. His breath is steadying with Euphie's solid comfort pressing against him, but he looks forward, hard and straight at Lelouch and no one else. Lelouch gasps, eyes widening, and Suzaku feels horror. Suzaku feels blood on his hands and in his eye and doesn't know whose it is, his or Lelouch's or Euphie's. They both belong to him now, more than they ever should have, and he wants to laugh because the idea of stealing their humanity hadn't been quite so literal before.
Euphie doesn't understand, she's confused and just wants him to be okay, but Lelouch. . . Suzaku does laugh now, shortly, because he's Lelouch and Euphie and Suzaku all in one. Their consciousness is his for the taking, his for the reaping. He's aware he's starting to lose it again, and this time it's in front of the others, but it's hard to remember where the borders of his own identity lie.
"We should take him and go," says another female voice, hard and practical. Teresa. Relief that might be his own, either purposefulness or a lack thereof that isn't his own, and for a second he wishes he was alone with her. And not with two people whose thoughts he doesn't have the right to touch. "We can find out what's wrong with him once we secure a safer position."
Cold logic, he likes that, it feels soothing. He's feeling too much, far too much, but maybe that crazy bitch was right. Maybe it's the perfect weapon, or at least the perfect fall. He's already damned to hell and back, so he might as well enjoy it, right?
The thought is ludicrous, and that much belongs to him and him alone. Whatever good it does him.
............. and then, of course, my computer froze when I was trying to post. So now it's definitely not on time. Um. PLEASE TAKE PITY ON ME AND MY FAIL TECHNOLOGY AND MY MIDTERMS AND MY FRIENDS WHO MAKE ME DO THINGS. Brb, I'm going to go crawl into a corner and die now.