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Suzaku expected that he would feel something else. This strange, non-invasive feeling, closing its gentle hands around his sword, ensuring it’s secure before he removes the belt cradling it — this feeling is odd, and almost welcome.It’s not at all like what he’s used to. When he killed his father, this thing’s ugly, twisted kin was the one that coaxed him into wielding the knife in the first place. This, though, had kept him afloat once the ordeal was over, Lelouch’s warm blood pooling around his cooling body, slithering tauntingly down the shaft of his blade. It gave him the courage to flick it off in one smooth tap of his wrist, splattering his emperor’s vitality onto the royal float in a proud arc. It brought him to stand tall in front of the crowd, the world, chanting for him in a name that was never really his (Zero! Zero! Zero! Zero! Zero!) and act as though he was not about to fill the mask hiding his face, the face of a man who is meant to be dead, with vomit.At the very least, this feeling certainly got him through the withering pain of hearing Nunnally scream and wail, seeing her open eyes close again, regressing into familiarity to avoid the truth for as long as possible. But the truth exists even if you can’t see it, and the truth is that Kururugi Suzaku — Zero — killed her brother. In the month prior to the Requiem, Lelouch pestered him continuously to grow accustomed to Zero’s suit, to learn its intricacies and features so well it became a second skin. At the time, he resented it. Suzaku felt it was pointless, and hated that he was spending more time with the costume of a ghost Lelouch once was instead of the boy-king he had blossomed into, a brilliant evolution of the arrogant princeling that he was when they first met eight years ago.He can’t bring himself to resent it as much, now, with how mindlessly easy it is to peel off layer by layer of the outfit, laying it flat on his bed, standing bare in the middle of his room in nothing but the mask. Taking it off feels nearly sacreligious. He does not want to see his face. He does not want to acknowledge himself anymore.Suzaku swallows and lifts his limp hands to the helmet, letting it release to slip off his head, the dark gloom of the colored glass giving way to warm yellow light. His eyes refocus onto the shape of it, stomach curdling as his fingertips slip over dried blood. Scarlet flakes and flitters onto the floor in response to the gentle caress of his thumb. He’s always been partial to it. As a troubled child, he found solace in drawing the blood of other troubled children, desperate for a way to expel the tension from his body. Normal children learned to play with toys. Suzaku was not allowed to have toys. Improvising was necessary. In the army, he found awe in drawing his own, bliss humming in his tendons every time he gained another scar. As the Knight of Seven, he was satisfied to eliminate a threat, to see his hard work paid off. It’s only natural, he reasons, stumbling over to the bed with the helmet between his sticky palms, that he would be partial to Lelouch’s.The Zero suit crumples when he collapses onto it, wrinkling beneath his naked frame. Suzaku stares at the mask as if challenging it to crack again like he forced it to over a year ago on Kamine Island, licking his lips, fixated on the sloppy-neat smear in the shape of Lelouch’s lithe fingers.Kicking the bits and bobs of the outfit off the bed, Suzaku rolls onto his side and shuffles closer to the object of his thoughts, leaning his forehead against one of the sharp points, grounding himself with its resistance. He pants against the glass, watching it fog up, moisture wicking around the redness. His left hand slides down his chest.Inanely, Suzaku wonders why he’s doing this — palming his erection. The heat and wetness of his breath start to revive the blood on the helmet, a sluggish trickle of it dribbling onto the bedspread at the same second a bead of precum leaks from his cock. His hand closes around his shaft as the scent of iron tickles his nose, still a bit dulled, steadily growing stronger to the beat of his hand. Head swimming, Suzaku pumps his hard-on without much care to how it feels. He wonders what Lelouch would think of this. Would he recoil in disgust upon seeing his knight obsessing over the only remaining physical evidence he had ever lived? Would he be sad to know that Suzaku had to beg Jeremiah to tell him where he was buried, and take pity on him? Would he wish he could crawl up onto the bed next to Suzaku and sit prim and proper on his hips to take care of the problem himself?Maybe he wouldn’t care at all. Maybe he would stand watching him pull his cock, neutral and uninterested in the process, waiting for Suzaku to cum so he could give some flowery, grandiose speech about how he needs to move on, how he needs to stop focusing on his death and start helping Nunnally rebuild the world.The Zero mask is cold and sturdy when he pulls it to his face, nuzzling the smooth glass, shivering at the chill. His shaft pulses impatiently against his palm and he realizes he stopped moving, thoughtlessly starting his rhythm back up, tongue darting out to press against the helmet. His stomach feels warm, warmer than the mask does on his lips, scattering messy kisses that leave splotchy marks all over the surface. His stomach is warmer than Lelouch’s corpse when Jeremiah had let him see, had allowed him ten minutes alone in which he held his emperor’s stiff, frigid hand and stared blankly at his relaxed, near-smiling expression.Suzaku feels no arousal thinking of Lelouch’s dead body. He felt no arousal when Jeremiah had pulled his silken robes off and burned them, felt no arousal seeing him naked and limp and turning blue, his chest gaping open with the wound from Suzaku’s sword. But he noses the blood smudged across what was once Lelouch’s greatest creation, daringly lapping at the edges of it. He may as well not let it go to waste. He will have to clean the mask off anyway; this is an opportunity. The odd sensation returns and lays behind Suzaku, like a spirit, an elegant hand slinking around to his front, grabbing his own wrist to guide him in his movements. Suzaku’s head lolls back, hips rutting lazily into the friction, copper lingering on his tongue. “Lelouch,” he whispers, dizzy. “Lelouch. Lelouch.”He works his tongue as the feeling sighs over his bare skin until the residual traces of his emperor’s blood have vanished, swallowed by him. His dick throbs, ribbons of white hitting the bedspread, trickling out of him into a puddle. He pushes himself, squeezing his cockhead to tease out the rest of his spend, half-conscious and half-nauseous. Despite enjoying it, the taste of Lelouch’s blood raises bile high up into his throat.Suzaku tugs his hand away from his softening length, blinking hazily at the mask. The tracks of semen cooling over his fingers are quickly turning slimy, becoming unbearable. He forces himself to stand, teetering precariously towards the bathroom, and sits on the shower floor in the scalding hot water for a very, very long time. He wonders what Lelouch would think, seeing him like this.