Trust

Trust
By Eline

From the CG Kink Meme: Suzako(female)/Lelouch. AU. Gender-bender. Kururugi Suzako as Prince Lelouch’s knight. In Britannia. With Aquaphilia. (Or at least I tried for aquaphilia and failed like a failprince failing at sex.)

I dunno how the plot got in the way, but the lemon is at the back.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Josiah Monkton, Prince Lelouch’s personal aide looked up at his young master’s face, clearly troubled. His Highness was about to follow in his older brother’s footsteps and in these turbulent times, most governors had knights assigned to them. Prince Lelouch, of course, had insisted on selecting his own knight.

“But Your Highness, she’s an Eleven . . .”

“Aah, but if I am to govern Area 11 after Clovis moves on to Area 12, I must be prepared. I have to know these people. What makes them tick. Furthermore, it will be excellent publicity before I even set foot in Area 11.” Lelouch vi Britannia, Prince of Royal Britannia empire, shut the dossier decisively. The matter was obviously settled in his mind. “And I believe the term is Honorary Britannian.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” His aide did not chide him for his third, unspoken reason. An Eleven at Court would cause controversy and Lelouch loved to flout convention in the face of his noble peers, for whom he nursed a healthy dislike for.

The aide looked down at the file. Warrant Officer Kururugi Suzako . . . Oh dear.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

His new knight was not what Prince Lelouch expected. The Japanese women of Area 11, he had read, were supposed to be the epitome of grace, discretion and politeness. Of course, any knight to a member of the Royal Family had to be military-trained and drilled in etiquette before they were allowed to serve, and Kururugi Suzako had come out top in her class at the military academy . . . And Josiah had personally taken over her etiquette-training . . .

Putting it bluntly, even the Prince could tell that Kururugi Suzako, daughter of the late Kururugi Genbu, Would Not Do. She was . . . rambunctious. All right, she was a tomboy. The years spent in the military had only emphasised her boyishness. Even her appearance was not what Lelouch had expected. That curly mop of unruly hair and those cheerfully determined green eyes were always at odds with her formal uniform, which tended to get rumpled within an hour of her donning it. Her naivete and her tendency to say the first thing on her mind ensured that she would never survive in the nest of vipers known as the Imperial Court.

Only a month had passed since Suzako’s arrival at the royal court and tongues were already wagging. He had heard comments about his “pet savage” and “pet monkey” a little too often for his liking. Surely Suzako could not have been deaf to the insults? Or was it that famous Japanese reserve that he had heard about? The Elevens could probably give Britannians a run for it in the stiff upper lip contest.

Then again they had probably grown too powerful and too arrogant to know the meaning of restraint. The prejudice of his peers troubled Lelouch, but he could not change the ways of the Court for his new knight. In truth, he would be sorry to dismiss her. She was around his age and not a part of the spider’s web of intrigue that he hated so much--a most refreshing change. And yes, Lelouch hated to be wrong about anything.

Perhaps a posting to one of the other Areas would lessen the sting and make it look less like a demotion? But she had her pride too. Perhaps Josiah had been right--he should not have chosen someone so green.

Hence Lelouch vi Britannia was faced with one of his most daunting tasks yet: effectively firing one of his staff. He was determined to do it himself. Even if it was akin to kicking a puppy.

Lelouch had summoned Suzako to meet with him at ten in the morning. He chose his late mother’s private gardens in the Ares Palace as the meeting place and hoped that he did not bungle it too badly. He really could not deal with girls who cried.

He arrived at the gardens a few minutes earlier than planned and selected the shaded terrace near the fountain as the most conducive place for what he was about to do.

“Ah, Suzako--” Lelouch began when he heard a footstep behind him.

But it was not Kururugi Suzako who had stolen up behind him. Lelouch had one moment to register the masked face of his attacker before he was struck a heavy blow that sent him flying across to the gravel path.

The fate of his mother and sister had instilled him with hair-trigger instincts. Assassin! He had to escape immediately. The random roll of genetic dice and seventeen years doing nothing more strenuous than pushing Nunally’s wheelchair around the garden, however, had given him the muscles of a week-old kitten.

Before he could even recover from the blow, a hand grasped his collar and dragged him across the path. Lelouch could not even drawn breath to yell for help or put up a token resistance before his larger and significantly stronger assailant lifted him and ducked him headfirst into the fountain.

The fountain basin was only two feet deep. Deep enough to drown weakling Princes who could not run away fast enough. His last thought as he thrashed against his assassin’s hold was that Nunally, defenceless in her wheelchair, would be next on his murderer’s schedule. That and that alone gave him the will to fight as he ran out of air and strength.

The hands holding him down disappeared abruptly and Lelouch resurfaced, gasping for air. Greedily sucking precious oxygen back into his lugs, he righted himself shakily and turned away from the fountain to find his assailant being dealt with by one Kururugi Suzako, top martial artist of her year’s graduating class.

Lelouch could only watch as Suzako gave a warlike yell and drop-kicked the assassin square on the head. The assassin staggered and the knight finished him with a textbook chop to the windpipe and--here Lelouch had to wince--similarly well-placed knee to the crotch.

With his assassin down and likely to stay down, his knight hurried up to Lelouch and knelt down beside him. “Lelouch-sama! Daijoubu? Kizu ga aru?” When she was agitated or excited, his knight had a tendency to lapse back into her native tongue. She caught herself in time and reverted to Britannian. “Your Highness! Are you all right? You’re injured! I should get you to the medics! I’m so sorry I was late! I was given very confusing directions by a footman.”

“Help me up,” Lelouch said, already putting two and two together. A well-planned assassination indeed. They knew where he would be and they had deliberately plied his knight with wrong directions. Gritting his teeth against the pain of his badly scraped and abraded skin, he let Suzako pull him upright. “Suzako, where is Nunally?”

“Nunally-sama? She should be in her solar--” Suzako realised what he was driving at immediately and activated her communicator. “Sorell, Evans! Secure Princess Nunally’s rooms at once! There’s been an attempt on Prince Lelouch’s life. I will send Brighton and Xavier to back you up. Report back to me every two minutes until the guards have secured the Ares Palace.”

Satisfied that Suzako had Nunally covered, Lelouch activated his own communicator. Red Alert Code One--assassination attempts on the royal family. In two minutes, this place would be crawling with guards and onlookers.

Two minutes more and he would have been dead, Lelouch thought bitterly. Where were all these guards when the assassin snuck his way through Marianne’s rose bushes?

“Your Highness! The assassin?” Jeremiah Gottwald, Captain of his personal guard, was the first on the scene at the head of a phalanx of armsmen. Jeremiah was loyal to a fault, but being of the Purist faction, he did not approve of Suzako at all.

“There,” Lelouch said, nodding at the still-moaning assassin. When Suzako hit someone, they apparent stayed down for a quite while. “Secure the perimeter. Put extra guards on Nunally’s rooms. I will check on their deployment.”

Suzako started forwards, concern written all over her face. “But Your Highness--”

Lelouch shot Suzako a quelling look and she wisely subsided. “My knight has neutralised the assailant. Your guardsmen will secure him. Make sure he stays alive for questioning.”

“Yes, Your Highness!” Jeremiah even managed a halfway respectful nod to Suzako, who was so surprised that she almost forgot to nod back.

“I will go make sure Nunally is all right. Kururugi will accompany me now.” Straight-backed and every inch the Prince, Lelouch strode back to the Ares Palace as though the bloody scrapes on his face and the bruises under his coat did not trouble him.

He made sure Nunally was safe and reassured her that he was mostly uninjured. The concern on Nunally’s face hurt a lot more than his injuries.

“Thank you for saving my brother’s life. I knew he made the right choice when he chose you as his knight,” Nunally said, clasping Suzako’s hands. The heartbreakingly touched look on Suzako’s face as she stared at Nunally made Lelouch’s heart clench. It would be so much harder now to do what he had to do.

When he was certain that he and Suzako were safe and alone in the privacy of his own chambers, Lelouch steeled himself for the inevitable.

“Suzako, for your services rendered, I will see to it that you get a prime posting to Area 12 or Area 10. There are many fields in which you can ex--”

“But why?” Suzako blurted out. “I just sa--I apologise, Your Highness. I spoke out of turn.”

“Don’t apologise,” Lelouch told her sternly. “I know you saved my life, and in return, I’ll save yours--by sending you as far away from me as I can. If that assassin had succeeded today, you would have been the first one on the scene. My murder would have been very easily pinned on you, the only non-Britannian in the vicinity.”

Suzako’s shocked expression only underscored her naïveté.

“My countrymen will mouth pretty platitudes about accepting Honorary Britannians, but to them, you are a second-class citizen at best. Surely you’ve noticed?”Llelouch went on grimly. “You don’t know what a hornet’s nest it is here. An honest person like you will only get hurt--”

Whatever Lelouch was expecting--tears, recriminations or denials--he certainly as not expecting the slap that Suzako administered with stinging force.

“Idiot! You’re an idiot, Your Highness! I don’t care if you’re a Prince or whatever, but you’re going to listen to me for once!”

Lelouch had never been slapped before in his life. He had got into fights with other boys, but no one had ever raised a hand against him. The novelty of it all left him stunned and he did not order Suzako out of his sight at once.

“You’re always trying to keep others from being hurt, but what about yourself? If you had died today, what would happen to Nunally-sama?” Suzako demanded. “When I came here, I thought you would be like all the other Buriki bastards. But you weren’t like that at all. And I thought--I thought I would be happy to serve a Prince like you. Even if people called me a monkey behind my back.”

It was now Lelouch’s turn to look like a landed fish as Suzako’s tirade continued.

“Japan--Area 11 would be a better place if you were Governor. I believed that. I believed in you.” Suzako looked away at last, reining herself in. “I’ll go pack my things now.”

“Suzako--wait!” Lelouch half rose up from his chair in agitation. “Do you really mean that?”

“I mean everything I said, Your Highness.” Suzako’s chin was set in what Lelouch now recognised as her most determined effort not to cry. The naked emotion that he had witnessed not moments before had withdrawn behind a façade was about to crack.

“Even serving a Prince like me? I’m not a Court favourite. People would rather see me dead--”

“You didn’t become shortlisted as a potential governor because you were someone’s pet. I heard about how you worked your way up the ladder. You’re loads more competent than Od--a lot of other nobles. Begging Your Highness’ pardon.” Suzako’s eyes flashed dangerously. “And if someone wants you dead, then you’re more important than you were when you weren’t on someone’s hit list.”

Suzako learned . . . very quickly. Then again it did not take very much to be more competent than Odysseus. To achieve his goals of avenging Nunally and his mother, he, Lelouch, might need--he was loath to admit it--help.

“You’re really willing to give up everything, risk everything, to serve me?” Unwanted and ignored since the time of his mother’s death, Lelouch had never been chosen first for anything. He had fought to prove himself for so long and the first person to give him a chance based on nothing more than hearsay was this brash Japanese warrior woman who had shamed him with her honesty.

“Everything, my Prince.”

“You said Japan just now,” Lelouch said, shifting the focus of the conversation onto her. “Is this for your country?”

Suzako hesitated. Only for a moment. “Yes, Lelouch-sama. For my country and my people.”

“Even though they rejected you?” According to her dossier, Kururugi Suzako had no contact with her kin after becoming an Honorary Britannian. Her people had probably labelled her a traitor.

“It doesn’t matter. I can live with that. I jumped at the chance to come to Britannia to become your knight because it was the most direct way I could help. Even if it was by indirectly influencing the new governor.” Suzako smiled bitterly. “So you see, Your Highness, I am not without an agenda.”

“I need to know the motivations of my inner circle, Suzako,” Lelouch said, more gently now. “Thank you for being so honest. I find your motives a lot more selfless than the ones of Clovis’ sycophants. The first rule of the Court is: Never show weakness in front of prying eyes. Which are everywhere. That’s the second rule, by the way.”

“Eh?” Suzako looked thoroughly flummoxed.

“If you are to be my knight, then you must understand the unspoken rules of the Court in order to survive. Your concern for my injuries is very touching, but I cannot afford to be seen to be coddled by a nursemaid,” Lelouch continued. “Those vultures will spring at any opportunity, any weakness exposed.”

“Yes, Your Highness! I will remember that in the future!” Suzako saluted enthusiastically as the real meaning of Lelouch’s words became clear.

“But in private, I think it’s time to administer the painkillers,” Lelouch said, finally allowing himself to sag back into his chair. He could have sworn he heard Suzako mutter something that sounded like “baka ouji” when she helped him up and supported his weight for most of the trip to the small but well-equipped infirmary in the basement of the Ares Palace. Well, he would learn enough Japanese to figure that out soon enough. But first things first . . . his face hurt like a bitch and his bruised limbs were very tender indeed.

After ascertaining that Lelouch was not suffering from broken bones, fractures, contusions or had water in his lungs, Suzako competently washed and cleaned the flesh wounds on his face and allowed him two painkillers because he had whined.

“That’s for pretending to be a macho man in front of everyone, Your Highness.” Suzako, Lelouch was discovering, was an irreverent bitch with the people she was familiar with.

“You’re not fooling anyone with the Iron Amazon act either.” Lelouch was surprised that he was beginning to enjoy bantering with her.

“Yeah, but I don’t ask for painkillers for bruises--when I get bruises.”

“Well, I bruise easily,” Lelouch said defensively. “It’s probably genetic.”

“If we were in Ja—Area 11, I could take you to an onsen.” Here, Suzaku looked wistful. “The volcanic hot springs, I mean. They’re good for bruises and muscle aches.”

“Really? Well, I will make it a point to visit one when I’m there--in Japan.” He smiled as his knight looked at him in surprise. “Wait . . . come to think about it, there’s the spa next to the pool . . .”

The Ares Palace has a small indoor swimming pool on the basement floor. Lelouch had sweated blood to get it installed after he learned that Nunally could swim and felt more at ease in the water. The pool also came with its own Jacuzzi spa . . .

“It doesn’t go beyond thirty-five degrees,” Suzako complained as they studied the Jacuzzi settings in the underground pool area.

“Does it have to be?”

“A real hotspring is about forty-five degrees.”

“Then I’ll stick to my Jacuzzi, thank you.” Lelouch winced inwardly at the thought of a scalding hot bath at forty-five degrees. “You can take the rest of the day off and rejoin me at dinner.”

“You were almost drowned today. I can’t let you drown by accident!” Suzako exclaimed.

“I’m not going to drown by accident in the Jacuzzi!” Lelouch spluttered indignantly.

Suzako gave him a look that plainly said You don’t really want me to answer that. What she did say was, “I’m not going to ruin what I achieved today if the future governor slips and drowns in his own Jacuzzi. Besides, if I was an assassin, this would be the perfect place to strike. There’s absolutely no one else on this floor right now and you can’t assume that Jeremiah’s cordon is airtight.”

She was right, of course. Lelouch sighed and failed miserably from going red in the face. “Then could you please turn your back while you’re guarding me?”

“Oh. You were concerned about that?” Suzako looked rather amuses for a moment before she turned her back on him. “Don’t worry, Your Highness, I won’t peek.”

Cursing his fair skin for giving him away, Lelouch undressed hastily and scrambled into the warm water. True to her word, Suzako kept her back turned.

“If I am to be your knight, then I should have been able to check your bruises in the infirmary,” Suzako said conversationally after a few minutes. “But you didn’t seem to want to take your shirt off back then.”

“Well--I . . . it’s not really proper . . .”

“You Britannians are rather prudish, if you don’t mind me saying, so, Your Highness. In the military, they had mixed showers. Gender equality and all that.”

Lelouch sank down into the water all the way to his chin. “Really? That’s . . . useful to know.”

“You’re not very comfortable around women, are you, Your Highness? And Nunally-sama doesn’t count.”

Lelouch almost jumped up in protest. He, Lelouch vi Britannia, was perfectly comfortable around the ladies of the Court, thank you very much. Then he remembered that he was naked and sat back down quickly. He had to settled for glaring at Suzako’s turned back.

“Whatever makes you say that?”

“I mean . . . You’re fine when you have to talk to them or dance with them, but the moment anyone of them gets too close, you run for the hills. No disrespect meant, Your Highness.”

“I cannot afford to have any attachments,” Lelouch said sternly. “And the ladies at Court know that I am not a favoured son. That rather reduces my chances in the field.”

“Your Highness is selling himself short. I don’t think the ladies at the Seasonal Ball last week were trying to get you alone on the balcony because of your position in Court.”

“Or they were aiming to create a scandal. Either way, it puts me at a disadvantage.” Lelouch looked around for a towel. “Is this long enough? I’m beginning to resemble a prune.”

“So calculative,” Suzako said as she fetched the towel and patiently closed her eyes until Lelouch had covered himself properly.

“I have to be.” Still weak at the knees from this morning’s exertions, Lelouch was forced to accept Suzako’s help again to get to the showers. He pretended that he was still flushed from the warm water and she played along. Until they got to the showers and the slippery tiles got the better of Lelouch. Suzako doffed her formal jacket and held him upright like an invalid as he showered. Even though she kept her eyes closed, Lelouch felt like his skin would explode.

He fumbled for the shower controls to turn the water off and to his mortification, the spray only got stronger.

“Hey, are you okay?” Suzako asked.

“Perfectly fine!” Lelouch got the shower under control and turned the spray off. It was then that he realised that Suzako had got wet in the process. The water had moulded the shirt she wore against her lean, athletic torso and emphasised her high, pert breasts.

“If you’re done, then we’re getting out of the shower,” Suzako announced, managing to find the towel without opening her eyes. “Are you decent now?”

Lelouch was very grateful for the towel. Suzako was most definitely not wearing a bra.

Suzako looked down at her ruined uniform and sighed. “I’ve been meaning to get changed anyway. Is anything wrong, Your Highness?”

“N-nothing,” he said quickly, trying to cover up the fact that he had been looking at her bosom.

“You’re not looking at my nipples, are you?”

Lelouch almost jumped through the ceiling. “I—what? No!”

“Then you’re just happy to see me?”

The Prince could not catch himself before he instinctively looked down.

Suzako did not laugh at his obvious discomfort. “Lelouch-sama, after all this time playing games of intrigue in the court, you’ve forgotten that you’re still a seventeen year old b—male.” She started to unbutton her shirt. “I’m a seventeen year old girl, not just your knight.”

Lelouch backed away even as his eyes were drawn in by the revealed expanse of smooth and tanned skin. “Suzako, you can’t--”

She looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m not a virgin, Lelouch-sama. You aren’t taking anything from me that I cannot give.”

“No, Suzako, for your own sake. Your career cannot be tarnished by any scandal.” Nor could he allow Nunally to hear even a whisper about Prince Lelouch and his bastard half-Eleven offspring. He was also not his father, to sow his seed so far afield.

“On the first day in military school, the instructors divided my class into two. The boys went into one room and the girls into another,” Suzako told him calmly. “Then they told us about contraceptives. You don’t have to be worried that I’ll get pregnant--I’ve been on oral contraceptives since I was fourteen.”

It should not have been possible, but Lelouch turned even redder.

“A-a lady shouldn’t speak about such things!” Lelouch spluttered. It seemed that Suzako was a lot less naïve about certain things.

“But I’m not a lady. Everyone said so. I don’t even resemble a girl.” That note of wistfulness was back again and Lelouch suddenly wished that he could hunt down every person who had called her ugly or unattractive and . . . well, he would make them very sorry indeed.

“You can be Lady Kururugi Suzako, if you want,” he said, hesitantly smoothing away an errant curl from her forehead. “But I like you just the way you are.”

Their first kiss was awkward. Largely because Lelouch did not know what to do and Suzako was still testing how far she could go with her Prince. But they both grew bolder and the second kiss went much better. Her lips were soft in contrast to her weapon-callused hands and her breasts were definite very feminine as she pressed against him.

She would be his first and Lelouch knew that he would never forget the sight of her disrobing for as long as he lived. Suzako was long-limbed and lean, not bosomy and voluptuous like some of the ladies at court, but Lelouch found her all the more attractive for it.

Shower rooms, even royal ones, were not exceptionally well suited for trysts between an injured Prince and his warrior knight, but Suzako bade him to sit down on the bench along one wall and straddled his lap with a teasing grin. He cupped her breasts hesitantly, unsure if she would approve. Suzako put an end to his doubts by pulling his head down.

He worshipped the soft skin of her breasts reverently with his tongue. Hearing her gasp in pleasure, he ventured to suck gently at her nipples. It was Suzako’s hand on his as she guided his fingers down her flat planes of her belly and to the mound between her legs.

“There, like that,” she whispered huskily in his ear as she directed his fingers to her sensitive clitoris. The Prince was the student now as he explored her moist inner folds.

When she was ready, Suzako guided him slowly into her. It was unlike anything Lelouch had ever experienced. The warm tightness around his member was causing a most pleasurable pressure and her pert breasts against his skin sent a thrill through his flesh. He had not allowed himself to experience this aspect of life before and at the back of his mind, he dimly wondered why.

He could not trust anyone, he realised as Suzako started to move against him. He had never been intimate with anyone at Court because they were not to be trusted. But Suzako was his knight. She had saved his life and confessed her reason for serving him. She knew his weaknesses and his strengths. And she believed that he could make a difference in her homeland. Her trust in his abilities was humbling and inspiring at the same time.

“Suzako,” he murmured, drawing her down for a gentle kiss. “I trust you. My knight . . .”

“Lelouch-sama . . . Aaahh . . . ” Suzako flung her head back as he began to match her movements by thrusting upwards. “Shinjiteru yo, Lelouch-sama. Watashi, Lelouch-sama no inochi—Nunally-sama no inochi wo mamoritaindesu!”

He did not understand what she was saying, but he knew what she meant. Burying his face into her neck, he muffled his moans as they moved closer towards completion. He was blind, he was deaf and she was all as the universe exploded into red and black stars behind his eyelids.

Lelouch came to again to find himself flat on his back on the bench. Suzako was seated beside him, wiping his brow with a damp towel.

“Ne, I think you’ve exerted yourself enough for one day,” his knight murmured.

“Yes, but did I--I mean, did you--” Too embarrassed to ask the question, Lelouch wanted to find a deep hole and drop himself into it--oh hell, bad Freudian imagery.

“I think that when the time comes, the lady that Lelouch-sama marries will not be displeased,” Suzako said gently to spare his delicate sensibilities.

And that was the truth of the matter. His relationship with Suzako would never be anything more than a Prince and his knight. Beyond these walls, there were roles they had to play. Suzako was ruthlessly practical in that respect.

“I meant everything I said.” Lelouch echoed her earlier words as he sat up. “I will help you in any way I can, Suzako.”

“Thank you, Lelouch-sama!” It sounded a lot better than “Your Highness” when Suzako said it.

“And you shouldn’t stand for loose tongues that sow malicious words. You are my knight, Suzako. My honour is your honour.”

“Yes, Lelouch-sama!”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

In the weeks that followed, Lelouch might have regretted his words once or twice, but it was worth it all to see the flummoxed looks on the faces of his noble peers as Suzako called out her antagonists and soundly trounced them in fair combat, as was her right as knight to a Prince. In fact, she would have challenged anyone who looked at Nunally or Lelouch the wrong way if not for a few judicious words from Josiah.

All in all, it was a very satisfactory arrangement.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Suzako = Suzaku + Kallen = fiery tomboy FTW. With the Bitchslap That Cures Stupidity.