towerofanimus | Attachments

Entry tags:

Attachments

Characters: Suzaku Kururugi and any and all
Setting: 10th August, Rolo's room (outside of it), gymnasium at night, following onto midnight of the 11th and the first shadows appearing
Format: Either
Summary: Suzaku tries not to remember the 10th August, and then the start of the event happens. Edit: Now with a 12th August prompt for his 'gift'
Warnings: Event stuff

[Dorm levels, outside room 4-02] He came here every day, just for a few moments, to read the name on the plaque. Rolo Lamperouge, he was still here, hadn't been lost to the dead world.

Suzaku hadn't seen him since he killed him, he knew Rolo would be found when he wanted to be and so was being as patient as he could be. He may have failed him but he would not stop caring, stop trying.

He nodded to himself and turned to leave, stopping on the way to check the network. He rarely replied but read sometimes, to check what was happening, what he might need to know.

His eyes flicked to the date in the corner and he blinked, counting the years in his head. Ten.

[Floor Seventy Four] This floor was dark enough that there were always monsters, and that was what Suzaku needed.

He had fought too many instincts, he wanted to go to the white room and forget everything for a while, but he knew Diarmuid would be furious if he found out. He wanted even more to just stop, the urge to give up rising again though he had fought it all month.

Diarmuid would be angry at that as well, and he would know, Suzaku was sure. At least the knight wouldn't disprove of fighting monsters, though he might if he knew why.

Suzaku threw himself at more and more dangerous monsters, putting himself in danger, letting the Geass save him. Very quickly the day became a patchwork of unconnected memories, with gaps.

[Throughout the tower, the eleventh] As night fell on the tower, in the early hours of the next morning Suzaku noticed a different kind of monster. Shadows, shadows with grins.

They couldn't be killed, and they followed him, as he tried to climb the stairs. They didn't try and hurt him, just followed him, grinning, seeming familiar in a way Suzaku couldn't quite put a finger on.

[12th August, mailroom and floor 73 (snowy castle floor)] The shadows were still following him, there seemed to be a couple more today and Suzaku ignored them as he had the day before.

He went to his mailbox, it was rare he ever recieved letters but sometimes Diarmuid had sent him a note, and he held to the hope that Rolo might, if the boy didn't want to speak to him directly.

There was something there today though and Suzaku picked it up, almost dropping it when he saw the name.

Genbu Kururugi and the dates. He didn't though, just left the mailroom and walked down a few floors until he got to the strange snow filled floor. He had never read this, his fathers obituary. He had been running, with Lelouch and Nunnally, blocked his fathers memory out of his mind.

During his years in the army he had tried to forget, tried to make everyone forget he was the son of the former prime minister of Japan.

It was in Japanese, obviously, and Suzaku realised with a start that whatever translated things in this tower translated them into Britannian for him.

Not something he wanted to dwell on top of this. He took a deep breath and began to read.

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"He doesn't wish to talk to me." Suzaku told him, looking down again. "I do not blame him, he doesn't trust easily and has been hurt many times."

And Suzaku had just added to that.

Diarmuid nods, though he's frowning slightly. It's a difficult situation. It is perfectly understandable for Rolo to be hurt and unable to forgive especially considering what he has been through. However, what happened hadn't been Suzaku's fault and he shouldn't have to suffer for it.

"Do you think it would help any if I talked to him? Or might that just make things worse?"

"I am unsure." Suzaku frowned, "I don't know if he would listen."

But at least if Diarmuid spoke to him, then Rolo might actually about the incident instead of keeping it locked up ~~said the biggest hypocrite ever~~

"I would be grateful if you spoke to him, he needs people he can trust or at least people who wish to try and help him."

"I don't know him that well, but if you think it may help, you know I will do it. I wouldn't have offered otherwise. You are both good people and he needs more people he can trust. No one should be alone here.

"However, I don't know him that well Suzaku. We only met that once," a concerned look crosses Diarmuid's face. "Can you tell me a little more about him and how he generally reacts? What should I avoid? It will do me no good to try and talk to him if I accidentally say something that makes him completely lock down."

"I don't know him all that well either." Suzaku admitted, "I didn't really know him at all at home, he was with Lelouch for a year pretending to be his brother, it wasn't until there was increased terrorist activity and there was suspicion of Lelouch getting his memories back that I was sent back to Area 11 and met him." He frowned.

"He finds it hard to interact with others, he trusted Lelouch a lot, loved him like he truly was his little brother and Lelouch's betrayal hurt. Pretty much by the time I got there Lelouch had ensured he was on his side and he considered me the enemy, by the time I joined with Lelouch Rolo was dead..."

He frowned and pressed on, "Since the glamour went down he has failed to see the use in anything, I don't think he had much of a sense of self before that even. He acts suspiciously around people and doesn't hesitate to kill them, it takes a lot of trust before he even considers you worth living, never mind anything else..."

It's not a lot and some of it Diarmuid isn't sure how he should take to be honest, but it's is a start, "Do you think I need to worry about him attacking me or trying to hurt me if I talk to him? I have no idea what he thought of me after we met that day. Did he ever say anything to you?"

Rolo definitely needs more people he feels he can trust, but trust is such a hard thing to get someone to give, especially once they have been hurt by those they thought they could trust. Diarmuid can't blame him for not wanting to be around others after how he was used, but being so alone and distrustful is no way to live. He just needs to find a way to get Rolo to believe that...something that is going to be even harder if he has given up the way Suzaku makes it sound like he has.

"He liked you, but he might have connected you with me, in which case he may not speak to you." Suzaku frowned, "It may be best to meet him on a non powered floor, if he attacks it will be with his powers, and so even if he attacks you physically when he cannot use them you will be able to try and talk him down, something you cannot do if he stops your time."

A concerned look crosses Diarmuid's face, "Is he so upset that you think he may attack instead of trying to talk?" If so, things are worse than he feared. He had hoped that Rolo would talk to him as an acquaintance who is concerned about him as opposed to immediately becoming hostile because he is someone connected to Suzaku. That he might not get that chance at all is worrying.

"He was trained as an assassin from as long as he can remember. Attacking is what he knows." Talking was hard, for Rolo, Suzaku understood that much.

"He may surprise me, but he finds it difficult to care about people."

"Or hides it well because the last time he did, he was hurt by it," Diarmuid sighs. The more he learns, the more complex this this becomes and the more he worries about messing something up or making things much worse. Still, he won't give up.

"What do you think would be the best way for me to approach him? A letter asking for a meeting? Though, that he could just ignore or 'forget.' If I go to his room to meet with him, I may put him on guard and there would be no negation of his powers there. Of course, asking him to meet me on a power draining floor would seem suspicious anyway..."

"Yes..." He winced, "Especially since that is what I did..." Before he had killed him. He shook his head, "Even if he had been the monster... he practically said that he would not have cared and knew that things would go back to normal once Ruana got bored or the month changed. It would have been best to leave it, rather than destroying his trust like that."

"Hindsight is 20/20. That is what they say now, isn't it?" Diarmuid ponders this a moment, wanting to make sure he is using the saying right and then shrugs, "Right or wrong, it doesn't matter. My point is that it is always easy to see what you could have changed or done differently once something is done, but if you let worries that you are doing something wrong stop you nothing will ever be done. You had the best of intentions. It is just sad that here, that is often not enough to guarantee the outcome you want."

"Yes, something like that." Suzaku wasn't sure of the saying either but nodded.

"Seeing how he is now, I cannot help but wish I had decided against acting." Rolo was too broken for Suzaku to feel anything but soul crushing guilt about the fact.

"Perhaps, but the past cannot be changed. You're trying to help fix things now. That is what you need to focus on," Diarmuid pauses as they finally reach the floor with the incinerator on it and motions toward the obituary that they had come here to burn. "This is advice I have given you before and nothing has changed it. We are the only ones who can fix the things we felt have gone wrong in the past. If we lose ourselves to pain and guilt nothing will be done. I know a simple action cannot really rid one of something that is so much a part of them, but let throwing that into the incinerator be a small release of it all. A break form letting it control you. A promise that you will keep working to fix everything so that in the end you will find yourself as well."

Suzaku nodded slowly, it was indeed advice he had been given before, and yet sometimes whenever anything happened, whenever he made yet another mistake or bad decision he forgot it all.

He often was amazed that Diarmuid was so patient with him. He nodded stiffly and stepped towards the incinerator, it was almost unbearably hot and he gripped the obituary in his hand.

It was indeed a small thing, but at the same time a big thing, letting go of something. Not the guilt, never that, but something. The fact that he had let it define him, since the mad man told him what he had done. Since he had unlocked the doors in Suzaku's head.

The paper fluttered from his hand and started burning as it went through the door, Suzaku stood in silence, unable to drag his eyes away, long after it was gone.

Diarmuid stands close to Suzaku, silently offering his support as his friend thinks over the things he needs to in order to make himself let go of the paper. If he ends up needing help, Diarmuid will give it just like Waver gave it to him. However, when Suzaku lets go of the paper on his own a few moment later, Diarmuid can't help but smile.

It seems his friend is stronger than he thinks he is.

For a while, the only sounds in the room are the sounds from the incinerator itself. There are things Diarmuid could say, but he doesn't want to rush Suzaku through his letting go. When he does finally speak, though, his words are soft.

"Every step is a new beginning and that is why new beginnings happen all the time. It is also why one must never give up. Not when the new beginning that leads to the end they are looking for might only be a step away."

Suzaku stared into the fire but after a long moment turned to fact Diarmuid, "Thank you." His voice was quiet and he looked back to the flames.

"It seems you are always there to force me back on the right path."

Diarmuid watches Suzaku for a moment before turning to look at the fire himself, "All journeys have guideposts in the forms of friends and family. I know I would not be so far along my journey it if weren't for them. You are my friend--my brother knight--so I will always be here to guide you back in the correct direction. You are a good person and your journey will come to a good end someday no matter how many times you get lost along the path." He looks back at Suzaku confidently, "I know it will. Even if you cannot believe that now, I believe it and I will keep believing it."

Suzaku glanced at him, so many things Diarmuid said made him uncomfortable. Him calling him friend, a brother knight, a good person.

It was strange having someone believing in him so much, when Suzaku could not bring himself to believe in himself. "I cannot say thank you enough." His voice is barely a whisper.

"You're welcome," Diarmuid steps forward and puts a hand on Suzaku's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "Someday it will get easier to believe. Until then, you know my strength is yours. It is the least I can give to one who I consider family."

Suzaku didn't move away. But still not sure what to think of it all. "I'm afraid I don't make good family."

"That doesn't matter," Diarmuid shakes his head. "Those who are your family are your family no matter what. Good. Bad. It doesn't matter. Family will be at your side for both."

It's just like how most of the Fianna stood at his side when Fionn was after him instead of following the Lord they had sworn themselves to. Diarmuid was their family and one doesn't just abandon their family during the hard times.

Suzaku wouldn't know about that, his own extended family had disowned him when he had joined the military, not that he had had much contact with them after his fathers death.

Perhaps family who chose you were different. "Then I will be at your side also, if you ever need me."

"I know you will be," Diarmuid's expression is confident. "Even if you cannot be in body for whatever reason, I know you will be in soul which is just as important in a place like this where we cannot always control our actions and destinies."

After all, no one chooses to be sent away from here, but it still happens. That doesn't mean that person isn't still thinking of those who they have left behind and hoping that they are doing well and fighting on.

"Well, I am only here in soul."

Yes that was a joke, a horribly morbid one but still, an attempt. Suzaku stepped away from the fire at last. "But I understand."

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