a/n: since a majority of us are used to hearing Nunnally refer to Lelouch as "onii-sama" I have used that instead of the translation of "Older Brother" or the more western way we address our siblings (by their name), though it may bother some since neither of the characters are Japanese.

dedicated to PrincessChii.

the lullaby in this fic is orginally called "komori uta" (lullaby in Japanese) the lyrics are by Shiina Ringo, translation from freckle./nl/ringo/index.html.

lullaby's overture ; angst/romance - R - Lelouch x Nunnally

When, where, how it began he does not know, where any thing begins- it's presumptuous for humans to think they know.

The smell of winter, he does not remember, spring blocks it out, the cold of falling snow has been melted by the blossoms (that do wither in summer heat) he remembers chasing after her, light and fairy step, every tremor, every hum in the air sending a trick of electric feel down his spine. The flutter of a caramel shaded lock caught on the breeze of some feigned presence. She had been told not to go far, but she could not help but set into an invigorated chase- she always did this and without fail Lelouch would follow trailing after every step, hopelessly trying to put a stopper on her never ending amount of energy.

She liked to twirl, a fury of lace and silk as her skirts turned in motion, often she liked the colour purple, and other partially dark colours because they were drastically different from the light pastel colours Euphemia would rather wear (and their mother would joke that when Nunnally married she'd rather wear maroon than white for her wedding). Lelouch would eventually catch her, sweat beaded about his brow, sometimes too out of breath to put his protest into connecting words and they would lost as syllables, Nunnally holding her giggles in at the kind of expression her brother would make, the crease of his brow and the twist of his mouth (all for her). He would get around to scolding her and by then her short lived pleasure would fade and she would chide him, he'd never talk to Euphy like this, and he would reply that Euphy wouldn't run around as she did. But Nunnally did not think so and had sourly said that if Euphy had ran around as she Lelouch would have chased her with pleasure.

But no one was as full of energy as she, he had said. A chase after Euphy would be fresh and short, it would not make his heart pound in the same way, nor his lungs labour in the same way. It would not be such hard work. He would catch Euphy easily while with she-

A hand grips about his chest, where the heart should be, bunching about the fabric of his uniform, dark- it was a shame the dark of the uniform would not just swallow him then and there, never to spit him out but follow through with utter digestion.

Nunnally cannot run as she did, she cannot smile with her eyes open and looking at him, laughing at him, because brother is amusing in his agitation, because brother is funny in becoming distraught at the idea that she will miss a step, while to Euphy he- and she would stop laughing then, to Euphy she thinks he'd rather, and the one-sided game she made them play would fade and it would no longer be a game- but they would still be on opposing sides.

("You'd rather marry Euphy than me wouldn't you?")

And Nunnally never remembered how it had started between her and Euphy- that conversation, only that she never wanted to have a rival for Lelouch's- no, brother's affection. But that had been where she had been.

His head hangs in (shame, disbelief, contortion, those half said words) falling forward and not touching the door frame, instead his back aligning with it. Her pink lips staring back the question, eyes that cannot open, cannot see him now. Those days that she would glare back into his own, heated argument usually for this, for his- ("you love her more than me don't you?") are gone. His voice had caught a choking and gagging, like taking sand and scraping it over ash as to prevent a spark of flame- it had been difficult but finally, finally he had said to her flushed face and eyes watering (upturn of) her lip quivering, his hands had been sweaty and shaking just as- it all coming out near whisper and cracking, "I love you more than anything."

Than himself.

Than mother.

Than Euphemia.

And then Suzaku.

To her and only her he would rinse wash repeat a process. To become evil, to be good, whatever mask she desired for the masquerade he would provide. More than anyone he loves her. There is no limit to what he would bear for her, if it is for her sake he would do anything. All those years ago, his foot up a step and down another, with his mother, with Nunnally's sight and her ability to walk, the he of that day died. He was not just Lelouch, he was not just a prince, he was not just her older brother, he was festering justice, however dark, however grey, what look light cast upon him, he did not mind it. (But what kind of look would she cast upon him, should she know, should she see? And he knows better than anyone that you do not need eyes to see, there are many things you see behind closed lids, knows it in the way his fingers had twisted against his bed sheets- and it is awkward he does not sleep as he had, he does not wake in the same way as before. Since C.C. is there it is not the same, but memory prevails that he had-) a sound wants to escape his throat, silence cuts it through and strangles it.

He turns to face the door, fingers curling slowly one by one upon the cold doorknob, though he had just touched it hours ago to bid her good night (to gently kiss her brow and reassure her of tens and thousands of things he does and does not do). Here they are upon it again, he twists it down and opens the door, stepping in with an off step (she should not know it is him-) this is the walk someone else takes (though he does not dare think, breathe, taste the name Zero here) it is the way Zero walks, a bit off, but direct and right, different from Lelouch, the student, the brother, the- he does not find a way to walk in between and keeping this step (do not mention) he returns to her bedside, crouching upon his knees at first, daring not to touch the surface of the fabric that are covering her soft breaths, covering her to the collarbone, exactly where he had left it. Her dainty hands tucked under, where were they? Folded about her stomach? Separate, one bent up and one narrow straight the arm? -the desire to know itches about his own hands and he holds it down, scratching about them.

He had closed the door quietly, slowly, had there been a click? His fingers make their way to gently touch at the side of her bed, just barely touching the sheets, his chest is aching, it's hard to breathe. He will curse memory, for it has shaped him, shaped him as history has to the world, just as his fingers had been on the handle of the door earlier before, he had been in this room before. Sayoko had been given another day of vacation and the task for tending to Nunnally had fallen to Lelouch (though Nunnally had protested, she did not need his help- and sensing that her words had stung him, and knowing that she would need his help she had apologized and allowed him-) and he hated, hates himself. When they had lived all alone together, elsewhere in Japan, in that molding corner of the world as children, as abandoned, weak children- he had and he alone had tended to her, he had done this many a time before- but now. Now it had been different. Why was that so? And though his hands had not trembled every bit of his insides had. Sliding off a shoe, a stocking, unbuttoning her uniform, her shirt, her undergarments and helping her into her night clothes. Momentarily on and off, lifting her up and against him in assistance, a slim, tiny, creamy arm wrapping about his shoulders, around his neck, her gripping hands able and fastened, his own hand sliding about her back- a shoulder blade, in finding place and appropriate hold before transferring her to the bed. He loves to tuck his arm under her legs, he loves to hold her in this manner, always those arms holding on to him, her head tucked under his chin- but it is wrong for him to love this, wrong for him to want to love in this manner because they- (and when he unclenches he fingers, warm and spent and sticky, and shamed and every heavy feeling he had held within his chest collapsing, if only if only his mind continuing to rapidly think, a revolver letting out shots, letting out every bullet- if only he could be swallowed by the dark of night and not return to this state of delirium.)

His hands press into the bed, a dip, he rises, he presses forward. Moonlight tilted, an angry shadow, about her soft face, her relaxed brow, the soft breath, it wafts over his cheek when he leans forward to feel it, the hear it- ready to attune his own breath similarly. He sits down upon the bed. She slumbers on, he cannot resist pressing aside the strands of hair that cling to her left cheek, smoothly, barely the tips of his fingers touching her skin, feeling as a butterfly kiss would. He should not be here. He wants to kiss her, kiss her softly, and the parted way her lips become as she sleeps does not help. Those cautious fingers of before remain and skim over a full bottom lip. He must be mad.

He concludes this, thinks this, (thought this always as he stared at his ceiling, catching his breath, dark hair sticking to his forehead, his face, and feeling drenched and parched all at once-) he leans forward, not sure, unsure, just restless, as she becomes, her head turning away, a knitted look, and it's probably wakening but he does not bolt, he does not leave, and he softly kisses her cheek, adjusting both arms to be at one side each, his legs barely following suit at imperfect angle. And instead it finds place aside both legs, indenting the sheets (trembling a bit-) he is light headed, this is not him, he is dreaming, this is a nightmare, he needs to go, why is he here. He wishes the sound of traffic would take the hold of night, so he would take a firm grip on precaution, but it eludes him (he hates himself, he hates it, this, he loves this he loves her, he loves her dearly he-) must not do this.

And her voice is starkly loud to the quiet his limbs had tried to move to, that he gives a start, her lips almost bumping against his cheek (not in return) as she turns (as if to look)- "Who are you?"

She did not hear his footsteps, she has not heard his voice, right now he (is not her older brother) and if there was still decency in this world (the world that has been enclosed around him he would throw himself out the window, leave this room-) he is her older brother, he-

"I-if you do not leave now, I'll call out."

His breath catches.

"My brother will not be forgiving to you, whatever your intentions may have been, please leave."

Her voice is shaking, there is a vague quiver before dignified hold, Nunnally is really the such a person who is a kind, gentle (princess) and he moves fast, sharp, that when his lips touch hers- though it is softly, mimicking kind, he feels horrified that it is an utter act of violence and her shoulders start to move, as she tries to stretch her body, her face, away from him. An outright refusal, no, shaping and lost under his mouth, pressing and moving against hers, his hands coming to hold her (down) shoulders, his thigh pressing between her legs (that cannot move) and sore- this could not be reality, but-

"Onii-sama!" and she calls, calls out loudly, achingly, desperately, beautifully, that he cannot help but crush his mouth against hers again, persistent- pressing his whole being upon her, a half struggle, and just onii-sama being called for over and over again in her sweet voice and he is (not) here. She implores him to please stop, before calling again for- "Why can you never say my name?"

And she becomes stock still at his words, rigid (rigor mortis) his voice a pitch deeper, his voice (too much like the devil advocate's) "Why-" a grieved word and breath and sound comes from his mouth, his fingers held her in as gently a regard as he could, because swiftly, swiftly she is realizing that he is actually- and it comes out, spoken as if it is a foreign word, (but not broken, not yet, because she will not believe it until-) "Lelouch?"

That sound from before, when he had turned his back to the door, when he had contemplated ten thousand different things he could and should and better be doing than going into her room- is wrangles out of his throat, pained because he is hearing what he wanted to hear but hearing what he should not be hearing.

He pulls the cover back, her hands have long come out from their warm shelter to push at his chest, her mouth makes a cringing shape from the cold that collides, conflicted with the warmth the cover once brought, then to the thin sheets, until he can rest a hand against her chest, near her breast, trying to find the largest and confirming pulse of them all. "Onii-sama?" attentively, in the back of his (her) mind someone sings a sweet sweet ballad, and trembling the final note shall be sung, sung with the deepest of- her hands at his chest, one moves to grip at his wrist while the other (attentively) touches at his cheek, oh. He thinks of how it can rain in the summer. How once in that shackled, rotting place of theirs leaks ran abundant he soon found out and in response he made- shifted a roof over her head with a cheap plastic tablecloth, as well as several layers of cloth and rain stuff to ensure it would not catch her, he had dashed out. And tried to buy an umbrella.

But even in yen, even though he was willing to pay twice the price, no Japanese person seemed to want to let him purchase an umbrella that day. Defeated he had walked home, getting soaked minute by minute until on the way- ("Britannian youth, do you need an umbrella?") the wooden kind of umbrella, that strikes him as odd, that waxed paper, and a vibrant red- it conflicted with the sun at dusk and defeated it completely, the dark of her kimono had reminded him of (the sort of dress Nunnally should have worn) and he had offered her his money and she had refused it (a dignified cross, wave of her hand, strength laid in it- the strong should protect, assist- the weak), this utterly Japanese woman he never thought he would see again.

So he had gone home, money intact, a giant umbrella fashioned of wood (bamboo) and he would hitch it over Nunnally's head beaming that she would remain dry (though he himself was wet) and later Suzaku would visit and laugh and laugh and laugh at how ridiculous it was for people like them to have an umbrella as such as that (all before helping them to fix the roof of course.) Back then, when Lelouch had gotten home, beaming with success, though wet to the core and that warm cold you get after running- after being happy, and soaked by summer rain... Nunnally had gently touched his cheek-

-in this exact same manner.

He does not have a fever but he still feels (hot). His mouth becomes (rubbed by sand), the desert carries a different lullaby from the one they know and he starts to undo the buttons of her night dress (a pastel yellow, not the kind of gown she would have worn in the past) done, done, done, he counts there to be five, they are perfectly round and the exact same size as the other. His fingers dip over her skin and he hears her intake of breath, as he moves down, ebbing away from her until his head lies upon her right hip, his hand resting against her stomach, he lies at the side of her right leg, aching. Just resting and not willing himself the strength to move. It is distant now, Nunnally is- "Onii-sama?" she inquires once again, and though the air is still cold upon her flesh she speaks without the anxiety as before.

"I did not expect it," he speaks softly, voice cracking as it had the day he had said to her ("I love you more-") and the face he makes he can only make before, for her. And it is a face she will never see it seems.

He does not finish the sentence but she understands, instead his places her hands where his head lies and cradles it to her, rising it just a bit. His ear is a little uncomfortable as it presses against a button but he doesn't say anything (more.) It's quiet, and when he thinks he will discard himself and try to find his sanity- should it be found in sleep, Nunnally asks, fingers skimming through his hair, about it, soothingly "Are you not feeling well?"

And he replies, "Yes, I am not feeling well."

"Then," she continues, "I shall sing you a lullaby to make you feel better."

It's a lullaby their mother used to sing, words of the sky and farewell aligned with the notes of Chopin's Op.34 No.2 often sung to the background of summer heat, or tumbling rain, either one would make either (both) sleepy but never succeed in making them sleep as the tender voice of their mother had, stroking their hair with her long fingers, not exactly elegant as the other lady's with their calluses and history, but still the hands of a mother (their).

The sky is preparing for a busy tomorrow
Tonight you are quietly saying goodbye
Close your eyes and lay yourself to rest

Once more, again. She sings it a third time, and sees his eyes have fluttered shut yet- "You're not feeling better at all are you?"

Lelouch, doesn't want to lie softly by her side, what kind of older brother, what kind support could he offer her if he must keep being held by her? He needed to protect her, he needed to- "I'm feeling a little better," and he speaks in that sort of voice reserved only for her, because it is a kind voice (that Zero does not know how to make). "Thank you, Nunnally."

Dice has slipped through butter far more easily. ("The truth is-")

She wants to give a sigh of relief, she wants to cease his agitation, his- ("I don't know," with his fingers curved and his hips pressing, I Don't Know.) Yet, she cradles his head close against her, always with this softness, and his heart is crying out, torn, and battered, sore. There will come a day when she will (reject) him.

He thinks it should be today.

"Nunnally," and he's saying her name wrong, that voice from before, it there is a middle ground it is also called no man's land. Right before you see the bullet, right after you hear the bullet. His hands grips at her hips (he often did this, when he was frustrated, when he was conflicted, lie his head upon her lap, the crown of it brushing against her stomach-) he presses his face into her stomach. "I want-" if she was not lying down to sleep (to pray) Nunnally would have tilted her head (the perfect accent of) in inquiry, worry, in, "Onii-sama?"

That question from before, probably the poised and able snake, who tempted apples who tempted sin, it has been resting not over the slick rippled branches but instead at the roots, coiled and pressed. A spring, his answer is ages old and cannot be young again, "I want you to become my-"

And abruptly (as if his words may be hurtful, and it is odd, the tremor in her voice as if she cannot bear this any longer, as if she-) she must be disgusted, his thoughts, skim over the surface of an entire ocean. He has formulated plans to take down kings, but he has yet to even understand the thoughts of a- "We are not children any more."

She continues, finality etching into every crevice of every syllable, but on the last word she allows a drawn breath to waver, fade, and all the breath in him crumbles. ("I am your-") if these words had been on her tongue, they are lost, lost to the sensation of his mouth, creeping over the opening he had so carefully made before (cold, slim, hot, sharp, gentle fingers down down) that sinking low. His lips, his tongue, trailing over her skin, sucking here and there, teeth briefly scraping over a nipple, her fingers loosen in his hair (when they find it again) only to grasp tighter than before, she-

-holds him closer, and strained, sight she does not have, she is looking to him. (Can they be children any at all if they are to do this?) She draws him closer, his hot breath, her wet cooling skin slides, she- (consents) to what he has (yet) not said.

"Nunnally, I lo-" the edges of fingertips halt his moving lips (she wants them to touch her) and she doesn't want him to say it (again), not like this. He, hushed- continues speaking against her fingers, "There will be no path back."

Her half risen body, in effort to meet him (to match him, just a little, little by little- it is not strength that strikes a person down, it is their weakness, and she is not just both, she is) everything/she lowers, sinks, falls, lies low back upon the mattress, the sheets he is neither familiar nor entirely acquainted with smarten under the weight of their bodies. "It's alright."

Her voice is (quivering, blinded by the moonlight, blinded by a veil of crimson, all that she saw beyond the window and the barrel of a pointed sharp pistol the haze of gun smoke and gun shots and the sound and in the silence- the silence is screaming) from the aftermath of all his actions, and what he is doing now should have never made it (outside his dreams, those nightmarish things.)

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Hanging his head, low. Her face feels its shadow better than the darkness that has been present since night made its name known and she cups his face, tracing those familiar curves and lines and features knowing they have sharpened in time's passing. The city is parched and she- "Then, onii-sama."

And if she could see, she would see his bright eye quick upon her, hastening, fastening, destitute and wanting and dying and- (dark indigo, it was stained too close to red) her lips he watched diligent to every word that came next (always) "I will have to be not sorry for the both of us."

About her neck, his fingers reach, not encircling, just touching, her collarbone, she feels him rest about- upon her hips, his knees pressing into the bed to measure his weight from her. She hears the rustle of clothing, he has taken his shirt off she will find. His fingers fall to her night gown, hitching up the bunched up folds of fabric, she reaches up her arms lazily as it slides off, her back becoming cold as she leans forward (he kisses her forehead then). Trailing downward to kiss her throat, her neck, pressing her down, a hand fumbling touch at her breast while another makes itself known at her hip. Lowering himself to her only once, twice, as if fearful to touch her entirely- hesitant, wavering in that he, "Onii-sama, onii-sama."

She calls to him, a voice that is caught from the lullaby from before. He has tried to keep himself away, and never never this for so long. (It is wrong, it is wrong, he is wrong and he is making her wrong too and she must be right because if he is wrong then she is right and if it is the other way around it cannot be the other way around and therefore she is right and he too will be-) unfastening his belt, every calculated, in check, restrained, thought, feeling, cause is gone and it is the hollow of his mind, it must be, but still it is the strained and capable and lying and truthful reality, stumbling fingers against the button, the zipper- hazily meeting her forward, she tries to reach against him and sharp, sharp is the (refrain) that he shudders with his breath, her breath, she is lovely, he must be harsh, he wants to hold her against him and never let go, hold her and fall from the earth and the moon and the sun and sea and the sky and the universe and time and existence and them. He will try to correct this one day, he will find it cannot be corrected, that there are not only hard solutions and easy solutions and solutions to be made, because sometimes there is not a solution and he will find it (here.)

Her arms around and over his shoulders, knitted, faulty fingers, flushed together and friction and it is her skin against his, her skin rosy and parted her lips, he takes the time to admire her every expression even if it is just the vague notion the corner of his eye does catch. He loves her, he loves, he loves her. He hooks a finger about her hip, pulling down, off her panties. Tugging them away, his leg intervenes and presses against her slick hard and fast, her hips barely able to- and it catches the futile, the criminal, the (he is horrible, horrible, horrible, to his sweet little sister, his sister who cannot move like he does, his little sister who has not really seen him in-) his teeth grind, a little. Sweat at his brow (her brow, and on that pink, reddened limb face torso ear cheek, gently heaving chest, that expression, that brow curved and willing and absolutely endearing and gorgeous and he is sick of himself, he hates-) how much he loves (her). "Nunnally," cracking, his voice, she is all he needs, she is embodied air, her safety, her happiness, it has been engrained into his purpose that it is he and only he who can secure it.

(But, this-)

Her wrists loosely held (at first), rising crescendo, just to be near her should be enough, it should have been enough- and he holds them physically, really- his leg pressing hers wider apart, clothing sliding down, falling, crumpling, kicked heap. He wants to hold her (forever) and fevered (because he is sick he must be sick he must be-) he is in her and stuck on the sensation too long there is an instilling pause at the fact that he-

-her voice, her beautiful, beautiful voice, "Onii-sama, I-" and she does not finish as he presses forward, deeper, further in and out, smooth, hard, careful deliberate friction, he was really, he was really... she keeps calling out (he had been going mad, he is mad now, has always been, he should have known from the start), coming around him, her slick brow his lips scape over (to form another country), a hand twisting to support her head- twisting into those soft locks a darker hazy shade in the night. Concentrating on the feel of her breath, a soft touch of lash, deeper, deeper, and he derives-

-her hands touching his face, seeing his face and she asks, she asks in a voice he has never heard before (as if flushed), "Don't cry," and her lips trailing, seeing his face as she kisses (licks with a pink tongue) the salty substance (we came from the sea) away and on edge, teeth, muscles, back, limb, he comes and cries all the harder. (Because her soft voice is no longer in the back of his mind ushered away to keep himself away, but there and loud and trying to breach over his own but to allow it to do so-) and she's saying yes, over and over and he doesn't know why just, "I'll be your-"

The crescendo that has started in his mind and large and gaping and vast and hurried, has fallen. Relief shakes him, his shoulders, the amplitude. His grief, his joy, guilt has but 30 complete seconds till it strikes him down and reverently, fervently he basks in this joy- lips bumbling, mumbling against her brow, her cheek, at her ear, at her neck, her lips of what greater joy she has brought him, pulling out, away trailing wet forbidden heat and almost praying that; then-

-the 30 seconds end.

Above her, in trembling voice (and the pitch, the pitch is too low than what he usually speaks at, to her and he knows this voice belongs to the-) devil. He sings to her the same lullaby as before, jumbled syllables as his breath catches here and there at the beginning at the end of a word he should not have and it is the hardest, strained lullaby he will ever sing.

Nunnally, she has been the attentive listener often, cleanly interrupts at "quietly" in a loud voice of her own (if traffic filtered through would he have heard her?), the up tilted chin, she is looking at him. "Onii-sama, I love you."

He almost tells her that isn't fair.

But as if she knows what he is thinking ("To you, I would not lie.") those trailing fingers (see me), faltering about his still quivered lip, to him there has never been a more "You're so beautiful, Nunnally," near silent are his words, as her words carry forward, "I have to answer you now, since back then, I never did say anything did I?"

Back-

He holds her hand against his face, cheek, which was fairer- even the mirror could not tell. Savour, breathe- in this moment that he does not think memory would ever betray to take away (to the very marrow of his bones, the reason he lives on).

Lelouch loves her.