Disclaimer: I don't own Code Geass. It belongs to Sunrise and Clamp.

Warnings: Unbeta’d, rough sex between two males.

Author’s Notes: Well, this was random 3am piece that I can’t actually remember writing too much of. Dedicated to Dawn and Alyssa, both of whom put up with my crazy ideas and utter stupidity. :D

Lelouch is eight-and-a-half when Schneizel first says the words.

“What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?” Schneizel asks, his eyes twinkling and his lips quirking up at the corners. His fair hair trickles down his temples as he watches his baby-brother, who peers up at him with eyes much too old for someone of his age. He waits for Lelouch’s answer – an answer so obvious he’s surprised Lelouch hasn’t told it to him, surprised Lelouch’s sharp tongue hasn’t ripped him to shreds, and he can only blink when Lelouch shrugs and checkmates him, replying, “I dunno.”

On the other side of the room Marianne calls out, “It’s ‘I don’t know,’ Lelouch, not ‘I dunno’. Honestly, I thought I taught you better than that.”

A dutiful, “Yes, Mother,” is his answer, and then Lelouch has reset the chessboard, pale fingers twitching. Schneizel doesn’t know it’s annoyance that drives Lelouch to defeat him nine different times, and when they retire for the night Schneizel is unaware that he’s planted a seed of something in Lelouch’s head.

What goes on four legs in the morning?

Up until his mother’s death this has been Lelouch’s obsession, one he’s hidden from his brothers and sisters and mother and father. No one knows of his trips to the family library, no one knows of how he digs about the piles of dusty, worn books, some centuries old, others only two years young. No one knows of how utterly defeated he feels, and no one knows of how close he was to his answer, a mere tome away. But all good things tend to come crashing down around Lelouch’s feet, especially his sister, who in a fit of hysteria tries to stand when her legs are ruined, their mother dead.

By the time the two are banished Lelouch has long since forgotten the riddle, obsessed instead with defeating this new boy, this fiery-green-eyed Japanese with a spirit that screams purity, righteousness, and, most importantly, This is my home, thus I’m right, and you’re wrong.

Lelouch hates how everyone around him compares Suzaku and himself to a pair of alpha dogs, fighting over a slither of territory. It’s not that way, it’s not, it’s about honour and justice, cause Suzaku is a threat to Nunnally, with his soft smiles and obvious preference of her company. Lelouch is here too, Lelouch is suffering, too, so why does no one pat his head, why does no one slip him cookies, why does no one care? All Lelouch has is himself and his pain, his wits, his sharp words and his riddle, which he has remembered and clutches tight to his chest, a secret remnant of better, happier days.

No one cares enough to hear his sniffles and sobs, and for the next month Lelouch hides himself away in the small library, and it isn’t until he misses dinner, then desert and then finally bedtime that the maid assigned to him is fired for negligence, because he’s found unconscious and feverish in the library. He sweats and pants and moans under the soft, skilled touches of the doctors, and slowly he is bought back, although he remains bedridden for several days afterward.

After that things change a bit, and soon Lelouch and Suzaku have fought out their distaste of one another, and Lelouch finds a friend in his spirited Japanese boy, and it isn’t until they’re having dinner, the night before everything changes, that Genbu mentions that they’ve grown from babe to child, from child to adult.

A twinge of something stirs Lelouch’s heart, but the far off sound of thunder distracts him, and that night he dreams of flames and burning. He learns the next day that his nightmare was very real, and very much a Knightmare. Several hundred of them, in fact.

What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon?

It’s the middle of the night when Lelouch swims awake, his eyes blinking blearily. He stares up his ceiling in loss and confusion, his mind a murky, hazy mess as he tries to remember what he was dreaming about. He gets faint memories of explosions, and bangs, and shouts and speeches and of blood pounding through his veins, of a strange, beautiful girl in a wheelchair, and, perhaps most oddly of all, Suzaku. He closes his eyes against the darkness, and listens to the faint sound of his breathing.

Suzaku. He mouths the word, rolling the ‘u’, the ‘a’ and the last ‘u’ off his tongue. Nunnally. He says that name too, even though he doesn’t know who it is, or where he imagined her up. C.C is flitting about his mind, too, but Suzaku is the one that he continues to say, chanting it over and over and over as he rolls onto his side.

Suzaku, Suzaku, Suzaku, Suzaku, Suzaku, Suzaku!

He sits up abruptly, and scrubs at his face, trying to erase the memory. He isn’t sure why but if feels so wrong to have these thoughts, and yet so right, as if the void inside of him has been filled, even a little bit, even though his brain tells him the void should not be filled at all.

“Suzaku...”

What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?

The riddle hits him hard, and he lays back down, his mind distracted, perhaps on purpose, he isn’t sure. Thinking about Suzaku makes his heart ache and feel heavy, and he yawns, feeling suddenly exhausted under the weight of it all.

He makes a mental note to talk to Rolo about it all in the morning, and as he dozes off he’s left feeling oddly grown up and adult.

What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?

Love, Lelouch has decided, is a stupid, pointless thing. It’s never done anyone a speck of good, and it makes annoying, unnecessary feelings bubble up inside of him. He doesn’t have room for these feelings, he can’t, he has a world to break apart and rebuild, after all, so he simply can not have room for this horrible warmth that blooms in his chest when he sees Suzaku.

He thinks this, even as Suzaku kisses him harshly one afternoon, pinning him to the walls of the palace, and he can’t seem to push the thought away, even when he feels a calloused hand snake into his pants. He does have a random moment of, Hello, when did you get there? though, especially when a hand circles his dick and promptly squeezes, just a tad too hard to be pleasurable.

He bites down on Suzaku’s ear in warning, causing the poor boy to rear back and yelp, which in turn causes Lelouch’s head to be slammed back against the wall. When the little black spots dancing across his vision fades, though, he finds himself being kissed far too roughly, although he stops caring when Suzaku drops to his knees in front of him and sucks the 99th Emperor of Britannia’s cock into his mouth.

“Fuck!”

And bang, his head is against the wall again, although this time Lelouch feels far too good to care.

It isn’t until Suzaku has him bent over, palms flat against the wall while he pants and huffs through Suzaku’s harsh thrusts into his formerly-virgin ass that the damned riddle pops into his head, and it isn’t until his back arches ramrod straight and white is splashing from his erection, that he screams, “It’s a man!”

Some part of him finds it painfully stupid that he’s found the answer in the middle of orgasm, but the thrill of finding the answer pushes away the thought.

He opts to ignore Suzaku’s questioning gaze, and slumps forward and down, suddenly feeling old. His knees hurt from the bad positioning, his palms are scraped raw and his bottom is red and aching, and he can feel the weight of the world on his weary shoulders.

“What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening? A man. A man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age.”

“What on earth are you blabbering about?” Suzaku asks, leaning down to help Lelouch to his feet.

“Nothing,” Lelouch replies, and he slumps against Suzaku’s broad shoulder. “God, I feel old.”

Suzaku snorts into his shoulder, and replies, “Well then, Grandpa, let me carry you to your room. And for your information, everyone knows the answer to the riddle.”

“And yet, I feel as though I’m the only one who’s lived it,” Lelouch answers, and he opts to doze off in Suzaku’s arms, feeling that maybe he can beat Schneizel, now that he’s beaten the man’s riddle.

“... uh huh.” Suzaku mutters, shaking his head, and turning he heads back to his rooms, with one of the strangest people he’s ever met in his arms.

End Notes: Okay, for those of you who don’t understand the meaning of the riddle, I was aiming for the first part - What goes on four legs in the morning? – to be about how Lelouch is essentially still a child, and by the time that segment ends and we start on On two legs at noon he’s starting to grow up, into adulthood. The last part, On three legs in the evening, shows how Lelouch is older, perhaps more wise, and has aged beyond his years. The answer - A man – is supposed to symbolize how he’s only human, and finding his answer during sex is another way of showing his humanity, since by the time we get to the end of the anime I was left with a feeling of Godliness coming from Lelouch, even though he’s not.

The middle part, On two legs at noon takes place just before episode one of R2, for anyone who’s confused. So, essentially, he doesn’t remember Nunnally or C.C.