31_days | [February 27th] [Code Geass] Benevolence

Title: Benevolence
Day/Theme: February 27th, the world is tiny; the heart’s enormous
Series: Code Geass
Character/Pairing: Lelouch/Euphemia
A/N: Nervous about posting this, but I like this well enough, and I don't think it will be that bad of a first post. Anyway! This fic is basically a sort of AU where Euphemia is captured and kept hostage or prisoner for several years, and then Lelouch plans to save her. It sounds much stupider typed out than it did in my head, I promise.
Rating: T for teen!

After three years in captivity, Euphemia has no substance. Lelouch can feel her staccato heartbeat through her birdcage ribs, thumping in a way that seems fatigued. Her blue eyes are glazed as she looks up at him, the smile on her face soft and hazy. It ties his thoughts into knots. His throat feels so dry, every practiced word flying out of his mind like it's an open door. She is so tired, and he is making her walk. The kind thing to do would be to stop and allow her to rest her bones, but they have to move. He spent years planning this escape; he won't allow mercy to disrupt it.

Nevertheless, as they twist through another cramped corridor hung with maps, he is the one to trip. His second thought is that he might fall onto the dirty concrete and crack his helmet open, possibly damaging his skull; the first is damn it, I will not fail her! The ground is getting closer and closer and his stomach is violently being pushed up into his throat and he can't believe this is happening—

—and there is her hand at his elbow, steadying him and serenely pushing him back into place. "There you go," she says, voice
dulcet, folded and gentle like crumpled paper. She is smiling, despite the fact that she has been whittled to the bare bones of her anatomy and if he were not so thin himself, she could have just gone down with him. But maybe it was the strength of her benevolence that gave her the will, not the strength of her muscles.

But without voicing any of this, he nods his thanks, grabs her wrist, and pulls her along after him.