Noble. Suzaku had once considered himself noble. A stupid, selfish notion that had since been thoroughly disproved. Maybe he had been once, when he served Euphemia, or maybe even then it had just been a pretty delusion to hide behind. Either way, after he had failed Euphemia, after he had lost sight of whatever goodness he might have possessed in his obsession with defeating Zero, he no longer deserved to indulge in such disgusting fantasies. The difference between Lelouch and Euphemia was that there was nothing noble in the way he wanted to serve Lelouch. They would go down together, and the most they could hope for was to change the world along the way.

And so he felt even more disgusted with himself for thinking he could make up for what happened with Euphemia by protecting Lelouch. He didn't deserve any form of salvation, especially not through him. What the hell was he thinking? Lelouch was dead-on, he didn't have the right to pretend to be noble, never again.

Suzaku decided to ignore the accusation, hoping his thoughts weren't written on his face. He needed to focus, because right now he needed answers. "I'll follow orders if I know that I can trust you, and --" and he didn't sound cold so much as distant "-- and I don't know if the person I said that to last night is the same one I saw tonight. Please don't lie to me, Lelouch." It might have been unfair, because Lelouch had only done what had to be done, but it wasn't so much what he did as how he did it.

"And take your shirt off," he added, walking toward Lelouch with a stubborn glint in his eye. To rely on the Institute and wait until morning to bandage those cuts was not just irresponsible, it was downright stupid. Suzaku had been about to relent earlier, because while Lelouch couldn't reach his own shoulders very well he could certainly still do it himself. But now that he was here anyway, and Lelouch wasn't making any move to take care of it, Suzaku was determined to do so.