Suzaku was well acquainted with all the shades of fire.
He'd dallied with yellow and orange – on a strictly friendship basis of course, intrigued by Milly's creativity and bemused by Shirley's loyalty. The former was complex but kind, like black liquorice drenched in sweet, milky chocolate; he didn't mind the taste but wanted something more. The latter reminded him of his first in a way, all pliant sweetness and determination, but she was burnt, burnt, burnt to oblivion. Those pale coals no longer smouldered at his memory's touch.
He'd loved the softest of pinks; he'd played with their silky tresses and found their yielding lips fair. Euphemia was the purest of temptresses, the most perfect blend of dark chocolate created from passionate flames, with tangs of gentle cherry to soothe his pain away. The perfect girl had shown him a future – something more than a better world – a family, a soul, a belonging. He knew she'd been something irreplaceable when he felt his heart shatter at her deathbed; when Cornelia – all violet ferocity and righteousness – fell to her knees and screamed vengeance, vengeance, vengeance. He knew he was lost when he felt himself snap, no longer her white knight, just a man. A broken man.
But then, when the absolute worst of it was over – when his new identity was something more than himself – she was there. He saw red, pink, purple and blue eyes; fiery yet calming, and oh-so-deadly. The broken woman liked to shout, liked to watch him blister, before kissing away his agony with something spicy, somewhat sweet. She was Kallen Kozuki – his head on a platter if he dared to mention her past as a Stadtfeld – the inferno who had pinned him against the wall with an enraged look in her eyes, just daring him to push her away.
"I need this. You need this. Are you going to kiss me back, or what?"
He saw someone who had lost everything; she was a liqueur of desperation and heady attraction.
"Suzaku…"
She was not Euphemia, and he was not Lelouch, but they could be if he let himself become drunk by the scent of girl sweat and his own need for something, something¸ to take away the reality that he was Zero's puppet for as long as he lived. He felt her slap stinging his left cheek, and left his hand there as she rubbed herself against him, kindling what could always be kindled.
"Suzaku!"
Her fevered voice extinguished his reverie; he devoured her mouth with a pained gasp, ignoring the throbbing inside his chest that told him it was all wrong. Submitting to her unbreakable will, he burned with her, screamed the wrong names with her, ignoring the fact that when tomorrow came they'd regret this - they always did.
An unspoken truth hid inside their tangled bodies and formed a single prayer.