Phlegethon Part Deux:
INFERNO

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"By a new Alchimy, they doe not onely extract spirit out of euery thing, but transmute it all into spirit."

-Donne, Pseudo-martyr

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She left her little brother asleep. Both of them, they'd been holding things in. Holding too much in, cherishing it too long...

She greeted Akira with a kiss, open and warm, a promise. She smiled, just a bit, just the tiniest expression. Her ability to do that was his gift to her.

Hands in his silky hair, feeling his bewildered exhalation against her lips, feeling his warm, sturdy hands around her waist. These were all his gifts to her.

He didn't understand her, but he was willing to spend a lifetime trying to figure her out.

A lifetime... Perhaps he would grow tired of her, but she was willing to give him the benefit of doubt. That was her gift to him.

They didn't move for a few minutes. He liked to hold her close, bury his face in her hair, convince himself that she was really there, with him. Kiyosato Akira had subsisted too long on dreams to accept reality easily.

He had recovered the goddess in the moon. Now she was here, she was his, and it took a few moments, every time, to think on that, to remember it and believe it. Smiling, he pulled away to see the cool contentment in her grey eyes. Joy burned deep within him like embers.

Yours, her smile said. And you're mine.

Making love to him was like igniting an inferno. Childish fear, old memories... they burned and flaked away until there was nothing but him and her and she wanted to melt, wanted to scald him, wanted to spill onto his skin and dissolve the barrier between him and her, wanted to transfigure both of them, purify and unify their souls.

If her unexpected ferocity startled him, it was nothing to the euphoria of waking up beside her, her sweet warmth in his bed.

"I want to get to know your brother."

Both of them in white cotton robes at his kitchen table, eating breakfast. His apartment was so clean.

She blinked at him sleepily, pleasantly, encouraging. "Why don't you invite him to the meeting with the Ambassador?"

"You think he'd like that?"

"Oh, yes, Enishi loves politics."

"And you'll come, won't you? It's normal for a councilman's wife to serve tea at these things."

"But I'm not--"

"Afterwards, at the press conference, I'll announce our engagement."

She smiled into her bowl of rice. Akira sighed in relief. Some part of him had doubted that she would want to make it public. He reached over to where she was sitting and took her hand.

"Thank you."

A small smile, her small smile that was becoming more and more addictive to him, was her reply.

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A/N: Apparently by angst I mean total lack of angst. Or something. ...Well, I'd like to think it's not all sweetness and cherry pie. *sigh* I just.... give up, entirely. I shall never make a promise again.