yours truy is heavily addicted to the Ace Attorney series, and this is something that came about. since it's summer and I'm graduated from high school (yesssss) I'll have time to write fic on a more regular basis.

[fic takes place after GS3, so be familiar with it. fic is also heavily inspired by the lovely Pyrasaur's Once More Stoic, upon which the timeline and conception of this fic is based. do check out her fics here on the site, for they are wonderful and will make you squee.]

Manfred von Karma is dead less than thirty-six hours, and already his heirs have let themselves go.

Daughter and apprentice have loosened their buttons, allowed their shoulders to fall ever so under the weight of burden, and have become themselves for the very first time.

They walk sock-footed and stocking-clad through the empty hallways now (like children, testing the waters of unfamiliar ground that will take time to become accustomed to); there are no more watching eyes ever on their trails and after all, this was home, but only in the past tense, like him, like so many things it's too late to forget and too hard to fix.

Miles Edgeworth is scratched blade-like and thin, paper after paper, and the prosecutor idly wonders if he's etched it into the wood of von Karma's desk yet. No, he must correct himself, it's his desk now, but not that it matters, he'll still be correcting himself long after von Karma's remains are forgotten in the ground and the thought settles still in his mind like ice; dripping down his spine and coursing through his veins it melts, and soon he is shivering, but whether from the cold or his newfound not-freedom he can't tell.

Across from him, the rightful heir to everything he's signing away sits, legs crossed on her chair and cup of tea in hand. Her eyes follow his every pen stroke, gray, calculating, and filled with something he doesn't recognize, something he doesn't ever remember seeing in them.

He thinks it might be stars.

(It could also be snowflakes, he muses, glittering and swirling like the ones outside the frosted window behind him, but there are always so many fragments of icy white in her eyes already that it's impossible to tell.)

She's drinking the steamy concoction with both hands, downing it like hard liquor as it burns its way down her throat (he wouldn't be surprised if she put some of von Karma's finest whiskey in it, if only because it's cold outside and not because she needs something to numb herself warm to the sting), but by God she has her right pinky finger out like a proper little girl and he wonders if (when) she'll correct herself.

How ironic, he thinks, before realizing that the elder von Karma's passing has turned them both into walking cases of confusion; even in death he shapes their insecurities and reminds them of what they're not supposed to be (but are, this is the beginning of their revolution, the start of something more).

They will bear it like they have borne it before, but they are only now learning how to grin.

"Miles Edgeworth," the nineteen-year-old prodigy says, almost to herself, the first thing he's heard her say nearly all damn day and it sends another shiver up his spine. She says his name like velvet, like a huntress and he is helpless but to be her prey, because when she hunts she does so like night and fire and something to which even the crack of her whip cannot compare.

He pauses in the middle of his last name, letting the ink of his pen bleed just a little bit further into the corner of this paper than on any of the others. He meets her snow-gray eyes with his own steel-silver, and she says his name again, like a contemplation, like the beginning of an idea at a singularity from which she has not decided a further direction to proceed. Her face is half-hidden by the porcelain filled with tea and whatever else is or isn't in it, and she drinks another mouthful before resting her hands in her lap, the steam from the cup whispering up and up until the chill of the room dissolves it away.

"Yes?" His hand doesn't move, it's the first thing he's heard out of her mouth in the hours they've been sitting here and by God he's going to hear her say whatever's on the tip of that pretty little tongue of hers.

"Vati favored you, he valued you more, didn't he, little brother?" (The prosecutor cringes inside when she speaks that pet name, a lashing within her voice that strikes harder than her whip ever could.) His eyes narrow; he knows a challenge when he sees one.

"And yet," she motions with a lazy flick of her wrist, "he leaves you next to nothing, simply furnishings and a tiny, torn-off corner of his fortune." The prosecuting prodigy is smiling now, smiling her wicked little smirk she saves for when she knows she's won whatever battle she's in. He finishes the signature he started minutes ago, the sharp scratch of the pen seemingly echoing in the aftermath of her consideration. "Why is that, Miles Edgeworth? Why would Vati give you everything in life: his attention, his power, his favor, and yet in his legacy to you, nothing?"

He sets his latest paper on the neatly-stacked pile in the corner of the desk, tosses the pen on top of it all, and leans back in his (he's still getting used to the idea of the possessive in this place) chair, arms stretched behind his head and shoulders sore from leaning over too long; he really doesn't know the answer to her question, and if he did he'd be sure to fire it back at her with the same cunning smile and icy gaze.

"I'm not sure why you think I'd know the answer to that, Franziska," and he watches her eyes narrow ever so slightly at his use of her first name only, as if he is approaching invisible limits only she knows are there and invading her person by calling her something more private than professional. (As if there are any reasons for him not to, von Karma's influence on their cutthroat competitiveness ceased with his death and he knows she knows it too.)

(They are not collared dogs made to challenge each other's victories any longer; they are but simply unchained mutts who have suddenly found freedom, but are too battle-worn to roam and held too long under their leashes to know anything else.)

"I can only suppose that his affairs were arranged the way they are in order to further his vengeance on myself and my lineage, by disillusioning me with the prospect of a grand endowment and then snatching it away from me at the last minute," he concludes, having already turned his chair to face the window to the snowstorm outside so that she doesn't have to see the bitterness in his eyes, though he figures it's probably a moot point because she's Franziska von Karma and she can hear it in his voice loud and clear. (He was never very good at hiding things from her and it's pointless to try now, mostly because he doesn't have much left to hide and what little he could is out in the open now, in documents and release forms and everything he doesn't have that she does.)

"Hmm." She puts the cup to her lips again and drinks, the steam long gone and the flavor now a taste bitter in her throat that has nothing to do with her little brother's previous words.

(Or so she would like to believe, but something in her is stirring that makes her forget about the property and her record and the whole damned affair, and she lets it wash over her like the watery chill of the room that continues to grow with every passing understanding that goes between them.)

"I know," he laughs, and there's that bitterness again that she knows is more than just her cooling tea, "how foolish of me to expect anything otherwise." She can't see his face but she's learned to read more than one signal at a time, and she knows her little brother is confused and lost, just like herself and painfully, rightfully so.

When she lifts the cup and swallows the last mouthful of tea, her hands are closed tightly around the porcelain and all of her fingers are neatly aligned.

The cup is set lightly on a corner of her little brother's desk (to think of something in this house as not her Vati's, for her this is a challenge most of all), and she rises, her stocking-clad feet making no sound as she makes her way to the other side of it, behind her little brother and out of his line of sight (because if he sees her he'll know what she's about to do, and she can't have his foolishness ruining everything, especially that which she has worked so hard for.)

She places her hands on his suit-covered shoulders, and she feels him tense and his breath draw in ever so slightly. Her gloved fingers knead patterns in the woolly fabric like constellations, and she maps her way through them as a stargazer does the sky until she reaches his cravat, a convoluted mess of starched fabric and linen just begging to be unraveled. (And that's what he's doing now, he knows she can't see it but he's sure she can feel it as his shoulders rise to meet her fingers and his one crossed leg relaxes as his toes bend unseen to her eyes; he's begging with every bone in his body but he'll be damned if he lets her know she's more powerful without her whip than with it, but again he realizes too late that she is Franziska von Karma and this is something she has figured out already, that his body is giving him away and he laughs inwardly at the foolishness she loves to berate him for.)

"Yes," she whispers, her breath hot on his neck that makes his own catch, "a fool among fools you are, Miles Edgeworth," and her hands are systematically undoing the cloth beneath his chin (and undoing him simultaneously, he knows). "But a man among men you are as well," and with that his cravat lies unraveled on his desk, his collar exposed to the cold air and he's shivering again, and he can feel her lips as she smiles against the meeting point of his neck and shoulder. He wonders if this is part of her challenge, to see how long he can last against the fact that he is alone with his mentor's daughter in her dead father's manor and there is no one alive left to tell them what they can and cannot do anymore.

She must have filled her cup with more than just tea, he thinks, though it is becoming increasingly harder to think because the Franziska von Karma he knows and the one whose hands are running circles through his hair right now are not aligning clearly or correctly, even though he's had no alcohol since he arrived in Germany less than a day ago and the only thing he can assume otherwise is that his lack of sleep is to blame (especially for the fact that he's not telling her to stop, that the term little brother isn't really all that important anymore and her hands just feel so damn good that he doesn't give a fuck about the implications he can already see the end through.)

It's only when her hands begin tracing lines down the back of his neck and around to his chest that his eyes widen with the arching of his back, and all he wants to do is press himself further into her touch, like a cat stretching after a long nap and by God she has him damn near purring for her as she presses her lips to the tiny plane of skin left uncovered by his collar; her hot breath is quickly turning his winter-chilled skin fire-warm as he feels the heat spike through his limbs and into his core underneath the many layers of his suit. Her touch feels wonderful and he lets his eyes roll back into his head as he melts boneless under her fingers, yet he wants to say something; her first name, her last name, the both of them together, just something that'll make her stop and think about what she's doing, but her gloved hands on the fabric of his collar and the fact that she is precisely unbuttoning the topmost button assert to him that she knows exactly what the hell she's doing, that godammit she's Franziska von Karma and he should know better than to doubt anything she does.

"Fr-Franzis-kngh, I aughh—" he tries to speak, he really does but her hands have moved downwards to his vulnerable weak points (like the spaces between his ribs, the places no one else ever sees and the few things he doesn't have to worry about hiding, especially not in front of her) and her lips are gracing his ear and that place where his neck and skull connect that he didn't even realize was there for her use. Hackles raised and hands clenched on the arm-rests of his chair, the prosecutor languorously decides that no amount of resistance is going to make her stop and besides, who is he to tell her what she can and cannot do?

(Her mother is dead and her father is dead and he is the last remaining connection she has to a lifetime they'd both rather forget but can't find it in their hearts to do so, and he will not rob her of anything more than what she has already lost to time and fate and the cracks in-between.)

It's not like he hasn't thought of her this way before (contrary to popular belief, he was a hormone-ridden teenage male of his species once), they aren't tied together by blood and maybe this is as good a time as any; their own lives can't wait much longer. And perhaps this is what she needs, something to calm her restless fire when the violent lash of her whip can give no ease to the flames. She wouldn't be doing it if she didn't like any part of it, he knows her that way, because they both know who she is and how she works. And who, he thinks to himself, am I to deny her a gratification for which she has worked so hard to deserve?

A sharp tug upwards on his suit jacket reminds him that he has more important matters to attend to than his rationalization of Franziska's no doubt alcohol-induced sex drive, and he is forced to stand or else get choked by the prodigy's grip on the wine-colored fabric. He hasn't even reached his full height and already she is crashing her lips onto his (and there he tastes it, he knew she laced her tea with alcohol and there it is, warm and delicious on his tongue), her hands nestled firmly in the cloth covering his shoulders and oh God where did she learn to do that with her tongue. It takes all the willpower he has not to crush her against the nearest wall and kiss her silly, and he still wishes that he could at least get her to talk because he feels a tiny speck of little brother protectiveness, he just wants to make sure she knows what she's doing so she doesn't hurt herself (and he couldn't live with himself if it was by his hands that she did.)

But in the next moment her hands are on his (arms unconsciously spread out at his sides like he does in court, ready to shout a commanding 'objection' if need be) and she is pulling them to the small of her waist; he is taken aback by how well his adult hands mold to her still-young figure, and even though she is nineteen and he is twenty-five and the two of them are adults in the eyes of the world he knows she is still young at heart, always ready to accept the just-out-of-reach with open arms no matter how well she has to hide it.

Her kisses are becoming frantic and her hands more and more dangerous, running up and down his back and sending shivers down his spine with every touch. He can feel her nails through the layers that separate them and when she strikes a particularly sensitive spot he pulls her hips against his with a groan; she has to know exactly what she's doing to him, and whether she notices or even cares he's not sure. But then she is pulling him forward and in the barely lamp-lit darkness he can scarcely see a thing, but when he feels her body stop as she plants herself against the wall and yanks his body closer to hers he's close enough to see stars that aren't just the ones in her eyes. His hands glide from her waist to her shoulder blades, on either side of her neck and back down again in a frenzied pattern he's not sure how to follow, he feels the tension in her muscles melt away under the stiff cotton of her dress-clothes and even if only for a moment he knows she's allowing herself to feel alive.

Her fingers are now digging into his shoulder blades and spine and he arches against her, pressing his lower half against hers and burying his head into the crook of her neck while her fingers work his own tension away and it pools beneath them both. His breath is coming shallow and fast but hers is barely quickened, and he can't figure out how she's not spun into a coiled spring of lust until he realizes that that would be a show of emotion too baring for her; what they are doing now is purely instinctual (he doesn't want to simply call it fucking but it's what they'll be doing at some point), and beyond uncontrollable biological response he knows she's still going to hold back what she no doubt sees as a foolishly unnecessary 'letting go' of sorts. Damn her father for wiring into her head that the perfect did not falter, the perfect did not ail, the perfect did not let fucking human emotion overtake them so as to prevent subjective opinion from becoming a focus.

He'll have to show the prodigy that letting herself go and feeling isn't something she has to limit, but he's not sure how he can when he's just barely overcome the wired-in notion himself. And speaking of feeling, her hands have moved from their traffic pattern up and down his back to his hips, pulling him against her even harder and he's not sure how much longer he can last before she can kiss those elaborately tailored dress-clothes goodbye. Her fingers are pushing the lapels of his suit coat open (he's not sure when she removed those black gloves of hers, but it's been too long since he's seen her show something so personal as her bare hands) and before he knows it she's got it halfway down his arms and is maneuvering the magenta fabric off of them with surgical precision, flinging the jacket onto the chair behind him with neither of them really caring where it lands. He'd like to do the same to her but she's not allowing him much leeway to do anything but press his body against hers, and he's getting weak at the knees as the prosecuting prodigy's fingers move to the buttons on his vest, undoing them quickly and one by one like she's done this before (and his heart clenches in his chest as he really hopes she hasn't; he doesn't want to admit it but the thought of some other ruffian pawing at his Franziska tells him more about his feelings towards her than his body ever could).

(And by God he's begging with every fiber of his being right now, begging like a sinner at the altar and he knows Franziska deals no mercy to anyone no matter how they revere her; mercy to her is like one less lash with her whip than the next fool would get and he would know because he's been on the receiving end of her divine wrath time and again.)

The prosecutor's hands twist in her pale-blue hair and his lips meet her neck with lustful ferocity; if she's going to play that game with him then he's going to play it back, and when she goes to push his vest from his shoulders he's ready, whipping it from his arms and tossing it in the general direction of his suit jacket behind him. He doesn't give her any time to recommence her infuriatingly erotic routine and his shaky hands are at the ribbon beneath her chin, swiftly undoing it and letting it fall to the floor beneath them like so many other things that have melted away throughout the night (their hatred, their confusion, their inhibitions and all the things that have held them back until they've had the time to forget). He undoes the buttons at her throat and she doesn't speak a word, only lets her hands fall to rest on his hips as she leans the side of her face against his chest.

(There are no words spoken between them, because they've said everything that is worth saying already and whatever other communication that goes between them does so in touch and breath and the desire to feel something more than just lies of stone-hearted perfection and world-hardened stoic.)

Her own vest slides down her shoulders in silence, except for the ruffling of fabric and the crinkle of it being tossed aside to join the other articles of clothing they're busy forgetting about. He works quickly at the buttons to her own cotton dress-shirt, not necessarily wanting to get their whole affair over with but wanting to get somewhere before the night is over and the light-bulb in his lamp flickers out. Her shirt is half-open and in seconds his mouth is pressed to her neck, trailing kisses and teeth down her chest as her head falls back to show him the way (as if he needs direction to know his way around her, her body is his study and his senses lead him even in the blinding darkness of the winter-chilled office that is rapidly becoming hotter and hotter with every passing sensation between them). He can feel the heat that courses through her body in the kisses he places upon her collar-bone and the hands that run rapid through his hair, pushing his affectations further down her front and along the swell of her breasts, where the black fabric of her bra meets her pale, moonlit flesh. It's a sight that further stirs a longing in the prosecutor that he's still growing accustomed to feeling, and his nervous hands pull her shirttails out of her skirt and unfasten the last of her buttons, yanking the offending fabric off of her body and onto the carpet around them.

He'd love to stand back and admire the sight before him, but he can tell that she's getting restless and impatient and to avoid messing up whatever he's doing right so far, he goes to work on the zipper of her skirt as he goes to work on her lips, and before long she's moving his hand away and tugging the tailored fabric down her thighs, removing it and her stockings in one fell swoop. Clad only in her bra and a matching pair of underwear (tiny he might add, and he wonders where she learned to rebel like that), he forgets that he's not looking at a goddess, only a goddess among prosecutors and he takes her by the wrist and leads her around to the other side of his desk.

(If they're going to continue this they're going to do it where he can see all of her, even if it's only in the soft light of his desk-lamp and the moonlight through the falling snow, because by God he's going to tell her she's beautiful where even she can see so too.)

She doesn't seem to mind the change of location, instead pulling his lips down to meet hers for the millionth time that night and he's definitely not going to complain, especially when her hands have pulled his shirttails from his trousers and her fingers have gone straight to the buckle of his belt, meticulously and quickly unlocking it and pulling it from its fastenings. (The prodigy pulls it between her hands with a loud snap and some part of the prosecutor laughs inwardly because he knew she wouldn't be able to resist doing that, reminding him that while she may be about to fuck him silly, yes she is still the ferocious Franziska von Karma and she knows what she wants and what she'll do to get it.) She tosses the black leather to the carpet where it lands with a soft clink and proceeds to further work on the fastenings of his trousers, the slack in the front of his pants not so slack anymore and he really hopes she doesn't take her time with this part of his courtroom ensemble. In seconds she's tugging the cloth away and he gladly strips himself of it along with his socks, throwing everything to some corner of the room like caution to the wind.

(It only now hits the two of them that they are standing in what was less than forty-eight hours ago the office of a very alive Manfred von Karma, god of prosecution and the pursuit of perfection; she's only got her bra and underwear on and all he's left with are his boxers, the two of them are raw and primal beneath it all and for once, Franziska von Karma and Miles Edgeworth are exactly, simply that.)

The prodigy pulls the prosecutor flush against herself and he's going to start whimpering if they don't move it soon; she pulls his head down so her lips are right next to his ear and her hot breath as she speaks is doing nothing to help his self-control:

"Look at us," she says and oh yes is he looking, "about to fuck on his office floor, oh if Vati could see us now," she trails off and he is gone, arms wrapped tightly around her as she pulls him down with a laugh that is so very iniquitous and so very Franziska von Karma. He's on his knees as he leans over her and she yanks him by his hair down further (down, down into the waters they have tested long enough to feel comfortable in), and the plush carpet is soft under his arms and legs as her hands begin again their course over his shoulders and spine, making him shiver even in the cold room that hasn't felt cold for the last half hour. Her nails play along his back in agonizing gentleness that alternates with roughness he knows will leave marks. He's kissing every part of her that he can: her lips, her neck, the shadow of her collar-bone, the swell of her breasts within her bra (he muses that he probably should see about her removing that; it's not like he's ever taken one off of a woman before although it's not hard to guess how it works).

And as if she's read his mind she reaches her hands around beneath her, arching her back to reach the clasp as the prosecutor rests his cheek against the expanse of her stomach; within seconds the undergarment is being flung over his head to land somewhere behind him, and before he can react her hands are already going for his boxers, yanking the material away and he is more than happy to oblige, but not unless he can take her underwear too, and both articles of clothing are the last to join the various haphazard piles strewn across the room.

(This is it, this is what it's all come down to; nineteen and twenty-five years of frustration and burden and cracks in-between the lines about to train-wreck in the most glorious end possible. They're lying in a dead man's office on a cold winter night and the both of them have begun to understand that this is their single greatest act of rebellion not against who they have become, but what they were meant to be.)

They find it strange that their revolution has begun only after the threat is gone, but the scars are still there, and if they are armed up to the teeth with nothing else to sink them into then so be it. She's working her hands through his hair and has got a leg hooked around his waist and dammit she means business so he better get on with it, she's got a cup of hot tea and her father's numbing finest in her and she won't take no for an answer. He'd really like to take it a little slower but she's not going to stand for that

—and then he realizes something.

"W-wait, Franziska, we shouldn't be doing this if, if we don't have—" but he can't even finish his sentence before she's smacked the side of his head and yanked him by the hair down to meet her gaze.

"If I hadn't already been prepared I would not have brought us to this state of affairs, fool; a woman that has been in the workforce for over six years surely can figure out the workings of oral contraception," she seethes, as if he's supposed to have figured this out already but he's not a mind-reader yet (just a fool, like she always says) and so he simply breathes a flustered sigh of relief (although there are a few pieces of the puzzle that is him that need relieving and she's not helping any at all). She's looking at him straight in the eye and he's finally realized that yes, the stars he's been seeing are more than just the ones in her eyes because they're glittering at him right now like the fire inside her (and aptly so, a star is just a burning complex of fire and light and with all the ones that are in her eyes he knows he has a long night ahead of him if he's got that many to calm.)

"Now, you're going to fuck me right here, right now, Miles Edgeworth," and the prodigy's smirk spreads lightning across her face, "or do I have to ask again? The perfect do not repeat themselves." The prosecutor stares dumbly at her before he realizes that if he doesn't do what she asks she'll no doubt pull her whip out from somewhere (and he doesn't want to know where she might be hiding it, it makes him shudder just thinking about it), and make him do it, but apparently his mental ramblings have already wasted enough of her time and she rakes a hand down his back with a growl, holding onto him tighter with her leg and pushing him downward as he's leaned down just the right way and

—oh dear God in heaven is all he can think as her arms are instantly circling the back of his neck and forcing him further onto her, against her, into her, somewhere where he knows the world isn't spinning but he can't bring himself to believe it and it's too dark to see the whiskey-red painted across her face, but he can feel the heat from her body and her fire and he hopes she's cautious because she could burn him if she's not careful.

(But this is a scalding he'd kill for; it's a purging and a cleansing and something too long in coming that the both of them have waited entirely too many burdens for. Her fiery stars are burning glitter and diamonds in his vision and this is where the universe spirals down into a permanent singularity, reaching out in all directions and twisting over them again until they are their own existence, their own reality, their own entity in solitary introversion.)

She's panting and gasping beneath him, wringing his hair and he knows she hurts, that it's more than just anger at a lifetime of betrayal and the impossible pursuit of the outer edges of his and her father's shadows, and he can barely see the wetness in her eyes (that refuses to fall), that doesn't fall because he's already wiped it away and she's too embarrassed to admit it might have, but she's got to learn to not bottle everything up inside her; he whispers that everything's alright and even though he's not that good at comforting people he's trying his best, and while it seems to work he's still nervous because this is his Franziska and he's doing everything he can to make sure he can't hurt her. His body is telling him to move, that if he doesn't he's going to fracture (but she's not giving him an okay so he claws his nails into the carpet and lays his head in the crook of her shoulder; this was her design and he'll be damned if he's going to take away another of her few pieces of self-made control and order.)

Her wrench-hold on his hair is slowly but surely loosening, her eyes are filled with diamonds and stars and no more tears and her heel digging into the small of his back is a sure sign that she's done lying back and thinking of Germany and unless he gets to the good part she's going to have to resort to violence, so move your damn hips Miles Edgeworth and when she brings out that tone of voice he can't do anything but comply.

His lips are on hers as his hands are in her hair and the two of them are moving for who-knows-how-long, reaching for something between them that is just out of the their grasp, back and forth and each succession brings them closer and closer to that physically invisible conclusion until she gives a dissatisfied growl and wrenches one of his hands away from her hair and down to the space where they can't tell where one of them ends and the other begins (it's such a cliché way to put it but his mental capacities are less-than-perfect right now and he doesn't have the mind-power to think of anything else; he's not sure how he's thinking at all as all of his attention is on Franziska and he's still trying to figure out how his brain has the command to process just about anything that isn't her heat or her skin or the telltale tugs with her nails that let him know he's not the only one enjoying this.) She's moving his hand for him, showing him how to really spark fireworks behind her eyelids and he's not quite sure what he's doing but it's making her fist a hand in his hair even tighter and bury her head in his shoulder and oh God if he thought she was tight around him before he'd better think again. He hears his name crackle from her throat and it's long and drawn out and ends in a hitch and then she's pawing at his back, her nails like claws until she stops; she's not moving and her leg around his back is pushing down on him harder than ever and her head is thrown back as her spine arches in a silent plea for mercy or something else he's not sure of.

All he knows is that she's warmer and tighter and more beautiful than ever and it's not long before he's gone, and the two of them are fractured and splintered and in pieces on the floor and they have to wait for the cosmos to stop swirling before they can even begin to pick themselves up again.

(They're not sure why they're thinking of themselves as in pieces, but if it gives them the chance to smooth out their rough edges and put themselves back together in a less painful way then so be it, it's what they'll do and they'll admit to having been broken before if they're going to come out of this more whole than before right now.)

They're panting and sweating and wondering what the hell just happened, lying sated on the floor of what was once the office of the orbit of their existence, but now he's gone and they're free to be the axes of their own rotation, and instead of around an outside entity, they circle around each other.

(And as she kisses him, he can feel in her lips that the fire inside her has cooled, even if only just, and maybe it's not that he's put it out, but he's helped her release enough of it and the warmth of the room is it settling around them, beneath them, within them, and the ashes will stay burning in their minds and this carpeted area of the universe for as long as it, and they, are here.)

did I mention this is my first foray into smut-fic-porn ever? :D