Title: Ambition

Summary: It's too late.

Pairings: Lieusami (Lieu/Asami)

Rating: T+ for sensuousness.

Word count: 358

Asami Sato dedicates her life to her work. To building and recreating after the world plunges into dissolution.

To progress. It's a purpose they both share. Even in their respective offices—when the newly elected Councilman and the president of Future Industries collide in the most ardent of debates. He's used to never hesitating for his cause, and Asami has spent that hurtful burden of time searching for her voice. Yes, she can fight, but can she stand in the abstract manner, find something worthwhile?

Well, she's never been one to back down from a challenge.

He calls her pampered; she calls him an extremist. She's unqualified; he's hateful. At first. If they'd been on the same side before, they'd have been partners. Resilience, innovation.

"Perhaps you should wipe that oil off with a rag," he says as Asami stands from where she's making repairs on one of those strange aircrafts her father created. Her gloves are soiled. How strange to see such a proper and well-kempt person actually working on their own and not shirking a "dirty" job off to someone else.

"Really?" She extends a hand, displaying the greasy substance on her gloves and running down her sleeve. "I thought you'd like this."

He smiles thinly. "Now there's an idea."

It's like their touches extend past the contours of their bodies. It's too late for saccharine gestures of affection, too late for hellos when they've passed the goodbyes. When the world is slanted, tinted green in a convexed realm outside of where others play.

A realm where others operate without that badly wounded judgment, that unmarred flesh that disconnects the flesh from the heart. Where the scars are aged and faded, and they only lose sparingly. Yet the lines are clear.

But if Asami and Amon's former lieutenant revolved their lives around complacency and contentment, they wouldn't have been chiseled into the persistent individuals they are today. They would've cracked once the wind struck year after year, corroding slowly; today, they are already the dust, shifting and roving and free.