“We are Janus, you and I.”

Usagi shivers at the dark whisper and the breath against her neck. It reminds her of youth and shadows and makes her blood quicken. The girl lying next to her sounds ancient for one so young. Eighteen. She felt old at eighteen; she thinks Hotaru must feel as though her bones are turning to dust.

“I don’t know what that means,” Usagi confesses without preamble. There was a time when ignorance would have embarrassed her, but no more. There is nothing to do but accept her deficiencies and move on.

Hotaru leans closer, and her lips brush against Usagi’s flesh – damp butterfly wings. “Janus is a god. He guards the doors. He is the beginning and the end. He is one being, two-headed, each looking towards different horizons.”

Hotaru talks like that sometimes. Usagi hesitates to call it pretentious, but she’s noticed even Setsuna and Ami raising their eyebrows at the phrases the girl picks. “We’re not one person,” she argues.

“We are Messiah.”

The other girl strokes Usagi’s arm. She swallows and tries to remain aware of something other than Hotaru’s fingers, Hotaru’s body, and Hotaru’s breath against her skin. “Messiahs. Of hope and of silence.”

When Hotaru shakes her head, her hair covers Usagi’s shoulder. “We are one Messiah. There is no need for Hope without Silence. Silence rebels against nothing if Hope does not reign.”

“Maybe. But we aren’t the gate keepers.”

Hotaru shifts so that her face hovers Usagi’s bare breast. “Aren’t we?” She leans down and kisses Usagi’s nipple, running her tongue over the sensitive pink flesh.

Usagi’s breath hitches, and all she can say is, “Setsuna.”

“Setsuna guards the Time Gate,” Hotaru agrees. “But we command the greater doorways. Life and death.”

“The beginning and the end,” Usagi murmurs as Hotaru’s lips caress her other breast.

“I am the end. You are the beginning.”

Usagi frowns. She’s never liked how easily Hotaru’s thoughts drift into ruin. “That’s not true.”

Hotaru curves her eyebrow and slips her hand between Usagi’s legs. “Isn’t it?”

Usagi bites her lip, whimpering. “You… bring life.”

Hotaru shakes her head. “I pave the way for revolution. I am the fire that destroys the forest so newness can begin. I am not the creator. You are.”

Usagi arches her back and gathers the sheets in her fingers, pulling. Hotaru remains unbothered, unhurried by her rising tension. She gasps as Hotaru enters her.

“You’re more… than the destroyer,” Usagi insists. “You’re the healer too.”

Hotaru smiles with one corner of her mouth, slipping deeper inside Usagi’s folds. “This is the one thing both sides of the coin share.”

Usagi shakes her head. “More… more than that.”

There is an ever-present sadness in Hotaru’s grey-violet eyes, but it seems all the more prevalent now. Hotaru tucks her face into the crook of Usagi’s neck. “You’re too kind, but I’m too right. I am death’s handmaiden. I am the glaive wielder. I am destruction and chaos and the quiet that follows.”

Usagi wants to deny this, but Hotaru twists her fingers just so, and Usagi can’t think anymore. She covers Hotaru’s clever hand with her own, holding fast.

“But though I mourn, I am not sorry,” Hotaru continues. “This is the way things must be. The light needs to chase away the darkness, for what purpose would light serve without it? I will be your opposite and gladness will walk beside my sorrow. I shall change the world so you may change it back or make it better. I shall close and hold no grudge when everything begins anew at your call.”

A tear rolls down Usagi’s cheek as she crests. Her cry is swallowed by Hotaru’s mouth, with a kiss that tastes like hope and regret, pain and joy, the end and the beginning.

Hotaru pulls away.

“This is the love I bear for you, Janus.”

Usagi shuts her eyes, trying to will her tears away. They remain despite her best intentions, although Hotaru brushes them away. After a moment, Usagi wraps a hand around Hotaru’s cool neck and pulls her down. She embraces the smaller, paler girl and wonders if there’s a way she can hold on forever.

“I love you too… Janus.”