A/N: This is the 6th chapter in EightofSwords' story Don't Want You to See. If you have not read the first five parts, please go to EightofSwords' page to find the story or visit

h t t p :// s i t e s.g o o g l e.c o m/s i t e/s u b j e c t t o c h a n g e s a i l o r m o o n f i c/

to read it there. Even if you have read them, you should probably reread them before reading this chapter.

Moving on, the reason this story has taken so long to be updated is not because I "Don't Want You to See" it (slaps knee and guffaws). It's because in this story Darien has a peculiar character which is very difficult for me to wriggle into, like a tight leather catsuit that I can only fit in after periods of intense asceticism. I hope you enjoy that simile. And even if you don't, I hope you enjoy this looooong-awaited sixth chapter of Don't Want You to See.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sailor Moon

L

Don't Want You to See

Part Six

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Darien usually tried to avoid riding the elevator with other people. Most days, in fact, he took the stairs. Today, however, his legs, wearied by their walk to the library, back to the school, and back to the library again, then home to his apartment building, had begged him to take the elevator, and he had indulged them. He had lounged beside a decorative palm tree, pretending to study the fire escape plan posted on a wall in the lobby, as two elevators ascended with people, until at last one arrived empty and with no one waiting to enter it but him. He moved swiftly then, striding into it and pressing his floor. He felt extremely foolish, but it was worth it not to have to share the elevator with anyone –

"Hold the elevator, please!"

Darien froze and closed his eyes, fists clenching. Reluctantly, he placed a hand in front of the doors to keep them from closing.

A young woman holding a baby squeezed inside, arms full with the baby, a diaper bag, and a grocery bag. "Thank you," she panted.

Darien felt his tongue move inside his mouth to grate out a rusty, "You're welcome," but his lips refused to open. He swallowed the words back down and moved aside to let her press her floor button.

But THEN another voice called out – "Hold the elevator!"

"Oh, oh – " said the woman with the baby, and punched the 'door open' button hurriedly.

A middle-aged, brown-haired man skidded into the elevator, a camera bouncing up and down around his neck. Great, the journalist from the floor below him. "Thanks!"

"What floor?" asked the woman.

"Tenth." The journalist smiled. "Hey, that baby's getting big, isn't he? How ya doin' fella?"

He began to make foolish faces at the baby, eliciting giggles, and he and the woman chatted quite warmly about children.

Darien shifted in his corner of the elevator, not party to the conversation, just a member of an unintentional audience. It was not that he wanted to be part of a conversation about baby formula. And it was not as though he could not have joined it, had he wanted to, but…

The awkwardness, probably not even noticed by the two – three, counting the baby – occupants of the elevator grew and grew in Darien, bubbling in him like overheated spaghetti sauce.

Then that feeling was shoved aside by another one – the sensation of Sailor Moon transforming.

Thorns bit into Darien's hand. He grunted and crumpled the rose in his hand before the journalist or the woman could notice its sudden appearance out of thin air.

"Son?" The room was spinning like it usually did when this happened. Couldn't let it – "Son, are you okay?"

Darien's hand clenched further into his hair, the heel of it digging into his forehead as he pushed down the transformation welling inside him. It was like trying to plug Old Faithful with a Kleenex. "I'm – fine – " he managed to force out.

"You sure?" The journalist's lined face swam in Darien's vision, then the shiny black camera. Darien hissed and shoved his hand deeper into his forehead. If he transformed here – pictures – his identity – his life –

Ding. Darien forced his head up, saw his floor number illuminated. He pushed away from the wall and lurched toward the parting doors.

"Just – a little sick – " he made his voice say in an attempt to allay the journalist's suspicion.

Sweat coated his fingertips as he struggled to force his key into the door. At last he managed it and threw himself inside, still retaining enough control over himself to shut the door quietly.

Then he let the transformation go, and the tuxedo swallowed him.

He panted, his gloved fingers digging into the carpet. His dilated pupils bored into the blue fibers of the carpet, but all he could see was the yawning black precipice over which his life had been dangling.

That journalist could have uncovered everything. He had had a camera; he would have had close-up photos to accompany the front-page article – LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT UNCOVERED AS TUXEDO MASK. Darien's identity, his life – the little that he had that he had worked so hard to accumulate would have been crushed, juiced to slake the thirsty curiosity of millions of people who didn't know him, didn't care about him. The Senshi, too, would find out his identity. They would take him away from the small bit of life he had with Motoki and Serena.

Even as his body quaked with these thoughts, he was opening the glass doors and climbing onto the balcony railing. Before he jumped his eyes scanned the sky – and were snagged by the fat full moon.

Hatred boiled in his stomach. Sailor Moon. This was all Sailor Moon. She transformed without a care as to where he was, what he was doing, how he could be uncovered or ruined, then expected him to risk his life to run and save hers.

He hated her. More than all the girls who wrote him letters, more than all the children in the orphanage.

More than anything else in the world.

L

It was almost as though she could sense his hatred. When he snatched her out of the path of an exploding jawbreaker, she pushed away from him instead of gripping his vest. His precarious balance thrown off, they toppled backward instead of leaping onto the safety of a rooftop.

The jawbreaker detonated.

The powerful caress of its shockwave cracked Tuxedo Mask's head against the cement sidewalk. Seconds later he felt sugary shrapnel burn through his tuxedo to kiss his skin.

Though his eyes were still dazzled by the explosion and he could only vaguely see shadows, he fought to his feet and withdrew his cane. A cackle came from his left.

The cane whooshed out. The cackle ended in a gurgle.

Tuxedo Mask blinked rapidly as he withdrew his cane blade. He caught a couple of the golden sparks that he felt flitting around his minor shrapnel burns and pressed them into his eyes with gloved fingertips.

His vision cleared abruptly but seemed abnormally bright. He squinted.

Fire was at his throat. He blinked, eyebrows lifting, and raised his eyes from the searing flames to the face behind them – Sailor Mars.

The black-haired Senshi returned his gaze with a flat smile.

"You intend to kill me?" he asked, lifting his chin a centimeter as the heat against his Adam's apple grew uncomfortably hot.

"Hopefully" was her reply.

Tuxedo Mask held her gaze a moment longer. Then his eyes flicked away to scan behind her.

They landed on Sailor Moon, standing a few feet away silent and still and staring at them.

Fury erupted inside him.

Never removing his burning gaze from hers, he leapt up with lightning speed, ignoring the gasps. He landed on a rooftop and bounded away. Three roofs away, he made a U-turn and crept back to the first roof, crouching to watch them.

The Senshi were arguing with each other, Mars and the black cat in shrieks. Tuxedo Mask was not close enough to be able to resolve their shouts into words, but he saw Mars cuff Moon's head. This elicited a shout from Jupiter, a shout in return from Mars, then the cat jumped on Moon's shoulder.

Moon nodded, the cat jumped down, and all the Senshi left – save Moon.

Tuxedo Mask crouched down further to avoid being seen by Mercury, who jumped to the rooftop next to his. He waited until she was out of sight to rise.

To his surprise, Moon still stood in the road below. Her head was down – he watched her dig a gloved hand into her bangs. As though she – she – had problems! As if her life was so unbearable!

Anger flooded his veins. She knew nothing.

He blurred into motion, dropping to the road and stalking toward her. His foot made a hollow gonging sound as he stepped on a manhole cover.

Moon whipped around, her hair billowing out. "Who's there?"

He stepped into the pool of moonlight she stood in, still two meters from her.

Relief erased the fear that had been sketched on her face. Then it melted into tension, her cheekbones sharp beneath her smudged eyes.

She stepped backward. "I can't talk to you."

"That's fine," he said. "I don't wish to converse with you either. I just want my locket back."

She went still. Then, jerkily, she reached into thin air and pulled out the locket. It glinted silver in the moonlight instead of the gold it truly was.

He held out a hand to catch it.

She hesitated. "A-a-are you sure you want me to throw it? It – it might break…"

He thought that his silence was enough of an answer. Nevertheless, she took a few steps closer to him and placed the trinket carefully into his open palm. Then she backed away quickly.

Clenching his hand around the cool metal and his jaw against the rage he wanted to fling at her, Tuxedo Mask pivoted and took off running for home.

L

When Darien arrived at the temple to pick Serena up for tutoring the next day, she was already sitting on the steps. Her head against the cement wall and her hair curtaining her face, she seemed more wilted than usual, even in comparison to when he had picked her up the afternoon before.

She didn't look up when he stopped in front of her, but she spoke. "Darien, can we please skip today?"

This question, added to the fact that she didn't bother to look at him while she spoke, further soured the bad mood that Darien was already in from the preceding night.

"Do you have a sick note from your mother?" he asked with cold sarcasm.

Then he inhaled sharply. God, he was just like Rei. Just like he had always been. Serena would have been better off if he had been discovered as Tuxedo Mask yesterday and she'd never had to see him again.

Serena had mumbled something back, but in his self-castigating, he had missed it. He stood in front of her awkwardly, wondering what to do.

"Serena?"

Darien looked up. Ami had emerged from the temple and was heading toward them.

"Oh, good, you're here," she said, seeing him. "Serena forgot her math book – here." She handed it to him, and patted Serena – whom Darien noticed was now standing and smiling, her eyes crinkled closed in a Chichiri grin – on the back. "Work hard, Serena!"

Ami went back inside as Darien bent to pick up Serena's bag and turned the textbook over in his hands.

"I would ask you if you have something against this book, Odango, but the answer is obvious." He slipped it into his bag and looked at her. "Shall we – ?" He stopped short.

Serena's eyes were veined red.

"I – didn't get a lot of sleep last night," Serena said into his silence. She smiled and swiped a hand across her nose. "Um – "

"Go to the library," said Darien shortly, shoving her bag into her hands. "I forgot to do something. I'll be there in ten minutes."

Serena opened her mouth –

"Go."

He waited until she turned the corner. Then he took the temple steps three at a time, striding to the entrance.

Chad looked up from his sweeping as Darien neared the doors. "Hey, man."

"Where's Rei?"

Chad blinked. "Uh – with the girls."

"Where?" Darien repeated. This was like talking to a wall…

"In her room," Chad answered cluelessly.

Darien bit back his irritation – it was Rei his anger was directed at, not Chad – and strode down the hallway, following the sound of chattering female voices.

Their lounging positions in Rei's room lit a fresh fire in him. Rei lay sprawled across her bed with a comic book propped in front of her; the brown-haired one was painting her fingernails; and Ami reclined on a bean bag with a calculator and textbook. His mind saw again, superimposed over the sight of these relaxing, leisurely girls, the way that Serena had huddled, curled in on herself with her knees to her chest, against the temple wall.

They all looked up at him when he appeared in the doorway. Rei jumped to her feet.

He found, now that he was here, that he had no idea what he had planned to say. 'Leave Serena alone, you meanies?' Not exactly mature, or very threatening.

Rei ended his hesitation for him. "Serena skipped out on tutoring?" she asked with a knowing tone in her voice that absolutely infuriated him.

"Your hair looks like it was sliced off by an unlicensed butcher," he said, fists clenched. "Your voice is like a banshee's, and you ridicule Serena because you're acutely aware that no one will ever like you as much as her because you're a self-absorbed bitch and she's not."

Blunt.

Cold.

Darien's words were just like him.

Rei stared at him. Dimly, he heard the murmur and indignation of the other two girls, but like the tunnel vision that he experienced as Tuxedo Mask, his focus had narrowed to Rei. To the way her lower lip trembled but her brows knit together to appear angry instead of teary – he felt simultaneously a congealing guilt and a rush of power – Rei's expression was so similar to the one that Serena had sported not ten minutes earlier.

"Abuse her again," Darien continued, the rush of power becoming a roar in his ears, "verbally or otherwise, and I'll ensure that you regret it."

"Dude!"

The voice came from behind him. Darien turned, saw narrowed brown eyes glaring out at him from beneath Chad's thicket of hair. "You need to leave."

"I don't need your help, moron!" Rei yelled, stomping her foot.

Darien stared at Chad. "Why are you bothering to defend someone who treats you like that? She doesn't reciprocate your feelings."

Chad's tan cheeks flushed, but his eyes stayed glued to Darien's. "It doesn't matter if she likes me or not. I'm not gonna let some punk waltz in here and threaten her."

The rush in Darien's ears, deafening until now, cut off.

Silence rang in his skull, bouncing off Chad's words and reverberating inside Darien's psyche. In Chad's eyes, that was all he was. A punk off the street, because Chad had never really met him before and that was exactly how Darien was acting, like a violent thug –

He pushed past Chad, striding down the hallway. His footsteps were too loud, his heart throbbing in his chest was too loud, and his conscience was too loud. He wanted them all to be quiet. He wanted to go back to the dark again, where he'd lived for so long. Where no people existed but him, where there were no mirrors in which to see himself. Out here, his actions had consequences, they affected people and gave him features, characteristics – bad ones. When he hadn't spoken to people, hadn't bothered with anybody, he'd never affected anyone, never been cruel or happy or confused or despised. He'd been faceless, but he'd never needed a face to recognize himself because he was the only one who lived in that void. Now, he had a face, and he didn't recognize it. Couldn't understand who he was.

He wasn't cruel. Was he? He was cold – inhuman. But he didn't want to be – shouldn't someone be able to choose if they were something or not? But he couldn't – he crouched at the foot of the temple stairs, digging his hands into his hair – he couldn't control how he felt!

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He entered the library without realizing that he had. Looking up when the air touching his face was suddenly warmer, he found himself in the library lobby, no longer walking in the autumn air outside.

Fear, irrationally, touched him. Had his cruelty to Rei somehow reached Serena? He felt suddenly sure she would not be here, that news of his behavior had reached her and she had left, disgusted by him.

His pace quickened as he headed toward the adolescent room where they had studied the day before. Wide glass windows separated it from the rest of the library to muffle noise.

As he neared it, her blonde head became visible. Her head rested on the surface of the table upon which she had set her books, her hair spilling across the table like an untied sash as she dozed.

Darien stopped outside the room. Something about the sight he viewed through the window transfixed him. Watching her so quiet, so unaware of his presence… it was like observing an elusive creature at the zoo. He wanted to sit, merely to sit and watch her, as though if by watching her without her knowledge of his presence, he would be able to see some part of her that would unlock the mystery of his life. There was something imperative, something essential that he needed to discover, and she was the only star that could light the path to it for him.

That path took an unexpected twist when a teenage boy suddenly entered Darien's vision. He slid into the chair across from Serena's sleeping form and watched her. He reached toward her – Darien flinched and jerked forward – and touched her sleeve.

Serena lifted her head, eyes hazy, and looked at the boy, who smiled at her. His mouth moved in speech; she smiled back and said something in return. The words were muted by the glass of the window.

Darien's fist curled at his side. Contrary to the worst-case scenario that he had conjured in his head, the boy had only been waking Serena up.

Self-contempt filled him. Had he just been about to repeat what he had done at the temple? Jumping in and tearing out someone's throat without getting the facts first? Was this the bloodlust seeping from his alter ego? Or was it his own? Or were, as he was beginning to fear, his alter ego and his own self the same?

He watched. The boy and Serena talked, smiling and laughing. She tucked a curl of her hair behind her ears, and he made motions with his arms, tapping her hand to illustrate some point. She let him.

The feeling of being at a zoo intensified. Except that Darien no longer felt that he was the one watching the exhibit. He was the animal in the cage. But none of the zoo-goers were watching him. They were absorbed in their own lives, and he was all alone in his own small, confined, artificial world.

The boy said something. Serena made that bashful, tentative expression that Darien had seen so many times. The boy reached for the book – Serena pulled it back, shaking her head and saying something. He said something back, smiling, and pulled on it again. She nodded slowly, and leaned across the table to watch as he began circling things in the book.

They had moved on to the aviary. Darien forced his fists to unclench and left to go home. He had an organic chemistry quiz to study for, anyway.

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A/N: I have no idea when Chapter Seven will be out. Sorry. But please tell me if you think the characterization continues to be solid and if it lives up to the rest of the story! (The more you tell me, the more I'll be inspired to write more…)