Title: Upon a Flash (Probably going to change it eventually)
Author: Rakusa
Date: 22 October 2009
Sum: She had thought she was just caught out in the rain. When it became so much more than that, she clung to the only one she could.
An: So I've been naughty, and I know, that this will be getting me a lot of flack especially when I have more important things to be taking care of... like other stories that I have started and put out there for you all to enjoy. But the problem is.... see.... I really wanted to read this one story the other day, about these things, and I just couldn't find it, so I thought maybe I'd made it up, and so I figured, might as well make it up! Tada! This though however has also welled from all the false hopes I had to go down and get annoyed at.... honestly how many stories has Motoki getting fed up with the duo and devising a way to get them together? I'm no so against the getting them together bit... but the whole, lets lock them in a closet, or trapped in an elevator or stranded on a beach with no clothes is a little over redundant. Honestly people! Hahaha... so what am I giving you? Something so very similar! (All done in good cheer!)
AN2: on a side note, I wasn't sure if I was going to make this a senshi fic or not until the end of part 1. So I purposely left it vague, but I decided, why not? It feels wrong without them, even if sometimes it just works better that way. :)
Part One
The weather broadcasts were all saying the same thing, and Chiba Mamoru rolled his eyes, no matter where he went, he heard the news. He was trying to make his way back to his apartment, but with the subways shut down do to power failure he was forced to walk the rest of the distance as he'd forgotten his wallet at home. Of all the days! He should have just headed straight to the arcade, it would have cut his travel time in half, but he thought he could make it home, but already the wind was picking up and people were abandoning the streets. He doubted the Crown would be open, even to let him in, Motoki was probably with his family at home, sitting around a fireplace, drinking hot chocolate and telling stories with them. All of it sounded like a lot of fun.
Mamoru burrowed down deeper into his jacket, at least he had remembered this, and his keys. He'd be out of luck otherwise. Everyone should be home with their families during this kind of weather, it offered them the only protection they needed, a reassuring hand at their back and some kind words about how it would all be over soon.
As he headed around a corner, he caught sight of a gangle of girls he typically saw. Except they were one short, their ring-leader it seemed at times, as she was the one who brought the strange group together. Never in his life had he seen a more convoluted pairing of talents and personalities. Only the missing blond could have accomplished it though. "Where's the Odango?" He called out to them and the most quick tempered one stopped, the rain practically fizzling off of her.
"Who knows!" She called back. "She was supposed to meet us at the arcade before heading over to my place for a sleep over. Bet you she forgot and headed home instead." The dark haired beauty was livid at her friend's absence. Mamoru could understand why, even if he did tease the poor girl in all his waking hours. It was always just a little less fun without her, and they wanted to share the time with her as well and hated that she was always late. That lateness sprang however from not only her sleeping and neglectful habits, but also by spreading herself out thin to make time for everyone who demanded it out of her.
"At least she'll be out of this weather." Ami admonished, seeing the bright side.
"Yeah, lets get out ourselves!" Makoto pushed into the conversation and with a wave behind them towards Mamoru, they kept onward.
Gale-size winds were picking up, whipping the rain into his eyes, and he had to shield them from the tempest. Yes, it was good that Usagi made the mistake to go home, if the weather kicking up at the moment had anything to say. He could not imagine her out in it and trudged the rest of the way towards his apartment.
---
Tsukino Usagi, unaffectionately called Odango by the two dark haired people in her life, rubbed off onto her younger brown haired brother; was not in a happy mood. First she had been dragged out of her nice warm bed to go face the cold late fall day. The trees were all stripped bare, the fallen leaves mowed up and chewed up by the busy workers along the streets and in the park, removing anything pleasant about a fall day, anything that could motivate her to go out into the dreary gray laced sky.
Her wardrobe had not been adequately stacked yet, most of the clothes she had worn for last year's cold season had been mis-grossly judged to face this years. Not only had the last few years been a typical cool, this year was just beginning and promised only bad things, but the clothes she did have were either too small, as she had grown over the year, or was so worn out because they had been her favorite and had donned them when the temperature started to dip, over two months ago. Together, it amounted to only a few items warm enough to face the weather, and even fewer to be worn out into public.
So she'd been booted out of the house by not only her mother, but her annoying feline as well. She'd sent Luna off to Ami's as her parents didn't trust Usagi to take care of it while they went on a second honeymoon. They also didn't trust Usagi enough to care for Shingo, so sent him off with a friend too, though he probably would come home first every day after school to stuff his face in the left over meals that their mother had prepared and had given strict orders to Usagi only to reheat them, and do nothing else. Afraid that the house would not still be standing when they returned.
It was probably a good thing that Shingo wouldn't be there, he'd be throwing parties, or getting her in trouble, if she threw one. She'd told her parents not to worry, as she'd probably be staying with Rei or one of the other girls every night during their two week trip. She didn't know why they had to go all the way to South America.
Arriving to school, Usagi was already shivering and trying her best to keep warm, her teacher took one look at her when she arrived late, and then told her to stand in the drafty hallway as punishment. Usagi bore it without complaint, as it was a typical punishment for her. She was shaking so badly though by the time she'd been let back in that the teacher just sighed and told her to go to the nurse's office as she'd already missed most of the lecture.
When she arrived late for her second class, being given a clean bill of health and only warmed up slightly in the hot office, she was given detention, despite her protests. She watched as everyone filed out of the building, and meandered over to her class room to wait for the teacher to arrive and lecture her about tardiness. The building felt strangely empty, and she laid her head on her crossed arms as she waited, her cold body, shutting down her systems, and with a yawn, she fell into a light slumber. When she woke again though, the clock told her it had been a half hour.
The building was dead silent. And she gripped about how teachers could forget, how teachers could be late too, so why did they give her such a hard time? This one left her here in the school on a Friday after giving her a detention in the beginning of the day. She wandered the hallways, spooked out by the creepy factor an abandoned building this large could always give, no matter how warm or inviting it could be during the day.
The drafty hallways seemed even colder as she went to her locker to struggle into her light-weigh jacket, before it was all she needed, and she'd had to layer it now to get the same warmth she once could. Rei was going to skin her alive, she was later than even a normal detention day and to be the only one given that punishment on a Friday was just her luck. She might as well make her way over to first the Crown, to see if they kept residence there against the cold, and if not, then she'd head over to Rei's. If Rei found her at the temple when they got back, after wasting so much time for her, she'd be even more furious. It was better just to be late.
So that's where she was supposed to be going now. She was heading there, when it started to dump buckets of water on her. She would have made it before the rain started, had it not been for a cranky teacher who hadn't even seen fit to tell her that detention was canceled or delayed for the weekend. He probably had some big thing planned for the weekend and it hadn't been set into stone at the beginning of the day but by the end, was assured of it's fruition.
Usagi snuggled in deeper into her coat. Perhaps she should just head home? But the idea of an abandoned house, with the heat probably turned down for the day, as nobody was supposed to be staying that first night, and angry friends on the other side of town, ones she could be having fun with, the idea of that dark house didn't really appeal to her. She clutched the collar of her coat to keep the water from sneaking in, but it still slid down her neck, probably from the water drenching her hair, which gave it a natural path to follow and settled just below the collar as if to mock her.
It was just rain. She reminded herself firmly and kept pushing forward. There was no thunder to prove else wise, and what did a little rain do to hurt anyone? Yet the rain kept coming, by now her feet were entrenched and it did not matter if her shoes made the 'pluck' sound as she took a step or not, as it was only drowned by more water. The sloppiness was still there, but each step only brought her feet further from the shoes as each step brought in more water to fill them for her. She was tempted to take them off and carry them, they were chaffing her ankles and her toes were rubbing uncomfortably against the front. As she walked, the water slowly rose towards her knees, it couldn't be flooding! She gasped as she suddenly looked up to the sky, to see if it was indeed, but her answers wouldn't be coming from the skies. It was telling her the answer to the question by her feet. It was indeed flooding, and as she took a step off the curb to cross the street, the water splashed up past her thighs. When she got to higher ground, it receded towards her knees again, but it made it difficult to move very efficiently in such deep water.
She held back a strangle moan as she wanted to cry at her misfortune for the day. It would do her no good as nobody would hear her, and it wouldn't help her get through this, it would only blind her more so than the water pouring down at her would. So she straightened her shoulders and crossed the street without bothering to look. The way she was going were all shops, there wouldn't be anything open to beckon her inside to stay to ride out this weather like everyone else. They all got adequate warning, and were sent home to their nice, warm, safe beds. Where had she been when this warning had been issued?
Oh, that's right, sleeping towards the detention that never came. The area her teacher preferred for detention was often out of the way and one of the first places to file out as the teacher liked to make the students suffer in complete silence and it wasn't attainable in a nosier part of the school, to distract anyone even momentarily. There would have been no way for Usagi to know about this, and nobody to accidentally run into her to warn her if they forgot anything. They all hated that section of the school, even when they absolutely had to be there. Even the teachers were weary in that wing, so no one ever forgot anything to have to go back for on their own.
She kept her gaze down, making sure her feet found purchase with the ground underfoot in anyway possible, because she did not relish being completely dunked in this freezing cold water. It was a very cold rain, that became a very cold lake in Tokyo city. It was getting harder to walk though, as her body was being pushed upward with her mass against that of the water's own density. She didn't fear for cars, for no one else was stupid enough to be on the roads, especially when they wouldn't be able to drive them.
She missed the curb going up onto the sidewalk, as her body had decided to go up with a minor swell at the same time, landing a little further back than she had anticipated, and thus she fell. She fell sideways as her body lost its balance and fell into the corner of the wall of a building on the street, she knocked over metal trash cans as she went, but she was less concerned about the food debris surrounding her as she was with the impact her head made against, said wall and then the going under of water.
---
Mamoru heard a crash, it sounded like metal hitting against another hard surface, and he veered his path off to go looking for the source. It could have just been a cat, but the amount of noise it created, led him to believe quite differently.
When he finally managed to find the trash can, knocked over, there was a bedraggled blond, forcing herself through and holding onto the nearest fire escape ladder. It wasn't so bad yet as to be completely immobilized, soon kids their age would go out looking for people stranded, to help and move cars as kids loved floods, as long as the danger was mostly over. He didn't think though, that this girl was one of those helpers, perhaps she could have been, but at the time, it looked more like she needed the help that anything else.
The winds had picked up substantially since he started for home, and he was closing in, but it was still too far to take this girl there, if she needed any help. Hopefully her home wouldn't be much further, and she'd just had the same misfortune as he in trying to get there. He tried talking over the winds, but his voice was just whipped away in the other direction, so he struggled against it and the water, no picking up pace as well.
He reached a hand, still trying to communicate with her, and dropped it on her soaked shoulder. Her head whipped around, and he dropped it from her in shock. He hadn't recognized her from behind without the odangoes but now he could clearly see it was none other than his Odango. He tried talking to her, but she shook her head, she couldn't hear him.
So he tried using his hands instead, and she wasn't so opposed as to shun his help. She latched onto his arm, instead of the ladder and pulled him in the direction she'd been heading. He tried to take her back in the way he'd been going, the arcade might be the way she was going, but it was closed and a dead end. She shook her head though and tugged on his arm. She pointed to herself, then made a house in the air with her hands and pointed in the same direction she wanted to go before she latched one hand around his bicep again.
He sighed, perhaps it was their best bet. She was more unsteady in the water than he was, but he wondered if that had to do with her height and the fact that it was now up past her waist and the wind threw her hair back from her head, almost painfully as it pulled taunt her skin as well. He caught it and stuffed it down the back of her jacket. She shivered, it couldn't have been more cold than the water she'd gone swimming in not long before, he thought she'd have more sense than to let her head get below the top of the water, and would protect it first, as long as it was dry, she'd stay warmer. Then again, his klutz of a tormentee wasn't known for her smarts, or her accuracy in footing. So it was very plausible she hadn't mean to try swimming it, but at the moment, it could be their greatest form to get there. When he'd tried to offer it as a suggestion, the fear in her eyes grew and she shook her head widely in the negative before she just as suddenly stopped with a slight hint of pain on her features.
It worried him, how long had she been out there? Alone? What had she managed to do to herself, and why wasn't she with the girls or back home already?
They veered off path to the arcade slightly, and it was when they started getting into the quiet residential area, that the weather changed on them again. Not looking out for their wellbeing or helping them in any way. The rain first shifted to ice, and as it landed, it hurt, and he didn't have to look at Odango to know that with each hit, it bruised, and that she too was feeling the pain. They attempted to run now, but it only slowed them down more, and the water was only getting colder.
The wind kicked up again, and Mamoru expected what was coming and shielding himself from the lashing of the ice. Usagi was not so lucky nor so fast and they cut into her skin in tiny little cuts that blood rose up to meet along her cheeks and by her eyes but thankfully, not the eyes themselves. Usagi squeezed them shut before she had begun to move her arms and the ice cut into the fabric of her light jacket. She stumbled from the mixture and having her eyes closed and Mamoru pulled her up back to her feet, while he used his other hand to use his jacket as a guard.
Usagi kept stumbling now, she couldn't help it, her legs felt frozen in place and Mamoru moved with such assured large steps that she couldn't keep up. She felt his anger roll off of him when he looked behind at her, for she had fumbled yet again and he had kept his hand on her arm to keep her moving along. He turned on her so quickly and pulled her up into his arms. He put the jacket around the both of them so nothing could get in still, but her face got buried into his shoulder and he told her with their close proximity, the words got through, to wrap her legs around him. So Usagi did so and grabbed onto his chest with her arms, she held so tightly he thought he wouldn't be able to breath at first, but then he found that her body was actually giving his warmth and that was what was actually causing the initial trouble, as it had gotten used to the cold. He took a moment to adjust to this new sensation before he headed off again. He needed her directions however if they were going to find her house.
Usagi didn't have much for breath, her throat felt sore and her chest, even with the warmth radiating from his, felt tight. It didn't help that even from her elevated potion, she was still up to her waist in water. She didn't know how he managed it, to carry her and to fight against the current developing around his feet, but his steps were just as assured as they always were. She managed to look through a small gap in his make-shift cape and see the streets that were always so familiar that she didn't even need to look to know where she was going. Now she was a little confused with the slow pace and the unfamiliar sight of water lapping at their doors. The ice pounded at her back, despite the jacket and she concentrated past that and told him where to go.
The path to her house wasn't far, and she wasn't sure if the short-cut would hold for much longer, as it ducked between several trees and the path was dirt covered, but he managed it, managed it without mumbling a single complaint. Usagi buried her head into his inviting shoulder for all of a moment before he adjusted her again, he'd gotten through. The path should have taken longer than that, and she worried for a moment about blacking out but he needed her attention and she got him to get her the rest of the way to her front porch.
He pounded on the door, looking for an answer, and it was then, I remembered we'd be alone. Perhaps it would have been better to go to his place, at least his parents would have been there as a means of distraction. She put a hand on his arm to still his action and shook her head, instead looking for a set of keys that were always in her bag. She looked through it several times, but there still was no sighting of the shiny golden keys with a red usagi as the only key ring. She bowed her head, either she'd forgotten them this morning, or she'd lost them when she fell. She tried opening the door without them, as her mother sometimes left it unlocked for her, in just these instances, but it was no luck. She looked up to Mamoru.
It had gotten too much for Mamoru with the weather beating at his poor jacket the way it was, soon it would completely cut through the fabric, and with the way the trees bowed and scrapped along it as well, he knew that possibility was coming closer with every second. He took a calculated risk, trying to protect the girl in his arms more than his worry for his identity. He was surprised when she did not notice the change in fabric, how what she had once been leaning against and soaked was now dry and crisp, but it too was wetting with the water still gushing from her. Nor the fact that the inner circle between them became that much warmer with the protection of his cape. The cape offered heat and better shelter. Once he was cleared of the trees though, he didn't know if anyone would be looking out their windows he changed back, but to do so, he had to shift the precious bundle in his grasp. She moaned slightly and he leaned down to whisper that he needed her help again.
It was true, he didn't know where Tsukino Usagi lived, but if she lived within the next few blocks, she still lived a hundred times closer to where they had encountered each other on this rough evening, than he did. This only served to put him farther from his place, but he was sure the Tsukinos who could raise a daughter like Usagi, wouldn't mind taking him in for the duration of the storm, especially when he'd just saved her life. He didn't want to leave her either when it finally registered in his mind that if he hadn't come just then, she wouldn't have made it home in her state. He was thankful for the crash in alerting him of her presence and that he followed through to checking up on it. On the other hand, if he wasn't Kamen, the time it would take to get to his apartment if things had started like this before he ventured off course, didn't look too good for him either.
He finally reached their house, the ice was turning into snow as you looked at it, and he cursed fate for making them wade through all of the bad stuff, just to lessen the load when they finally got to shelter. He used the wall of the house as one way of protecting her fagile skin and his body as the other as she searched frantically for her keys. He tried pounding on her door, but there was no answer. Her parents were no doubt locked in at work like most of the residents on the street were. The storm hit just before the break for the day. Only those not in the city itself, managed to close down in time and get home. He hoped Usagi's friends made it to Rei's shrine in time, but he wasn't as worried about them as the girl struggling to find keys that seemed to have disappeared. She was having just about as good of luck today as he was.
She stiffened and then turned sad and another emotion, he didn't want to believe it to be fear- towards him. Usagi's eyes said it all, she couldn't find her keys, and they were stuck out here. "To hell with it!" He grabbed her up, and spun around to take off on the rooftops, when he spotted a tree, he called halt to his transformation, and his pants reverted back into the rain-soggy jeans that they once were. She'd let out a tiny shriek of surprise at his quick actions, but he only carried her to the tree he found.
Usagi looked up the tree's boughs and almost clapped for joy. Her window would be unlocked, she'd used this tree countless of times to sneak in and out of her house when battles commenced. She had never had to climb it as Usagi though, and she looked a little worriedly up at it, but urged Mamoru forward, it was a good idea. He set her up on the highest branch he could reach and then jumped lithely up himself before gathering her in his arms again. He had been prepared to take her to his apartment, they would get there in almost an instant as Kamen, but if he didn't have to drag her through more bad weather, he wouldn't chance it.
Usagi could have turned into Sailor Moon to help him, could have done it and gotten home a long time ago, but she'd thought she'd only been caught out in the rain at first, but when it became much more she didn't even think about it, the only desire was to get home quickly. Now though, with a witness, she couldn't risk the exposure to her friends, and people who could see would wonder why Sailor Moon was going into the Tsukino household when she could have easily gone home after her check ups. There would be too many questions if she'd admitted who she was to anyone.
She clung to Mamoru as he maneuvered his way up the tree easily, and carrying a dead weight on his chest, shouldn't have helped him any. She attempted to get down when he finally reached the branch closest to her bedroom window, but he only shifted her to his back and reached forward to slid it open.
With baited breath, each froze to see if it would work. It stuck a little due to the weather, but it eventually did slide open. He would have to lecture her the stupidity of leaving her window unlocked, so close to a tree that anyone could break in, but at the moment, he was only too happy to find them both shelter. He slid through the window, taking care to set her down first inside. She swayed on her feet by the time he entered, he brought his hand to her shoulders to steady her. "Go take a hot shower, where is the themometer?"
"Downstairs." She answered and headed to her parent's bedroom as he went to check on the heat, it was true, her parents had shut down the heat for the day, but at least inside the wind didn't whip through her and chill her to the bone, at least inside, it was just a fraction warmer than it was outside.
She pulled out her father's drawer for pants, and pulled out a shirt, obviously going to be too big on Mamoru, and too short, but still, it was a change of clothes. She pulled out a heavy pair of socks and layered a sweatshirt on it. She had to stop suddenly and grip the table at the side of the bed when she felt suddenly woozy and started to sway again. She forced the motion away, she had to finish this, but it was with unsteady steps that she completed her task.
She didn't want to admit to Mamoru that she'd gotten a head wound just before he'd arrived at her side, her knight in the cold, and so she wouldn't. He already had too much else to worry about and she gathered up the clothes she had found for him, and took it to her bedroom to set upon the desk she hardly used, but would be in plain sight for him.
She gathered her own clothes, shaking now from the wet still clinging to her cold body and turned right into Mamoru's chest as she left her room. He put a hand out to steady her and looked down at her in dismay. "I thought I told you to take a shower."
"I'm working on it." She glared up at him, he was still bossing her around, and she wasn't an invalid, she knew that a shower was the best thing to do at the moment. She pushed out her clothes to prove it to him, but he was frowning right back into her eyes. "What?" She snapped, she wasn't usually this crabby around him, but they did argue a lot just for the sake of it.
"Your eyes are a little dilated. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." Usagi pushed him away with the hand she managed to maneuver out of her clothes. "Who gave you a medical certificate? I just need a shower." She took an unsteady step towards her parents room, there was a shower in there, but she pulled herself out of the stumble before he could help her. "Did you fix the heat?"
"No. It's out, just like everything electric and gas powered."
"The weather." She replied, understanding, no wonder her school had looked so dark, she'd just thought that it was because it was so late and empty, she didn't realize that the lights had all gone out and the only reason she could see was because of the light the gray sky still offered.
"Yes. Where are you going?" He looked towards the door he figured was the bathroom and she shrugged.
"You can use that one, I'm using my parent's room." She closed the door on his face and leaned against it, trying to get her breathing and body back under control. The shivering only increased and she forced her way to the bathroom and turned on the water, making it as warm as she could without wasting the precious store that remained from this morning.
She was just rinsing out the condition in her hair when her knees gave out and she slid along the wall of the shower. She couldn't see when she opened her eyes, but even that was a struggle. They closed on their own and she only hoped he wouldn't look.