Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Note: I know I should be spending time on Be Mine but this little plot bunny just jumped into my head and I had to write it down. I know the ending is a little cliché but we all have to write one once in our lives, right? Well, this is strictly a one-shot, but I might think of doing a series if I get the time. Maybe. I apologize for any grammatical errors and I would be pleased if you pointed any of them out.
Rating: PG-13, or Teens.
Summary: Who knew a magazine could cause such chaos in Serena's life? First season romance, S/D.
The Trouble with Cosmo
Strange noises were coming from the living room. Not pained or disgusted, but noises of delight and laughter.
It was Wednesday.
Serena Tsukino could therefore dismiss the tittering and giggles and categorize it as Women's Night. Every week, Irene Tsukino and four of her friends would get together at one of their respective houses for a night of girly fun and worriless thoughts. No kids or husbands allowed. It seemed eons ago that Serena use to hide behind a piece of furniture and listen in rapture to 'grown up' talk. She felt older by just listening to what the group of mothers and wives would complain about. Even if she didn't know what a 'pre-nuptial agreement' was or how a 'negligee' (whatever that was) made a husband do the dishes faster.
At the current moment, she was safely encompassed in her bedroom, giving her homework a fair five minute trial (meaning: she was grounded for the week because of her latest math test results). She had to know the quadratic formula to do this? Didn't know it, guess she couldn't do it. Oh well, at least she could honestly tell Ms. Haruna tomorrow that she had given her homework a chance. Why did math have to be so stinking hard…
A very loud shriek of laughter made Serena wince. Couldn't they be a little quieter? What if Serena had been doing her homework and could not concentrate due to the incessant racket? Oh! That was a good excuse she could use tomorrow! And it was the truth, too. Perfect.
Outside her door, she heard, "…get her," then, "SERENA! Could you come down here for a moment?"
Drats.
This was the one night during the week that her mother would NOT pester her for chores, grades, or her mannerisms. A break for both mother and daughter; it was an unspoken agreement.
Serena considered faking sleep but knew that her mother would never buy it since it was only six.
"Where's Luna when I actually need her?" the blonde girl muttered, disgruntled. The stupid cat had mumbled something about the arcade before darting off. Serena planned on giving the feline a good tongue-lashing when she returned. If only because Sailor business could have come up and Luna would not have been here!
With a sigh, Serena got up and dragged herself across the room and out the door to meet her mama at the stairs.
"Dear, come downstairs, we would like to ask your opinion on something," Irene was smiling and looking less hassled than she did at any other time of the week. Serena took that to be a good sign.
"What is it, mama?"
"Oh, just come here."
Slowly, with extreme caution, Serena took one step at a time (being careful not to trip) and walked into the living room with her mothers four friends seated around a wooden coffee table. The room was sparsely decorated, with a few pictures of the family hung up around it and a large, comfy mocha colored couch that had seen better days. Against the wall that backed up to the staircase was a loveseat that Serena had picked out last year when she had accidentally spilled vinegar on it. Why she had been running full speed through the house with vinegar was a story for another time.
Her mother's friends all looked up when Serena came in, and the 16 year-old blonde knew that they were going to start tittering again shortly.
Margaret, with her short, practical brown bob shaking back and forth, rose and embraced her. She was probably Serena's favorite of all the women. With her wry humor and focused eyes, Serena always felt that older woman understood her. "You look so gorgeous these days! What have you been feeding her, Irene? She looks so grown-up."
Her mama sighed with a wistful gleam in her eyes, "You don't need to remind me." Serena was thankful her back was to her mother so only Margaret saw the wrinkled face of affectionate teenager disdain she made. Margaret laughed.
"Come sit here with us, honey. Oh, don't look like that, you are not trouble," Irene frowned, "but that guilty look on your face puts me ill at ease."
"Don't worry about it, mama. It's nothing," Serena fast hastened to assure her.
Irene leveled a look that promised they would discuss it later.
Taking a seat with the other three women and Margaret, Irene (to Serena's great surprise) took out a magazine and flipped neatly to a dog-earred page. She placed the opened magazine on the coffee table.
Serena was confused. "Mama, what…"
Carla Halashi, who was seated neatly on the floor, pointed a perfectly and obviously fake red nail at the magazine page. "Does he look familiar to you?"
Turning confused eyes away from the women, she turned to look at the magazine spread. Her eyes were first drawn to the corner, where the title of the magazine was printed. Cosmo!, a magazine Serena and her friends had talked about in whispered giggles, and had once picked up while waiting for Ami to pick up some library books. Just the cover had sent them into hysterics for the next hour.
And her mother was reading it?
Gross gross gross. Her mama was old and married. Why would she…oh, oh, oh, WAY too much information.
The magazine identified, and without looking at the two pages displayed, Serena squeaked and covered her eyes. "Ma," she gasped, "gross!"
Irene, unseen to her daughter, rolled her eyes. "Sweetie, I'm your mother, not blind."
"Too much information!"
"Just look at what I'm trying to show you."
With eyes still tightly shut, she shook her head.
"Serena!" Irene reproved sharply, well-aware of her friends watching them.
Hearing the frost in her mother's tone, Serena felt she had no choice but to look. Icky. What could her mother possibly want to show her in Cosmo! Magazine?
Then she looked.
And her world became perfect.
A figure of the very male variety stood without a shirt on, displaying some wonderfully chiseled muscles. Jeans that swung dangerously low made Serena's cheeks heat up, and the smooth skin dusted with some dark, sinful looking hair caused her heart to speed up. It was perfect, delicious, better than anything the young girl had ever experienced. As her eyes traveled higher from the accentuating jeans to the man's rock hard chest, then broad shoulders, they landed on the model's face.
And her world became chaos.
She yelped. "Ew! I cannot believe that baka! What is he doing there?" In her frustrations, she was unaware of two women in the room—Shayla Barshino and Courtney Makata—exchanging smirks.
Irene, who had only called her daughter down at the request of Shayla and Courtney, was shocked that they were actually correct in their insistence that Serena knew the man in the magazine. They had sworn to seeing them together quite a few times. Irene had doubted that to be true. The man was in college, a model, and, according to the stats listed in a box at the bottom of the page, a very rich bachelor.
How could Serena possibly KNOW him? Let alone have talked to him several times?
But if her daughter's reaction was anything to go by, she did indeed know Darien Shields.
"How do you know this man, dear?" Margaret was fast to inquire, having also doubted the word of her two friends and was now very curious at being proved wrong. She had known Serena the entire girl's life. There was probably a really good story attached to the reason Serena knew the man. Margaret couldn't wait to hear it.
"I cannot believe this!" Serena repeated again, snatching the magazine off the table and holding it dangerously close to her face for a better inspection. But it didn't magically transform. No, the glaringly handsome face of Darien Shields still grinned back her. And what a very handsome grin…no! Ew! She had stop!
"Serena?" Margaret probed.
Snapping out of her near mental breakdown, she tried to take deep breaths as she explained. "He's nobody. I have klutz attacks and he sometimes gets in the way. I don't really know him." Which was a little bit of a lie. He wasn't nobody. And he ALWAYS found a way to be near her when she had a klutz attack. Plus, she did kind of know him. But obviously not as much as she had thought. He modeled? Was rich? Since when?
Missing the disappointed looks around her, she stood up. "Can I be excused?"
Irene saw her friends still wanted to interrogate her daughter and gave each of them a sharp glance. She would talk to her daughter later.
"Of course, dear, and remember to start cleaning your room."
Serena didn't stick around a moment longer and dashed upstairs to her room.
The five women in the room looked at one another. "That's so cute!" Margaret sighed. "She has a crush on him."
Irene made to deny it, but Carla scoffed in, "No, she was probably embarrassed that we were asking about it."
"You haven't known Serena her whole life. That girl has a crush on him, I tell you!" Margaret insisted, giggling.
"No, no," Irene shook her head. Serena was still a little girl. Her baby.
"Hey," Courtney gestured towards the coffee table, "where did the magazine go?"
In her room, Serena closed the door and quickly went across the room to sit on the bed.
Folding her legs underneath her, she removed the magazine from her sub-pocket and proceeded to stare.
And stare.
And maybe drool a little.
That chest, those eyes…
"Stop, stop, stop," Serena chanted to herself in silent mental agony. "It's Darien. Rude, obnoxious, mocking, hot, loser, wait, how did hot get in there? Errr." Her traitorous brain was forcing her to think. To imagine that hot body…
Serena jumped off her bed and went to open the window and get some air circulating through the room. Her thoughts were going to drive her crazy if she was forced to sit here and just think and stare and drool. But, unfortunately, she was still grounded until the end of the week and Luna was still no where to be seen. Still, when had any of that stopped her?
Light blue eyes rested upon the ground outside and a decision was made. No homework was going to be finished anytime soon. Her mother was distracted with her friends. Sammy and her dad had wisely decided to eat out (which, if she had been allowed to go on, would have totally avoided the whole seeing-Darien-half-nude-in-a-magazine situation).
Serena stood up and changed into a light blue jacket and her favorite pair of jeans. She twirled in front of her mirror for a second, straightened her long pigtails, and pocketed some cash, all before slipping on some sandals.
With one last listening check (yes, the five women were still loudly discussing the topic of modeling), and a glance to make sure no one was looking, Serena leaped out the window and landed—for once—gracefully on the ground. Sometimes, having superpowers was awesome.
The magazine, which the blonde girl resolved NOT to think about, was safely stowed in her sub-pocket. But even so, it stayed in her thoughts the entire way to the arcade. The stupid image just wouldn't leave her head.
Innocent pedestrians all exchanged worried glances, backing away slightly, when some small blonde girl started to let out anguished moans. They wondered what asylum she had escaped from.
Serena, for her part, didn't notice that she was frightening others until the one voice she did not want to hear magically appeared.
"What are you moaning about now, Meatball Head? You're scaring the bystanders," Darien Shields, with his impeccable timing when it came to discovering Serena in embarrassing moments, fatefully happened to be also walking in the same direction as she was. Probably going to the arcade, like she was.
Serena wanted a refund. Life sucked.
"None of your business," she snapped, not looking at him. Focus on walking, focus on walking. If she didn't look at him, she risked less of a chance of having a klutz attack, blushing an unattractive shade of red (but what did she care if she looked unattractive to him?), or both.
Darien, scoundrel that he is (and she should do well to remember that!), remarked, "I thought Andrew told me earlier that you were grounded. Did you get a bad test score, again?" he teased, not cruelly, but with a sort of affectionate exasperation.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking on Serena's part.
"Ye—I still don't see how it is any of your business."
"Call it morbid curiosity."
Serena turned to him, intent on giving him a punch to the shoulder but the mental images began to torment her again, over and over. She screeched in annoyance and sped up, hoping dumb Darien would get the clue and go away.
When Darien struck pace with her not two seconds later, Serena was at her wits end. The worst part of it all was that she didn't even know why. So what if her mortal enemy and everyday verbal punching bag was the hottest example of male flesh she had ever seen? It really shouldn't bother her as much as it was. Just like the glaring fact that she really didn't know this man. Darien Shields, who she formerly could dismiss as an arrogant and rude college student, had now transformed before her eyes into something…more.
And it made her really mad.
Anger was something she knew and could use. "What I don't understand," Serena stopped, with a little wobbling from the sudden change in momentum, and was momentarily annoyed that Darien halted with the grace of a reincarnated swan. Damn him. "Is why you pick on me?" She wanted to add when you're a supermodel with loads of money, and probably girls, but didn't. She did not want him to know she knew. If that made any sense.
There was a pause were Darien looked thoughtful at her question. "It is fun, I guess," he shrugged after a minute, apparently not taking this as seriously as she wished.
"Fun to torment and torture me?" she fumed. "You are the hottest person I know…" Too late, she realized her mistake. Coldest, it was suppose to be coldest! Motionless, and with her eyes closed, Serena sent a prayer to the heavens above that the last twenty seconds could be erased from the record. Or, at the very least, from Darien's mind.
Because there was no doubt Darien had heard it.
Her eyes were still closed, so she didn't see his expression of genuine surprise and not a little bit of warmth. What she did hear, however, was his laughter.
"Freudian slip, huh?" He fought the urge to caress her cheeks. They looked warm and soft, and especially tasty in that shade of red. Looking at her cheeks naturally caused his eyes to wander further down to her lips. She had a friendly mouth; full, generous, and rosy, very suited to her personality. He wanted to kiss her…
No! Shaking his head to clear himself of those kinds of thoughts no longer worked. For months now he had been trying hard to rid himself of lust by teasing and prodding her into disliking him. It had been working, almost too well to his displeasure. But with her standing there, making slips about her finding him physically attractive…it was almost too much to resist.
She was almost too much to resist.
Serena was about ready to just turn around and run home. This was probably karmas way of punishing her for sneaking out, she knew. But really, her imagination and mouth were running marathons and not only was she implying Darien was hot, but it seemed like he was moving closer towards her…
She panicked briefly. Unfortunately, panicking, for her, tends to lead to brain-outs. Which, in turn, lead to her blurting out things she would rather not be known to the general public; aka Darien. "I saw your picture in Cosmo!."
Apparently, that was the one thing Darien had not expected to hear. "You did?" he asked stupidly.
She nodded with embarrassment. "Yes, it was…interesting," which is also synonymous for gorgeous, drool-worthy, and sizzling hot. But he didn't need to know that.
Now it was Darien's turn to be embarrassed. He had only done that spread because he owed the editor a favor. Attention was the last thing he wanted out of the foldout, and attention seemed the biggest thing he got when the issue came out in the beginning of last month. The way the girls acted on his college campus, it was like they had never see a bare chest before. He had come to despise his agreement in posing, and he could only be relieved that Serena would never know about it. Her innocent eyes would not be reading a magazine like Cosmo!, or so he thought.
He should have known his only breath of fresh air would find out about the article. Fate worked like that. That is, against him.
But Darien was not one to cry over spilt milk. Especially when he could definitely make ice cream from it.
"Interesting?" That sexy brow rose, and although Serena turned to keep walking, two muscular arms trapped her. Where had that wall come from?
If Serena wasn't absolutely positive that Darien Shields looked down on her as some stupid high schooler, she might have thought he was flirting with her.
Flirting.
Yeah, she was laughing too.
"Yeah, interesting. What, do you think your hot stuff just because Cosmo! has good digital vamping? You are not that tan in real life. Nor that tall," she lied. She was not going to let him have a bigger head than he already have. Especially after the betrayal of her stupid tongue!
"Hey," Darien protested mildly, his body shifting so he now held Serena a few inches away from his chest. "None of that now," he changed the subject, "and you still haven't answered my question. Or is my bodily perfection bothering you too much to form a coherent response?"
Coldest. Hottest. It was an honest mistake.
"The only thing bothering me," she shoved with a little extra strength at his chest, and watched with a satisfied smirk as he stumbled back, "is you."
"I noticed." His voice held a huskiness that Serena had never heard from a person before.
She again turned to walk away, intent on the arcade, Rei's temple, a mall, anything would do, as long as Darien Shields wasn't there. And, again, Darien stopped her, this time with his words.
"I think you are afraid."
The blatant challenge in his voice is what made her stop and stay. At least, that is what she told herself. It was definitely not because she was begging for any excuse not to leave.
"Afraid of what?"
A volcano was simmering and going to erupt. Darien could not hold back the words any longer. "Afraid of me. Scared of the attraction. I know I am," he finally, after months of suppressing the feelings, confessed.
Serena could only blink stupidly. "What?" she unconsciously stepped towards him.
Darien turned away. "Nevermind," he mumbled, losing his courage at the last moment. "Forget it, Meatball Head."
But Serena was too curious to not know. "Wait," she reached out and grasped his hand, sending a slight shock through them. "Don't go."
Those two words. Don't go. Darien could not have moved if the entire world was being attacked. Right here, right now, was where he was supposed to be, and nothing was going to move him.
"So what you're saying," Serena said slowly, "is that you find me attractive?" There was doubt in her voice. "If this is some kind of joke…"
"No," he said helplessly, "it's true."
"And you're scared?" she asked, still doubtful and no less confused. Another step. Soon she would be within reaching distance. Which meant she would soon be within kissing distance.
"Terrified," Darien admitted.
"Why?" her voice was soft and wistful.
"For months now I have been hiding my true feelings…Serena, I love you," he blurted.
"What?" she asked, shocked. Something akin to hope was swelling in her heart.
He smiled brilliantly. "I love you," he repeated, reaching for her.
She knew what was coming now.
When his head started to lower and her lips began to get caressed, his arms tightened around her, and she moaned.
"I love you too, Darien," she whispered breathlessly as he kissed the side of her mouth, then her nose, and finally….
"Serena."
"Love you," she mumbled, turning. Ack, where did Darien go? She could no longer feel him.
"Serena!"
And with a huge jolt of awareness, Serena bolted up to find her mom staring back in a concerned manner.
"Are you alright, honey?" she put a hand to her daughters head.
Serena waved the hand away. "I'm fine," she lied. She was anything but. That was a dream? It had felt so real. Sounded so much like Darien. But who was she kidding? Darien didn't even like her, let alone love her.
Irene was worried. Her daughter had obviously been dreaming about something important. The look of her face troubled Irene for it was one she had not seen contort her daughters face. It looked almost like heartbreak. Irene dealt with this the only way she knew how. "My friends have gone home and the boys aren't back yet. How about I make you some chicken noodle soup?" When Serena nodded, Irene kissed her head and left to cook the soothing meal.
As soon as her mother closed the door, hot tears began coursing down her pale face.
Sitting there and crying, she came to two realizations.
The first thing she realized was that she couldn't be in love with Darien. There was no plausible way. None. It was just a stupid dream and that was all, so she should stop crying.
The second realization was that, despite the dream being stupid, she wished so hard that it was true.
No, she decided, I don't love Darien. I just like the idea of being in love. And Darien was only in my dream because I had seen him in Cosmo! before I fell asleep. Yeah. That's why.
The dream, she figured, was ridiculous anyway. She and Darien would never love each other.
Across town, in an apartment high above most of Tokyo, a young man surged awake.
Surveying the scattered mess on his desk and the unfinished paper he still had to write, he rationalized that he had been studying way too much and promptly put the dream he'd had during his nap in the back of his mind.
It was, after all, ridiculous.
The End….for now.