Yaaay another chapter finally! I really love writing these kids together. In my head they're so goofy but so intense at the same time. Really immature and also really sexy, hehe. I hope I could portray that in this chapter without falling into too many cliches. If not, let me know how to improve! :D
Also, as requested by an anonymous reviewer last chapter, here's your warning: Tuxedo Kamen does swear a bit, so that's where the T rating comes in. (:
Somewhere there are whispers – hushed sibilant sounds that ebb and flow in volume, contracting and expanding deeply, deep, deep inside my mind. They are pining for me, pawing at me with padded fingertips, dragging me from the dregs of whatever dark and empty haven I have found. I sag against their grasp, but they persist, pulling, prodding, raising me up and into a sphere where sensation is stark and bleak and real, where silence and sound collide into chaos.
I feel everything in slow secretions – the overbearing nothingness, the waves of sensation that occasionally lap at my limbs. Cold and pain – those I can identify, but distantly, as if I were watching them overtake me from afar.
A faint call pierces through the white noise that clogs head like cotton balls. It barely registers through my senses, as unremarkable as a pinprick on a callused finger. But then it calls again, that tiny jolt on my radar. And again. And again.
Watery warmth seeps over me, gentle and nourishing, and I begin to notice. Shallow breath slumping in and out of my chest. Throbbing in the back of my head. A clean, sweet smell – wet grass and shaving cream.
I swallow against a dry throat and my ears seem to pop or expand or open and then I can hear it –
"Come on," he grits through his teeth. "Come on, dammit. What do you expect me to do? I don't know these things like you do, alright? I don't have pink shiny jewelry that heals people." He snorts. "Moon healing tiara magic sparkles, or whatever."
No, that's wrong – he got that wrong. I try to correct him but I seem to be a few feet away from my mouth.
"Well," he says, in such a contemplative manner that I'm expecting something really profound – "shit."
So much for profound.
"I dunno, Sailor Moon," he sighs. "I really don't. At daybreak we might still be sitting here with you looking as good as dead and me being the most useless man to ever wear a mask." He pauses. "Because generally superheroes make a difference. In the stories, you know. They always know what to do." He swears again and I can feel the tightness of frustration and anxiety tense in his abdomen. "And now I'm talking to you like you can hear me." He sounds uncertain. "…you can't hear me, right?"
But I can. It's just a little fuzzy. Also my whole body is numb. Which is unhelpful.
"Okay, this is not helping. Not helping." I hear him swallow. "Think, you moron. Think. You told those girls you knew what you were doing, now act like it."
A gentle brush against my cheek tingles a few nerves back into sensation. A soft touch runs along my jaw, my nose, my forehead, bringing my face back to life. My eyelids. I squeeze them a little, experimentally.
He freezes. "Sailor Moon?"
I squeeze my eyes tight again, a confirmation.
"Are you – are you there?" he begs. The same gloved touch sweeps down my arm, so light, so tentative. He fumbles for my hand with his own and grasps it firmly.
As warmth crawls into my fingers, I manage to squeeze back.
"What is it?" he says excitedly, desperately. "What can I do, what's working?" The hand leaves mine and cups my cheek. My face tilts into his hold.
"What," he says, laughing nervously, "just that? Hmm." His next words tickle my ear; I can feel the wetness of his lips against my cheek. "Well I can do that," he whispers.
The thickness of his voice when he says that raises goose bumps on my skin. Then his hand is on my knee, trailing up my thigh in the same gentle, uncertain touch. He pauses when he reaches the hem of my skirt and switches to my other leg, traveling back down to the knee. He proceeds to take my calf between his hands and massage it with his thumbs, and a low breath escapes me as my leg tingles and sparks with awakening. The same sensation meets one foot, then the other, then the other calf. He's traveled in a loop around my legs.
The hand wrapped around my shoulders, supporting me, spreads across my stomach and rests there for a moment before trickling up my sides, and it tickles, and a laugh chokes out of me and my eyes fly open and he's there, astonished and grinning and very dark eyes, right in front of my face. His mask is painted gray by shadow but the moonlight reflects opaquely from his eyes. His hat is off, his hair disheveled and longish, and he stares at me with joyous disbelief spread into his smile.
"Hi," he murmurs.
"Mhmhmuhh," I reply, because my mouth is still kind of dead.
His grin softens. "Can't talk?" His face is even closer now, his nose brushing the tip of my own. I can see straight through the holes in his mask, into thickly lashed eyes – very long, effeminate lashes.
I wait for the alert from my brain, for the panic mode to switch on, for the cacophony of warnings and red lights to flare. Nothing. Radio silence.
So I am completely at ease when our lashes mix and he presses my back up against him and tilts his head and kisses me.
The contact is enough, just his warm dry lips resting on mine. Enough to make me feel the kiss, enough for me to move my mouth. He pulls away after a few sweet seconds and I massage my lips against each other.
"Better?" he asks softly.
"Yeah," I whisper.
"That's a relief," he says. "I think Jupiter would have skinned me if it didn't work."
"Probably." I stare at him and he stares at me. My heartbeat is an engine on overdrive.
"Can you get home?" he asks me.
I flex my toes, my legs, roll my shoulders. "I think so." I seem pretty functional, anyway.
"Good." He stands somehow, magically, even though his legs were crossed beneath him and I am still in his arms. But he immediately sets me down, and I wobble a little under buckling knees. His arm shoots out and steadies me.
"You okay?"
I smile up at him. "Yeah." Goodness, he's tall. Taller than I realized, anyway. "Ah – thank you."
"Of course."
"No, I mean – thank you," I explain, as if this made everything clearer. "For everything. For always being there when we need you…" But he doesn't do much for the other girls, does he? "When I need you," I correct myself in a whisper.
"Well," he laughs, and almost say something but then doesn't, and scratches his neck sheepishly. "You're welcome," he replies, just as quietly, just as seriously.
"You're probably not going to tell me why you do it, are you?" I bite my lip and raise my eyebrows at him.
He sighs a bit. "Not tonight, Sailor Moon. Not yet."
I shouldn't have expected anything better. After all, what he's already done far surpasses any disappointment his mystery could provoke. "Well, thank you anyway," I say politely, and I rise on my toes to kiss his cheek – nothing provocative, I convince myself. Just a grateful sort of peck.
He turns swiftly and presses his lips against mine before I can reach his cheek. Another kiss, hot and still and lingering. Another whir of the engine spitting inside me.
"Eventually," he promises, and he shoots me one last long, intense look before disappearing over the edge of the –
"Tuxedo Kamen!" I cry out softly after him. I hadn't realized we were on a rooftop jutting high over the skyline, and as I rush to the edge of the roof, I gasp at the tremendous height he fell from. Another mystery.
But I will learn his secrets – that he promised. Eventually.
Hehe, you should have seen my original draft for this chapter. xP I have never imagined I would write Tuxedo Kamen comparing himself and Sailor Moon to sea creatures. Somehow in my mind that's how his brain works because he's such a nerd. But I figured he wouldn't reveal that side of himself just yet.
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Thanks for reading!
~SB