Okay, for MamoUsa Week Day 7: Family, here is the MOST liberal use of all these prompts yet by far, I'd say, lolol. It's the last plot chapter, what follows is the epilogue! I hope you'll like!
Idiots
A First Season AU Written for MamoUsa Week 2019
Day 7: Family
Usagi splashed water on her face and groaned into her sink. Then she did it again.
With a deep sigh she dressed in leggings and a thin, white, bit-too-large camisole that hung from her form that she'd laid out to replace the crumbled business outfit she'd spent the day in, then unwrapped the thick towel turban on top of her head and ran her hands through her towel damp hair, shaking it out a little.
Then she sighed again. Her reflection was sighing back at her, all flushed cheeks and downturned lips and panda-eyes because she hadn't removed her mascara before she took her shower and then cried all over it, and wouldn't bother to put on new one tonight.
The senshi had seen her way worse than that, they would deal. Besides, she was late.
Not that she was late for reasons she'd intended for.
All of which included some sort of version where Mamoru's tongue would currently be deep down her throat about now. Obviously, it wasn't.
She stuffed her crumpled clothes as well as her wet towels in the hamper by the washing machine and made her way out of the bathroom with a dejected slump to her shoulders, padding barefoot across the hardwood floor back to her room.
Once he'd transformed (... now that was a memory…), and they'd slipped through the café's bathroom window and arrived back at the scene, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mars had already been there.
In her panic of not knowing if he wanted them to know his identity, it got extremely weird.
It had already gotten extremely weird.
He touched her differently. He was distracted. He kept staring at her wide-eyed and got far too jumpy whenever one of the youma's projectiles got anywhere close to her.
It was as if he suddenly didn't trust Sailor Moon anymore to do her job at all, now that he knew it was clumsy crybaby Tsukino Usagi underneath.
He'd been downright panicked.
By the time they were done, and after the youma was dust under her sparkly pink magic, and she'd finally gotten away from the girls convincing them she'd be right behind, she only forgot something at home, he'd been gone.
When Sailor Moon scaled his balcony, he wasn't there.
And because her heart was breaking and she'd used home as an excuse anyway, she'd held her head under water and cried and tried to wash it all away.
She'd apparently ruined this all too much.
With puffy, red and black rimmed eyes she slumped against her door and slugged inside.
Then she jumped a mile high, shrieking.
Chiba Mamoru was sitting on her windowsill.
His eyes widened, and he held up his arms as if she was the bloody police, and she clamped both her hands tightly across her mouth even when she already heard her mother's concerned voice yell from downstairs, Shingo's curses from two rooms over. She hollered a flinching lie throughout the house and they believed it all because Usagi was no stranger to tripping over air and everyone knew it.
Meanwhile, Mamoru was sitting where only Tuxedo Mask could have gotten up to, all apologetic stare and whisper-shouting, "sorry!" and glancing behind himself out the open window as if considering how bad of an idea showing up here probably was.
"Uh…" he started, then broke off.
Why couldn't they seem to say 'Hi' to each other like normal people, ever? But she didn't say 'Hi', either, instead just watched him like the lunatic she was.
He glanced back from his view out her window, and she saw his hand dig into her windowsill. He sat a little bit askew, only one of his long legs actually touched the ground, the other dangled just above. Was it because he didn't know if he was welcome, or because he didn't want to be here?
She realised she couldn't fully read him. She had no way of knowing what was actually going on in his mind. Was he mad at her? Did he feel bad about all the kissing now that she was someone else than he thought she was? Was he here to say no thank you? Was he worried she'd blow his cover? Did he want her to blow his cover? Did he want to… team up? Fully? Did he want answers regarding all Senshi business of the last two years and then some?
What finally came out of his mouth confused her for a second, because it was nothing she'd considered.
"What was the theory you were testing?" he asked.
She slowly blinked at him in utter incomprehension.
His eyes were that careful mask of neutral and quiet that looked uninterested from the outside.
Since about two hours ago, she knew what his heart was doing when he looked at her like that, though. She felt the sudden urge to step forward and touch his chest, check if it was thumping hard like it had before. She didn't do that, of course. She did take a step forward though.
He pressed his lips together and the look in his eyes tightened for just a second before he elaborated. "When you ambushed me at my university as Sailor Moon. When I'd been so absolutely certain you'd found out I was Tuxedo Mask but I obviously seem to have ended up spectacularly blowing my cover. What theory were you ACTUALLY testing?"
Ah. Right. That theory.
She swallowed. Felt her cheeks heat and clawed her fingers into her shirt. Not her finest plan and nothing she was actually proud of now in the light of day.
Oh you know, I was just stalking you for a full week straight abusing my magical powers to test if you're into me by trying to get into your pants as basically anyone else. It made sense at the time, promise.
"Uh, if…" she felt the full body flush everywhere, felt it creeping up her chest, her neck, crawling up her very receptive just-showered skin as if she'd lit it on fire. Then she swallowed and squeaked it out. "If …you like me. Usagi-me."
His eyebrows lowered, his eyes darkened into a just-that-little-bit more intense of a glare. Though she realized with a start it wasn't a glare at all. His eyes just looked a little more intimidating than usual when he was focussing on her in a way that felt like a scan of every single hair.
… She suddenly was very much aware of her damp hair, too large shirt and smudged eyes.
He sighed. It sounded utterly exasperated.
"Oh, I'm nuts about you," he said with those intense, stern eyes. "I thought I'd made that very clear."
She inhaled sharply, it went through her like a flush, almost too much.
But he just sat there, still that hand clutching, clawing at her window frame next to his thigh, looking at her in that calm manner that Tuxedo Mask always had.
Her next inhale was a little shakier. "I don't know how I didn't see it," she whispered.
He lowered his chin, threw her a look. "That I'm in love with you?" His tone was challenging, almost daring.
Don't you dare change the subject again, that look said.
But her heart stopped. "No," she managed to say. "That you're Tuxedo Mask. Or that you're actually a really, really good person."
That drew him up short, erased all the challenge from his eyes. Instead, he cringed. "I don't know if I agree with that assessment," he said in a voice that was much smaller than before. "Also, even if it were the case, I didn't make it easy for you to see that, Usako."
Usako…
Her heart thumped hard, everything tingled, and she had absolutely no control over her body, or the three steps she took towards him. When she stopped, his eyes had grown that very vulnerable shade again, and both his eyes and hers flicked to where his knees almost but not quite touched her, before they flicked back up and met.
His face was tense and worried and so very conflicted.
He swallowed, before he spoke, all wince. "I told the girl I liked she'd never ever get a boyfriend when she behaved the way she did. I told her she looked like food," he said, eyes boring into hers.
Usagi shrugged, but Mamoru shook his head, sighed hard, and kept going.
"I told her she wouldn't have a chance in hell auditioning for roles and posing in front of shady photographers. I told her that her crush thought of her as a little sister in a mocking tone and not in sympathy like the topic deserved. I told her she can't walk and talk at the same time and yelled at her when she threw failures at me that she was clearly upset about," he said.
His voice was imploring. As if he was trying to convince her what a bad choice he would be, how unworthy, and how much of an idiot she would be to want him. And maybe that was exactly what he was doing. Or trying to do, anyway.
Usagi scrunched up her nose. "I called you a jerk really, really often." She said it slowly, in a way that was meant to say, I'm not any better.
He snorted, shook his head. "I was a jerk."
She lifted her shoulders once more, smiling. "And I do look like food a lot."
His chuckle was low, somewhat incredulous, somewhat self-depreciating.
It died, stuttering and thrilling, in his throat when Usagi reached out and ran two fingers along the seam of his black jeans, right next to his knee and just a few, innocent centimeters up his inner thigh.
When her hand lowered to his thigh fully, stroked up just that tiny, tiny little bit higher, he gasped and caught her hand with both of his, startled.
Usagi was about to yank her hand back, was starting to apologize, but he kept it in a death grip, one hand around her wrist, the other smoothing out her palm on his knee that was apparently deemed the safe zone.
His hands were shaking, so were hers, and his eyes, and the way they looked at her hand in that wondrous way as he stroked the lines on her palm, did things to her she simply had no reference to. As if her body was this alien thing, hot and flushed and shaking and tingling and doing what it wanted.
"Why Usagi?" she managed to whisper down at the otherworldly image of his hand stroking hers. She hadn't noticed she'd completely stepped between his knees. "Why not Sailor Moon?"
She felt his slow, tender half smile as if it branded itself on her lungs, and it was close. His quirked-up mouth, his softening eyes as he lifted one shoulder and the side of his lift with it.
"Usagi is very disarmingly adorable. And to make it a downright irresistible mix, she's also the bravest, strongest person I've ever met," he said with that intoxicating smile, that almost apologetic tone. "I guess I just didn't realise to what extent."
She frowned. "I'm a crybaby. I'm lazy and I give up and I drive you up the wall."
He shook his head, still that smile, still his hand – stroking hers on his knee and she felt every touch like tingling shots through her whole body.
"You're not afraid to wear your emotions on your sleeves. To be unapologetically real," he said. "You cry and you love and you rant and you hug and you yell. You indulge and comfort and charm. You don't hide a single thing. All your kindness, all your frustrations, all your sympathy and your anger. It's all there and you let it. You don't apologize for any of it. You let yourself be unconditionally, unconventionally you. That's braver than I've ever been and the bravest I've ever seen."
She bit her lip. His eyes held her captive.
"It sucked me in and didn't let me go. You do very much drive me up the wall. Every day. It's like a very exasperating, very addictive drug."
She snorted. She was so close she could feel his breath on her lip as he spoke, and he hers. And her insides fluttered when he licked his lips after her huff of breath on them.
"And you never give up," he added, almost as an afterthought. "Especially as Sailor Moon. Ever. Not when it's important."
His eyes were firmly on her lips. His hand was gripping hers on his knee in a deathgrip by now that she was sure he wasn't even noticing.
She swallowed. "…Since... since when?" she whispered.
His eyes flew up to hers at that. "Since when do I love you?" he asked, eyes clear and steady and her insides did that somersault again.
He was really adamant in spelling that out very clearly for her tonight. Almost in a kind of lecturing way, as if she'd been very dense before and he hadn't known he needed to be this clear.
Probably exactly what was going on. Had been going on.
"Yeah…" she whimpered.
His eyes lowered back into a thoughtful frown even when his eyes remained entirely, intensely focused.
"When we sat for that painting together," he said.
Oh.
She blinked. She barely remembered that…
And that… that would mean…
She was 16 when they sat for that painting... Mamoru fell in love with her first, almost a year before she'd fallen so desperately in love with Tuxedo Mask…
Her hand twitched in his impossible hold.
"Was it a shock…?" she whispered, and then shook her head, because she was being stupid. "I mean of course it was a shock," she corrected herself, "just—"
This time she didn't need to explain. He understood her right away. Was it a shock to learn I'm Sailor Moon?
"Oh, it very much was," he breathed, voice incredulous and vehement.
Oh.
"Like, I'm completely freaked out," he said. Calmly, rationally, pretty much conversationally, not a touch of freak-out in his voice at all, and it was so very him. "I've spent the last hour freaking out over every hit you ever took, and every time I left you alone with that. And then my mind opened that pit, questioning everything I ever said to you, trying to recall every single time I ever touched you. We touched a lot, Usako, and I didn't even know. Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask touch a lot."
She snorted. "I know."
She really, really did.
"I… " he started, frowned thoughtfully at her, then kept going in that wondrous, vulnerable tone. "You haven't hung the bloody moon, turns out you are the bloody moon."
She laughed, then gave him a look that would have included a cocked eyebrow if she were capable of doing that. "...are you calling me fat again?" she joked.
His laugh was tinkling joy and open mouth and teeth and tilted back head… and then it sobered immediately into shock. "What do you mean 'again'?! I've never called you fat!"
She snorted, turned that look on even harder. "Oh, you really, really have."
"What?! No!" his eyes were wide. Now he looked freaked out. "That's ridiculous! I…"
He faltered. His look turned almost mourning, wilting, his tone so very quiet, and his deathgrip on her hand grew weak and loose and her own grip tightened to make up for the loss.
"I… I've really ruined this before it ever started, haven't I?" he whispered to their hands. "I mean, of course you wouldn't want to be with—"
She stopped him with a finger to his lips, and he brought startled eyes back to hers. And then she slipped her free hand fully against his cheek, and allowed her thumb to brush across the soft, red, plumb flesh of his lower lip, not unlike she'd done on the night that jump-started this… whatever this was.
She brushed her thumb against his lip, moving it so very pliantly, and just like then, he puckered his lips, eyes fixed on hers, and kissed the pad that touched him so.
This time, she didn't jump away. Instead, she just kept going, a little mesmerized, and added more fingers. They, too, were kissed.
She didn't jump, but it still tingled from her fingertips like lighting through her, just as it had the first time he'd reacted in this way.
She sighed in that way that was half a tortured whimper, and leaned a little harder against him, settled in-between his knees tucked against her sides.
He was pressing a kiss quite reverently to her pinky finger, bringing his own free hand up to press hers tighter against his face, when she started to speak.
"It's easy, you know?" she whispered. "Falling for a superhero who did his darndest to be any male-attracted-person's dream with the roses and the gallantry and the chivalry and the righteous speeches and all the perfect."
His look turned stricken. But she just tried to put all the tender in her smile and explain.
"It makes me love him more that he's just a person underneath?" she said, cocking her head.
He inhaled sharply when she uttered the word 'love'. Pressed his hands tighter against him where he had them trapped on his knee and his face.
"Someone who's trying his best at playing hero just like me, who gets frustrated and scared and in over his head but fights anyway," she went on, quiet and to the rhythm of her wildly thumping heart. "Someone like me who chooses to face these scary things all the time because his courage and conviction so weirdly outweighs the crazy fear, too."
His eyes were wide, so close to hers. He looked at her like his fate was in her hands.
She curled her fingers against his stupidly pretty face, across sculpted cheekbones and silky skin, and grinned a toothy grin at him that must have looked altogether shaky and half-terrified. "You know," she continued, "someone who's rubbish at flirting, sucks at arcade games and whom I can make growl really hard in 5 seconds flat."
His chuckle lifted his face in a way that ping-ponged off her heart, bright and amused and so, so warm.
"…that you can," he said, all mirth.
With the change of mood, he released her hands, and she let them drop and fold weirdly in his lap, but his eyes on her were warmer than they'd ever been before. And while she didn't know what to do now, she really rather would not want to move away from between his legs.
A moment of silence and staring at that pretty smile of his turned into two, until he nudged her with his knees.
"Give me your phone," he said.
Her smile slipped into confusion.
But he just looked at her expectantly, and so she reluctantly stepped away from his legs, got her phone, all glitter case and bunny-and-moons shaped charm, off her bed, unlocked it, and came back to hand it over.
He threw her a look. "You just unlock your phone for someone without asking why first?" he scolded.
She rolled her eyes dramatically and shook her phone at him.
He raised an eyebrow that was supposed to be reprimanding, she was sure, but he didn't seem to be able to erase the amused smile behind it. He swiped at her phone, tapped, then began to type.
"What are you—"
"I'm giving you my number, Usako," he said as he handed it back.
The new contact was open when she glanced back at it. It was saved under the name 'Your idiot.'
Oh…
Paliptated, bursting heart, she dared all the frigging hope. For all that had been said, there were some very important things left unsaid. She wondered if this was his way of saying them.
When she finally shook free of her phone-staring stupor (Your idiot… My idiot…) after maybe a bit too long, he was gazing at her in that mix of fond and terrified, and like his head was still trying to do in an hour what she'd had a whole weekend to get semi-un-freaked.
"I've uh…" he started. He was looking at her hair with that frown that was probably not meant as a frown.
She blinked up at him. Tensing up his brow ever so briefly in that unsure way, his other leg finally touched the floor, and he slipped off her windowsill and into her room.
One step and he was where she was, and one shaky hand reached toward her not-as-damp hair ever so tentatively.
Right. She'd forgotten it was loose.
He drew one strand towards him, let it spread across his palm, ran the back of his hand against it almost reverently.
"I've never seen you with your hair down…" he whispered in unmitigated wonder.
It was back, the full-scale flush and tingle, and it ran like a fissure down her body. How could he do that to her by simply touching her hair in that innocent manner?
Her voice cracked when she spoke, hoarse and tight. "Right," she croaked. "You're not very fond of the hair buns."
Incredulous eyes flew from her hair immediately. "Oh, you got that so wrong…"
He'd leaned in just ever so slightly when he said that, eyes dark and intense and imploring, and something cracked in her. A rift that opened and demanded, and she grabbed his shirt in a tight fist and pulled him down.
His lips landed on hers so very, very willingly, so relieved almost, and the way both of his hands immediately flew to her head and into her hair, holding her close and tilting her up with this careful, desperate hold? The way his whole body tensed beneath her and his sigh came out so tortured, yet his lips remained so soft and sweet?
It all pooled in her bursting heart. He kissed her like she was something he really could not believe he was allowed to touch.
But it wasn't enough. She could feel his trembling muscles underneath the soft fabric of his shirt, rippling underneath her touch in an agitated, frustrated dance, felt the thrill of his towering presence all around her, filling up her every sense and demanding more.
She pulled harder, her other hand flying up and clawing around his bicep and up his shoulder to bring him down to her closer, tighter, more, and when he finally opened his mouth and allowed her in she moaned into his mouth, and from the tremor she felt through her hand on his belly and the noises that erupted into her mouth, it seemed it affected him just as much as her.
And then her hands clawed beneath his shirt, and his hand skimmed across the naked skin of her arms, her shoulders, beneath the thin strap of her camisole, dancing across her skin in butterfly-soft strokes while one hand grabbed at her ass and pulled her flush against him, and she felt the need to thank whatever person invented leggings because she could feel each and every touch and press through the fabric burning across her skin.
His tongue against hers felt so fucking deliciously good it wrecked her, and she melted against his mouth and hands in helpless abandon.
If it weren't for the fact that the walls were thin and her family was in this house, she would have walked him, pushing and pulling and climbing and demanding, the last step of the way to her bed. She'd have ripped that fucking shirt off of him and buried her teeth and tongue against the skin she currently felt jumping against her touch through the offending fabric until he howled and begged for more and for lower.
But the walls were thin and her family was there, and also she was late and this was new and she was scared to scare him off with all her intensity and so she didn't.
But she also didn't let go, and neither did he, and instead continued to slowly suck each other's souls out via tongue and lips and soft, whimpering groans, and hands in places that weren't all that appropriate anymore and she really couldn't stop.
His kisses grew more frantic, cut off and breathless and he hissed through his teeth in between when she writhed herself against him, and his hands flew back to her cheeks to hold her in the kind of stronghold that wasn't sure if he was keeping her from pulling away or coming too close, peppering ever so slightly open-mouthed kisses against her lips, her chin, the sensitive skin just shy of her upper lip, the bridge of her nose, her eyelids, pressed against the side of her nostrils, her cheekbones.
"I was so," he said, words broken up by the soft smack of his lips against her skin in puckered kisses, "so fucking jealous in that bloody train you have no idea."
She blubbered against the onslaught on her face, whimpering and mewling and clawing at him and it was hard to answer, but she did, her every word driven by the hectic rhythm of his lips against her skin.
"I sat on your bike for three hours that day trying to see you," she rasped out breathlessly. "Only reason why I even decided to help Umino."
He groaned, and then his tongue was back in her mouth, and she did the same, bonelessly slacking against him and his strong hold of her face in his hands.
And then she groaned again because he pulled away, hands still tight against her face, and he spoke against her lips in frenzied incredulity. "...After all these years of flirting you wanted to test if I was into you and you did it as Sailor Moon?!"
She huffed helplessly, the breath puffing right into his mouth as she stood on her tiptoes chasing his mouth.
"I swear there was a plan behind it-mm—" The rest was muffled against his lips and buried by a whimper when his tongue slid against the inside of her lower lip.
She cried out again, because his lips separated from hers with a pop once more, and his eyes sought out hers as he spoke softly against her lips in that way, and she kinda never wanted to allow him to speak again if it weren't with his lips right on hers such as this.
"I'm sorry," he breathed, and her eyes flew open.
His hands slid back farther into her hair and cradled the back of her neck and looked at her as if he really, really needed her to understand what he was about to say, but couldn't quite get it out right.
"I do find Sailor Moon very..." he swallowed "…very..." he broke off again, and then she registered that he was blushing, Tuxedo Mamoru-baka was blushing for her, and it was her undoing.
"It's just that I was already... if I hadn't been such a blind moron..."
She shook her head, interrupting him. She knew exactly what he meant, and she shrugged against the hands in her hair and her neck.
"Same?" she said rather sheepishly and pulled him back down to her.
This time it wasn't him that interrupted them, it was the shrill noise of the first few chords of a bubbly pop-song that she'd set as Minako's ringtone.
Right, she was actually very, very late…
She didn't make a move to answer, but settled back on her feet nevertheless, and found his eyes. His hands slipped ever so slowly from her hair and settled at his sides, rubbing his pants, in a way that seemed like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with them now that they weren't on her anymore.
He suddenly looked a little nervous.
She wrinkled her nose, looked up at him apologetically. "I'm…. I need to go."
He deflated. A free-fall of every muscle in his body, including those around his eyes and mouth and jaw. "Oh," he simply said, his face reading complete and utter disappointment.
"Senshi meeting," she mumbled, all regret. "I'm late."
His hands slapped into his pockets, they flew in there so fast.
"Right," he mumurmed back, eyes averted to his shoes on her giant pink rug with a flash of worry, then to her bare feet.
He took an unsure step back.
She followed him that step and one more, erasing all the distance and craned her neck, looking up at him unsurely.
"Um… do you… would you like to come?"
Something flitted across his eyes, something she couldn't decipher, something that made her nervous. It made her realise she really, really wanted him to come with her.
She shifted from one foot to the other "… I didn't know if you'd want to be like… if you wanted to…"
She trailed off with a sigh at his intense frown.
She was about to take it back, assure him he really didn't need to, this could stay a secret between them, no one has to know—
Then he interrupted her.
"I would really love to…" he said in a rather quiet voice. Then he swallowed. "Would I… would I be welcome?"
And then she could read him. And it filled her heart with emotion. He really, really wanted to. Had wanted to forever.
She couldn't keep the smile from taking over her whole body, couldn't help from smiling even harder when she saw how it affected him, how his cheeks colored, how he swallowed, how his face went a little slack and the insecurity wiped a little off.
She whirled around, reached for her big pink oversized sweater with the giant rabbit print on it that she'd laid out what seemed like in a different life now, grabbed her overnight bag and tossed it over her shoulder.
"Meet you down at the street?" she asked, a little too giddy.
He blinked. "Uh…"
She rolled her eyes, nodded to the window behind him.
"I'm leaving through the front door. I'm 18. My family is used to me staying out overnight."
He nodded, taken aback, but moved to the window nonetheless. Their eyes met when he turned back to her, once again seated in her window, her door on the handle. He returned her smile.
She bounded down the stairs, twisting her hair up into what must be very, very messy versions of her signature buns, sticking bobby pins in them as she ran through the front door and yelled a goodnight to her mom.
He was standing a corner down from her house, hands in his pocket.
She stopped right in front of him, but too far to touch.
She was well aware that her brain was running through the possible scenario that she might just decide to follow Mamoru into his apartment after he left Hikawa, whether he really invited her to or not.
She gripped the handle of her bag a little tighter.
There was a smile painted on his lips, but he looked still so unsure.
"…you sure this is ok? I won't intrude? Or be electrocuted on the spot?"
Yes. She could read him now. This vulnerable, good boy who just wanted to belong. She really, really, really wanted to keep him.
She took his hand, tugged on it. He came with her as if he'd follow her anywhere.
"C'mon, Mamo-chan. Let's introduce you to your new Senshi family."
He ended up not letting go of her hand. He held it tightly, all the way up the steps of Hikawa shrine and beyond.
THERE YOU GO GUUUYS! I am honestly proud I did this in a week, lol. (Well, a week and a half. I pre-wrote a bit.) The next and last chapter, tomorrow, will be the epilogue. The theme is, fittingly, Usagi's birthday! Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think!
(I discussed tonight with TinaCentury, Queenrisa, as well as my wonderful (and currently suffering heavily under me) beta Uglygreenjacket how I really love this hobby, lol? We get to tell each other stories of our favorite characters. We get to share this. And honestly half of what makes this hobby so great is the sharing – which I get to do with all of you! So, talk to me? I'd love to hear from you! In the reviews, or in my inbox on Tumblr, I'd love to share this fandom world with you!)
(Also please no one think too closely about the fact that I extended the Shitennou's runs to years and we're at Nephrite, and yet the Yumemi Yumeno episode did happen, which is Zoisite. Let's just pretent they shuffled around, yeah? xD)
