In for the Kill
Minako was starting to get a little agitated, but hid it well, her face a mask of smiles and laughter while beside her, Usagi carried on with her wedding plan dramatics to Makoto and a rather oblivious Ami. Hell beasts she could handle. Demons from another dimension, she could handle. Crazy psycho bitches bent on world domination, decked out in gold with bracelets that would clash with any outfit, she could handle.
Feeling ignored?
Rei was leaning against the table, looking just a tad distracted. The former miko was rapidly texting on her cell, sliding it back into her pocket, only to whip it out again a minute later. Minako felt her eye twitch. Sure enough, as soon as the device was out of sight, it buzzed yet again. Rei retrieved it once more and tapped across the screen, the corner of her mouth quirking up into a grin.
The blonde began to feel something unfamiliar nipping at her gut.
Curiosity? Jealousy?
That was one thing she couldn't handle.
"Who is that?" she asked loudly, a little too loudly, apparently, seeing the way the occupants of the booth now openly gaped at her, halting all conversation.
"No one." Rei responded coolly, pocketing the device once more, and calmly ignoring the fact that she and Minako were now the center of attention. It must have been the rigorous 'training', brought on by years of public humiliation at the hands of her blonde comrade, because she seemed rather unfazed by all the extra pairs of eyes on her now, an odd occurrence for the usually stoic warrior.
"It must be someone. You've been ignoring us."
"It's not important." The raven haired woman sighed dismissively. "I'm just popular today."
"Today? You've been doing this for months!" Minako huffed. "We barely see you, and when we do finally get together, you're all distracted."
Ami's eyes darted up from the pages of her book, studying Minako first, from her flashing eyes to aggressive posture, and then to Rei, who currently looked like the poster child for apathetic teens, chin propped in her hand, looking everywhere but at Minako. She bit her lip to hold in a sigh, choosing to resume her reading. Really, these two were just ridiculous…
"Maybe she has a boyfriend!" Usagi sang out, fully expecting retaliation.
Her guardian scoffed. "Right. Like I have time for that with the college entrance exams coming up."
The princess blinked. No death threats. No threats of violence. She slumped down in the booth, confusion furrowing her brow. In fact, there were no threats at all. Very Un-Rei-like, she decided quietly. Scary.
Minako, however, pounced on the opening and leaned across the table, eyes and tone accusing. "That would explain why you look so tired lately. Too many late nights?"
Rei arched an eyebrow, but didn't bother looking up. "Sure. Whatever. Don't you have a date tonight?"
Minako started. Crap. The imaginary boyfriend and the imaginary date she had concocted to push Rei's buttons. The dark haired woman was always protective when it came to such matters, and would make the best faces when she was trying to hide it. But lately? Minako recovered quickly. "As a matter of fact, I do. He's taking me to a wonderful French restaurant."
The corner of Rei's eye ticked a fraction of an inch, and had Minako not been studying her so hard, she might have missed it. Rei tapped out another message, and frowned slightly. "Good for you."
Internally, the blonde went slack jawed. That was it?
"It's been fun," the guardian sighed, rising to her feet and retrieving her backpack. "But I have something I gotta take care of." After tossing some bills on the table to cover her portion of the bill and shifting the strap over her old beaten jacket, she departed without a backwards glance.
"What the hell was that all about?" Makoto wondered aloud.
"It's the end of the world." Usagi said at last, still reeling from the change in personality. "We're all going to die."
"Well, I don't know about that," Minako huffed, scrambling for her things as Makoto patted Usagi's shoulder sympathetically. "but I'm gonna find out."
Makoto frowned up at her. "You mean you're going to stalk her like an obsessed fifteen year old?"
"Hey." She stammered, flushing slightly. "It's not like that! I'm just concerned."
"Uh huh. Like she is concerned about your date?" The taller girl crossed her arms. "Cause, it sure looks like she wasn't."
"I have no idea what you are implying."
"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Usagi wailed, but Minako was already gone in a flurry.
"Unresolved sexual tension." Ami answered calmly, still buried in her book. "They should get a room."
Makoto and Usagi flushed identical shades of red.
"Ami!"
As the sun went down, and the stars began to emerge, Minako slunk behind Rei as quietly as possible, keeping a safe distance, but never letting the soldier out of her sight. She could only imagine the wrath she would incur if Rei were to catch her, and for half a second, she truly felt like an obsessed fifteen year old. But things were just so different with her friend lately, and any attempts at getting her to talk had failed miserably. Ever since they had graduated high school, she had pulled away, more than usual in fact, and it had become a source of concern for the group as a whole.
What were once weekly visits, calls, and hangouts had diminished to once every few weeks, and then once a month, if she had bothered to show up at all. For once in their lives, there was no fighting, no enemy, no apocalypse to avert or bad things to kill.
So what was her problem, then?
Rei was heading towards downtown now, and for once, Minako was thankful for pedestrians and busy streets. The soldier before her navigated the streets with ease, and ducked into an alley. She had obviously been down this way many times before, and the blonde almost had to run to keep up. Rei climbed a small set of cement stairs and paused before a nondescript door, shifting the pack on her shoulder and wearily scanning her surroundings. Could the raven haired beauty sense her? Minako sucked in a breath and pressed herself against the wall, nearly getting herself caught.
That had been close.
Rei darted inside, and Minako waited a moment before following suit, feeling silly and a little stupid. What had made her think this was a good idea again? She slipped inside, and was temporarily blinded by bright lights and a pounding beat.
A dance club?
Disoriented and now thoroughly confused, she stuck close to the wall until her eyes and ears became adjusted to the din. What would Rei be doing in a dance club? What had she been wearing before, old jeans and sneakers? To a place like this? She scanned the crowd, and her cheeks grew hot as one key feature of the club began to make itself very, very obvious. Women. The entire club was filled with women.
Well, that would explain the sneaking around.
Minako chewed her lower lip as a very different feeling began to burn in her veins. Did she have a girlfriend? Is that why she had been so weird lately? Suddenly, every tiny action over the years made complete and perfect sense. The complete and utter lack of boyfriends, the disinterest in men in general…
Blue eyes widened. For being the Goddess of love, she felt a little slow.
She tried to pick through the club's occupants for any sign of her friend, but found nothing. The club itself was spacious, well she supposed it would be, if it wasn't so packed, and bright strobe lights pulsed to the music. It was nicely furnished, and looked way too upscale to be hidden behind an unmarked door. Keeping an eye on the crowd, she eased herself around the perimeter until she found a spot that would give her a view of the entire floor. A bar along one wall, a stage near the center, but no Rei.
"Hi."
Startled, Minako almost let out yelp at the voice suddenly so very close to her ear, and whipped her head around.
"…Haruka?"
The racer grinned and leaned forward to be heard over the din. "And just what might you be doing here?"
Minako flushed a violent shade of red and began to stutter incomprehensibly up at her fellow warrior. What was she doing here, besides stalking Rei?
Haruka gave her a strange look in return. "First time, or what?"
That certainly didn't help, as the little blonde broke down into a disjointed mess.
"Hey, hey, calm down." The older woman breezed. "I'm not judging." She glanced over at the stage as if remembering something, and burst into laughter. "Ah! I get it now! Why didn't you say so?"
Minako threw her a pitiful look, and Haruka groaned inwardly. What was it with these Inners? "You know what? Never mind. You need a drink." With a nod and a quick gesture, the racer summoned over a scantily clad female carrying a tray of drinks, and selected the strongest looking concoction on the platter.
"Troubles at home?" the woman purred at the Outer, throwing a glance in Minako's direction.
Haruka laughed. "Right. If there were, do you think Michi would have left my kneecaps intact?"
"I suppose not." She replied with a laugh, giving Minako another once over. "She's cute."
Minako was sure, judging by the temperature of her face, that it was seconds from melting off.
"She is." The racer agreed. "She's also off limits."
"Too bad." The waitress sighed, flashing the solider of love a bright smile. "Looks like the guitarist finally got here. Enjoy the show sweetie. Come find me if you decide you want something stronger."
"Wow." Haruka whistled as she passed the drink to Minako while the waitress sauntered away. "You okay?"
Minako waved her hand and expertly downed half the drink like a frat boy dying of thirst. "Yeah. Yeah." She shook her head quickly as her throat burned, and blearily tried to process the past five minutes of her life. Forget awkward lesbian flirtations. This…this was like a different dimension. She had fallen through some looking glass, maybe passing through an invisible portal, or this was some very elaborate prank. Rei was going to pop out behind a corner with a camera, and post the footage on the internet…
The dance music suddenly ground to a halt, and lights flashed on over the stage. The crowd went insane, and Minako faintly recalled the waitress mentioning a show.
A show? What show?
A band was taking the stage now, and as a drummer started the beat and the singer began to weave a tale of lust, love and loss, the world stopped moving.
There. On the left. Climbing onto the stage. In black leather pants and a skin tight red tank top. With the electric guitar.
No way.
The crowd was screaming as Rei smirked at the lead singer while adjusting her guitar strap. "What's up?"
"You're late."
Another grin. "Sorry."
No fucking way.
Oblivious to the intense scrutiny from one Aino Minako, Rei plugged the guitar into a nearby amp, and raised a toned arm, dark nail polish glinting in the hot spotlight, the corners of her perfectly glossed lips pulling down into the goddamn sexiest pout, and began to play along as the very floor reverberated from the sound.
Minako's jaw dropped and her heart hammered in her chest. She tried to speak, to question this bizarre alternate world and its events, but her throat seemed to have gone impossibly dry. The resulting thumps and kicks from the speakers seemed to rattle her every nerve.
The fire soldier flicked her head, and raven locks tossed behind her, dancing down her shoulders and snapping into a curl at the small of her back, and she looked like she was just on fire.
"She looks good, huh?" Haruka commented.
The blonde swallowed hard. Good? Good was an ice cream cone on a stupidly hot day. Good was finding the perfect pair of shoes to match an outfit it took weeks to piece together. Good was a bubble bath after a stressful exam.
Good? This was not good. This was sex, wrapped in leather, poured into a curvy mold, and cooked to a million degrees, and here she was, just ogling her friend like a dirty old man. Smoking hot pants clung to her shapely legs in a way that couldn't possibly be legal, and the red tank set off porcelain skin. She had never seen the raven haired beauty look so alive. Her pack. She must have had that outfit in her pack. The one she seemed to carry around everywhere, and…oh…
Minako's pulse was racing.
This was bad. Very, very bad.
Rei was playing like she had been doing it for years. Had she? The blonde wasn't even sure who this person was anymore! The cranky, introverted and fiery tempered priestess couldn't possibly be this sex goddess, whipping the crowd into a frenzy in some random chick bar in the middle of Tokyo.
Impossible.
Smoldering violet eyes began to sweep the crowd, and the blonde felt her heart seize in her chest. Rei seemed to sense something at last, and part of Minako was terrified. If she were found out, Rei might just climb off the stage, tear her limbs off, and use them to beat her into a hot mess. The other part of Minako, the part that had followed the fire soldier out here in the first place, wanted to drag Rei off into a dark corner and…
"You're mouth breathing." The racer pointed out.
"Oh. I forgot you were here."
Haruka threw her a look bordering between confusion and wounded pride. "Thanks. Does she know you're here?"
Minako shook her head, unable to tear her eyes away. "She'd kill me."
"What is it with you Inners?"
No response. Right.
The older woman mentally ran down her list of options.
1.) She could leave Minako here on her own to drool in the corner before slinking out the back door.
2.) She could take pictures and show Michiru, because she totally freaking called this one.
-or-
3.)…
Green eyes lit up. Number three was evil and awfully cruel, but most importantly, number three was fun. Michiru would not approve of number three, as these things were supposed to work themselves out, but Michiru wasn't here. Handsome features swept into a broad grin. Number three it was.
"Sorry." She mumbled off hand to Minako, before sticking two fingers into her mouth and producing the shrillest, sharpest, and loudest whistle on the entire face of the planet.
A thousand eyes landed on them now, and even the band faltered for a split second.
"What are you doing?!" Minako hissed, panic edging into her voice, but the racer was already gone, sliding into the mass of bodies, and the blonde could feel the back of her neck prickling. Those smoldering violet eyes? Yeah. They were now boring holes into her own, and for approximately the third time that evening, the goddess of love forgot how to breathe.
Rei merely smirked and broke the eye contact, moving into the center of the stage and pulling off a seemingly endless guitar solo, never missing a note. The women in the front of the crowd became an unintelligible mass. Love declarations, screams, and marriage proposals were thrown out at the former catholic schoolgirl, and she seemed rather unfazed by it all.
Song blended into song. It was an eternity and the blink of an eye, all at once and poured together into a confusing mixture of heat and reverberating walls, and when it ended at last, Minako was set into a panic. Flight or fight. Stand her ground or flee this alternate dimension, where she had no control or the ability to even form a coherent sentence.
Rei leaned forward and spoke to the lead singer, gesturing with a quick nod of her head in Minako's general direction. The singer looked the blonde up and down from afar, laughed, and gave the soldier a shove towards the edge of the stage. Rei placed her guitar on a nearby stand, and with grim determination, began to climb down the stairs, eyes on fire as she blazed a path straight towards her terrified friend.
It wasn't like Minako to be nervous, or shy, and she generally had the ability to speak her mind and take what she wanted.
But now?
Rei pushed through the crowd, looking nothing like the withdrawn girl she had been for years. It was the look usually reserved for the toughest of battles, her very stride holding a hot spark of defiance and strength as the crowd parted before her.
Minako was no longer the hunter, and she was out of hiding places.
Time slowed as the new definition of sex approached her, and the blonde was dimly aware of the fact that there were now many pairs of eyes on them.
Those perfect lips where moving now, and Minako was starting to wonder when she had become a teenaged boy as Rei shoved unruly ebony locks out of her eyes and crossed her arms. "Where's your date?"
Oh God. Was she mouth breathing again? Date?
"You dropped him, didn't you? Was stalking me really that important?"
Minako could only stare, absolutely transfixed. Her mouth opened and closed rather uselessly, and it felt like every drop of blood in her body was rushing straight into her face.
Rei leaned forward, into her very personal space, and the blonde could now smell an intoxicating mix of perfume, smoke, and heat. The fire soldier trapped her in, placing her hands on the wall on either side of Minako's head. "There was no date, was there?"
Minako shook her head mutely, having gone completely brain-dead. Rei's lips were slightly swollen, and a thin sheen of sweat was very visible thanks to her low cut top, and really, how the hell was she expected to make any sort of conversation in this situation? This wasn't teasing or bantering anymore. She had never seen her maybe-not-so-secret crush like this, all wild hair and flashing eyes, looking like she had just been fucked…
"Are you satisfied now?" Fierce violet eyes narrowed, and it just made her look hotter….
Minako swallowed hard, but apparently that wasn't the right answer.
"Nothing to say?" Rei demanded again.
Oh, I don't know. How about take me now?
Minako's knees were shaking, and she desperately wished the overly flirtatious waitress would bring over another drink. When did the room get so stupidly hot?
"You pushed me." Rei growled. "For months. For years. Just torturing me." The soldier leaned closer. "How many times, Minako? How many times did you tease me? Move in too close?"
"T…The way you are now?" the blonde finally stuttered.
The corner of Rei's mouth flicked up into a smirk, and it looked positively wicked. "How many?" A hand dropped to Minako's waist now, hot fingers pressing into soft skin.
Minako could only shake her head. She had no idea, really, but she was about ten seconds away from passing out. This…this was out of her league, and that was saying a lot. She was the soldier of love and beauty! The master of seduction! How did Mars turn the tables, and so expertly at that?
The hand dropped lower still, and fingertips now danced on her thigh. "Answer me."
The blonde's only coherent thought was one of thanks for having the good sense to wear a skirt tonight. Her breath caught in her chest and the world around her seemed to vanish.
A pink tongue darted out and licked still swollen lips, and something in the little blonde snapped. Her knees buckled but she was caught, held firm against muscle and curves and before she could even think for just a second that hot mouth was on hers. She held on for dear life, weaving fingers in Rei's jet black mane as sparks went off behind her eyelids. A tongue slid over hers, and Minako's body was on fire. She could swear even her toes were curling in her fashionable-yet-reasonably priced boots, and when the soldier of fire broke it off at last, she knew she had to be mouth breathing at that point.
Judging by the look on Rei's face, that was perfectly okay by her.
Notes!
Song was La Roux – In for the Kill.
I blame this one on SharpieI, 'cause I was off in Azeroth doing paladin like things, and I got a PM that was all, HEY. LOOK AT THIS SEXY MUSIC VIDEO OF SHAKIRA. And I was like, OKAY. :D And then La Roux came on, and it was all down hill from there. XD
This one was kinda long, but pfft. I know y'all don't mind. :D Now, if I could just sit down for like a day and play with all the little snippets on my hard drive…