Serenity groaned and opened her eyes slowly, yawning a little. She turned to look at the time, and her eyes widened significantly.

"12:45 PM? Why am I up already?" She sat up, completely awake, and sighed. She had a feeling that she wouldn't be getting much sleep for the rest of the night, and decided to get up.

Serenity also decided to go get something to snack on. But as she was coming closer to the kitchen, she saw a light on. She stealthily crept over to the door, and peeked inside. Then she nearly smacked herself.

Gary was sitting on a counter in nothing more than a tank top and a pair of boxers, eating a bowl of ice cream. And from her spot she could see that he was sunburned.

"Boo." Gary jumped slightly and turned to face Serenity.

"Was that supposed to scare me?" She hopped onto the counter next to him.

"You jumped, didn't you? By the way, how long have you been up?"

"Only fifteen minutes or so. This damn sunburn woke me up." Serenity looked at the shoulder closest to her.

"That looks pretty painful."

"Not nearly as painful as yours." She looked at her own arm, and was mildly surprised to see that it was bright red. Gary gently touched her shoulder, causing her to grimace.

"Owch. I burn to easily…" He nodded.

"I know. Too bad we forgot the sunscreen." Serenity got off of the counter and went to the freezer to grab the container of chocolate ice cream. It felt a little too light, so she opened it and pouted.

"You ate all of the ice cream!" Gary found himself face to face with a pair of gorgeous, but angry, ice blue eyes.

"Uh-oh…" It was very bad to interact with a pissed off princess. It was twice as bad if you were her best friend, because they tend to know all of your weaknesses. That usually wasn't very good.

Two seconds later, he found himself on the floor, being tickled mercilessly. And he happened to be very ticklish. He practically had to beg to get her off, and that was pretty hard when you can barely speak.

Serenity looked down at her best friend with amusement in her eyes.

"That had better teach you not to eat the last of the ice cream." He mock glared while gasping for breath.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. First come first serve." He noticed that Serenity didn't move, fear in her eyes. He grew worried.

"What's wrong." She pointed to something behind, looking about ready to run away. Gary looked to where she was pointing, and grinned. There was a harmless looking Daddy Long Legs crawling up the leg of a chair. He reached over and scooped it up in his hands.

"You're afraid of this little thing?" She was now hiding behind the counter.

"Of course! Of all the years of knowing me, you never figured out that I'm arachnophobic?"

"I knew that you were, but this thing is harmless!" She shook her head.

"All spiders are bloodthirsty monsters who eat people, and they have really huge fangs to kill the poor people with." Gary looked at the spider.

"I don't see any fangs."

"That's because they're invisible! They make you think that they're perfectly harmless, but when you don't expect it, they attack!" He raised an eyebrow.

"You seem to know an awful lot about spiders. Are you speaking from experience?"

"Well…kinda sorta." He placed the spider on the floor and it scurried away.

"Okayy." She looked around cautiously before getting up from her hiding spot behind a counter.

"Goddess, I hate spiders."

"I noticed." She blew a raspberry at him and stalked out of the kitchen to the living room, after checking thoroughly for any spiders. Gary watched her go with an unnamed emotion in his eyes before shaking his head and following her.

When he walked into the living room, a pillow was thrown at him for no apparent reason. Caught by surprise, it hit him in the face.

"Hey! What was that for?" She shrugged, grimacing again as she jarred the burn.

"Owch…" Gary sat next to her.

"What do you say we do?"

"I have no clue."

"Well, maybe you could explain the sword that you had yesterday." She looked confused for a second before remembering.

"Oh yeah! There's not much to say. Someone gave it to me as a secret 18th b-day present in the Silver Millennium. Princesses aren't supposed to be able to fight. That's what my mother said, at least. She never found out about it, though."

"Who gave it to you?" She looked thoughtful.

"I'm not exactly sure. It was a soldier from Mars. I never got his name. He looked quite a bit like you, now that I think about it. He was just older, and an inch or two taller." Gary felt a pang of jealousy, but ignored it.

"What happened to him?"

"I don't really know. He was killed when Beryl attacked Mars. That was the last thing I heard about him. Why?" Gary looked elsewhere, a little pink. Serenity noticed and grinned.

"Why, is my best friend jealous?" She was silenced by a pair of warm lips covering her own.

^*^*^*^

This chapter was weird. I never actually planned it like this, but if it keeps what few fans I have happy, It works for me ^^ Please R+R!