AN: Thanks for the reviews guys ^ ^!! Sorry this update took a while, I was
in Rhode Island for the weekend meeting up with my sister who goes to
college there. But now I'm back and here it is
Darien held the frail girl in his arms. She had cried herself to sleep about an hour ago and slept fitfully in his embrace, letting out small whimpers and shudders as she dreamt. He scarcely moved in fear of waking her.
He could only sit and go through his thoughts and watch the pieces fit into the puzzle. He wondered if the psychological effect on what had happened to her had crippled her ability to have an intimate relationship. It would certainly explain why she had flipped out after they kissed. He wondered how far they would have gotten if he hadn't asked what had been plaguing her, and then decided it was probably a good thing he had, because he couldn't trust himself with her. At least in that way. He wondered how long it would be until he could share kisses with her again.
He looked down at her. She played the act of innocent so well. In a way she ways, he speculated. She had evidently lost all faith in the male species and lived in a fantasy world of video games, mangas, television, and pretty much all things that could not hurt her. She had faith in her friends, but he highly doubted she had shared with them what she had shared with him.
He wondered if all the things she pushed away had to do with this asshole that had hurt her. Like schoolwork. She was a very bright girl, and anyone who could figure out how to manipulate the Sailor V game like she had couldn't be all the dumb. Perhaps the fact that he was a college student made her reject the idea of being a student, in fear of becoming like ..him.
He looked around the room for a clock and noticed what seemed to be the remains of one in the far corner of her room. By the height of the moon in the sky, he realized it must be around midnight somewhere.
He gently, and very slowly, placed Serena in her bed and pulled the soft comforter up to her chin and then placed a sweet kiss on her forehead. He leaned over and turned off the light, and gazed at her for another minute as he face became illuminated by moonlight. Luna, who he had forgotten about, had leaped onto the bed and was gazing back at him. He smiled to himself and then shut the door softly behind him
Darien drove the speedy Mustang through the streets of Tokyo like a madman. He would reprimand himself later for those red lights he ran through and people he cut off, but for now, he had a mission.
He drove through the campus of Tokyo City University (AN: I have no idea if that is actually a college, but we can pretend) and parked alongside the curb near a tall dormitory painted a sickly olive green. He took his keys from the ignition and walked briskly to the double doors. He pushed his hand against the keypad that had the numbers of the rooms on it. "I locked myself out again," he said. The door's buzzed and he stepped inside.
He leaped up the stairs, two, sometimes three steps at a time until he reached the fourth floor. He pushed his way through some people talking through the hallways and found himself in front of room 447. He knocked loudly, leaning against the doorframe.
"Hold on!" A voice said from the inside. Darien tapped his fingers impatiently against the door.
It swung open and the tall blonde figure known as Ellie stood in front of him. She was dressed in a sparkly red shirt and tight leather pants, big clunky heels on her feet. She smiled at brushed her hand through her spiked hair, the bangles on her wrist chiming together. "Darien," she stated, looking him over.
Darien pushed her aside and shut the door behind him. "Who is he?" He growled.
Ellie sighed and turned away from him.
He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "Tell me! Who is he?" He demanded.
She gazed up at him with brown eyes caked in black eyeliner. He had thought she was beautiful once. That was before he had met Serena, of course. Everything in comparison to her seemed below average, and Ellie was definitely in that category.
She licked her already super-glossed lips and rolled her eyes. "So the twerp told ya, huh?" She said. She shrugged his hand off. "I really don't see what good it does you to know, Darien." She said, walking over to the small sink and mirror located next to the bathroom. She took out a bottle of blood red polish and shook it.
Darien would have killed her if he could. "Who is he," he repeated slowly.
Ellie plopped down on the ridiculously expensive leather couch that fit in with the single bedroom dorm he lawyer parents had indulged on for her. She kicked her feet up onto the glass coffee table and shook the little bottle again. "Some guy," she said casually. "He's studying abroad in the States right now, so if your thinking of killing him you'd be up for a challenge." She began to paint her pinkie.
Darien, infuriated by the way she simply dismissed the situation at hand, stepped over, catlike, to the couch and grabbed the nail polish from her hand and tossed it across the wall, the blood red splattering and shattering against the white washed wall.
"Oh my god!" She shrieked. She stood. "What the fuck is your problem?!" She screeched.
"YOU!" He yelled into her face. He turned and banged his fist into the wall. "You just love this, don't you?" He yelled.
Ellie stood like a deer in headlights. She swallowed and said nothing.
"You just love the attention this brings you, no matter how negative it is, don't you?" He said.
Ellie, finding her cool, arrogantly stuck her chin up in defiance and stepped around him and stood in front of the door. "Leave."
Darien was reminded of Serena saying that, only a few hours before, as he grilled her for answers as well. He smiled inwardly, knowing that if he could make Serena's walls crumble, Ellie's would be no problem.
"Listen to me you cold-hearted bitch," He said, his voice so cold you could almost feel frostbite. "She is hurting. She had lost all faith in men and lost all faith that someone will be there for her in life."
Ellie shrugged. "Not my problem."
Darien took her shoulders and shook her. "Don't you get it, Elinore Graham Brimsby? Don't you get that you'r not the only person in the world? That other people have feelings? That other people hurt and suffer too? Or are you so ignorant to believe that nothing but yourself matters?"
She pressed her hands against his chest, trying in vain to push him away. "Why do you care?!" She yelled. He let her go.
"She's a stupid FAKE! She's a total phony, and she thinks she's the shit, I would think you would see through that! She struts around like she owns the world and she deserved everything she got!" She yelled in his face.
He towered above her and stared down, smirking. "So I get it," he said. "You think that everyone else is just - like - you. Fake, phony, and thinks they own the world."
Ellie glared. "Your stepping on dangerous grounds, Chiba," she hissed.
Darien laughed, mocking her. "Do you really believe what you say, or do you just say it because you don't want to waste your time actually caring for someone else?"
Infuriated, Ellie slipped past him and faced him again. "I look after myself, what's so wrong with that?!" she said.
Darien, suddenly tired, decided to end the conversation there. "I get you, Ellie," He said. She stared daggers back at him. "You may not get yourself, but I get you. You saw Serena as a threat. You could not stand the fact that a beautiful, funny, genuinely good person was stepping on your turf. You were so threatened that instead of just getting to know her and accept that someone in the world is better then you, you ruined her. You and this guy, whoever he is. I don't care anymore. I just want you to know that you are everything you accuse everyone else of being. You are nothing to anyone but an object, but a pretty face to look at. Nobody wants to get close to someone who feels nothing for anyone but animosity. And for that, you will ALWAYS be alone."
Darien stepped out the door then. He was already at the staircase when she finally reacted by throwing a lamp across the room and screaming her brains out.
Serena was sitting on her bed, Luna on her lap, purring madly and Serena scratched her leg.
Serena had been wildly embarrassed when she woke and realized that she had fallen asleep in Darien's arms. She was even more embarrassed when she remembered what had happened before she fell asleep.
She was filled with dread at the fact she had told. She was always told that it helps to tell someone a secret, but all she found was pain. She could not, no matter how hard she tried, see the logic in telling Darien anything! What was she thinking? This was the mad who had tortured her and called her names and had kissed her so good..
Wait, where did that come from?
She did recall how good it felt to be in his arms. To smell him, to hear his voice, his soft 'shhhs' and mumbles of attempted comfort to her sobs. She found herself completely defenseless around him. The way his eyes just screamed for her to trust him, to have faith in him. He was, in one word, irresistible.
Serena moved restlessly off the bed into the bathroom. Passing the broken mirror, she stopped and stared at the cracked pieces, reflecting her face at her in dozens of small mirrors, circling where her fist had broken the glass.
She touched her cheek and lightly grazed the purple circles under her eyes. She looks horrible. She didn't look like herself. She wondered if she was even the same person she was before.
Who was that person?
She felt her bandaged hand curl into a fist.
"Serena, NO." She said out loud. "Stop. You will not punch anything," she continued through clenched teeth. "Thou shalt think of happy things.. Like bunnies, and puppies, and bubble gum and bubbles."
She felt herself relax, and then immediately laughed at herself. She looked at her reflections and sighed. "Your such a fuck up."
"Yeah you are!"
Serena whirled around to see the raven haired, violet eyed beauty standing in her doorway, he hands on her hips.
"Where have you been meatball face?!" Rei said, blocking the doorway. "And WHAT happened to your mirror? Well, what happened to iyoui? You look hideous!"
Serena raised an eyebrow. "Gee, thanks Rei." She offered a small smile, mostly to mask her confusion. She put her bandaged hand in her pajama's pocket. "What. what are you doing here?"
Rei shifted. "Checking up on you spaz-monkey," she said nonchalantly. "You've been MIA for 4 days, girl!"
Serena looked down at the floor, trying to appear mesmerized by the pink pattern of her floor tile.
Rei continued. "Everyone's been worried about you," she leaned against the doorframe, concern in her eyes. "Nobody's been able to contact you, and it hasn't been the same at the arcade without you."
Serena choked up. She bit her tounge.
Rei sighed. "Oh Gods, Meatball head, don't cry!"
Serena flung her arms around her concerned friend, taking her totally off guard. Rei stumbled back and wrapped her arms around the sobbing girl carefully.
"Jeez girl, what's up?" she said.
Serena sobbed a reply that involved the words 'cant' and 'tell' and 'anyone'.
Rei took the hint. "Well, you can at least come back to the arcade!" she said, pulling away from her. "Lita beat your high score at the Sailor V game!"
Serena froze in her tracks.
"She.. She what?"
Rei folded her arms in front of her. "That's right. 24,828 points, under LTA." She said the last three letters deliberately slowly.
Serena looked up at her. "I'm gonna kill her."
Rei smiled. "That's the girl we know. Get your butt down there!"
Serena smiled. "Let me take a shower-" She began, before the phone wrang.
Rei looked at Serena. "I'll get it." She picked it up as Serena took out a few clothes from her bureau. "Heeeello? Oh, hey Molly, its Rei! Yeah, she's alive, can you believe it?" Serena threw a pair of pants at her. "Yeah, she's right here, here ya go!" She handed the phone to Serena.
"Hey Molls," she said.
"Oh gosh, Serena, you'll never guess who's back in town!" Molly panted.
"Huh?" Serena said, the smile fading from her face.
"Vaughn! He came back from the States this weekend! I just saw him at the mall and he was all smiles and he was asking about you, he wants to hang out-"
Serena didn't hear the rest she said. Her hands were shaking so hard the phone slipped from her grasp, and she fell to her knees as dizziness overcame her senses and she fainted, smacking her head against the nightstand as she went down.
Darien held the frail girl in his arms. She had cried herself to sleep about an hour ago and slept fitfully in his embrace, letting out small whimpers and shudders as she dreamt. He scarcely moved in fear of waking her.
He could only sit and go through his thoughts and watch the pieces fit into the puzzle. He wondered if the psychological effect on what had happened to her had crippled her ability to have an intimate relationship. It would certainly explain why she had flipped out after they kissed. He wondered how far they would have gotten if he hadn't asked what had been plaguing her, and then decided it was probably a good thing he had, because he couldn't trust himself with her. At least in that way. He wondered how long it would be until he could share kisses with her again.
He looked down at her. She played the act of innocent so well. In a way she ways, he speculated. She had evidently lost all faith in the male species and lived in a fantasy world of video games, mangas, television, and pretty much all things that could not hurt her. She had faith in her friends, but he highly doubted she had shared with them what she had shared with him.
He wondered if all the things she pushed away had to do with this asshole that had hurt her. Like schoolwork. She was a very bright girl, and anyone who could figure out how to manipulate the Sailor V game like she had couldn't be all the dumb. Perhaps the fact that he was a college student made her reject the idea of being a student, in fear of becoming like ..him.
He looked around the room for a clock and noticed what seemed to be the remains of one in the far corner of her room. By the height of the moon in the sky, he realized it must be around midnight somewhere.
He gently, and very slowly, placed Serena in her bed and pulled the soft comforter up to her chin and then placed a sweet kiss on her forehead. He leaned over and turned off the light, and gazed at her for another minute as he face became illuminated by moonlight. Luna, who he had forgotten about, had leaped onto the bed and was gazing back at him. He smiled to himself and then shut the door softly behind him
Darien drove the speedy Mustang through the streets of Tokyo like a madman. He would reprimand himself later for those red lights he ran through and people he cut off, but for now, he had a mission.
He drove through the campus of Tokyo City University (AN: I have no idea if that is actually a college, but we can pretend) and parked alongside the curb near a tall dormitory painted a sickly olive green. He took his keys from the ignition and walked briskly to the double doors. He pushed his hand against the keypad that had the numbers of the rooms on it. "I locked myself out again," he said. The door's buzzed and he stepped inside.
He leaped up the stairs, two, sometimes three steps at a time until he reached the fourth floor. He pushed his way through some people talking through the hallways and found himself in front of room 447. He knocked loudly, leaning against the doorframe.
"Hold on!" A voice said from the inside. Darien tapped his fingers impatiently against the door.
It swung open and the tall blonde figure known as Ellie stood in front of him. She was dressed in a sparkly red shirt and tight leather pants, big clunky heels on her feet. She smiled at brushed her hand through her spiked hair, the bangles on her wrist chiming together. "Darien," she stated, looking him over.
Darien pushed her aside and shut the door behind him. "Who is he?" He growled.
Ellie sighed and turned away from him.
He reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "Tell me! Who is he?" He demanded.
She gazed up at him with brown eyes caked in black eyeliner. He had thought she was beautiful once. That was before he had met Serena, of course. Everything in comparison to her seemed below average, and Ellie was definitely in that category.
She licked her already super-glossed lips and rolled her eyes. "So the twerp told ya, huh?" She said. She shrugged his hand off. "I really don't see what good it does you to know, Darien." She said, walking over to the small sink and mirror located next to the bathroom. She took out a bottle of blood red polish and shook it.
Darien would have killed her if he could. "Who is he," he repeated slowly.
Ellie plopped down on the ridiculously expensive leather couch that fit in with the single bedroom dorm he lawyer parents had indulged on for her. She kicked her feet up onto the glass coffee table and shook the little bottle again. "Some guy," she said casually. "He's studying abroad in the States right now, so if your thinking of killing him you'd be up for a challenge." She began to paint her pinkie.
Darien, infuriated by the way she simply dismissed the situation at hand, stepped over, catlike, to the couch and grabbed the nail polish from her hand and tossed it across the wall, the blood red splattering and shattering against the white washed wall.
"Oh my god!" She shrieked. She stood. "What the fuck is your problem?!" She screeched.
"YOU!" He yelled into her face. He turned and banged his fist into the wall. "You just love this, don't you?" He yelled.
Ellie stood like a deer in headlights. She swallowed and said nothing.
"You just love the attention this brings you, no matter how negative it is, don't you?" He said.
Ellie, finding her cool, arrogantly stuck her chin up in defiance and stepped around him and stood in front of the door. "Leave."
Darien was reminded of Serena saying that, only a few hours before, as he grilled her for answers as well. He smiled inwardly, knowing that if he could make Serena's walls crumble, Ellie's would be no problem.
"Listen to me you cold-hearted bitch," He said, his voice so cold you could almost feel frostbite. "She is hurting. She had lost all faith in men and lost all faith that someone will be there for her in life."
Ellie shrugged. "Not my problem."
Darien took her shoulders and shook her. "Don't you get it, Elinore Graham Brimsby? Don't you get that you'r not the only person in the world? That other people have feelings? That other people hurt and suffer too? Or are you so ignorant to believe that nothing but yourself matters?"
She pressed her hands against his chest, trying in vain to push him away. "Why do you care?!" She yelled. He let her go.
"She's a stupid FAKE! She's a total phony, and she thinks she's the shit, I would think you would see through that! She struts around like she owns the world and she deserved everything she got!" She yelled in his face.
He towered above her and stared down, smirking. "So I get it," he said. "You think that everyone else is just - like - you. Fake, phony, and thinks they own the world."
Ellie glared. "Your stepping on dangerous grounds, Chiba," she hissed.
Darien laughed, mocking her. "Do you really believe what you say, or do you just say it because you don't want to waste your time actually caring for someone else?"
Infuriated, Ellie slipped past him and faced him again. "I look after myself, what's so wrong with that?!" she said.
Darien, suddenly tired, decided to end the conversation there. "I get you, Ellie," He said. She stared daggers back at him. "You may not get yourself, but I get you. You saw Serena as a threat. You could not stand the fact that a beautiful, funny, genuinely good person was stepping on your turf. You were so threatened that instead of just getting to know her and accept that someone in the world is better then you, you ruined her. You and this guy, whoever he is. I don't care anymore. I just want you to know that you are everything you accuse everyone else of being. You are nothing to anyone but an object, but a pretty face to look at. Nobody wants to get close to someone who feels nothing for anyone but animosity. And for that, you will ALWAYS be alone."
Darien stepped out the door then. He was already at the staircase when she finally reacted by throwing a lamp across the room and screaming her brains out.
Serena was sitting on her bed, Luna on her lap, purring madly and Serena scratched her leg.
Serena had been wildly embarrassed when she woke and realized that she had fallen asleep in Darien's arms. She was even more embarrassed when she remembered what had happened before she fell asleep.
She was filled with dread at the fact she had told. She was always told that it helps to tell someone a secret, but all she found was pain. She could not, no matter how hard she tried, see the logic in telling Darien anything! What was she thinking? This was the mad who had tortured her and called her names and had kissed her so good..
Wait, where did that come from?
She did recall how good it felt to be in his arms. To smell him, to hear his voice, his soft 'shhhs' and mumbles of attempted comfort to her sobs. She found herself completely defenseless around him. The way his eyes just screamed for her to trust him, to have faith in him. He was, in one word, irresistible.
Serena moved restlessly off the bed into the bathroom. Passing the broken mirror, she stopped and stared at the cracked pieces, reflecting her face at her in dozens of small mirrors, circling where her fist had broken the glass.
She touched her cheek and lightly grazed the purple circles under her eyes. She looks horrible. She didn't look like herself. She wondered if she was even the same person she was before.
Who was that person?
She felt her bandaged hand curl into a fist.
"Serena, NO." She said out loud. "Stop. You will not punch anything," she continued through clenched teeth. "Thou shalt think of happy things.. Like bunnies, and puppies, and bubble gum and bubbles."
She felt herself relax, and then immediately laughed at herself. She looked at her reflections and sighed. "Your such a fuck up."
"Yeah you are!"
Serena whirled around to see the raven haired, violet eyed beauty standing in her doorway, he hands on her hips.
"Where have you been meatball face?!" Rei said, blocking the doorway. "And WHAT happened to your mirror? Well, what happened to iyoui? You look hideous!"
Serena raised an eyebrow. "Gee, thanks Rei." She offered a small smile, mostly to mask her confusion. She put her bandaged hand in her pajama's pocket. "What. what are you doing here?"
Rei shifted. "Checking up on you spaz-monkey," she said nonchalantly. "You've been MIA for 4 days, girl!"
Serena looked down at the floor, trying to appear mesmerized by the pink pattern of her floor tile.
Rei continued. "Everyone's been worried about you," she leaned against the doorframe, concern in her eyes. "Nobody's been able to contact you, and it hasn't been the same at the arcade without you."
Serena choked up. She bit her tounge.
Rei sighed. "Oh Gods, Meatball head, don't cry!"
Serena flung her arms around her concerned friend, taking her totally off guard. Rei stumbled back and wrapped her arms around the sobbing girl carefully.
"Jeez girl, what's up?" she said.
Serena sobbed a reply that involved the words 'cant' and 'tell' and 'anyone'.
Rei took the hint. "Well, you can at least come back to the arcade!" she said, pulling away from her. "Lita beat your high score at the Sailor V game!"
Serena froze in her tracks.
"She.. She what?"
Rei folded her arms in front of her. "That's right. 24,828 points, under LTA." She said the last three letters deliberately slowly.
Serena looked up at her. "I'm gonna kill her."
Rei smiled. "That's the girl we know. Get your butt down there!"
Serena smiled. "Let me take a shower-" She began, before the phone wrang.
Rei looked at Serena. "I'll get it." She picked it up as Serena took out a few clothes from her bureau. "Heeeello? Oh, hey Molly, its Rei! Yeah, she's alive, can you believe it?" Serena threw a pair of pants at her. "Yeah, she's right here, here ya go!" She handed the phone to Serena.
"Hey Molls," she said.
"Oh gosh, Serena, you'll never guess who's back in town!" Molly panted.
"Huh?" Serena said, the smile fading from her face.
"Vaughn! He came back from the States this weekend! I just saw him at the mall and he was all smiles and he was asking about you, he wants to hang out-"
Serena didn't hear the rest she said. Her hands were shaking so hard the phone slipped from her grasp, and she fell to her knees as dizziness overcame her senses and she fainted, smacking her head against the nightstand as she went down.