Note: I do not own Sailor Moon.
Enjoy! ^_^
**********
Sunlight streamed through the bedroom window of Darien's apartment more pressingly than usual. It filled the crevices, lit up the walls, and commanded that he woke to behold it, as if the morning were desperate to show him the day. On an outside ledge, a songbird chirped its two cents into the invitation, and the quiet melody jarred Darien abruptly awake from a sleep that was relatively pleasant, at least, compared to his wakened state. He pushed his upper body stiffly away from the bed, acutely aware of the shroud of sleep he hadn't successfully shaken off and how foreign every inch he moved seemed to feel. His muscles almost creaked. If he could have heard them, he was sure they would have, like an old door.
"It's a bad morning to be awake," he thought. He ran a quick hand haphazardly through his bedroom hair and swung his legs over the side of his mattress with more vivacity than he felt was in him, and his head was hit with its recoil, still hissing in the hot thickness of sleep. His night had been one with dreams so vivid that he found he was having trouble discerning whether or not he was still clutched within one. He seemed to be sensing two places all at once. His eyes transferred familiar walls to his mind, but he saw his garden and smelled the night. His skin was dull with the consequences of sleep, and yet it was still on fire. He could feel the night's heated passions licking at his ankles, which were, at the same time, meeting the cool silk of his sheets. Where was he really?
He shut his eyes, trying fervently to think himself back to his dreams and denying that he was all at the same time. He knew exactly where he was, exactly what had happened, and he cursed this knowledge, thinking his dreams would have brought him more happiness.
He looked around at his apartment, newly remodeled just days before. He had brought Serena here merely hours ago. They escaped the maze with miraculous ease, Serena leading the way, and once they had left his garden behind, he called for a taxicab. This was where they had ended up. He didn't remember what made him decide to bring her here.
He furrowed his eyebrows. He didn't remember why he did a lot of the things he did last night, but his memory did dote on her fleeting touches and shy kisses, trailing white hot on his skin. This, he knew with certainty. Among the haze, she seemed to be his beacon of light, and he could imagine everything about her right down to the way she smelled—like flowers and honey. Every move she made, she made tentatively as if she were afraid of what response she might elicit, and he was all too ready to calm his fires with her. At first, in insignificant doses until he finally let in to the pressing desires beneath his skin. He could feel it—the beast raging within him to be let out. It demanded that he kiss her, and he did. He kissed her firmly and heatedly, pushing as hard as he dared for her sake as well as his. He thought his lips would burn, and in all her fragility, her body seemed like glass beneath his. All the while he kissed her, he fought a silent battle with the temptations that felt strong enough to break her gentle frame, but she made it clear, after the shock of his attack had passed, that she felt otherwise, upping his stakes as she matched his passion and more. He felt himself grow impossibly aroused as their bodies began to fall into a rhythm, crashing like waves on the tumultuous sea. He sat patiently like a guard at the gates of her mouth, though his hunger was like that of a predator's, and he begged entrance. Their tongues had danced wildly back and forth in his triumph, pushing and pulling each of their desires in the storm, and the smooth skin of her thighs rubbed enticingly against his palms beneath the fabric of her dress. He remembered a groan as he felt her small hands pulling at the collar of his shirt, but he didn't know who had let it out. With her quick chain of urgent tugs, she had succeeded in partially undressing him, and the feel of skin against skin opened them both to a whole other world of possibilities. He felt his desires knocking again, this time getting closer to the open door, and he realized, with much reluctance, that they had gone too far already. His mind was still screaming for him to stay. Stay. But he didn't.
It took every particle of strength he possessed to pull away, and even more to keep himself from taking her again. He felt dizzy from his restraints like suddenly he hadn't eaten or slept for days, and he tried not to look at her, thinking the very sight would drive him mad, but she was so beautiful—the most beautiful he had seen her that night. Her hair fell smoothly over her shoulders, tousled gently so that it brushed against the sides of her face. He thought she nearly glowed silver in the light, creating a halo around her that made her seem untouchable, and he found himself wanting, more than anything, to see her in the morning. He smiled at her, his safe house in the storm, even though his body ached from his battles with temptations. She made him feel so happy—even just from looking at her, and he marveled at this new revelation, treating it with the caution of a gentle skeptic.
He had known for years—the potency of desire, known for years that his thirsts could be quenched at the snap of his fingers, but this…this was another game altogether. He scoffed at love, but all the while, went back for a second glance—like private information. Andrew's diary. He came upon it every once in a while, and while he knew he should avert his eyes, he looked every time. Could he have been in love? Impossible, but maybe. He didn't want to wait around to find out, so he asked her, perhaps more callously than he should have. He asked her to stay the night, and for the longest time after that, neither of them spoke. His mind flashed back to awkward high school movie dates with sweaty palms, and things that weren't really amusing but you laughed uproariously at because you just needed something to giggle at. How funny.
He wanted to wipe his hands on the back of his pants, knowing that he hadn't been this nervous in a long time. Her silence affected both of them. Suddenly, there was a pained expression in her eyes, and he suspected that its residence there had only just been discovered, that she had been sporting it for quite some time. She questioned him with her face, asking him why and how before any actual words escaped her lips.
She asked to go home.
He was shocked, even though, had he been more intuitive, he could have seen it coming, could have prevented it coming. His discretions had confused her, taken her rewards away, and now, he was giving them back with a closed fist, dangling the carrot in front of the horse. What could she do but run away? No one wanted to be trapped like that.
Darien sighed, finally pushing off the bed to the ground. His feet on the cold floor chased away what was left of his haze. That had been his dream—his dream of a night that was real as real could get. He slept alone, and he knew why. There was no warm body next to him, and he knew why. Such misery was made even more miserable by the fact that he couldn't dismiss it. She wasn't someone to be taken out with the morning trash. He couldn't wash his hands of her. She was up to his neck, and he was stuck.
He wondered if he could ever stop thinking about her, if he could ever want to. His body still shuddered with the force of his unspent desire, and he fought the urge to relieve himself—an adolescent habit that he despised. She brought him to this. She had such power over him, and he welcomed it with wary eyes. Despite everything, he couldn't bring himself to dispel the twinge of skepticism to believe, a reluctance to the possibility of such quick, fiery, passionate…love? He had always imagined that he would see his intended and know. They would meet with a bang, some extravagant sign would set them apart from all the others. It was just part of the grand design.
He shook his head. How could anything have been grander than Serena? He despised his prudence. He just didn't know. Even though his heart screamed its knowledge, how could one night—one woman, change so much in him?
He fumbled blindly to his left, armed with firm resoluteness to delve deeper into the matter. If there were landmines ahead of him, he wanted to know. He needed help finding Serena and everything about her—perhaps starting with her last name, and Andrew was the only one who could relay it. He wasn't anxious to meet Andrew this morning. Undoubtedly, he could be upset with him, but he would have been grateful with even the smallest piece of her puzzle—the perfume she wore, the type of coffee she drank, or whether she drank coffee at all.
His hand gripped his phone, punching in numbers with quick, deft strokes, naturally hoping that each second brought him closer to seeing Serena again. It surpassed desire, almost bordering on necessity. He didn't know what he'd do if he never met her again. It frightened him. Could he be falling in love?
That frightened him too. He had waited so long, waited until he couldn't wait anymore, until he dismissed it as a figment of fairy tales and storybooks. Had he found love now? And so suddenly? He couldn't be sure, in some ways, didn't want to be sure. He didn't want to have to look back and regret his days, and yet, he could swear that he almost felt his body apologizing already, begging forgiveness from the heart he let go cold. He had questions that needed to find an end, questions that didn't want answers but needed them. So he knew—without a doubt, that they lied with Serena.
*************
"I don't know what I expected," Serena sighed. She climbed onto Lita's mattress, folding her legs underneath her and felt just as uncomfortable as she looked, but the discomfort soothed her nerves. It brought an equilibrium of sorts—like the physical was supposed to meet the emotional. She ignored the stinging sensation that attacked her foot, knowing it would soon be numb, and she wished that the balance couldn't be thrown off as easily as it was made, that she could feel just as numb on the inside. She shut her eyes, savoring the pain as it lasted. It brought her back to earth and eased her mind. Even the littlest bit helped.
Lita watched her friend sitting thoughtfully on the bed and furrowed her brow, trying unsuccessfully to understand why she found her situation so unsettling. She swung a foot onto the floor, and the rest of her body promptly followed it, discovering that she could reach the opposite wall in four long strides, seven normal ones. Her feet only really had to touch the ground once in the middle if she made a big leap, but despite all her activity, she couldn't think up a thing to say.
"Well," she started hesitantly, "People usually say 'they don't know what they expected'…when their expectations aren't met. Like, when my parents were disappointed in me after I pierced my eyebrows, they shook their heads and said, 'We don't know what we expected from you, but this isn't it.'" She paused pensively, "But this is a good thing isn't it?"
Serena shook her head, "I don't know." She had thought and rethought the situation over and over in her head, replayed the night time and time again, but each time would just emphasize the passion she had felt. It seemed that every time she reinforced her heart, she would unwittingly up her refusal. Things didn't happen like this; they just didn't, and you couldn't—fall in love—so quickly.
"If you have the audacity to call this love." She thought indignantly. She found the response immediate at her disposal, but in her mind, she gently refuted herself.
"You shouldn't be so reluctant to believe in love." She felt the sudden weight of her consciences on her shoulders—her angel and devil telling her what to do. She just didn't know which was which. Her youth had taught her that love was hard to come by, if nothing else. By fifteen, she decided that she had lost her glass slippers forever. The option, though, was always there, hanging just high enough so her small frame couldn't reach. She had always wanted to believe that if someday she finally caught it—it would lead her to a dream. But sometimes, forgetting was just easier than holding on to something that she even questioned the existence of. What could she do? Love stood waiting out there somewhere, but she thought it had long since started waiting for someone new
She stopped and paused and looked over to Lita who was looking straight back at her. Two sets of eyes bored into each other, one ocean blue and the other artificially green. Serena stared, supplicating silent help from the only person she knew to ask it from. What would Lita say if she knew? Did she believe in love?
The provisional redhead sighed and looked away. It had been a long night of not knowing what to say. Her friend had gone and experienced the night of a lifetime, and she was miserable about it for such little apparent reason. What was there to say? She was tired, and a frown was tugging threateningly at the corners of her mouth, pushing a rumbling yawn closer and closer to her lips.
"Most likely," Serena thought, "She'd tell me to go to sleep." She felt guilt settling in on her stomach, joining the collection of emotions that had already taken to staying there. She was sure, that if she could see it, it would closely resemble the jumble of a child's shoebox, though she didn't feel half as cheerful. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the hours digit of Lita's flashing alarm clock switch from five to six—right on the hour. She hadn't gotten any sleep, and she knew that Lita had only caught a few hours worth.
It was a quarter till four when she had asked Darien to send her home. He had planned on coming, but she insisted that he didn't. For all she knew, in his eyes, she was the heiress to a multi-million dollar fortune. His illusion would stay intact. He couldn't know who she really was. She could only imagine the shock on his face if he discovered that he had spent the night with an impoverished waitress, living off meager tips and friendly generosity. Even his driver had sounded surprised when he realized where she lived. He made her repeat herself twice, and that was when she realized that she hadn't just created her illusion, she lived it, and she didn't want to stop.
Once he left, Serena was at Lita's door in an instant, even before she set a foot through her own, which sat rotting and peeling at the threshold of her apartment, despicable because it was so far away from the world she had just come back from. Her thoughts were just too much for her to be left alone with. Even as she made the trek to Lita's place, she felt them grasping at her feet and dragging down her steps, but now she regretted coming. For all Lita's friendship and generosity, she repaid her by soliciting help for petty problems at ungodly hours of the night.
"Well, you had an amazing night with an amazing man," Lita finally said, "I can't imagine how you could think it a bad thing." She kept her tone flat, but her inflection on 'bad,' clearly let Serena know of her impatience. She would have enjoyed a night like that.
"It's not…entirely a bad thing," Serena argued weakly, "It's just so horribly complicated." She looked over at Lita whose annoyance had not ebbed a bit.
"It wasn't a total loss though," she added. Her feeble attempt at pacification flopped pathetically, "He made me feel things I'd never felt before, at least not so strongly, and I'd never felt so alive…." She ended on a high note, almost a question. Her last words flowed slowly, like the thing they wanted most was to stay on her tongue, like they were trying to get her to taste them. She surprised herself. She hadn't expected for what she said to be so—true. Though she may have already known how she felt, it was an entirely different thing to hear it spoken out loud, and such was the previous unspoken state of her emotions that she was given room to disregard their existence. She couldn't deny it now. Not after hearing it spoken, not after feeling it pour out of her. For an instant, she desperately scanned the air as if the words she said had lingered and she could take them back, shove them back down her throat and pretend they were never let out in the first place, but she knew she couldn't. Her gaze dipped down to her hands, half expecting to find that she had opened a can of worms along with her near revelations, and she wondered, with trepidation, whether or not she should open her lips to the avalanche that threatened to spill out.
"You could find something you don't want," her mind warned, and she nodded in agreement. Perhaps some things were better left unsaid and unrealized. She didn't want to think that she was—in love… Of course she wasn't in love. How could she be?
She agreed again, feeling a growing sense of empowerment. She suddenly felt the desire to find love—just to laugh in its face. Love didn't have a thing on her. She was different from all the fools falling at its feet. She had control, and she would walk away from the night, walk away from Darien Shields without a regret among her thoughts. She had, at least, done it earlier in the night hadn't she?
"Yes!" she thought, claiming her victory. She wanted to shout it out to the rooftops, declare to the world that she had overcome love, that she wasn't its slave, but at the same time, she was terrified that if she opened her lips, even the tiniest bit, she wouldn't be able to control the words that would come tumbling out. Love would have nothing to do with it, but she just didn't want to speak.
She drew in breath in one quick shallow movement, stealing what she needed from the great reservoir so that she could build up an emergency supply if ever she decided to protect herself from the words that commanded a life of their own, but all the while—she knew. She could feel them rising up inside of her, begging to be let out, and she could feel the tears that welled angrily on the surface of her eyes, resulting from her rejection. Her body was not her own, and it quaked and shook with the impact of those words fighting for their freedom. So she held her breath…knowing that the next time she breathed, she would hear her insides spill themselves into the room she was in, and she would never be able to deny that they existed.
"When I first saw him," she started, her voice surprisingly soft for all the relief she felt, "I swear…I thought I felt the ground shake beneath me, and I felt like I was suddenly aware of all the lights around me, all the sounds and smells, but I couldn't see anything but him. His eyes were just so blue, even from a distance. I felt like I was in a movie Lita. I never imagined anyone could be so beautiful, even just the thought of him. I was so taken, just by his face and the way he walked or the way his hair fell so casually into his eyes, but then—I talked to him, and he touched me, and he held me. I felt so right in his arms. Even when he took me to a place I didn't know, I felt safe. I knew I could trust him. I just…knew," she paused, "And then—he kissed me. So tenderly. I'd never been kissed like that before, like his soul was reaching into mine, and the pieces just melded together, like we were parts of a puzzle. He pulled me into him. Every step he took, I took too. Every time he breathed, I breathed. I have never needed anybody like that before; I've never felt so needed, and I never wanted to stop. It was so intense. I wanted more, but it was like there was so much inside of me, my body couldn't possibly hold it all in. I thought I was going to explode right then and there and die in his arms. I thought I was going to die, but Lita…if you could have seen me, I would have been smiling—like dying with him was alright. Dying with him was perfect. I couldn't have been happy anywhere else Lita… not anywhere else."
She inhaled deeply, marking her end as she took in a great lungful of air, and the room seemed to be filled with the sound of her breaths because, as she saw it, she no longer had to safeguard herself against her emotions. It was over. It was too late, and both of them knew it.
Lita stared, wide-eyed, and neither woman spoke. Serena could taste the silence on her tongue, and she thought that if she wanted to, it was thick enough to bite into. She hadn't expected to feel so much or so deeply or so strongly. Not last night. Not now. She just hadn't expected to feel so—anything. What had started as an effort to explain to both herself and Lita that she wasn't just wasting time, ended a thick, sobbing confession that the heart she had been taught to wear beneath her shirtsleeve was pilfered—no longer hers.
Her eyes fell onto the threads that wove back and forth though the folds of the bed sheets, not really seeing them, but wanting to. She felt a sudden urge to plunge into the bed, just to count the threads, just to prevent the onslaught of thought that she knew would barrage her mind, but her eyes blurred before she could grant herself the chance, right on cue, and a lone tear fell, creating a wispy silver stain exactly the color of her nail polish.
She imagined that there were thirty four threads woven vertically, from one side of her pool—to the next, and she covered it with her finger, wishing that same finger was on her lips instead. Her breath rolled over her tongue, tremulously, her chest almost rasping, and she opened her mouth in a whisper even less audible than her sighs.
"I'm in love."
*************
Darien sat in the driver's seat of his Mercedes, the top set up as a precautionary security measure. He had known from the very first glance that this wasn't the ideal neighborhood for comfort living, and even less a neighborhood he would spend his days in. There were no screeching alley cats or discordant housewives, none that he could see in any case, but they were easily conjured up in his imagination. It was just that kind of place, and it was made worse by the suggestion that Serena could often be found here.
He pushed his sunglasses away from his eyes and ran a quick hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face in an attempt to see more clearly what was around him. Perhaps there was something he didn't see, something that would draw a woman like her to a place like this, but all he witnessed from behind his tinted windows was a ragged shell of a man, sleeping soundly or lying unconscious on the cold pavement. His shallow breaths escaped in short lengths of mist, and from the look of him, he was a homeless, his possessions all gathered up in one precious bag and bundled from one shelter to the next.
The very sight of the man pained his conscience and pulled at his heartstrings. Last night, while this man slept in the cold, the rich and powerful had gathered on the other side of the city at his beckoning to fraternize at a gala that could easily have cost more than a decade of the livelihood of this homeless man, and it made him want to curse it all, curse all the people and the money and the industry that sucked them in. He brought a hand to his eyes as if he were trying to rub the exhaustion out of them, and the exhaustion, he knew, stemmed from all the heartlessness he saw everyday—even in himself.
He thought of Andrew in the morning, spouting heatedly over his cruelties to the lovely and influential Miss Devou. He had felt suddenly guilty for subjecting the poor woman to humiliation the way that he did, and Andrew was feeling suddenly proud for the effectiveness of his lecture.
"She's the daughter of Hastings," he said, "Not someone you can afford to pull your antics with Darien. It won't do either of us good to fuck with her."
"I thought that was exactly what I was supposed to do," Darien remarked dryly. He shook his head disgustedly, exactly the way he had done that morning, and he had laughed at what Andrew had let slip. He warned his friend that he wasn't at the height of his game. Otherwise, he would have been more careful not to spell out so clearly the reason why Devou had been invited in the first place. Hastings was an important advertising firm in New York. It would have been greatly advantageous—marrying company to company. They'd feed off of one another like mutual insects. It made his stomach crawl.
"Animals," he thought, "Every single one of them." They made a ritual of swarming over each other in the race to come out on top. The only real difference between the rich and the wild lied in their incentives. He hardly thought a pack of dogs would tear each other apart for twenty grand. Purity was a lost cause to all of them. It was just another word of Webster's.
Suddenly, looking back over the street, Darien found the crumbling brick and chipping paint of the walls refreshing. This was a place where men fought for life on the streets instead of playing a twisted game of greed, a place where, if a man were to be an animal, he could live as an animal without tainting too much, the definition of the term. He glanced again at the bent man in the alley, feeling more admiration than the sympathy he held before. He was a noble example of survival—a real man.
"This is why she comes here," he decided, thinking of Serena, and his heart swelled with pride. How smart his Serena was to escape the venal corruption of the rich, how righteous. He could almost see her walking these streets with her graceful steps, beautiful and proud.
"She holds her head in the air," he thought, "but she doesn't stick up her nose." She was nobility. If ever there was a woman worthy of a title, it was her. Subjected to dirt and grime, she would just shine brighter—a diamond in the rough, and he was almost positive that he could love her. He idolized her, and it warmed him wonderfully to know that—she could be right across the street.
In the hours he spent quarreling with Andrew that morning, his friend had given him only one minute of what he had wanted, and he held that information with reverence in between his thumb and index fingers. It was an address—an address where he could find Serena, and it spelled out clearly, Friday Mornings, the middling coffee shop that stood out immediately just yards away from him. It had an air of France and the charming corner shops they kept there, personifying their elegance in its gracefully extending rooftop. The modestly chipping paint only added to its quality, aging it just so to perfection, and the thought rang wildly in his ears. Serena was perfection. Any connection he could make to her excited his heart desperately, and suddenly, he found that he could see her in the clouds, smell her in the air. She was everywhere but in his arms, and it left him unbearably dissatisfied—like the cravings he just couldn't identify or the thirst he couldn't quench. He needed to see her, or he thought his skin would devour itself in its own heat. The fevered proddings his heart was subjecting him to what seemed to be a piece of restlessness wedged into his mind, and it pressed him so that he almost wanted to resist it and test it—just to see if he could.
But he couldn't. He felt knives at the soles of his feet, stabbing him perpetually for every second he didn't take a step towards her. For a moment, he felt almost removed from his body as if he watched himself throw open his car door and rush towards his destination, rushing back only to realize he had forgotten to activate the locks. It was like agony having to remove himself from his journey's path. He felt his heart thumping wildly with each pace, and he was sure that she was calling to him and that her summoning was what carried the force to transfer his feet from one step to another, every one bringing him closer. He was sure that she was there—right there in the imitation French bistro, and it made him think of taking her to see France if she hadn't seen it already. Standing there, nearly at her door, he wanted to call out her name and profess his affections to this noble jungle. He would fly her across the world, and they would taste their lives together. He felt that strongly.
He whispered her name. "Serena." The simple utterance of it brought him to his knees, and he could almost feel her answer him back, whispering his name in response. He marveled at this, at this simple intimacy that suddenly made him want to spend the rest of his life with one woman, one woman who wasn't even in his arms.
"But she will be," he thought resolutely. She had to be.
He reached for the antiqued knob of the door, a kind that may have been found in a home, and he turned it firmly, pushing in as his nerves escalated in his chest. It opened smoothly but not all too quickly as if it were consciously revealing to him, the woman of his dreams. He imagined its edges were bladed, slicing through the air like butter, but at the same time, he found it tested his patience. He stepped through forcefully, his moment jarred by the hasty ringing of an entrance bell, sounding cheap to his ears.
"Welcome to Friday Mornings," chirped the redhead at the counter, "How may we help you?" Darien studied her as if she had an extension to her head. There was no one in the little coffee shop but the two of them—the customer and the coffee-maker. He felt his heart plummet to find the place empty. How could he have been wrong? It didn't seem possible. He was so sure she was here.
"Overactive imagination," he thought. If only there were a cure. He looked back at the redhead, not saying a thing and half-expecting her to know what he wanted. Did she know Serena?
He approached her, "I'm looking for someone. I've been told that she comes here often. Her name is…"
He stopped, annoyed. "Excuse me?" He looked at her oddly, wondering who or what she was engaged with behind the counter. She was whispering busily, making odd gestures, and neither one at him.
"Pardon me one second," she smiled at him sweetly before ducking out of his sight.
"You're supposed to be the waitress!," he heard her mutter harshly, "So get out there and do your job."
Darien raised his eyebrow questioningly. What was going on? He thought he was coming into a coffee shop, not a nut house.
"No!" he heard another voice whisper, "he's…"
The redhead cut it off, "He's nothing. Come on!"
Darien almost chuckled, imagining the scene behind the counter, "Miss…Is everything alright? Can I help you with anything?"
The woman popped up, her red hair bouncing. "Of course not," she said with false buoyancy, "We're here to serve." Darien noticed the girl she had dragged up with her—from the depths of the counter, he supposed. She was thin and pale. Her frown made her entire face look tired, but he marveled at her hair. Long and silvery blond.
"Let's start over," said the redhead, "Welcome to Friday Mornings. My name is Lita, and this," she pointed to the blond, "This is my waitress, but you'll have to excuse her. She's a bit shy." She chuckled nervously, "Her name is Sere—"
Darien felt his eyes bulge even before she said her name. His heart was beating furiously, and again, he fought his sweaty palms, calling on him to wipe them clean on the back of his slacks. Could this be her? He imagined himself shake his head while nodding it feverishly all at once. It was a dizzying thought. She couldn't be, but her hair—it was Serena's hair, he was sure of it. He found himself staring, right when the redhead began her introduction, and she backed nervously away, trying to escape his eyes.
"Serena?" he whispered
She looked at him, her blue eyes finally meeting his. They seemed darker—cold and unwelcoming. He nearly stepped back.
"No," she said, "Sarah. My name is Sarah."
Darien narrowed his eyes, almost trying to see through her. There was something about this girl. His heart was screaming something at its core, but he could decipher what it was in the midst of all the noise. He looked back at the two women as if he would find an answer in one of them. Lita was smiling at him with a plastic grin; Serah's frown had deepened.
"Do you want some coffee?" he heard one of them say. He saw the words suspended in the air. Which one had they come from? He couldn't trace them back to their speaker.
"Lost words. Lost dogs," he thought to himself, "Lost souls." He felt like he was fumbling in the dark. Where was he? It was all just one big maze, and he didn't have anyone to lead him out.
"Excuse me?" he said.
"Coffee?"
It was Sarah, holding up a coffee pot. He thought the weight of it might snap her wrist. She was impossibly small—like Serena had been, delicate, but perhaps, without her grace. He studied her more closely. Her nose was lightly turned up; her eyes were now big and blue with a lost expression. A frightened expression. He imagined her face on a bunny rabbit.
"She's pretty," he thought, and she was. Her features carried a certain air of beauty that tugged something inside of him, and he couldn't find what it was to make it stop. He compared her to Serena, once again glad to find a connection. If she was made over and dressed properly, he was sure the two could pass as sisters, but Serena was happy. Sarah was not. Serena was confident, elegant, graceful. Sarah was not. Maybe they were sisters. Darien felt a twinge of hope. He imagined them as children, one beautiful, one a shadow of the other, and he felt his heart reach out to the sister in front of him, almost wondering what it would be like to fall in love with her instead.
"No," he said finally, "no coffee, but I was looking for someone. I was wondering if you knew her." His gaze lingered on Sarah, "Her name is Serena." Her body stiffened visibly. Darien noticed.
"She's not here today," she said quietly, hasty and rushed in her own softness. Her eyes darted nervously to Lita. They were hiding something.
"Maybe if you come back sometime later this week," Lita joined in.
Darien nodded solemnly, "Maybe." He paused to study the two of them. Transparent as they were, he knew they were lying, but why? His mind concocted an evil, twisted plan. Serena had been kidnapped for ransom, and she was lying bound and gagged in the back room, waiting for him to save her. He felt his heart soar for an instant, but he almost laughed aloud at his own absurdness. Neither of them could have done that. His eyes passed over the frightened look of Sarah's face. She didn't have it in her.
"I'll be back later," he said. He reached into his pocket and grabbed a card from his wallet. He looked at Sarah, staring her down. He thought she would melt. "This is my number." His hand passed the card deliberately to her, "Have her call me when she comes."
She nodded just as he turned to leave, careful to keep her mouth shut. He shot her one last look with one hand on the door, feeling suddenly like he was leaving something behind, but dismissed it when her hair fell limp over her face. It was like an omen to him, another door closing, and he left, wondering when he'd ever see Serena again.
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So what do you guys think? Do you love it? Hate it? I'd love for you to give me some feedback, and I'm a review whore so keep em' comin! ^_^