The Contract : Chapter Six
Walls
Nephrite
The feeling of giving carpet against the soles of his feet was comforting—a familiar sensation in a house that was still very new to him, at a point in life that made him a stranger even in his most private actions, unsure of what to do, and how to do it, ever afraid the ground would fall away beneath him. He clung to that sensation, the reassurance he found in the woven fibers, thinking all the while how pathetic it was that a grown man had to resort to a rug as one of the constants in his life. Breathing away that self-deprecation, pushing it from his mind, he focused again on the problem at hand—namely, one Makoto Kino and all the variables she brought to his already shaky position.
Taking a sip of coffee, (black, the way he liked it and had always liked it) he folded his hands about the warm mug, consideration marking the lines of his face. She was, without a doubt, a problem that would require immediate and decisive attention. That necessity, he thought with a frown, was an issue he had brought upon himself by sending the butler up to collect her, knowing as he had that she would not be collected. Further more, the action of sending the butler would alert her to the fact that he was intent on paying attention to her, when she didn't come, she would expect him to go to her and pay his attentions in that manner. If he didn't, if he refused to conform to her expectations, he would be choosing a course of action that he would not normally have selected, throwing both her and himself into doubt of his character that would produce problems either immediately or in the future. So his course of action, at least to a point, was very clear-cut.
It was what to do after that point that worried him.
Groaning softly, he took another biting gulp of burning liquid, and put his head in his hands. Their interaction last night, though it had lasted till ten, had been altogether too short. He needed a better sense of her, of what she was like, and what she would think of one thing or another, and how to talk to her. Most importantly how to talk to her. With most people, and herein lay the difficulty that caused him greatest frustration, he could tell almost immediately the manner in which he should address them. It was in the way they struck him, the way they moved and spoke, the way they presented their ideas, or if they presented them at all. She had struck him a million ways at once, shattering his stereotypes in one fell stroke. She moved with confidence, hesitated, then acted with a decisive abandon. She spoke bluntly, but was still bothered by the limitations of society, and stricter limits of her own—she had blushed when he touched her, or when he caught her staring at him. Blurring all aspects of these perceptions was the way he had received them, finding her charming, funny, and beautiful, and that put him on unsure footing.
So unsure, in fact, that when the butler appeared at the bottom of the stairs empty handed as he had expected, he had yet to decide on a course of action.
Thus indecisive, he made one sharp choice, and with it's motivation, he climbed the stairs and approached her bedroom door. What he saw there stopped him dead.
She was standing on the other side of the bed, wearing only an oversized shirt and white underwear, and was in the process of removing the shirt.
Nephrite felt a sudden fire consume his body.
The cloth slid slowly, impossibly slowly, up her back and over her head, bearing as it did the two depressions at the small of her back, and the long indention that marked her spinal cord, and a otherwise smooth expanse of unblemished flesh. Her neck, for her hair exposed it, turned as she reached for another shirt, then slipped that one around her body. The gentle slope of it into her shoulders fascinated him, and the thin marks of veins he could see in it, and the soft protrusion of her chin. She reached next for a worn pair of jeans, and the sight of them masking the cool porcelain of her legs made every inch of his skin itch.
He waited until she had fastened them, then took the final steps into her doorway, and tapped lightly on the frame, hoping desperately his face was not flushed.
"Can I come in?"
She turned, startled, then nodded upon seeing who it was, an odd, mixed emotion fleeting behind them, before she smiled and it disappeared.
"Sure. Make yourself at home." She gestured to her bare desk, which he promptly moved towards, noticing as he did the smell that had permeated the room—something he couldn't identify, but made slightly intoxicated.
She had, without his noticing, made herself at home on her bed, and was now looking at him with an expectancy that put him off guard.
It made him direct, more direct than he might have been otherwise. "Why weren't you at breakfast?"
She had anticipated the question, he could tell, and had in a hurried way prepared for it. Her answer was immediate. "I usually eat a little later."
She meant, of course, that she had meant to avoid him. But her concealment of the facts in pleasantries made his life easier, made both their lives in pleasantries. "Oh? Around when? I would be happy to accommodate you, as you are the only company I can expect, and I would really rather us not eat alone."
There. That had been relatively easy. Now the ball was in her court, she could choose to return his invitation or not. She smiled, and the flush he had noticed last night brushed her cheeks. "Okay." Then, starting, she realized that wouldn't fully answer his questions. "Oh, I don't think it matters what my routine used to be—those were very different circumstances." The shadowed sadness that flitted behind her eyes when she said this caused him to want to go to her so fervently that he had to grip the edges of the desk to restrain himself. His instinct to protect her was almost overwhelming.
She smiled brightly again, and he realized the tables had been turned and it was his turn to respond. "Well, the servants seem intent on preparing meals at eight, noon, and eight on the dot. They're the ones that are really in control here. Came with the house, you know, and know exactly what they think should be done and when and how."
"Okay. Sounds great. I'll see you for lunch at twelve, then." She stood, and he realized she wanted them to be done.
He rose, too, and started to the door, before turning and blurting, "Do you want to come walking with me? The grounds are really lovely."
She shook her head slightly, and he was abruptly pushed a thousand miles away form her, despite the fact they stood in the same room. "No, thanks, I have things I still need to do here. I will be down for lunch, though." And her eyes asked him to leave, so he could do nothing else.
He leaned against the wall a scant five paces from her door, his breathing heavy and his mind weary. A sadness filled him, a sadness he couldn't explain. In his mind, though, one thought circled around and around; and things had been going so well.
Rei
Her limbs were heavy and, it seemed, adhered to the bed—at any rate, the sheer effort she would have to put into lifting them was enormous, and far too tiring to be worth it. Besides, the bed she lay on was extraordinarily comfortable, the sheets soft, and the pillows giving, so she felt no great desire to leave it. There was, she reflected, no need that she could think of, everything that was addressed in the morning was of no concern to her until Makoto set breakfast on the table, at which point, someone would come wake her and she would dress and enjoy the food, the day spread before her the very picture of total possibility.
It was at this point that the pleasant sensation of soft kisses along her shoulders shattered her fantasy and forced her to roll over and face the menace that was her actions of the night before embodied into one devilishly handsome young man. Who was smiling at her, in an alarmingly disarming manner.
This left Rei with only two courses of action—fall wantonly into his arms and repeat the blissful act of making love to him, or fall on the default response that had served her well her whole life long.
Her choice was clear.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She asked, her voice low, a warning of the tempest to come.
He raised his eyebrows and seemed completely undisturbed, indeed, his smile broadened. "Nothing that I didn't do last night."
That was, quite plainly to Rei, a barb. He was teasing her, testing how angry she would be come. Well, if that's the way he wanted to play it, then that's the way they would play it.
"And you think that last night was so enjoyable that I would like any repeat, even in the smallest part?"
Again, he was nonplussed. His reaction, or lack thereof, was being to annoy her. "You certainly seemed to find it so."
She stared at him, speechless at his nerve, and said the first thing that came to mind. "Well, I wouldn't have if I had known then you were such an ass."
He clutched his chest and looked up at her with big, puppy eyes. "Fair lady, you cut me to the quick."
She frowned at him, trying to revive the burning rage that had left her without her knowing it. When had that happened, Rei wondered for a second, before realizing she had to think of a flip remark to meet his last one. "You mean the act of getting a woman stark drunk and seducing her didn't cut you enough?"
He seemed about to reply for a moment, he tapped one finger against his chin and looked up in a mock serious ponder, and then, quick as a flash, he had reached out and grabbed her and the next thing she knew he had gotten on top of her and she was back on the bed.
Her scream of surprised anger was muffled by his mouth, hungrily pressed against hers, but he hadn't thought it necessary to restrain her hands, so the next second they were apart again, he gasping and startled by her push.
"What was that?"
He seemed almost angry, and she almost recoiled from that, but then his smile was back on, if it looked a little forced.
"Alright." His grin took on a almost wistful turn, that made her heart bleed. "I can take a hint," his eyebrows quirked, "fair lady doesn't want to be wooed."
He stood, leaving a very startled Rei alone on the bed.
"Wait!" He turned, and now he couldn't mask the sadness in his eyes. She took a deep breath, because she wanted to know that she was still alive—for a moment she had felt that part of her had died along with him. "Where are you going?"
His expression then was like none she'd ever seen. "Away."
And then he was gone.
Rei took a gasping breath that hitched somewhere between her lungs and her mouth, collapsing onto the bed. Tears came unbidden to her eyes, and ran down her face, and she remembered that she had cried last night, but that seemed a million years ago, her sobs now were motivated by something so completely different.
She looked at the door, but couldn't see it—she was crying now harder than she ever had before in her life.
"Dammit. Dammit!"
And outside her room, a man leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and wondering when exactly she had become so important to him that her pain burned his throat.
"Dammit."
Mamoru
"Well, I grew up in California, by the ocean. Long beach. I lived there all of my life that I can remember, at least until I went to college, at Berkley. Miracle I got in, actually. My grades weren't that good in high school. Managed to pull myself into the school though, and that was when I met the girls. This is really good. Who taught you to cook?"
Mamoru, sitting across from the table from the woman who was conducting the conversation, smiled at the sudden change of topic, no longer surprised at her abrupt shifts in attention. For someone who had been sobbing at five a.m., she'd made a rapid turn around, and now was babbling to him happily about the details of her life. He posed no interference to the rather one- sided conversation, providing questions when they seemed to be needed, but mostly sitting back and absorbing the information she fed him, filing it away for later reference. Realizing rather suddenly that response was required, he started. "My four roommates, collectively. And I learned some of it on my own. Tell me about your friends."
She smiled and nodded, obviously happy to comply. "Well, I'd actually known Mina a bit in high school, we lived near each other, and I saw her play volley ball when I'd go to matches. Everyone else I met at Berkley, like I said. Mina was a political science major, and I think she minored in history. Ami was in a pre-med program, and Rei had a double major in writing and psychology. Mako wasn't actually at Berkley, she was—I don't know how to put this—an apprentice, I guess, for a nearby chef. It was Mina who brought us all together, though. She and Mako had met in high school, so they were in touch. And Mina has this funny habit of seeing potential in people—she's quite brilliant, actually. She picked me and Rei out immediately, and I dragged Ami in, she'd been my tutor in chemistry, you know."
He hadn't, but that was fine. He liked to watch her talk, her eyes sparkled in a way when she was talking about other people that he hadn't seen in anyone before. She wrinkled her nose when she couldn't think of the right word and was forced to use a sub-standard one. She smiled constantly, but exuded pleasure when she said a word she particularly liked, and he could tell that she enjoyed the way it rolled on her tongue. She was intent on the words, and also on their meaning, in an odd mixture of slow and fast—she wants, he thought, to tell me all this, as soon as possible and with the most economy, but she enjoys talking, enjoys language. The result was a hurried languidity that made her compelling, made a woman that might seem pretty to some beautiful. It would make every person in a room rivet to her when she spoke, he was sure. It made him hang on a long stream of babble that he would have long ago stopped paying attention to if it were delivered in any other way. It was captivating.
"There was always a sense of purpose in our friendship, mostly Mina's fault. We never just hung out, it was always work on this project, or this one, and through it and after it and before it, we'd become best friends. That's when Mina and Rei sort of ignited. It was like a collective light bulb had gone off" she pantomimed this, and looked extraordinarily cute, "above our heads, but most strongly with Rei and Mina. They just kind of realized that we didn't have to stick with the silly, small town politicking we'd been doing—you know, gathering support for causes like aids and cancer and poverty. It was like we were seven years old and were playing at taking over the world, only the adults didn't call for us to come in ever, so we just kept going and going. We moved here, bought this house, and Mina got us jobs through her connections, she had modeled all over the country."
She paused, waiting for him to say something, to take the opening she had left for him to change the direction of conversation.
"Oh" he said.
"Yeah. People knew Mina. Not who she was, so much as who she pretended to be, but that didn't matter, we got jobs. We got prestige. And she began to use me as the figurehead, and suddenly, we had more support than we needed. She always maintained I was the most sympathetic of all of us, but I don't think so. I think any of them would have worked just as well. We all pulled our part, though, in our ways, and with five of us doing it, it wasn't so much pulling as it was sprinting carrying a batton, it was as light as air. Soon we were heading for the top of the political spectrum, as Mina would put it when we took a break long enough to talk. And then, well, you know."
She started eating her eggs in silence. It took him a moment to realize she had stopped talking. When he did, he asked the one question that had bugged him since he had first heard of her, before he had come here, a period in his life he was already beginning to think of as a long time ago. "Why do they call you Wren?"
She laughed, and he smiled, because the sound and look of her laughing was irresistibly communicable.
"That was an accident, mostly, but partially a joke on Mako's part. They all called me 'Ren' privately, you know, R-E-N, short for Serenity," she put extra stress on the middle syllable of her name, drawing a connection he hadn't noticed until then, "my full name. We had been using my given name, Serenity Tsukino, for official stuff, until one day Mako, who always dealt with things like that, was telling them my what to put on the program, and she slipped and said, 'Ren Tsukino', and the guy on the phone said 'as in the bird' and Mako thought it was all terribly funny and she said 'yes, as in the bird'. I didn't really think it was that funny, I've never considered myself to be a bird. But everyone else found it hysterical. They kept using it."
"You know," he said, cocking his head to the side, as he always did when he was thinking, "I don't think you're much of a bird either."
She burst out laughing. It was the funniest thing he'd said all day.
End
a.n. finally fixed these computer troubles. Sorry it took so long, I just really couldn't be motivated to write this—I know exactly where I want to end up, getting there's the issue. Personally, I really liked the Neph/Lita scene. The Rei/Jade seems to be going in the general direction of angst, I'm begining to think that's enevitable.
On another note, I've started a new series of four one shots that concern the senshi and shittenou relinquishing their relationship. The first one is out, called 'Embers', about, guess who?, Rei/Jade. If you're interested, check it out.
Finally, I've started responding to reviews, but to save space in my stories, I'm going to put that in my little 'author bio' space in my profile. So if you've reviewed and wanted to see my response, it's there.
Enjoy
DF
Walls
Nephrite
The feeling of giving carpet against the soles of his feet was comforting—a familiar sensation in a house that was still very new to him, at a point in life that made him a stranger even in his most private actions, unsure of what to do, and how to do it, ever afraid the ground would fall away beneath him. He clung to that sensation, the reassurance he found in the woven fibers, thinking all the while how pathetic it was that a grown man had to resort to a rug as one of the constants in his life. Breathing away that self-deprecation, pushing it from his mind, he focused again on the problem at hand—namely, one Makoto Kino and all the variables she brought to his already shaky position.
Taking a sip of coffee, (black, the way he liked it and had always liked it) he folded his hands about the warm mug, consideration marking the lines of his face. She was, without a doubt, a problem that would require immediate and decisive attention. That necessity, he thought with a frown, was an issue he had brought upon himself by sending the butler up to collect her, knowing as he had that she would not be collected. Further more, the action of sending the butler would alert her to the fact that he was intent on paying attention to her, when she didn't come, she would expect him to go to her and pay his attentions in that manner. If he didn't, if he refused to conform to her expectations, he would be choosing a course of action that he would not normally have selected, throwing both her and himself into doubt of his character that would produce problems either immediately or in the future. So his course of action, at least to a point, was very clear-cut.
It was what to do after that point that worried him.
Groaning softly, he took another biting gulp of burning liquid, and put his head in his hands. Their interaction last night, though it had lasted till ten, had been altogether too short. He needed a better sense of her, of what she was like, and what she would think of one thing or another, and how to talk to her. Most importantly how to talk to her. With most people, and herein lay the difficulty that caused him greatest frustration, he could tell almost immediately the manner in which he should address them. It was in the way they struck him, the way they moved and spoke, the way they presented their ideas, or if they presented them at all. She had struck him a million ways at once, shattering his stereotypes in one fell stroke. She moved with confidence, hesitated, then acted with a decisive abandon. She spoke bluntly, but was still bothered by the limitations of society, and stricter limits of her own—she had blushed when he touched her, or when he caught her staring at him. Blurring all aspects of these perceptions was the way he had received them, finding her charming, funny, and beautiful, and that put him on unsure footing.
So unsure, in fact, that when the butler appeared at the bottom of the stairs empty handed as he had expected, he had yet to decide on a course of action.
Thus indecisive, he made one sharp choice, and with it's motivation, he climbed the stairs and approached her bedroom door. What he saw there stopped him dead.
She was standing on the other side of the bed, wearing only an oversized shirt and white underwear, and was in the process of removing the shirt.
Nephrite felt a sudden fire consume his body.
The cloth slid slowly, impossibly slowly, up her back and over her head, bearing as it did the two depressions at the small of her back, and the long indention that marked her spinal cord, and a otherwise smooth expanse of unblemished flesh. Her neck, for her hair exposed it, turned as she reached for another shirt, then slipped that one around her body. The gentle slope of it into her shoulders fascinated him, and the thin marks of veins he could see in it, and the soft protrusion of her chin. She reached next for a worn pair of jeans, and the sight of them masking the cool porcelain of her legs made every inch of his skin itch.
He waited until she had fastened them, then took the final steps into her doorway, and tapped lightly on the frame, hoping desperately his face was not flushed.
"Can I come in?"
She turned, startled, then nodded upon seeing who it was, an odd, mixed emotion fleeting behind them, before she smiled and it disappeared.
"Sure. Make yourself at home." She gestured to her bare desk, which he promptly moved towards, noticing as he did the smell that had permeated the room—something he couldn't identify, but made slightly intoxicated.
She had, without his noticing, made herself at home on her bed, and was now looking at him with an expectancy that put him off guard.
It made him direct, more direct than he might have been otherwise. "Why weren't you at breakfast?"
She had anticipated the question, he could tell, and had in a hurried way prepared for it. Her answer was immediate. "I usually eat a little later."
She meant, of course, that she had meant to avoid him. But her concealment of the facts in pleasantries made his life easier, made both their lives in pleasantries. "Oh? Around when? I would be happy to accommodate you, as you are the only company I can expect, and I would really rather us not eat alone."
There. That had been relatively easy. Now the ball was in her court, she could choose to return his invitation or not. She smiled, and the flush he had noticed last night brushed her cheeks. "Okay." Then, starting, she realized that wouldn't fully answer his questions. "Oh, I don't think it matters what my routine used to be—those were very different circumstances." The shadowed sadness that flitted behind her eyes when she said this caused him to want to go to her so fervently that he had to grip the edges of the desk to restrain himself. His instinct to protect her was almost overwhelming.
She smiled brightly again, and he realized the tables had been turned and it was his turn to respond. "Well, the servants seem intent on preparing meals at eight, noon, and eight on the dot. They're the ones that are really in control here. Came with the house, you know, and know exactly what they think should be done and when and how."
"Okay. Sounds great. I'll see you for lunch at twelve, then." She stood, and he realized she wanted them to be done.
He rose, too, and started to the door, before turning and blurting, "Do you want to come walking with me? The grounds are really lovely."
She shook her head slightly, and he was abruptly pushed a thousand miles away form her, despite the fact they stood in the same room. "No, thanks, I have things I still need to do here. I will be down for lunch, though." And her eyes asked him to leave, so he could do nothing else.
He leaned against the wall a scant five paces from her door, his breathing heavy and his mind weary. A sadness filled him, a sadness he couldn't explain. In his mind, though, one thought circled around and around; and things had been going so well.
Rei
Her limbs were heavy and, it seemed, adhered to the bed—at any rate, the sheer effort she would have to put into lifting them was enormous, and far too tiring to be worth it. Besides, the bed she lay on was extraordinarily comfortable, the sheets soft, and the pillows giving, so she felt no great desire to leave it. There was, she reflected, no need that she could think of, everything that was addressed in the morning was of no concern to her until Makoto set breakfast on the table, at which point, someone would come wake her and she would dress and enjoy the food, the day spread before her the very picture of total possibility.
It was at this point that the pleasant sensation of soft kisses along her shoulders shattered her fantasy and forced her to roll over and face the menace that was her actions of the night before embodied into one devilishly handsome young man. Who was smiling at her, in an alarmingly disarming manner.
This left Rei with only two courses of action—fall wantonly into his arms and repeat the blissful act of making love to him, or fall on the default response that had served her well her whole life long.
Her choice was clear.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She asked, her voice low, a warning of the tempest to come.
He raised his eyebrows and seemed completely undisturbed, indeed, his smile broadened. "Nothing that I didn't do last night."
That was, quite plainly to Rei, a barb. He was teasing her, testing how angry she would be come. Well, if that's the way he wanted to play it, then that's the way they would play it.
"And you think that last night was so enjoyable that I would like any repeat, even in the smallest part?"
Again, he was nonplussed. His reaction, or lack thereof, was being to annoy her. "You certainly seemed to find it so."
She stared at him, speechless at his nerve, and said the first thing that came to mind. "Well, I wouldn't have if I had known then you were such an ass."
He clutched his chest and looked up at her with big, puppy eyes. "Fair lady, you cut me to the quick."
She frowned at him, trying to revive the burning rage that had left her without her knowing it. When had that happened, Rei wondered for a second, before realizing she had to think of a flip remark to meet his last one. "You mean the act of getting a woman stark drunk and seducing her didn't cut you enough?"
He seemed about to reply for a moment, he tapped one finger against his chin and looked up in a mock serious ponder, and then, quick as a flash, he had reached out and grabbed her and the next thing she knew he had gotten on top of her and she was back on the bed.
Her scream of surprised anger was muffled by his mouth, hungrily pressed against hers, but he hadn't thought it necessary to restrain her hands, so the next second they were apart again, he gasping and startled by her push.
"What was that?"
He seemed almost angry, and she almost recoiled from that, but then his smile was back on, if it looked a little forced.
"Alright." His grin took on a almost wistful turn, that made her heart bleed. "I can take a hint," his eyebrows quirked, "fair lady doesn't want to be wooed."
He stood, leaving a very startled Rei alone on the bed.
"Wait!" He turned, and now he couldn't mask the sadness in his eyes. She took a deep breath, because she wanted to know that she was still alive—for a moment she had felt that part of her had died along with him. "Where are you going?"
His expression then was like none she'd ever seen. "Away."
And then he was gone.
Rei took a gasping breath that hitched somewhere between her lungs and her mouth, collapsing onto the bed. Tears came unbidden to her eyes, and ran down her face, and she remembered that she had cried last night, but that seemed a million years ago, her sobs now were motivated by something so completely different.
She looked at the door, but couldn't see it—she was crying now harder than she ever had before in her life.
"Dammit. Dammit!"
And outside her room, a man leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and wondering when exactly she had become so important to him that her pain burned his throat.
"Dammit."
Mamoru
"Well, I grew up in California, by the ocean. Long beach. I lived there all of my life that I can remember, at least until I went to college, at Berkley. Miracle I got in, actually. My grades weren't that good in high school. Managed to pull myself into the school though, and that was when I met the girls. This is really good. Who taught you to cook?"
Mamoru, sitting across from the table from the woman who was conducting the conversation, smiled at the sudden change of topic, no longer surprised at her abrupt shifts in attention. For someone who had been sobbing at five a.m., she'd made a rapid turn around, and now was babbling to him happily about the details of her life. He posed no interference to the rather one- sided conversation, providing questions when they seemed to be needed, but mostly sitting back and absorbing the information she fed him, filing it away for later reference. Realizing rather suddenly that response was required, he started. "My four roommates, collectively. And I learned some of it on my own. Tell me about your friends."
She smiled and nodded, obviously happy to comply. "Well, I'd actually known Mina a bit in high school, we lived near each other, and I saw her play volley ball when I'd go to matches. Everyone else I met at Berkley, like I said. Mina was a political science major, and I think she minored in history. Ami was in a pre-med program, and Rei had a double major in writing and psychology. Mako wasn't actually at Berkley, she was—I don't know how to put this—an apprentice, I guess, for a nearby chef. It was Mina who brought us all together, though. She and Mako had met in high school, so they were in touch. And Mina has this funny habit of seeing potential in people—she's quite brilliant, actually. She picked me and Rei out immediately, and I dragged Ami in, she'd been my tutor in chemistry, you know."
He hadn't, but that was fine. He liked to watch her talk, her eyes sparkled in a way when she was talking about other people that he hadn't seen in anyone before. She wrinkled her nose when she couldn't think of the right word and was forced to use a sub-standard one. She smiled constantly, but exuded pleasure when she said a word she particularly liked, and he could tell that she enjoyed the way it rolled on her tongue. She was intent on the words, and also on their meaning, in an odd mixture of slow and fast—she wants, he thought, to tell me all this, as soon as possible and with the most economy, but she enjoys talking, enjoys language. The result was a hurried languidity that made her compelling, made a woman that might seem pretty to some beautiful. It would make every person in a room rivet to her when she spoke, he was sure. It made him hang on a long stream of babble that he would have long ago stopped paying attention to if it were delivered in any other way. It was captivating.
"There was always a sense of purpose in our friendship, mostly Mina's fault. We never just hung out, it was always work on this project, or this one, and through it and after it and before it, we'd become best friends. That's when Mina and Rei sort of ignited. It was like a collective light bulb had gone off" she pantomimed this, and looked extraordinarily cute, "above our heads, but most strongly with Rei and Mina. They just kind of realized that we didn't have to stick with the silly, small town politicking we'd been doing—you know, gathering support for causes like aids and cancer and poverty. It was like we were seven years old and were playing at taking over the world, only the adults didn't call for us to come in ever, so we just kept going and going. We moved here, bought this house, and Mina got us jobs through her connections, she had modeled all over the country."
She paused, waiting for him to say something, to take the opening she had left for him to change the direction of conversation.
"Oh" he said.
"Yeah. People knew Mina. Not who she was, so much as who she pretended to be, but that didn't matter, we got jobs. We got prestige. And she began to use me as the figurehead, and suddenly, we had more support than we needed. She always maintained I was the most sympathetic of all of us, but I don't think so. I think any of them would have worked just as well. We all pulled our part, though, in our ways, and with five of us doing it, it wasn't so much pulling as it was sprinting carrying a batton, it was as light as air. Soon we were heading for the top of the political spectrum, as Mina would put it when we took a break long enough to talk. And then, well, you know."
She started eating her eggs in silence. It took him a moment to realize she had stopped talking. When he did, he asked the one question that had bugged him since he had first heard of her, before he had come here, a period in his life he was already beginning to think of as a long time ago. "Why do they call you Wren?"
She laughed, and he smiled, because the sound and look of her laughing was irresistibly communicable.
"That was an accident, mostly, but partially a joke on Mako's part. They all called me 'Ren' privately, you know, R-E-N, short for Serenity," she put extra stress on the middle syllable of her name, drawing a connection he hadn't noticed until then, "my full name. We had been using my given name, Serenity Tsukino, for official stuff, until one day Mako, who always dealt with things like that, was telling them my what to put on the program, and she slipped and said, 'Ren Tsukino', and the guy on the phone said 'as in the bird' and Mako thought it was all terribly funny and she said 'yes, as in the bird'. I didn't really think it was that funny, I've never considered myself to be a bird. But everyone else found it hysterical. They kept using it."
"You know," he said, cocking his head to the side, as he always did when he was thinking, "I don't think you're much of a bird either."
She burst out laughing. It was the funniest thing he'd said all day.
End
a.n. finally fixed these computer troubles. Sorry it took so long, I just really couldn't be motivated to write this—I know exactly where I want to end up, getting there's the issue. Personally, I really liked the Neph/Lita scene. The Rei/Jade seems to be going in the general direction of angst, I'm begining to think that's enevitable.
On another note, I've started a new series of four one shots that concern the senshi and shittenou relinquishing their relationship. The first one is out, called 'Embers', about, guess who?, Rei/Jade. If you're interested, check it out.
Finally, I've started responding to reviews, but to save space in my stories, I'm going to put that in my little 'author bio' space in my profile. So if you've reviewed and wanted to see my response, it's there.
Enjoy
DF