A/N: I've been having a difficult time writing lately. My fics have been bombarded with horrible, painfully harsh anons that have left me discouraged, and unmotivated to write.
I recently started playing a prompt game with some beautiful author friends, and one prompt was roses. I started with a Drabble and this sort of blossomed into a one shot on its own.
So, here is my little one-shot, that is decidedly super emotional, intense, and highlights a more vulnerable anime Mamoru.
It was lovingly betaed by one of the strongest women I know, NinjetteTwitch. She's an amazing person and an equally amazing writer. So much love, girl.
if you like this, please review.
Petals of imperfection
She smiled wistfully, cerulean blue eyes glossed over, a faraway look reflected in them, as the tips of her fingers feathered across the smooth surface of one perfect, red rose petal. Usagi had been on her way to Hikawa shrine to meet up with the girls when the enticing flowery smell of her favorite flowers had lured her up the cobblestone pathway, partially shaded by zelkova trees, in the middle of patio Juban.
She'd located the source of the smell behind a middle-aged woman with greying hair. She wore a kind smile on thin, weathered lips, seated in the middle of the small oasis, perched on one of its benches behind a small, wooden makeshift cart covered in flowers.
Usagi most definitely should have ignored her. She was late, as usual, after all. She'd lost track of time comforting Naru who'd had a falling out with Umino, but it didn't matter because she hadn't been able to resist. There was something about the smell of roses that beckoned Usagi like a siren, pulling her forward, her legs moving of their own volition.
She couldn't put her finger on what it was about it. Well, not entirely, anyway. She knew, undoubtedly, that this was the aroma that perfumed her favorite dreams. The beautiful ones in which the red petals rained down on her like they would have from cherry blossom trees as she stood in the middle of a garden she instinctively knew was a secret.
She caught glimpses of haunting, tender blue eyes that took her breath away. She felt the firm grip of a hand clasping tightly onto hers as she pressed towards something dressed all in white. They were her favorite dreams, and for some reason, roses reminded her of them.
Usagi's dreamy half-smile faded, her expression turning sheepish as her cheeks flushed pink. She quietly admitted that her pleasant dreams were not the only thing that reminded her of roses. It didn't help that her favorite flowers were also the chosen weapon of the very elusive, very handsome Tuxedo Mask.
The lines of friend and foe blurred significantly when her favorite masked superhero was whisking her out of danger. She winced at the reminder. Well, they did for her anyways. The other girls were not quite so convinced.
"Would you like to buy one?"
The woman's soft, slightly raspy voice pulled Usagi from her thoughts, and she blinked, giggling with embarrassment before pulling her hand away from the rose as if it had burned her.
"Ah," she began, meeting the woman's amused gaze nervously. "No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't."
The woman's expression fell, and Usagi instantly felt guilty as she leaned forward to pluck a white Casablanca lily from the scuffed cart surface instead of the rose she'd initially been eyeing.
"How much for the lily?"
After a quick exchange, yen for flower, Usagi was darting up the sloped road past the statue of Kimi-chan, veering left at the signpost marked daikoku-zaka, huffing all the way to the shrine. She was really, very late, and she was already cringing at the fiercely angry look she imagined would undoubtedly be blazing in Rei's eyes just as the familiar looming stone archway of Hikawa shrine came into view.
She hoped that the lily clutched in her hand, Rei's favorite, would help soften the blow, but she didn't even make it into the yard before Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter skid through the gateway halting her in her tracks.
"There you are!" Mars snapped, eyes filled with irritation. "Where have you been? We need to go!"
Usagi barely had time to catch her breath and recover before she nodded briskly, Rei's lily unwittingly discarded on the cobblestones as she shouted the words of her henshin. With a burst of light, blue ribbons, and the swift and powerful pull of the Moon Senshi, she followed the others, vaulting upward across the tops of buildings, her red-heeled boots barely steady as she followed behind the others. They were in hot pursuit of a red-eyed vine-like youma with the head of a venus fly trap and projectile thorns that it was spewing amongst the unsuspecting civilians in the shopping district of Azabu-Juban.
The others were on point, dropping down with all the grace afforded the Senshi as Usagi automatically called the creature out, toting the staples of justice and love in the name of the moon just like she usually did.
Inwardly, just like always, she was terrified, and sure enough, she slipped, instead of carefully landing as she'd intended, directly in the youma's pathway. She yelped as she fell backward, hard, onto the cement covered road.
"Sailor Moon!" Mars hissed, exasperated. "Get up!"
She barely rolled out of the way in time. More than likely, she would have felt the painful cut of spined thorns as they raked across her skin if the strong arms and the curtain of red-lined silk material that belonged to Tuxedo mask hadn't enveloped her. Effortlessly, he plucked her from the ground, twirling them out of the way of just in time to avoid another youma attack.
Mercury wasted no time, covering the immediate vicinity in a cool, protective mist as Sailor Moon let her eyes flutter shut, just for a moment, as she momentarily lost herself in the gentle scent of roses.
Her heart skipped a beat, the aroma alluding to visions of her dreams that disappeared just as quickly as they'd appeared, like fading wisps flashing briefly through her mind.
When Tuxedo Mask released her, she felt the loss so much more deeply than if he was just a silly crush, and she was just a silly girl. Though, admittedly, she was sort of ridiculous, especially given the fact that Tuxedo Mask had to save her two more times during that battle because her head just wasn't in the right frame of mind.
When a stray thorn struck tuxedo Mask, she forced herself to focus. Irritated with herself for letting her thoughts take her away from the fight, she forcibly concentrated as Mercury scanned the creature, shouting out its weakness, which happened to be a protruding purple flower over its chest.
When she'd finally obliterated the youma, courtesy of her tiara and the dust of the vile creature settled like ash on the street; her shoulders slumped forward miserably in defeat.
"I'm so sorry, guys."
Heart in her throat, she had a difficult time meeting the others' gaze. Why was she such a scatterbrained idiot, sometimes? Why hadn't she been paying more attention? She didn't really have to wonder. She knew deep down she'd been distracted by one fabulously handsome, rose-smelling Tuxedo Mask that had already disappeared like he usually did when the battle was over and won.
Instead of the blame she'd expected to see in the other's eyes, the girls bore similar expressions of relief and understanding. Even Mars, whose expression, while still sterner than the others, wasn't scowling at her accusingly as she'd expected.
Jupiter steadily held her gaze, smiling in that comforting, compassion-filled way that only Makoto Kino was able to manage. "Don't sweat it, girl!" she reassured. "That was a tough one."
The others nodded in agreement, and Usagi exhaled slowly because, truthfully, that had been a tough one. And not just because she'd spent a large portion of the battle daydreaming about Tuxedo Mask.
She opened her mouth to respond, heart brimming with love, to thank them for being so freaking awesome, but she was interrupted by a pained whimper that tore through the silence that fell over the intersection the moment the youma was destroyed.
Usagi started, tearing her gaze from Jupiter, whipping around towards the sound that came from a black-haired, brown-eyed woman, a civilian just slightly older than them, writhing as if being tortured on the ground.
Wordlessly, they moved in unison towards her, and Mercury was the first to kneel to see if she was okay. The woman's whimpers turned into sobs, and her eyes glossed over, unfocused as if she couldn't see anything past whatever was making her twist and turn in agony.
She watched in horror as the woman began to pull at her hair with persistent, violent movements as if it were crawling with bugs. "I'm sorry, mommy," she rasped, sobbing, tears spilling from wide, unseeing eyes. "I didn't mean to break the vase."
Usagi exchanged a horrified look with Jupiter as Mars helped Mercury restrain her, clasping her wrists in her hands to keep her from hurting herself.
Swallowing, Usagi pressed her fingers against her lips in horror. "What's wrong with her? "
Rei grunted, hissing through clenched teeth as the woman lashed out, elbowing her in the abdomen. "I don't know," she snapped briskly. "It's like she's in a daze or something."
Mercury frowned from behind her transparent, blue-tinged vizor, scanning the woman's flailing body. "I think…" she began, chewing at her bottom lip before deftly rolling her onto her side with Rei's help. She inhaled sharply, eyes narrowing as they zeroed in on her shoulder. "Oh! Wait!"
She leaned forward, carefully extracting a finger-sized thorn from beneath a torn white blouse that hung loosely on her. Instantly the woman's tense limbs sagged, sighing with relief, eyes rolling back before they fluttered closed. The thorn in Mercury's palm sizzled, the sound like droplets of water rolling down a burning log before it disintegrated into ash.
"Wait, how is that possible?" Jupiter gasped, clearly just as confused as Usagi as she leaned forward to inspect the ash in Mercury's palm. "Sailor Moon dusted that stupid youma. There's no way it should still be affecting its victims!"
Mercury nodded absentmindedly in agreement, her brow knit with concern as she swiped her hands together to get rid of the last remnants of the dissipated thorn.
"You're right," she muttered in response, lost in thought. "It's like the thorn still embedded in her was acting of its own accord. Draining her of energy while inducing some kind of hallucination even though it was cut off from its source."
Jupiter's frown deepened, bottle-green eyes flicking over the destruction left in the wake of the youma. "Did it get anyone else?"
Mercury didn't get a chance to respond, the approaching sound of sirens wailing loudly, indicating that it was time for them to leave.
Usagi swallowed, dread settling in the pit of her stomach as she fixed her gaze with uncertainty onto the still, unmoving form of the fallen woman. "Guys, we can't just leave her like this!"
Rei's concern-filled expression reflected her own as her palm swept over the woman's forehead. "She's burning up."
Mercury nodded, lips pursed with determination as she flicked on her vizor, scanning her one more time. "I think the fever is just her body fighting back the youma's venom," she theorized. "With the thorn extracted, she should be fine."
The sirens were getting louder, and a crowd of cautious but curious civilians was drawing closer. Still, Usagi hesitated.
"We have to go," Mars ordered with an authoritative presence that Usagi admired and envied at the same time. "Paramedics will handle it."
Usagi wanted to protest, but Jupiter tugged at her arm and pulled her away, hoisting her upwards until they were propelled into the air and soaring over rooftops to escape the prying eyes of media outlets that were just arriving on the scene.
When they landed where they'd started, just outside of Hikawa shrine, darkness was just settling over the twinkling skyline. The horizon softened as the red, and orange streaks from the setting sun began to fade with nightfall.
Usagi's mind was racing even as something lingered, a feeling of worry that was gnawing in her chest as her eyes settled on the forgotten crumpled lily she'd dropped earlier. She let her henshin fall, and the powers of the Moon Senshi dissipated like a bright, pink magical wisp, leaving only Usagi Tsukino in its place.
She was only going through the motions, saying her goodbyes, parting from the others as she turned slowly and began to make her way home.
She was mentally going over the youma attack, just like she always did, wondering what on earth was prompting this uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach when she crashed into something solid.
She yelped, blindly reaching out, her fingers curling into the satin-like fabric of a dark green jacket that she recognized, only a moment too late, as she sent both her and Mamoru-baka hurtling towards the ground.
Of all the people she could have run into at this moment, the very last person that she wanted to see was Chiba Mamoru. The hard-eyed, always smirking jerk, two years her senior, who was always on her case about something. It was as if the very air she dared to breathe in his direction was somehow offensive.
At that moment, it didn't matter that it was totally her fault for knocking him down. She definitely hadn't been paying attention to where she was going. There was no way in hell that she was going to concede anything to the baka that had steadily become the bane of her existence as he'd relentlessly and mercilessly teased her from his spot behind a counter at the Crown arcade that he vehemently insisted was his.
Scrambling, she untangled annoyingly long legs from his, huffing indignantly as she vaulted to her feet, haughtily righting her skirt as she graced him with her meanest scowl. "Watch where you're going, baka," she hissed, glaring down at him. "You don't own the sidewalk!"
Her scowl faded into confusion, then alarm, as she flicked her gaze over him, stopping on the hardened edges of his secretly handsome-as-hell face. Something wasn't right. His eyes, usually bright, sharp with a quick wit that kept her on her toes, was dulled, unfocused. Strands of hair sticking to his forehead, his expression pained.
He still hadn't moved to stand when Usagi swept forward, heart nervously thumping as she leaned over him.
"Hey, baka," she prodded, though the softening edge of her tone took the bite out of her insult. "Are you okay?"
His brow furrowed, and he blinked, long black lashes fluttering as his eyes flashed in and out of focus. "Usagi?"
Usagi inhaled sharply, and, now, she was really worried. She could count on one hand the times that Mamoru had said her real name in the three years that they'd known each other. Every single time had been accidental, except for the one time her mother had been with her and they'd run into each other. She'd relished the uncomfortable, nervous look on his face when he'd addressed her because there was no way in hell prim and proper, super smart, Chiba Mamoru would have dared to call her Odango Atama in front of her mother.
Regardless, she wasn't sure what was wrong with him, but he clearly wasn't himself. She didn't want to delve into the reasons why her heart picked up a beat, and her adrenaline kicked up a notch in worry at the thought that he was somehow in trouble.
Still, she didn't hesitate as she knelt beside him, hands fluttering to his shoulders nervously as she fixed her gaze on his face. "Hey, Mamoru," she began, her breath hitching with worry. "You're kind of scaring me. Should I get someone? Do you need help?"
She wasn't sure if it was her question or the fact that her hand settled on his shoulder, but his eyes cleared, though his expression was still pained, and he recoiled away from her as if she'd burned him.
"I'm fine, Odango," he hissed through clenched teeth, grunting as he pulled himself up into a sitting position. "Why are you always so clumsy?"
She inhaled sharply, blood draining from her face because, yeah, Mamoru Chiba had the annoying ability to sting her with the insults that hurt her the most. Typically he was nicer about it, and though he really grated on her nerves, his remarks tended to be more on the sarcastic, 'I-think-I-have-a-dark-sense-of-humor-but-really-I' m-just-a-jerk' kind of side. Right now, though, she'd been really, actually worried about the guy, and he'd managed to hurt her feelings.
Usagi swallowed, blinking back tears as she scrambled to her feet. She intended to flee, lick her wounds while trying not to look too closely at why his insult hurt her so much so that she could come back at him tomorrow with the confidence and haughty arrogance the cocky jerk deserved. She didn't get far, mid-swivel maybe, when he grasped her wrist pulling her back.
She stopped, frowning, yanked her hand out of his grasp and turned to face him. She hadn't realized that he'd followed suit and stood behind her, but he was grimacing in a regretful, apologetic way that instantly softened her angry demeanor.
"I'm sorry," he rasped, panting slightly as he fell back against the taupe-colored stone wall of the building behind him. "I didn't mean that. I never mean that."
Usagi's eyes widened, panic creeping in as his eyes unfocused again, and he clutched at his chest, gasping as if in pain. That look, that horrible, terrifying look mirrored precisely the expression on the writhing woman's face from earlier. Suddenly, it clicked. The realization dawned on Usagi so quickly, she flew forward, grasping at his shoulders before he would have toppled forward.
"Oh my god, Mamoru," she whispered, her tone filled with panic. "Did you see the youma tonight? Were you there?"
Her tone, filled with urgency and fear, rose an octave in pitch. It didn't matter that if she was wrong, she was likely going to have to explain how she knew so much about the youma. All that mattered was that her heart was racing, her pulse pounding in her ears because she was so terribly afraid for him, and she would have noticed him there? Wouldn't she?
Mamoru chuckled, though it wasn't a normal laugh. He sounded kind of hysterical as he clumsily tried to move away from her.
"The flower monster," he confirmed, and Usagi sucked in a worried breath through her teeth. "Don't worry. Sailor Moon took care of it."
He was teetering, close to falling, and Usagi grunted as she coiled her arm around his waist, bearing the brunt of his weight. Her eyes darted wildly across the street as she considered her options.
She was one hundred percent certain that Mamoru had one of those thorn things stuck in him. She didn't know how long it would take to drain him of energy, but he needed to go to the hospital. He needed help before… before…
Usagi was taken aback by how horrifyingly painful the thought of anything happening to Mamoru felt, and she inhaled a deep, shuddering breath before shifting her body to more evenly distribute his weight against her.
"Mamoru," she breathed. "You need to go to the hospital."
He tensed, viciously pulling away only to stumble against the brick wall again. "No," he choked, pressing his forehead against the stone. "I'll heal. Just… Just go away, Usagi. I can't... you're so beautiful, I can't stand it."
Usagi blinked, stunned by the warmth that crept throughout her chest, butterflies fluttering in her stomach with pleasure as his words registered. It took a moment before she remembered that this wasn't really him. Clearly, he was hallucinating, and she swallowed back her disappointment as she closed the gap between them, tugged him forward where he fell against her with ease and a groan that tore from his throat.
"Okay," she conceded, swallowing past the lump of emotion lodged in her throat. "I won't take you to the hospital, but we need to go somewhere, Mamoru. I can help you."
The least she could do was help him get home and pry the thorn from wherever he'd been hit, right? If she hadn't been such a scatterbrained idiot, she might have noticed him sooner. She could have saved him from getting hit by the youma to begin with.
He didn't fight her like she half expected that he would. Instead, he nodded curtly, panting, the tendons in his neck pulled tautly as he nodded in the direction in which they should go.
It was a painstaking twenty-minute walk along thankfully deserted sidewalks when they finally made it to the tall, sleek-looking apartment complex where he lived. By the time they'd stumbled through the lobby and into the elevator, Usagi was wheezing, out of breath, and Mamoru was barely standing.
He whimpered, sliding against the wall, crumpling to the floor, his hands tugging at his hair. Usagi flew forward, dropping beside him, her hands trembling as she cradled and lifted his face.
"Just hold on, Mamoru," she pleaded, her voice breaking with emotion. "Just a little bit further. Focus for a little while longer."
He blinked, not really seeing her, cobalt blue eyes a startling contrast against the pale pallor of his face. "I can't," he croaked, lower lip trembling. "I'm all alone."
Usagi sucked in a stunned, grief-stricken breath because his pain-filled words struck a chord in her heart. Something in the way he was staring ahead, seeing something that she couldn't, something painful, knocked the breath from her lungs.
Whatever was currently happening to Mamoru was very real, and she needed to save him. She needed to save him.
Steeling her resolve, Usagi took a deep breath and leaned forward, draping his arm across her shoulders, gritting her teeth as she pulled him up just as the elevator door dinged open.
"Come on, Mamoru," she croaked, taking an unsteady step forward. "Almost there."
He had one more moment of clarity in which he was able to stumble against his apartment door, his hand shaking as he pulled a key from his pocket. She helped him open it, and they practically stumbled through the door into the darkness of his genkan, the interior only illuminated by the sliver of light from the hallway for a moment before the door automatically swung shut behind them, bathing them in darkness.
Mamoru slumped forward, choking on a sob as his body went completely slack, crumpling to the ground as she could no longer hold him up.
She cursed, heart hammering as she scrambled to the wall, hands frantically running over it in the dark in search of the light switch. When she found it, she flicked it on, and the genkan lit up brightly. The harsh fluorescent light from the light fixture illuminated Mamoru that was currently panting, body trembling on the floor.
He was whimpering, raking his hands over his face like the woman earlier, and the sight of him, arrogant, proud Mamoru, like this, so broken, so vulnerable, tore her up inside.
Usagi's vision blurred with tears of compassion, her heart aching for him as she sank to her knees beside him. Her movements were frantic as trembling fingers tugged at his jacket, trying to pull it off so she could help him. So she could remove the thorn from wherever he'd been hit.
Instead, he recoiled from her touch, choking on pained, gasping breaths of air. "Go away," he rasped. "I don't know you."
Usagi swallowed, hesitantly leaning over him, her fingers brushing back dampened strands of hair from his forehead. "It's me, Mamo-chan," the endearment spilled from her lips as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if, at this moment, when he so desperately needed comfort, calling him that felt right. "It's okay. I'm going to help you."
His body tensed, and his eyes fluttered open. Her breath caught in her throat because it was disconcerting the way he was looking right through her.
"Nobody wants me," he whispered. "I'm by myself. I can't remember if there was ever someone who wanted me."
Usagi couldn't fathom the grief that glistened in his eyes. She hoped to God that whatever he was seeing right now was contrived, a fake vision from an evil soul-sucking creature. She bit back an unbidden whimper because she knew, she knew it with everything in her soul, that this wasn't the case.
"Mamo-chan," she whispered, leaning forward to frame his face in her hands. "Look at me. I'm here. I want you."
She wasn't even lying to him. How odd that she was telling the truth. He blinked, beautiful lashes rustling as his eyes focused for a brief moment on her face.
"Usagi."
His eyes filled with tears, welling for a moment before they spilled and rolled listlessly down his cheeks.
"I can't have Usagi," he whimpered. "I can't have her."
Usagi choked on a pained sob. Her vision obscured with tears as she blindly reached for him. Tugging at his shoulders, pulling his trembling, quivering form into her lap, desperate to comfort him and offer him even a moment of respite from whatever it was that he was seeing.
He didn't fight her. He leaned into her, coiling his arms around her waist, burying his face in her lap. It broke her heart when the proud, stoic, brooding Mamoru Chiba broke into grief-stricken, anguished, heart-wrenching sobs.
"I'm afraid of being alone. It's why I have to find her," he choked, the words muffled and barely audible against the rumpled material of her blue pleated skirt. "She can tell me who I am. That's why I can't have Usagi. Not until I know."
Usagi couldn't take it anymore, and her movements were clumsy, awkward as she maneuvered him carefully, and with great difficulty, out of his green jacket.
She was sobbing with him, tears slipping down her cheeks, and she tried to wipe them away while running her palms over the crisp material of his blue button-up shirt.
He was in agony, incoherent, writhing with his fingers pulling at his hair when she finally found a tear beneath the angled edge of his shoulder blade.
She was desperate, whimpering with relief when her trembling fingers located the protruding thorn, and with a cry of anguish, not knowing if she should even be doing this, she ripped it from his back.
Just like with the black-haired woman, Mamoru tensed for a moment more, sucking in a strangely hollow breath before he collapsed, body going utterly limp as he fell unconscious on the floor.
Usagi's hand shook as she held up the thorn that sizzled, dissipating in thin air.
It took several moments before Usagi could recover, kneeling beside Mamoru's prone body, only his deep, steady breaths and her lingering whimpers piercing the deafening quiet in his apartment.
Her lower lip quivered, and her hand shook as she tenderly caressed the side of his face, still and quiet, burning hotly with a fever.
Usagi didn't have any clue why everything about the raw, aching vulnerability she'd just witnessed had affected her on such a painfully deep level. She didn't know why all she wanted to do was curl up beside him, cradle him in her arms, and make all of his pain go away. Regardless, she'd never been one to shy away from her emotions, and there was no way that she'd be able to forget the intensity of the feelings evoked in her today.
With a determination that she didn't know she possessed, Usagi somehow managed to tug, pull, then guide a half-conscious Mamoru into the apartment's only bedroom, until he fell with a muffled moan into a perfectly made king-sized bed.
Usagi was still shaking when she pulled off his shoes and tucked him under the blankets, chewing her lower lip nervously as she slipped out of his room, hesitantly padding through his apartment.
She was intimidated by the neat, hollow rooms with their bland colors, and without a single personal effect that could help her determine who Mamoru Chiba really was. It broke her heart even more when she flicked on the light in the large, industrial styled kitchen that was devoid of warmth, or anything at all to indicate that a person was living here.
There were no pictures on the walls or counters. No magnets on the front of the large stainless steel fridge. No clutter on polished, shining countertops, nothing at all.
It was disconcerting, and she swallowed as she pulled a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water.
Maybe she was just going crazy. Perhaps this was all just the youma, and Mamoru really was just a cold, heartless baka who liked to get under her skin with his snide comments and his annoying half-smirk that drove her insane.
Usagi was teetering with doubt and indecision as she slipped back into Mamoru's room, gently cradled his neck, and forced him to take a sip of water. She sighed with relief when she noted that his skin already felt cooler to the touch.
He was going to be just fine.
Severely shaken, emotions coursing through her in a complicated tapestry that she didn't understand, Usagi nodded to herself, leaning more towards the disappointing realization that this was probably just because of the youma.
She watched him for only a moment more before she turned to go, leaning forward to place the cup of water on his nightstand.
When she did, she gasped, cup slipping from her fingers as she fixed her gaze onto something she hadn't noticed before.
In a sea of impersonal shades of grey, in a room without a single personal memento that indicated a real, actual person lived here was a crystal vase that held a bouquet of blooming, gorgeous, ruby red roses.
It was at that moment that Usagi Tsukino, heart brimming with emotion, decided that Mamoru Chiba needed her, and God help her, but she needed him too.
The end.