Happy Wednesday, everyone! :D The last kiss and this kiss were written pretty much WEEKS apart, and yet together in this order of the original prompt list, they paint kind of a similar scene in different points of time. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
A Kiss As A Promise
The rain was beating against the window in distracting rhythms and Usagi kept turning in Mamoru's bed.
Sleep was something comforting in her life. One of her bestestest of friends. Always easy. But tonight, sleep wouldn't come.
Here and there the moon slipped between the heavy rain clouds, illuminating her in a way that felt like it sought her out. Mamoru grunted when she shifted again, lifted one sleep-heavy arm, and - in gruff, annoyed and sleepy movements - slapped it across her tummy and drew her close to him and pin her down all at the same time.
His skin was soft and warm and puffy from sleep and a little sticky from the humidity that came with rainy season and a summer night. He grunted again when she turned under his arm and adjusted the thin sheet that covered her fully and him only half. She pressed a kiss to his bopping Adam's apple, burrowing her face in the crook of his neck, and he smacked his lips in his disturbed sleep and grunted again.
"Mamo-chan?" she whispered as low as the pitter-patter of the rain, small and puffy against his throat.
No reaction.
"Mamo-chan?" she tried again. "Are you awake?"
Stupid question. Of course he wasn't. She sighed again and snaked an arm around his warm waist and beneath the hem of the loose tank top he wore to sleep, and along the hem of his small cotton boxer briefs.
Her hands were cooler from the air conditioning and much cooler than his heated skin, and he more or less unconsciously leaned into her touch and sighed.
She trailed her hand further up the inside of his shirt and his arms twitched and drew her just a little closer.
"Hmmmm," he half grunted, half sighed, voice deep and hoarse and scratchy, shifting his cheek against her hair, and she felt the noise rumble through his throat with her ear and mouth pressed against the crook of his neck.
"Mamo-chan?" she tried once more, whispering against his skin.
This time, he moved with a deep inhale, twisting his warm, naked thighs half into the sheets and half against her own legs as he stretched.
"Mhh-hmmm?" he grunted, thick with sleep.
She twisted her fingers into his tank top from the inside, pulling just a little, and moved her head just that little bit out of the crook of his neck and onto the shared pillow, talking to his chin. "Do you ever worry?" she whispered.
He smacked his lips again, breathing deep. Eyes closed, his voice came slow and clumsy and heavy. "'Bout what?" he managed.
She sighed deeply and twisted his shirt a little further, her fist brushing against the sweat-cooled skin just above the small of his back.
"About… about the future?"
She worried her lip and it must have carried in her tone, because his eyes blinked open sleepily and he shifted his cheek on the pillow to look at her drowsily.
He moved his chin down and bopped his nose against hers in sleepy challenge.
"What do you mean?" he rasped. His voice wasn't quite awake, either. His eyes had trouble staying open, drooping heavily even as his hand slipped down to push at her butt to drag her closer.
She let herself get pulled against him fully and slipped her thighs back against his. The thin T shirt of his that she wore as a night shirt had ridden up to her belly, and his hand stroked sleepily up the side of it, palm flat on her skin, stretching out as he stretched again and exhaled deeply.
"I'm…" she started, then frowned, and started again. This was hard to put into words - something that was all feeling. "If it comes the way we saw it and at the same time THAT it comes the way we saw it?"
Yeah, that made no sense to anyone not in her head.
"The future, I mean."
But his eyes blinked open, now more awake, and he shifted onto his elbow, throwing her a frown of his own.
She scrunched up her nose, shook her head, and pushed at his elbow. "This is stupid. Go back to sleep."
His frown deepened, hair falling insistently into his eyes. "Usa…"
Her lips fell into a pout and she exhaled through her nose.
When he lowered his elbow back onto the pillow and pillowed his cheek against it, but didn't close his eyes and didn't erase the frown from them, she sighed and tried to put it into words again. A little better this time, maybe.
She untangled her hand from the back of his shirt and smoothed it against his side, only a shadow visible that moved the fabric from inside his tank top. He ignored it completely, heavy-lidded eyes fixed on her in expectation.
Her thumb found the small raised birthmark on his side blindly and stroked up and down across it.
"You wouldn't even give me cactus-duty when you were on your summer job last month, Mamo-chan," she finally spoke, low and carefully. "You went out of your way to get all your plants to Mako-chan, down to the cactus, even though I have a key."
She didn't say it in an accusing tone. More matter of fact. And it seemed to confuse him. His brow creased into the small bundle of wrinkled skin that pooled between his eyebrows, but he didn't say anything.
"I can't even keep plants alive," she breathed dejectedly. "I'm gonna be the worst queen the world could ask for."
His frown deepened, turning into a silent stare that was almost unnerving if it weren't for the soft strokes along the side of her belly.
She swallowed, alternating between his eyes, meeting his stare.
She blinked, almost startled, when he finally spoke, and she realised the rain had slowed. It thrummed a little calmer now.
His eyes were fully awake now, his hand lifting to cradle her cheek. "You'll be the best queen this world could wish for, Usako."
She scoffed.
"I mean it," he said with a deep frown.
It was her turn to frown back, and he pursed his lips and moved his thumb to try and smooth out the frowny lines across her forehead. It was a lost cause, but he persevered.
"You're exactly what the world needs," he whispered. "Inspiring, loving compassion and humble gentleness where currently there's power-hungry greed and cold-hearted, ruthless 'interests'. You love the world and the people and want to protect every last person in it."
Her brow puckered under his gentle strokes. "But…" she started to argue.
He interrupted her.
"I sometimes worry if it's too much to ask of you, though."
She blinked hard once and stared at him hard in surprise, her face moving slightly on the pillow.
He sighed, tilted his head slightly, eyes on his moving thumb and the lines on her forehead. "I wonder if the world deserves you. I'm terrified it will exploit you. Tear you down."
Her mouth popped open. "Mamo-chan…" she breathed, taken aback.
He pressed his lips to her frowny lines, to the ridged brow and the crumpled, tense bit of skin between her eyebrows, and pressed the softest kiss to it, and then another and another.
His lips were soft and gentle, and his hand in the back of her neck was not; it was hard and insistent and pressing into her tense neck.
It finally did the trick to smooth all the worry lines away and let them untense for a bit.
Another kiss, and another, all to the same spot above the bridge of her nose where the tension and the worry sat.
"I'll try my best to protect you all the way, Usako," he whispered, his lips remaining on that spot. "I promise."
Obvious Setting Tag: Post-Stars