And here we go! Kiss Number 50! (It's a new one.) It's a crazy feeling to hit 'complete' on this story, ngl? Anyway, I hope you enjoy this coffee break, too! Happy Thursday!

A Kiss Out Of Love

"May I have this dance?" he'd asked, holding out his hand to her like the yearning beggar he suddenly was. It felt a little bit like falling to the tide, or maybe like surrendering - and maybe that was the scariest thing of all.

He'd been here for a reason, after all.

"Tuxedo Mask!" she'd cried first, and, "Yes!" she'd cried second, instantly, enthusiastically, her eyes roaming across him as she took his offered hand and he'd led her to the dance floor.

He didn't know why he'd known this was Sailor Moon right away. He didn't know why his brain set out and he was sure, so sure, that at least in this moment, she was also the princess from his dreams, the one waiting for him, however much he never really wanted her to.

In this moment he wanted her to wait for him very, very much.

And so, he led Sailor Moon with pearls in her golden hair and roses attached to the hem of her long gloves and flowing, flowing white silks around her legs, and made her dress flow even more as it swung around her in rippling waves.

He couldn't help the pressing feeling in his chest, the way her smile beamed up at him, the little giggle escaping as he spun her, dipped her, the delighted shriek when he lifted her.

He couldn't help it as all reason slipped away, and the grand ballroom in all its grandly lit decoration suddenly disappeared because all there remained was her.

She stepped on his foot once, twice, and then he lifted her again and swung her around and she wrinkled her nose at him adorably, and for a second she looked like Tsukino Usagi.

And somehow that made sense, too, for just a moment, and made his chest ache even harder.

He'd been here for a reason. He'd been here to find the Silver Crystal and his memories with it, and he didn't have so long until it was to be shown to the crowds at this ball. Time was crucial, and it was slipping between his fingers, and he didn't care and instead swung Sailor Moon across a ballroom filled with people not supposed to see that he was here, and it didn't make sense except for the fact he couldn't not—

She'd looked so sad. He'd had to. And now he couldn't let go.

He didn't know what that feeling was.

He didn't know what it was later, either. When Princess D had been possessed by the Dark Kingdom, fleeing with his price, and he couldn't care less, because he needed to keep Sailor Moon safe. His entire form trembling in the effort to not let her fall, not let her slip.

He didn't know her, not really (except he knew that he did), and here he was willing to fall for her in the most literal sense (and probably the figurative one, too, who was he even kidding?)

But he knew he needed to protect her. Nothing more in the world than that. Not finding a Crystal, not listening to some princess in his dreams. More than anything, he needed to keep Sailor Moon safe.

Somewhere along the lines, his priorities had shifted.

It was her who protected them, then. Something as elegant as an opened umbrella that made them glide softly to the grass, his arms around her.

Her small smile and flushed cheeks and curling eyelashes as she flicked her eyes back up to him when they'd not died after all, it seemed, and he suddenly understood what the feeling was, and it made the pounding in his heart even more unbearing.

May I have more than this dance?

Her smile slipped into astonishment when he leaned down with wide, shocked eyes, and she leaned up. Slipped into open wonder when he tilted her face up by a single gloved finger to her chin and gazed into eyes that he knew he should ought to be recognizing, eyes he felt might have the answer to everything he'd ever asked.

And then her eyes fluttered shut and shut him out, and he leaned in to have her lips instead. And maybe he was wrong — maybe it wasn't her eyes that held his answers, maybe it was her kiss, if he kissed her long enough.

Or the sigh she whispered into his mouth, or the way her lips brushed against his more and more insistently, or the way she opened her mouth to him and he felt like drowning, or the way her hands tightened against his back and his hand slipped along her face into her hair and the pearls and the way it just all felt so familiar and like this was where he finally belonged and—

It was a terrible idea. They might be enemies. Sailor Moon was after exactly the same thing he was after.

But he was also in love with her, and so he kissed her some more, kissed her until her lips were swollen and he was chased away by a magical talking cat, completely missing his chance to find what was perhaps a magical crystal they both sought.

She didn't protest.

Obvious Setting Tag: Classic (specifically, Episode 22)

So, for this last kiss I decided to re-create the first canon kiss in a way that I liked better (since, ya know, that one didn't age well in EITHER version, anime or manga!) So, have this instead!

(Also, I wrote almost all the kisses with my dancing Usamamo statue sitting on my desk keeping me inspired - so it's only fitting they appear in the final one!)

Anyway! This is it! 50 kisses, here they finally are! Thank you to everyone who has supported me through this, and for everyone who's still reading this: I would love to hear what you think! They are all set throughout canon and can all be viewed as moments within this canon stories - the Silmil ones especially are all glimpses into the same narrative, at different points in time. I know these kisses are short individually, but I hope you can value these stories as the big narrative they represent (or just the small moments they show, too!)

I really hope you enjoyed this, and I would love to hear if you did! It's been a somewhat rocky road for me (and I'll admit I'm somewhat wary to try a daily posting thing again in the future, ngl - it's really been up and down for me!) But THANK YOU to everyone who encouraged me when I was down about these! Thank you to everyone who took and takes the time to review my writing and lets me know it's appreciated, and thank you for the MANY LOVELY PEOPLE who supported me so fully when I asked my very rude daily anon on tumblr to please stop telling me these kisses are trash day in and day out - the response to that was overwhelming and I felt so, so, so loved.

I do have a few "spares" left - sometimes I wrote a prompt twice, but for this of course then only chose one version. I'm contemplating whether or not to add these bonus kisses onto here as well (or if that's silly), but I'll probably let them sit for a while and think it through, and take a few days off. It's been a ride, and thank you for everyone who rode it with me!