Title: A Kiss In The Dark
Author:Princess Destiny
Email: In Profile
Author's Homepage: destinysgateway DOT com
Rating: M 15+
Summary: 'One Hour Challenge' #1 and 657 Combined: Response Fanfic. Eleven years ago, Mamoru's father married Usagi's mother. It's now almost Usagi's sixteenth birthday and she has to juggle her secret life as Sailor Moon, on top of school and a job at Motoki's shop. Her life is turned even more upside down when she begins to suspect the masked hero she is falling in love with is actually her awful step-brother!
Genre:Romance/UST/Comedy/Adventure/Action/Angst
Couple:Usagi/Mamoru
Category:SMTK
Chapters:17/?
Status:Unfinished
Year Completed: N/A
Size:401 KB

Comments: Hi everyone! Here is Chapter Seventeen. Sorry it took a week, but I've been suffering from a really bad migraine that still hasn't gone. This Chapter will be sort of a fill in, and Mamoru's real feelings will be explored in the next Chapter in his conversation with Rei. The Chapter hasn't been edited, since I wanted to get it out fast to you and I can't tell when I'll be able to write because of the migraine. When the edit is done, I'll post it up here.

Thank you everyone who reviewed for my Fanfic 'Never Talk To Strangers'. It was far more popular than I could have dreamed of when I posted it, so I'm considering either extending the story into a larger one, or doing a Sequel.

Thank you's: To Lisa, my editor. And to Usa, who I bounce my ideas off of, and get brilliant feedback in return.

Got a Sailor Moon Fanfic? Come on over to destinysgateway DOT com,
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A KISS IN THE DARK

By Princess Destiny

Chapter Seventeen

Luna was pacing back and forth in the room when her charge finally came through the window. Usagi looked breathless, and her eyes were red. "Young lady! Where have you-"

"Go easy on her, Luna!" Sailor Jupiter hissed from outside. She stuck her head in briefly and gave Usagi a thumbs up for encouragement, then she disappeared again.

The black cat stared. "Why is Makoto transformed?" She said in astonishment. What exactly was going on here?

"Shh," The Senshi of the Moon hissed, looking about in a hunted manner. She rushed back to the window and pulled it down, then she went to the wall behind her dresser and stuck her head against it. She didn't hear anything from the bathroom next door, but she knew from experience, that the walls weren't as thick and she could hope for. Especially when discussing something her family shouldn't know.

"Well, I must say you're acting very strange, Usagi," Red eyes rolled skywards in exasperation. "You have had your mother quite worried, you know."

It was the blonde girl's turn to do the staring, her eyebrows raised. "Huh?" She said intelligently. Her eyes went to her bedside clock and she winced when she saw it was past nine o'clock. "Oh, I really passed my curfew." She admitted sheepishly. "But it was important."

"Oh?" For once, the cat didn't look critical. Instead, she looked rather concerned. "Does this have anything to do with Mamoru and you being in his room earlier?" She questioned softly, remembering her conversation with Ikuko. To her surprise, her charge went rather pale in the face.

"You-you heard us?" Usagi whispered, hands going to her cheeks. She was both humiliated and apprehensive at the thought that her guardian had heard-or seen-something very personal.

"Ikuko heard something-rather uncomfortable." Luna murmured, looking away for a moment. After a bracing cup of tea, and some very nice biscuits she had fed to Luna, their mother had spoken about what she had heard. Something very bad had happened to the two children; words exchanged and perhaps more. But she was inclined to keep her thoughts and that of the blue-haired woman, to herself. If Usagi knew that her mother suspected that she was having very 'unsisterly' feelings towards Mamoru...she would be devastated. Chances were that the blonde didn't realise just what it was that was going on between them.

The Senshi of the Moon sank down onto her bed, hands shaking. Oh god, what had her mother heard? She had been calling about dinner just before the kissing incident, so of course she would have been outside the door. Why hadn't she or Mamoru considered that fact? "Oh?" She said weakly, not able to loo her cat in the eyes. "Just what-did she hear?" Usagi almost didn't want to ask just how much her mother had heard.

"Probably just the end of it. Mamoru was apologising, but when Ikuko opened the door, you weren't there." Luna began to run her tongue over her shoulder in order to sooth herself. It was a nervous habit she had acquired. Being the guardian for the Senshi was stressing enough, without the dramas going on under this roof. Kenji and Ikuko's secret fights, Shingo's insecurities, the two siblings with their own problems, not to mention one of them was the Leader of the Sailor Senshi!

"Oh..." Usagi muttered again, mind rather blank. But then some of Luna's words sank in. "Mamoru apologised?" She said, leaning forward on the bed, her blue eyes wide and amazed. Her step-brother had said sorry? But she hadn't heard a thing. "I'd already left." She said aloud, figuring it out. He had been distressed enough over the incident, that he had called an apology after her? Or had he said it to himself, knowing she couldn't hear it?

Her brows came together in a thunderous frown. "Isn't it just like him-" She exclaimed, throwing up her hands. "He says sorry, and I'm not there to hear it." She paused. "But it was his fault really. All of it. No, it was sort of mine. I was so stupid. Honestly, I was dressed as the girl he is crushing on, what did I expect?" After this rambling speech, her cat looked poleaxed and Usagi flopped back onto her back and covered her eyes with one arm.

She wanted to see him, to know if he really was sorry.

But she also never wanted to be around him again!

What a mess. The bed depressed slightly under Luna's weight, and a moment later, the cat sat on her chest. "You're heavy." She said absently, knowing that her guardian was most likely fixing her with a steely gaze. She was really scary sometimes!

"I am only getting bits and pieces of this whole debacle and I tell you plainly that I am not amused." Luna said through gritted teeth. She nudged at the arm over her charge's face. "Tsukino Usagi!" She ordered. "You will look at me this instant. I am quite out of patience with you."

The cat's angry tone break through Usagi's misery like a dose of cold water. Combined with her rather stilted tone that she only took when she was extremely displeased about something, the blonde reacted right away. She jerked her arm down, eyes wide. "I do beg your pardon, Luna." She winced and waited for the tongue-lashing she usually received when she showed Luna disrespect.

For a few seconds, the cat and the human stared into each other's eyes, a feeling of deja vu stealing over them both. For a minute there, Luna's tone, and Usagi's response had sounded as if it had happened a million times in the past. The cat's dialogue had changed slightly to a more archaic one, and the blonde's response had been said with utmost politeness and reverence, not to mention it had been spoken with a slight accent.

"You-you sounded quite different for a minute there, Usagi," The cat gave a nervous laugh. For a moment, someone else seemed to be speaking from the blonde's lips, and it had been in response to her own words and tone, which had been much more courtly in the past. But Usagi didn't know about her past as a Sailor Senshi on the Moon. Was it possible that some memories had come through with the reincarnation? Excited by the prospect, Luna couldn't wait to report this one to Control.

"Umm, let's get back to the current crisis, Luna," Usagi said with unease, not sure she liked how things had just gone. It had almost sounded like the people in her dreams. The ones she almost always never remembered, but sometimes things stuck. Like dancing in ballrooms. A tall, handsome man speaking to her in a massive rose garden. And speaking with magnificently-dressed men and women in styles from long past civilisations. This sometimes scared her, the memories of her dreams. Could they actually be memories? Luna had given them a little information about the Senshi, enough to hint that they had also been warriors on the Moon Kingdom a thousand years ago.

"So, mom heard him apologise, but nothing else?" She held her breath expectantly, hoping that had been all. Luna and Ikuko would want answers, so Usagi had to think about how much to tell them. And how much not.

Luna's eyebrows snapped down over her red eyes in a penetrating look. "That's right. So what are the parts that she didn't hear about, Usagi?"

"Luna..." Usagi whispered, a look of anguish in her eyes. She put her hands on either side of her cat's furry waist and pulled her down till she was laying fully extended on her charge's chest, and they were now eye to eye. "I'll tell you everything, but please don't judge us. And don't interrupt till I'm done."

"Alright," The guardian cat said solemnly, seeing that this meant a lot to Usagi. "I promise. But when we're done, you go down and tell your parents that you're home." When the girl winced, she sighed. "I don't think Ikuko is planning to grill you over what she overheard earlier. She told me only, whom she thinks of as an animal who can't talk."

"I'm going to be grounded." Usagi groaned. School was in the morning, and she had come home late! She would have to see her step-brother in the morning, there was no avoiding it. But maybe she could pack on the super speed and get to school ahead of him. Apart from him hunting her down at lunch-time, when it was easy enough to hide from him, he would not be able to talk with her all day! Perfect. Because she had no great urge to see him, speak to him, or even play pranks on him right now.

The kiss and what had come after had worn her out, and she would have no defences against him. If he touched her, as he inevitably did in his affectionate way, she might not be able to hide her reaction. The fear on her face would only make things worse...for them both.

Mamoru's eyes cracked open and he immediately winced as the bright sunlight hit his sensitive eyeballs. His migraine, apparently, had worsened during the night. And no wonder! He vaguely remembered arguing with someone. Forhours. In his sleep. Yes, there had been some raised voices, some angry tones, and a lot of conversation with heated words.

A vision of a golden-haired beauty popped into his head and it all made sense all of a sudden. The Moon Princess! He had been arguing with her in the ruins of the palace she always summoned him to when he went to sleep. At least, he thought it was him she had been upset with. Sometimes, he felt as if he was someone else entirely in the dream. Someone called Endymion.

"Why...was she angry? And him-me. I don't remember a thing." The dark-haired teen groaned and covered his eyes with his hand. The sun this time of the morning was unreasonably cheerful. It made him want to throw a pillow at the birds chirping outside. He had gone to sleep with the curtains drawn back, so his room was flooded with the morning light.

"Mamoru! Get the heck up!" Shingo called through his door.

His brother's irritated tone didn't sink in at first. "Why?" Mamoru called back, bewildered. Shingo never bothered to tell him to get up on Sunday... "It's Monday!" He suddenly bolted upright, wincing as the pain in his head got worse. Damn it! He had school. A quick look at the clock alerted him to the fact that he was currently running late.

Usagi was going to be late too, most probably. He was the one to wake her every morning, with more and more devious incentives.

Oh...

Last night's events came back to him full force and his face paled. Good lord, she was never going to look him in the eyes again. What if she was afraid of him now? After a night spent in a deep sleep, with that bizarre encounter with the Princess, things looked a little calmer for him. He was still majority freaked out that Usagi and he had shared a kiss.

"I'm an idiot." He whispered, throwing back the covers and staggering to his feet. His eyes looked about blearily for some pain killers, before he remembered they were down in the kitchen. "Need tylenol." Mamoru moaned, moving towards the door. It was then that he realised he was still wearing yesterday's clothes. He tried to recall even going to bed, but no memory surfaced. Only the kiss-and then nothing.

A blackout? Memory loss? This wasn't good. Maybe his headaches were trying to tell him he had a brain tumour or something? It was a very scary thought. The dark-haired man fumbled at the door knob and finally got it open.

To his astonishment, his sister came barrelling past, fully clothed. She skidded to a halt when her eyes met his and a brief apprehension lit her blue eyes. "Usagi-" Mamoru began, not exactly sure what he was going to say, but determined to wipe that fearful look from her face.

Usagi held up a hand to stop his faltering words, then backed away when he tried to take a hold of it. "Don't touch me right now." She whispered, holding her hand behind her back as if he would grab it forcefully. When her brother looked absolutely anguished, her eyes softened. "Sorry Mamoru, but..." The blonde sighed and side-stepped him neatly. She backed down the hall, keeping a wary gaze on him. "I'm going to school first." She told him, turning to leave.

Something occurred to her, and she turned back. "You look awful, big brother," She advised him with a crooked smile. His eyes were glazed over with pain, and his hair was sticking up every which way. He looked very unlike her unruffled, impeccably-dressed brother. Usagi didn't like it one bit. "The pain killers are in the cupboard over the glasses."

She'd noticed? Even without wanting him anywhere near her, due to what had happened last night, Usagi had seen that he had a huge migraine? His lips turned up in a smile as she turned around and raced down the hall with her school bag dangling from one hand. It wasn't forgiveness she had offered him-yet. But she wasn't acting as if she was petrified of him. That was something.

"Thank you, Usagi," The upperclassman whispered, his expression relaxing a little. It wasn't much, but it was something.

When he stumbled into the kitchen, his mother had a cup of coffee waiting. And the tylenol, bless Usagi for her kind heart!

"You look like death warmed over." Ikuko noted, concerned by how haggard her seventeen year old looked. If she hadn't known exactly what sort of sensible guy she had raised, she would have thought he'd been out on the town last night, drinking his sorrows away. "Perhaps you should stay home today, Mamoru?" She suggested kindly.

Her son sank into a chair gratefully, and pulled his coffee towards him. She slid the tylenol along the table-cloth in his direction, the fetched him a glass of what to take them with. "Thanks mom," Mamoru murmured, squinting towards the kitchen window. It had the flimsiest of curtains, and didn't block out the sunlight at all. "I need my sunglasses." He rasped, half-covering his face.

Ikuko's eyes sharpened. Mamoru was never usually this bad with a migraine, although he had come close. "Back to bed, young man." She told him grimly, reaching for his elbow. He slid to his feet obediently, eyes surprised at her actions.

"My coffee-" He protested, gazing down at the steaming cup longingly. Just a few sips and he would be fine!

"-Will make you worse," The blue-haired woman scolded. She wrapped her hand about his upper arm and guided him back the way he had come. Mamoru went unprotestingly after that, and it made her even more concerned. After helping him get his shirt off, and into a t-shirt, because his hands were shaking, she put him to bed and headed back downstairs for his pain killers.

Ikuko put a hand to her cheek. "Usagi was headachy today too," She mused, remembering what she had overheard last night through Mamoru's bedroom door. It wasn't any wonder that both of her children were suffering from a stress headache. Her daughter, however, had been absolutely determined to go to school, no matter how dreadful she felt. It was sort of scary coming from a girl who didn't like getting out of bed on any day of the week.

But it had been equally clear that Usagi didn't want to be around her brother right now.

The blue-haired woman sighed deeply, then scooped up the tablets and water and went back upstairs. While she was gone, Mamoru had closed the curtains so that he was left in the gloom of an almost-dark room. The curtains for himself and Usagi had been made especially for this situation, and blocked out a good deal of the light from outside. "Here you go, dear," She said softly, bringing the tylenol to his lips. He took them both at the same time, and only sipped down the water.

"Thanks mom, I think I really need to be in bed right now," Mamoru murmured, closing his eyes against her sympathetic look. It was somehow more than a concern over his migraine, and he knew that his mother had divined that there was a deeper problem at hand.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Ikuko asked gently, wishing he would open up to her. She knew he was troubled much more than a normal guy his age would be. Her son had a huge burden on his shoulders, just like Usagi did. But she said nothing of this, waiting for her children to come to her.

"About what?" Mamoru said sharply. He groaned and lay back, waiting for his throbbing temples to go down a little. Moving was bad. But-did his mother know something about what had happened last night with Usagi? He was never quite sure just how much she had guessed about what went on in her children's lives.

The blue-haired woman was silent for so long, it seemed as if she hadn't heard him. "Never mind, Mamoru. You get some sleep." Ikuko said finally, affection in her voice. She smoothed a hand over his hair, and then rose to her feet. He would talk to her when he was ready. "Your sister was bad today, as well." Her comment was almost off-hand.

Mamoru's eyes popped back open, his body tensing. Usagi had been headachy too? And he hadn't even noticed! "Damn it. She went to school, didn't she?" He said accusingly, throwing back the covers.

His mother made a surprised sound in her throat, and calmly shoved him back onto the mattress. "I'll take care of your sister, if the need arises. Stay right where you are, young man." She ordered in the 'mother' tone. Her kids weren't stupid enough to ignore that tone!

"That idiot!" The dark-haired man raged, feeling angry at his sister. She had gone, to get away from him, even feeling as bad as she did right then! "She didn't need to go that far to get away from me." He said quietly, somehow hurt. Had their relationship been damaged that badly? And what about her arm? Had the Senshi fixed it up for her? What if they'd done a bodgy job and she was bleeding again?

Ikuko's voice hardened as she sensed her son was about to surge to his feet again. "If I have to tie you to the bed to stay there and rest, I will!" She threatened, mind actually going to the garden shed, where she knew there was a coil of unused rope.

Mamoru blinked up at her, not able to see her expression in the darkness, but certainly recognising her tone. She was running out of patience, and he was acting like a moron. "Sorry," He apologised sheepishly, pulling the covers up to his chin. She patted him on the head and quietly left the room. The door was closed rather firmly, indicating that she would take no more of his nonsense.

Rei walked up to the front door of the Tsukino's residence about midday. She had skipped out on school, in order to help her best friend. Usagi was very worried about her brother being all alone and no one to talk with. "Usagi, you're so kind. After what he did to you." She said with a warm smile.

She rang the doorbell and after a minute or so, Ikuko answered.

"Rei?" Usagi's mother said in surprise. What on earth was her daughter's friend doing here at this time of the day? "Don't you have school young lady?" Her words came out rather disapproving.

The raven-haired girl flushed and bit her lip, wondering if the woman had any idea of what had gone on under her nose the night before. Probably not, or she would be freaking out. It wasn't every day that a brother and sister shared a kiss. A very damaging one at that. She winced. "I had to take some time off to do Temple duties for grandpa while he's away," She responded truthfully. It was only a half truth, but easier than an outright lie.

"Oh?" Ikuko smiled at her and gestured inside. "Please come in for a cup of tea and tell me why you're here."

Rei walked inside, very familiar with Usagi's house. She took off her shoes and used the guest slippers in the hall cupboard. "Actually, I came to see Mamoru." She murmured, obediently following the older woman into the living room.

"Mamoru?" The blue-haired woman again looked very surprised. She stopped and faced Rei. "He's in bed with a very bad migraine."

"I know. Usagi told me,"

This surprised Usagi's mother, who had not known her daughter realised Mamoru was in a bad way. Her daughter also had a bad head today and had taken some pain-killers before leaving. "I'm sorry Rei, but my son is most likely be asleep." She had to refuse to let this girl see Mamoru, as he was in a great deal of pain.

"Please, I brought some things that will help him, and I can try a Shinto healing spell." The Senshi of Mars said urgently. When Ikuko's eyes softened only slightly, she threw in her trump card. "Mrs. Tsukino, I'm not sure if you know, but Mamoru and Usagi had a big fight last night. Mamoru will need someone to talk to, so we decided I would be the one to come." She sighed and looked at the carpet in embarrassment. "I had a crush on your son a while ago, so we sort of almost dated. He'll talk to me."

Well, well, this was news to her! So, Mamoru and Rei had been involved somehow? "My children," She said rather dryly, "Have a habit of keeping these sorts of things to themselves."

"I'm sure they don't mean to," Rei said hastily, not wanting to be the reason their family might be at odds. "Can I see him?"

"Sure, go on ahead. But if he's asleep, you'll have to come back another time, dear." Ikuko gave her reluctant consent and watched the girl, a bag in her hand, ascend the stairs to the second floor. Luna came padding into the room then, curiosity in her eyes. "Usagi's friend Rei came calling-for Mamoru." She told the cat, somewhat disbelieving. "Apparently Rei and Mamoru had a 'thing'"

Luna's red eyes widened. They had? This was also news to her. But if the girl thought she could help Mamoru, then perhaps it was worth a try.

To Be Continued...

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Hugs,
Princess Destiny