multifandommuseroulette​:

Between Hikawa Shrine and the park… he could do that. Kain took in a slow breath and reached for the energy simmering under his skin, for the power he knew he still had, and brought it to bear.

The room blurred.

Everything blurred, sounds rushing by like he had stuck his head out the window on the highway, a jumbled, meaningless mess. It was a clumsier teleportation than he could have remembered doing since he was a child, but it worked.

He heard the scream, saw the… thing bearing down on Minako. On his Venus.

Not today, bastard. Kain snarled and launched himself between Minako and the creature. His blade made a wide arching slash and he felt the resistance of the creature’s more solid form. Felt his body protest the movements it hadn’t done in ages, even as Beryl’s general he hadn’t wielded a sword. But he did now. To defend her.

Minako’s eyes widened, feeling her energy getting drained by the monster as it held her in place. She felt totally useless and weak as a single tear rolled down her cheek- that was until she saw a movement from the corner of her eyes. 

How was that possible? Was she dreaming? “Kain?!” she called out when he launched himself between her and the creature with what looked like a sword in his hands. It really was him, he came.. for her. 

The monster wasn’t happy about the little surprise attack at all and it irked him that someone even dared to hurt him. Another loud growl escaped its mouth, showing its sharp fang-like teeth as if trying to scare off his opponent. Minako could tell that whatever it was, was stronger than the last enemies they had to deal with and she somehow new that the woman wasn’t the first victim to get her energy drained. 

“Kain! Careful!!” she called out in pure shock as she saw the creature turn back to a shadow figure and suddenly disappearing just to appear behind him, turning back to its solid body again to attack him from behind with its wolf-like claws. 

“NO!” 

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“I…” Mamoru shook his head slowly, a small smile beginning to light his face with a look of wonder. “I’d wondered what had happened… I never imagined they’d be alive. After all this time…”

And what, hiding? Ashamed that Beryl had, once again, caught them vulnerable and brainwashed them? He’d been there, he knew what it was like, now, and wouldn’t - couldn’t - hold it against them. “Yes, I want them at the wedding. I want to see them again, to have them back…”

He tried not to envy Usagi, but knowing what he’d had, and lost before he could even appreciate it, made it a little hard sometimes to see her surrounded by the love and support of her senshi. He wanted his shitennou - his brothers - back so badly it ached. “When can we see them? Do you have a contact number?”

She had Kunzite’s, or rather Kain’s, but the question was if he was allowed to have it yet. Kunzite had always preferred to pick when confrontations happened himself, and while this wasn’t going to be a confrontation per se, it was still the sort of thing he knew the older (was he still older?) man preferred on his own terms.

Minako’s eyes sparkled so brightly, everyone could tell how happy she was to hear that they wanted the other four men at the wedding. She was so relieved that this went so well, that everyone was so welcoming and excited to meet them again. “I have his number. He actually asked me to give it to you.” she fished out a little note with his number on it and handed it over to the taller male. 

“We can arrange a meeting. I know you guys are busy too but it would be great if we could see them before the wedding. I will call Kain tonight and talk to him about it if that’s okay with you guys.” the blonde girl asked and looked at her friends who responded with a nod. 

Usagi gave her fiance a loving look, she was smiling brightly from ear to ear. She was just so happy for him, so excited that he would finally have his brothers by his side too and the girls would have their destined lovers back again. It all felt so surreal.. it felt like a dream. “Mamo-chan.” the young woman took his hand and gave it a soft squeeze, that smile never leaving her lips. “Let’s make this happen. Let’s finally meet them.” 

more or less

Back with another ficlet. Another mod gift, this one for @galaxylily over at @ssminibang❤️

title: more or less

fandom: Sailor Moon

characters/ships: Venus x Kunzite

rating:PG-13?

Sometimes after he’s touched her there lingers a taste in his mouth like hot metal. How he imagines the taste of the earth’s ancient core, or of stones that sometimes fall from the sky.

more or less

…

The sun lays a heavy palm on their heads, pressing their eyes closed, but even so the cloudless sky throbs painful blue behind his eyelids. Beside him she lies dozing, or daydreaming. The air smells strongly of salt and cypress; green sea glimmers around them. He hears murmurs of others on the barge, the creak and groan of sun-frayed rope.

“Is this the water you were born on?”

Daydreaming, then. Kunzite doesn’t open his eyes.

“Yes. On a barge like this.” Her bare arm grazing along his, the fine cut of muscle, sweat-damp. “The priests said it was an auspicious birth. This sea is holy.”

“Of course they did.” She sounds amused. “They probably weren’t thinking of your mother. Surrounded by men mouthing incantations, laboring on a rickety old boat.”

He can feel her breathing down along his side where they are pressed together shoulder to knee, the light quick blooming and closing of her ribcage. He imagines her expression, serene with only a single marring thread of tension sewing together her fair high brows as she thinks about this, this thing to which Kunzite himself truthfully has never given a single thought.

“My father expected it.” A breeze moves over his face as he speaks, pulling the words up and away from him, thinning them apart. “Here that is a woman’s duty.”

A hum, flutter of tension from her bicep through her calf like a current, and then nothing more. The linen of her gown scratches his side. She wears the loose drape and few jewels of this place, and probably the men on the barge think she is a mistress, highborn and languid, kept for pleasure. She could be that, her skin is smooth, limbs long, feet dainty; she looks like a lady his mother might have chosen, a vessel to carry his seed to sea. She yawns when tired, perspires in heat, eats and drinks and swims the waves. Hard to sense it unless you get close: the lambent rushing of power off of her, as though her blood is pressed from stars.

Sometimes after he’s touched her there lingers a taste in his mouth like hot metal. How he imagines the taste of the earth’s ancient core, or of stones that sometimes fall from the sky.

When darkness traverses his eyes he knows she has lifted her arms to the sun, is perhaps shading her face, or examining her hands. On her thumb always there is a soft beaten metal ring she had pulled off his finger, sometime and somewhere after they first met, in the gardens of starry jasmine or in a camp tent or in her bed, Kunzite can’t recall. It was his father’s ring until he died and then his mother’s, and then his after that for a long, long time. He doesn’t know why she took it. Why he’s never asked for it back. The backs of his eyelids slowly pulse a deep, fleshly red. One side of his body cools, bereft of her strange heat.

“I don’t think I could be a woman.”

When Venus speaks the wind seems to stop. His imagination, of course, and yet, her words - resound.

“I don’t expect you to be less than you are,” Kunzite replies, honestly.

He senses her gaze swinging onto him then, the cut glint of her golden eyes. He keeps his own eyes closed, body loose and prone; he feels her curious, predatory attention as the tip of a claw. She doesn’t speak. Overhead the gulls scream. After some moments, her small, cool hand closes over his, and he feels the dig of his own ring into his knuckle. It’s not gentle.

“Or more,” she murmurs.

Kunzite doesn’t know what he hears in her voice, then: if it’s the sound of warning, or only regret.

options

another day, another gift! this one’s for the marvelous @leondaltons, one of the hardworking mods at @ssminibang and truly one of the loveliest people in this little corner of fandom. enjoy!

title:options
fandom: Sailor Moon
characters/ships: Minako/Venus x reincarnated!Kunzite, with a side of reincarnated!Nephrite 
rating: R for some slightly limey content

Khaleid knows better than to try and keep her to himself when she’s in this state; it would be like trying to put a mountain lion to bed, or swallow the sun.

options

At night they go to a bar Nacio recommends. Dark, cramped, and dirty, just like all the places Nacio likes, “run by Argentines,” he says dismissively, “so the asado’s not bad.” He comes along, too, “to get them a seat” but Khaleid suspects it’s for dinner on their dime. He orders expansively: ribeyes, chorizo, morcilla, salad to share. Two bottles of Salta red. The three squeeze into a table for two on the sidewalk, where it smells smoky from the grill out back. Nacio and Mina’s knees bump under the table; Khaleid turns his outward, facing the curb. He lights a cigarette, watches the crowds on the street thicken curdlike, chattering and laughing. He feels out of place and terribly old. It’s past midnight. Music - music everywhere.

“I like this wine,” says Mina, a bottle and some later, a little drunk or pretending to be. Not easy for Khaleid to tell, even among friends. Her eyes are bright, hectic. “A lot. What is it?”

Nacio grins. “This, madame, is a noble Bordeaux varietal made in the Argentinean style.” Across the street, a busker sends a pointedly hopeful twang of his guitar in their direction. “Tobacco, vanilla bean, ripe black cherries.” Their friend looks thoughtful. “A little horse shit.”

When Mina laughs her head tips all the way back and it sounds like two glasses striking each other on the edge of excessive force, ringing and anticipatory. It’s how she laughs when she wants you to know what a good time she’s having, and very likely she is, snatching bites of beef and vinegared tomatoes out of their pink juices, washing them down with mouthfuls of wine. Khaleid knows better than to try and keep her to himself when she’s in this state; it would be like trying to put a mountain lion to bed, or swallow the sun. She has innumerable moods, some even tending to tranquility. Later he’ll have her, in the turmeric light staining the dark hotel window. She’ll come down slow, arms wound about his neck, her gaze warming. She’ll touch the hair escaping his tail, his temple, her thumb on his cheekbone; sighing, soft.

Or perhaps she’ll kick open the door and yank him inside, press him to the wall and slide her hand down his trousers. She’ll be insistent, combative, the slim knife of her heel grazing a warning along his calf and her teeth at his ear; always knowing the exact mileage between where he is and the dark precipice to which she can drive him. Her hands are small but not soft. They’ll close around his collar and pull, backing them up to the nearest flat surface, and anyone looking in from the outside would think he was the one walking her to it. She is ardent but precise: desire has its cadence, its thrums and pauses, and like any player, even when in its throes, she can’t help but play. The knowledge that she goes further with him than with anyone is more than enough. Khaleid knows better than to ask her to be who she can’t be.

After they’ve done she’ll stretch herself out along his side and fall deeply asleep, instantaneous. Like a light being flicked off, throaty little snores emptied between his shoulder and neck. Or she’ll stare up at the dark ceiling a moment, eyes flaring wide, then fling herself resolutely into the shower, the room billowing with the steam off her skin. Neither of these options leaves him colder than the other. When he’ll press his nose into her discarded clothes they’ll smell like the must of her body and her floral, indolic perfume. Breathing in he thinks he smells it even now, through the waft of charred meat and warm asphalt, and he can draw a direct line between the selves occupying this table, in this moment, and the selves they’ll occupy tonight, later tonight, this morning. He thinks of her as the changeable one but perhaps that’s not entirely true. Within himself there are so many ways to want her.

“Khaleid?”

Nacio’s voice brings him back. Khaleid blinks, just once.

“What do you think?” Mina rests her elbows on the rickety table. Her thin gold chain slips out from the bodice of her black dress, flickering palely. “We’ve only asked you twice already.”

The cigarette between his fingers is half ash; the rest of it has fallen on his trousers. On his plate the meat has gone cold and purple and the wine in his glass is hardly much different. When he looks at Nacio he finds his old friend’s gaze traveling over him. Glittering, dark.

“Well, shit,” he murmurs. “Guess I’ve overstayed.” He stands, hands in pockets. “Enjoy what’s left of dinner.” He nods at Khaleid. “And the rest of the night. Hope I left enough for you both.”

“There’s still plenty of food,” Mina says. “And Mako’s probably asleep with the girls already.”

“Not what I meant,” says Nacio cryptically. “Anyway, it’s late. Time I got back to my pornographically beautiful wife and perfect, angelic offspring. Boring family man, you know.” He pats his pocket, where Khaleid can see the bulge of his wallet. “Buenas noches, friends.”

“Did you say this would be our treat,” Mina begins, moments after he’s left earshot. She frowns as she watches him round the crowded corner. “And what happened to dancing?”

Her hand small in his, not soft. She shifts her cool gaze to him, electric eyes questioning.

“Never mind.” Khaleid leans forward, stubs his cigarette in the bowl. “We have other options.”