Fandom: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars (anime)
Date Finished:
Classification: Alternate Universe, Romance, Angst
Pairing: Seiya/Yaten, Taiki/Ami, Mamoru/Usagi, Haruka/Michiru  
Rating: NC-17

The Long Road
By Elsewhere
elsewherecw@shaw.ca

All other information in Part One.

Part Four: Believe It Or Not

Glossary:
okyaku-san - ma’am (literally ‘customer’)

A couple of Seiya and Yaten’s conversations in this chapter didn’t work too well converted into English, once again, so here they are, translated:

Yaten: "Mada ikiteiru ka?" - "So, you’re still alive?" (Literally, "Still living?", posed as a question.)
Seiya: "Aa…nantoka." - "Yeah…somehow."
Yaten: "Un…atashi mo…nantoka." - "Yeah…me too…somehow."

**

Yaten:     "Uun…yame…"
               "…nai…de…"
                - ‘yame’ is the stem of the verb ‘to stop’, so when Yaten pauses her sentence here, at "no…stop…", she could have been telling Seiya to stop what he was doing. But the next three syllables modify her intentions, making her full command ‘yamenai de’, which instead means "please…don’t…stop." ^^ Japanese is a lovely language. ;P

*****
8 minutes from losing it a little bit
5 minutes your description might be starting to fit
3 to go and I’m forgetting all that I’ve ever known
I won’t be standing up for long
*****

He contemplated not going to work the next day. He contemplated sitting in front of the TV watching infomercials and sitcoms until he wasted away, but in the end he felt like he didn’t really want to prove her right. He had just enough pride that he didn’t just want to sit there and die, just like she’d said that everything stagnant becomes death. And so, to prevent that happening, he dragged himself into the shower and forced a bowl of soup down his parched throat and he went off down to work.

A few people there commented that he kind of looked like the living dead, or like he’d lost his best friend. Well, he supposed she’d been the closest thing to a friend he’d ever had, literally in as long as he could remember. And according to her, he already was the living dead. So he might as well look like it once in a while.

The unfortunate thing was that his playing suffered because of it too. Nobody said anything, but he knew it’d be obvious to anyone with ears that he was lacking his usual feeling.

Funny…in the past he’d always been able to play no matter how craptastic he was feeling. He’d played to get away from himself and his troubles, to achieve that beautiful feeling of numbness that only music could bring. But tonight he couldn’t get there. The ability to succumb to it had been lost to him, somehow. It left him feeling weak and shaking.

She didn’t come, of course. Once in a while, his eyes would travel the width of the club looking for her, whether out of habit or because he genuinely wanted to see her after all that had happened he wasn’t sure. But she didn’t come. And he couldn’t play…he played like any second rate pianist, and what was the use in that?

It was like that for a week. It became the new routine, and for the first time, he’d found a routine that he couldn’t abide. This continuity left him keyed up and anxious, his hands shaking as they hit the keyboard and shaking worse as they left it, never finding any respite. If he slept during that whole week, it was only when he drifted off, unaware of himself, and he’d wake up soon enough after, a victim to the terror. The Master came to him and offered him a vacation, saying he seemed like he needed a break. He begged Master not to make him leave. This was all he had…there was nothing else anymore. He knew if he stayed at his apartment, he just might die. He might just stagnate and die.

And then, after that week…after that torturous, horrible week…she walked in, after he was finished playing, when the crowd was already starting to thin out. He was sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of whisky, savoring the way it burned in his throat. He was so out of it he didn’t see her come in, or even see her approach. He didn’t know she was there until she was sitting right next to him and he heard her voice, that familiar, haunting voice as she spoke up to order a gin and tonic.

"There you go, okyaku-san," Joey said as he placed the drink in front of her, and Seiya watched out of the corner of his eye as she nodded thankfully and sipped at the drink delicately, closing her eyes.

"Mada ikiteiru ka?" The words were only the tiniest murmur, spilling from her lips along with her exhaled breath, but he heard them and closed his eyes.

"Aa…nantoka," he answered just as quietly.

"Un…atashi mo…nantoka," she muttered as she turned around, leaning back against the bar.

They sat in silence for several minutes, each of them silently nursing their drinks, before he heard her take a breath. He could hear the sound of her breath trembling; he could see her hand shaking.

"Seiya…I…said too much, that night…I mean that I…didn’t mean…" She stopped, rolling her eyes. "God, I’ve always been terrible at this. I mean that…"

She took a breath.

"I mean that I’m sorry. Just that. I’m sorry."

And she fell silent.

He slowly swallowed the mouthful of whisky he’d been holding while she’d finished her awkward apology and pushed his empty glass towards Joey for a refill.

"No…I’m sorry."

She seemed to choke on a soft laugh.

"What are you sorry for, Seiya?"

"Everything?" he said questioningly, tilting his head as he glanced down at his hands. Then he shook his head. "I’m sorry I snapped at you the way I did…I’m sorry about that…I didn’t want you to see me…like that. I’m just sorry."

"God," she said again, running her hands through her hair. "After all I said to you, that you would apologize to me. It’s ridiculous, Seiya."

"Well, you said it yourself…I live a ridiculous life, I guess," he said noncommittally.

She was silent.

"I’m sorry," she said again, a moment later. "I really am."

"I know you are," he said, finally turning to glance at her. One look at her big green eyes and he meant it; he really did believe she was sorry, even if she really wasn’t. That’s just the way it was when he was around her. "And besides…really, you were right, about a lot of things. They’re just…things I can’t help, that’s all."

Silence, again…and then the clink of the ice in her glass as she stirred her drink. She did that when she was thinking, he realized.

"Things you can’t help…?"

"Yeah. I mean, you think it’s simple, right? Overcome my fears or whatever and get my past back. It’s not that simple. That…they tried that, at the hospital. And I tried, back then. But there’s nothing left to get back, and there’s no way to get it back anyway. Nothing they tried helped. It’s useless to even try, and I can’t help that."

Clinking ice.

"I’m sorry for that too…since it seems to matter to you so much," he said quietly, feeling a slight twinge of genuine regret for her sake. Too bad that something she had hoped for had to turn out like this.

"I don’t believe that, Seiya," she said, her voice so quiet that at first he thought he’d imagined it. But then she said it again, as though to make sure he’d heard it loud and clear. "I don’t believe it."

"Why?" he asked simply, keeping his eyes downcast. "Like I said, I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it…"

"No," she said, so firmly that his voice froze in his throat, and he turned to look at her. That blaze of determination was back in her bright green eyes; he found himself drawn in instantly. "I don’t believe it, Seiya. I *won’t* believe it. Even if you’ve given up, *I* won’t."

For a moment he couldn’t find his voice, and even when he did, he didn’t know what to say.

"Why…?" he whispered, shaking his head slightly, his own eyes wide with surprise at her attitude.

"Because you still show signs of your old self," she said, her face finally relaxing into one of some kind of nostalgic sadness. His face, however, furrowed into a frown as he listened to her words, not understanding them. "Because you seem to have *some* lingering memories of your past, Seiya."

"Like what…? And how would you know, anyway?" he asked, shaking his head in confusion.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, she seemed to have made a decision.

"Seiya…" she said, her voice suddenly so gentle…so kind that it felt surreal. He stared at her, almost frightened of what she had to say. "Do you remember when you told me that you felt as though you had some connection to me…?"

He frowned again.

"Yes…and I still do…I feel…as though I know you, even though we just met that long ago," he said reluctantly.

"Exactly," she said, a hesitant smile coming to her lips. She stared into his eyes as though seeking some kind of reassurance from him, and he stared back at her even though he had no idea what she could possibly want.

"Seiya…what if I told you that you were right," she said, her voice falling to a hush. "That we do have a connection. That you do know me…or rather that I know you, and that you knew me."

At first he had no idea what she might be talking about…but then it sank in, somehow, into his sleep-lacking, slightly alcohol-fogged brain, and it felt like an electric shock.

"Knew you…from before?" he whispered, and without him meaning it to, his hand flew suddenly to the scar, pressing against it. He stared at her with a kind of dawning understanding and horror as she nodded slowly, her eyes still giving him that pleading look.

"Yes, Seiya…from before the accident," she said, her eyes shimmering---he realized it was tears, threatening to spill from her eyes---and suddenly he couldn’t seem to stop shaking, but it wasn’t his body, it was something inside him. "Seiya…we tried to find you. Please believe we tried to find you. We got to the hospital on the 27th of October…they said you’d just been released. If we’d been two days earlier…"

She brought a hand up to wipe at her eyes.

"And ever since then we’ve been looking for you, Seiya," she said, her voice suddenly becoming firm again as she held his eyes. "Seiya…I came here looking for you. I came here to find you."

He stared at her, hand clutched to the side of his head so hard it hurt. It all made a strange kind of sense now. The way he’d been so drawn to her; the way she seemed to know him so well all the time; the way she knew just what to say to make him feel sad or happy or angry. So this was it.

And all he felt was…horrified.

"You…never told me about this," he managed finally, his voice shaking so badly he couldn’t even recognize the sound of it. He was shaking his head as he spoke, so rapidly that he knew it looked like he was crazy. "You never…told me about any of this…"

And then he was stumbling away, running, just trying to get away, to be anywhere but there, at that moment, when he couldn’t even understand *why* he felt so betrayed.

*****

Three days later, like some kind of bad dream---or deja vu was what they really called this kind of experience, he supposed---she was back, just like before, next to him at the bar, this time ordering some kind of lemon spritzer or something…he didn’t quite catch it. He felt like his brain was full of cotton, and his ears were buzzing like an untuned radio.

"You’ve been avoiding me, Seiya." She said it matter-of-factly, without any particular emotion. She leaned against the bar and sipped her drink, not looking at him.

Of course he didn’t answer, so after a few minutes---about halfway down her drink, which was faster than she usually drank something, he knew; was she nervous?---she sighed and took a more direct approach.

"I suppose I frightened you the other night, didn’t I?" she said, and now her tone sounded simply bored. "You’re afraid of me now, is that it?"

He felt his eyebrow twitch restlessly.

"Not especially," he said roughly, keeping his eyes closed as he spoke. He took a sip of his drink. "Should I be?"

"You tell me," she said, shrugging one shoulder just to the extent that the spaghetti strap of her black dress slipped down her pale shoulder. He spared that the slightest glance before he reminded himself that, at least as far as looking went, he was ignoring her.

"After all, now you know the truth," she said, idly sipping at her drink and then glancing at him with one bright, lime-colored eye. "I hold the key to your past, Seiya. That makes me dangerous, doesn’t it? Because any thought of approaching the darkness is so frightening…"

Twitch again.

"Look, if you’re trying to pick a fight…"

"What makes you think that?" she asked, but she sounded coy. "If I didn’t make it clear last time, Seiya, there’s a reason why I’m here."

"Right, right," he said, allowing himself a smirk. "I’m still not sure I believe you, but for a second, let’s say you’re telling the truth, and you and I know each other from before."

"All right, let’s just suppose that’s true, yes," she said, a bit sourly, as though she was resentful that he doubted her. Well, if her story was true, he supposed he would have resented him too, but that was just the way it had to be for now. "Then what, Seiya?"

"Then I would have to ask you…so what?" he said, finally turning to catch her gaze. For once, he was confident that his eyes, usually so soft and watery around her, were hard. He’d worked hard to make them that way, these past three days.

There it was again…that angry blaze in her eyes. He wondered if he could be swallowed by that anger and never see the light of day again.

"Excuse me?" she said quietly, slowly placing a fisted hand down against the bar top, as though attempting to calm herself. "I don’t think I heard you correctly."

"I said so what?" he repeated more clearly, leaning a bit closer to her for emphasis, and feeling proud of himself for the strength he was showing. " ‘Key to my memories’, you said…? What does that mean? It doesn’t mean anything…there are no memories left. I told you yesterday: there’s nothing there to recover."

"And I told you I don’t believe that," she said, glaring at him for all she was worth.

"Again, so what? You’re not me…you don’t know what it feels like to be me, to feel this…to know this…I know! I know there’s nothing worth working for," he said, slicing a hand through the air between them as though severing any ties they’d created.

"You’re wrong, Seiya. I *know* I can help you regain what you’ve lost," she said, seemingly forcing herself to speak calmly, which only made him angrier.

"Damn it, you just don’t listen!" he shouted in her face, not caring that now people were turning to look at them. "I’m telling you there’s nothing to regain! And you can’t help me…no one can!"

"*I* can, Seiya," she said, and in that moment she looked up at him with such a determined, wide-eyed, somehow *convincing* look…that it finally just broke inside him. He felt like screaming, like running out into the street and screaming until he got that feeling of helplessness out of his body and his heart, but he had nowhere to go, and the only one to take it out on was her.

"Don’t say that!" he yelled, covering his ears and closing his eyes. "Stop talking as though I need you! I don’t need you or anyone! I don’t need you!!"

And he turned and ran, never looking back…never even opening his eyes. He felt as though he’d been wounded…as though he should be bleeding from somewhere. Even as he ran, he kept checking for the wound, and he felt strange when he couldn’t find it.

*****

He hid in the back storage room of the club for…he wasn’t sure how long. Long past closing time. The moon was high in the sky when he finally stumbled out from behind the boxes he’d been sitting behind, his head in his hands.

He didn’t pay any attention to where he was going, but he ended up sitting in front of the piano, in the dark. The neon beer signs above the bar were the only illumination as he lowered his hands to the keys and started to play, something slow and sorrowful…something telling of a horrifying, lonely feeling…the best he’d played in over a week. But it didn’t carry him away like usual. He was stuck sitting there, still feeling somehow like he was bleeding from somewhere.

And then…she was there. He didn’t know where she came from…she shouldn’t have been there, surely, since it was after closing time and all. But she was there. She moved slowly into the light, her movements like those of a butterfly with a clipped wing. Just as hesitantly, she came to lean against the piano, and when she let out a breath, he knew instantly that she either was or had been crying.

"So…you don’t need me…" she murmured. Her voice was broken. Her pale face was hidden behind the silvery curtain of her hair; he couldn’t see her eyes. But he couldn’t see anything anyway.

He didn’t speak…he couldn’t seem to speak…but he felt like he had to answer her somehow. Somehow…he felt like he couldn’t help but answer her.

It only felt natural for his hands to make that first smooth transition, from the lyrical caress of the keyboard to the first hesitant touch to her hips…and then his fingers pressed forward slightly, curling, finding that they could cup perfectly around her hips. And in that instant the decision was made, by his body more than by anything in him that remained of sanity. She made a far more perfect instrument than any he had so far mastered.

In one tug, he pulled her over before him, listening with satisfaction both to the sound of her sudden gasp and to the awkward scale played along the piano’s keys as her ass dragged over them. And then she was settled in place, perfectly in front of him, between his knees, her breastbone roughly at his eye level…and that was simply too much.

He knew that this was an extension of what he’d always felt towards her. He’d always wanted to touch her, and he’d always known that if he ever did, he wouldn’t be able to stop. This proved it.

His hands kept slowly stroking her hips as he leaned down and nuzzled his head against her belly. She let out a low groan and arched against him slightly, one hand tangling lightly in his hair while the other clutched back against the piano.

Of course, the dress, as cute as it was, was really in the way. His hands smoothly worked their way under it---it was slit most of the way up her legs, conveniently---and then, worming their way under her underwear, starting stroking bare skin, still restricting themselves to her hips. His mouth, meanwhile, had found its way up her chest to her neck, where he found himself stuck. Her skin was so hot and tasted so good---somehow really sweet and filling his senses with that exotic flowery sense he’d always been aware of---that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to leave that place. But the way she was breathing so hard now and squirming against him, the hand that had been in his hair now clutched against his jacket, he felt a sudden sense of worry.

"Is…this wrong?" he murmured in her ear, and she shivered against him.

"Uun…" she whispered, and then, as he started to nibble lightly on her ear, she tilted her head back and her mouth opened on a whimpered plea: "Yame…"

He froze, prepared to do as she commanded, as always.

"…nai de…Seiya…"

So he didn’t.

While his mouth learned the layout of her face, for now still avoiding her lips, his hands worked on the dress, first moving the straps down from her shoulders. And once that was done, he couldn’t keep himself from exploring the revealed skin, and he lowered his head to kiss and lick his way over each shoulder in turn. By then she had started to pant in earnest, both hands clutching at him helplessly, so he figured he had to be doing something right, even though he was just doing whatever he felt like at the time.

After that, he decided it was time to show a little more initiative where the damn dress was concerned, and he slid his hands around behind her, running them down her bare shoulder blades until he finally found the zipper. She shivered again, both arms moving around him in an embrace, holding him closer, and he nibbled on her neck absently as he undid the zipper. Then he took a little step back and lifted his hands to the straps of the dress, prepared to tug, but she shook her head and instead she did it herself, shimmying out of the dress and her panties and then kicking both away.

And well…that’s when any sense he had remaining just…left him. Because she was…an absolute goddess. She was completely perfect. No, she was beyond perfect. She was small and she was pale and he once might have thought he’d have preferred something other than that, but she was beyond any description of beautiful that had ever been invented, or at least any that he knew. So he didn’t bother with any of them. He just sank to his knees in front of her, prepared to pay her the only kind of worship he felt like he knew how…and even then, he knew he was just making this up as he went along.

But she seemed to like it as his hands curled around her waist, holding her in place as he leaned forward, again nuzzling her belly briefly before he lowered his head slightly and pressed his nose into the silvery thatch of hair between her legs. She twitched and moved her thighs together briefly, and then moaned something that he couldn’t make out, so he decided to just go with it. She smelled just as heavenly as she looked, too. Without really thinking about anything other than that, he decided that the natural next step was to taste her. When he first started licking her, though, she cried out, and he glanced up, wondering if he’d done it wrong, but the look on her face didn’t really seem like one of pain, and she tried to push his head back down anyway, so he happily went back to what he’d been doing before.

She tasted so good that for a while he forgot himself…he just kept sucking and licking, only mildly aware of the fact that she would occasionally guide his motions by moving his head a bit, her fingers clutched in his hair, but not hard enough to hurt. Sometimes he would catch on something that really made her jump or moan out loud, and once he figured out what that was, he started focusing on that. After that point, it didn’t take long before she stiffened, pressing back against the piano, the motions of her body playing another awkward melody on the keys, and then she clutched his head hard as she cried out something that really sounded like his name.

Hearing her scream like that…it made the heat in his own belly burn like nothing he’d ever felt in his life. Slowly, careful to keep an arm around her back, because it seemed like she’d fall if he didn’t support her, he got to his feet. She looked up at him slowly from under her lashes, a little hesitantly, and opened her mouth…but before she could speak, he leaned down and stole their first kiss. That he knew of, anyway, he thought with a sudden burst of irony.

She seemed to try to moan something again, lost against the back of his throat as she leaned up on her toes, seemingly trying to kiss him with all her might, her arms wrapped around his neck. He kissed her back with all he had, too, his own arms around her waist, telling her with that one kiss everything that he felt he hadn’t been able to so far---the answers to all those questions he couldn’t say in words. The way he needed her, even though he didn’t want to need anyone and it made him feel helpless and stupid. The way he trusted her or wanted to, even though some part of him felt like he shouldn’t. The way he believed her story, even though she was right, and it felt like it was really dangerous. The way her saying she could help him actually made some really small part of him feel a strange kind of hope…

The next thing he knew, he was pushing her down to the floor, laying her down on the soft carpet next to the piano and pressing her there with his body, still kissing her. It was one of those actions he took without thinking, though he couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t really unnecessary. She didn’t seem to mind; she lifted her knees on either side of his hips, as though she was waiting for something, and then when he didn’t do anything except keep kissing her, she started to work at his jacket and shirt with her hands while they kissed.

Well, he was the kind of person who could take a hint, so after a few more breathless seconds he finally managed to break off the kiss, and he leaned back and took off his jacket and shirt, taking the opportunity to look down at her. She was breathing raggedly, almost desperately, and her lips were swollen and red now from their kiss, her cheeks flushed, her eyes clouded almost as though she were drugged. But he could still see her in there; her usual brilliant green self was in there somewhere, beyond the intoxication of this, and she was waiting for him.

Within a few moments he was naked and lying over her again---he didn’t stop to think about it, because he knew if he did, he might falter, or get nervous---and again she lifted her legs, encouraging him into a particular position. He slid into that position easily, and felt a groan build in his own throat when he felt the way his penis nestled so comfortably into her silvery curls.

He took a breath, lifting his head to catch her eyes, and as he breathed out her name fell out with it.

"Yaten…" It was a question…the final question.

"Yamenai de," she said again, this time with absolute calm as she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close, and he nodded once before he buried his face in her neck and reached down between them to position himself more firmly. Then, hands against the floor on either side of her head for leverage, he started his descent.

He felt he could safely say…even though he had no memory of so much of his life…that he had never felt anything quite like that. To sink into her, into her heat, into the tight clutch of her body…surely there could never have been anything quite like that. Even an inch felt like nothing else---surely whatever people called heaven was a pale comparison to this---and as he dove farther, sought farther, and finally made it to the end, and he was inside her…he knew that that was true. There couldn’t be anything quite like this.

She whimpered and squirmed throughout, but again, she didn’t seem hurt…she wrapped her legs up around his waist and clutched at his back and seemed to want to pull him closer, and when he was all the way in she started to pant and breathe his name at him, whispering at him not to stop there…to keep going. So he kept going. He pulled back, as far as he could without leaving her, and then he pushed back in as far as he could without breaking her, and he felt the way her body tensed like a bow throughout the motion, and heard the restless moan that moved through her. As for him…he was thinking that maybe he was going to have to give up music, because he’d always thought it was the ultimate escape, but now he had to go and find out that it was just a cheap substitute.

And it kind of was like playing the piano. Once he found his rhythm, he just let it carry him away, and he didn’t think about it anymore. Of course with piano it was his hands that were working on their own without his input and in this case it was other body parts…or rather, it felt like a full-body workout, really…but still. And in this case, he was experiencing the music of a living instrument, who responded with beautiful cries and screams and whimpers with each motion of his hands and lips and everything else, and who shivered and shook and quivered against him, caught in her own music. And towards the end, just when he was thinking to himself that this was probably the least stagnant he’d ever been in as long as he could remember, she opened her eyes and looked up at him and said his name…

And that did it. Right there. In that instant, in that helpless instant, the way she said his name, so softly, so breathlessly, just broke his heart, and he knew that from then on he would be hers and do whatever she said…he’d never be free again.

There was no time for resentment initially, not as he finally felt himself swept away, just seconds after she arched her back and screamed his name to the heavens, her nails raking down his back. And it was strange…in those moments when he lost himself in her, when he was hardly aware of anything but the heat and the blinding sensations of pleasure spinning through him as he drove himself into her one last time…he could hear himself crying her name too.

*****

END PART FOUR