It's cold; it's winter. It's also early evening.
It's also pouring rain.
It's also thundering. The second day of January had been warmer; this is a cold front moving in and picking a fight with it, and even the most persistent outdoor food stands closed up when lightning started striking parts of the city.
This is Ichi-no-hashi Park, the place so many chance meetings have happened, the place with the tall clock and the fountain, the place with the short round currogated tunnel that's actually not bad for staying out of the rain in if you're stuck outside in it.
Endymion didn't know why he'd come here, of all places, and in the rain, no less. He had things he needed to be doing. He'd rather not have wet feet. He's cranky. His umbrella's not a lot of help against when the rain goes sideways. At some point on getting to the park itself, he gave up on the umbrella and just started stalking through the rain, getting absolutely soaked and looking for-- ugh, whatever the hell he was looking for. He even ditched the sunglasses he tended to wear in Tokyo because for godsake, it's not like rain-spattered glasses have windshield wipers (thank god).
Usagi had been out for shopping. Fortunately for her drenched clothing and freezing hands, she is carrying nothing. Things either hadn't caught her eye, or were outside her accumulated allowance. (One good thing about being depressed? She hasn't felt like shopping lately. Heck, she's only out now because she felt the need to walk, an unshakeable urge for movement.)
The storm took her by surprise. She is drenched, the unexpected rain soaking through her very much not rain proof coat. It's designed more for the chill of winter rather than the constant deluge of water.
She's halfway through the park, determined to get somewhere safe and warm. Unfortunately, her feet don't believe the direction of Mamoru's apartment is safe or warm, and is insistent on going here instead of there.
A particularly loud crash of thunder tears a shriek from her and she starts to run along the path. Another freezes her in her tracks.
She looks up, blinking water from her eyes, trying to find some form of shelter to perhaps wait out the storm. A park restroom, maybe?
There's nothing, no one, save for a figure up ahead. Her feet move of their own accord, and as she gets close enough to get detail through the rain, her heart hitches at the familiar profile. "Mamo-chan?"
Thunder booms ahead and lightning strikes close enough for an even louder crack of noise. Another shriek, and she's somehow closed the distance to cling to him, and her shaking is not from the cold.
Lips pursed, there's an itching under Endymion's skin that he can't shake, and it just makes him frustrated, angry. He's about to teleport out and to hell with this pointless search for something he can't identify--
--and then he hears a shriek from somewhere behind him. He scowls and turns to look, but doesn't see anything, so dismisses it and pushes angrily at his hair to get it off his face, out of his eyes. Right, he was going to get out of here.
That lightning hits close enough and the thunder cracks loud enough that it manages to distract him as surely as the scream had, and suddenly there's an impact: something's hit his back at speed and clings there, and they're up in the air and he's wrenching around to try and pry it off before it registers that the 'something' is a girl, tiny and trembling and obviously terrified.
Endymion looks completely exasperated for a second, then gives up and henshins in her grasp as she's dangling off his waist, and she's suddenly covered by a warm, dark cape. And then her feet are touching the ground again. His voice is resonant and annoyed. "Who the hell are you? Are you lost? This is shitty weather to be lost in."
She should be terrified of him. She knows who he is now, or at least, she knows who he isn't. But she seeks comfort from him by instinct, and despite who he isn't, she feels safe and warm, even with a cape that is too heavy to be attached to a tuxedo and thick armor where soft cloth should be.
He asks her a question, and his voice is almost reminisce of when they first met. Almost, but not quite.
She laughs, a short bark that is more nerves than mirth. It takes her a moment to relax enough to where he's not in a death grip, a moment more to answer.
"It's Usako." Her voice is soft, probably too muffled by the cape for him to hear properly. So, not letting go, she come up under his arm, protected still by the cape. "It's me, Mamo-chan. Usagi."
She is going to take this moment, before he inevitably pushes her away, to enjoy the warmth. To breathe him in. Because even wrong, he's still so very right, and she's missed him so very much.
"I was just out walking...I'm not lost, just stuck."
Not armor, as such, really: it's a jacket, almost military, and there's a sword belt, and tall boots... the clothes are not modern, but they're durable and soft. "My name is Endymion," he says almost gently, "and it's still raining on me. I'm afraid you've confused me with someone else; I don't know you. Is there someplace you want me to take you, out of the storm?"
At least this distraction's prolonged enough it seems to have shaken the irritatingly driving need to find something missing. There's that. Being nice to another crazy girl-- well, in this case Endymion can justify it as thanks for the distraction.
She deflates a little at the correction of his name even as a deeper part soars at it, holding the name close to the bodice of an empire waist dress.
"I'm sorry." Her voice is soft and close to tears. "I should have gotten to you..."
But no, she can't, won't cry right now.
So she pulls back, just a little, to look at his face. His eyes are wrong. The wrong color, the wrong crease in eyebrows, the wrong way they look at her. But she smiles anyway. "There's a coffee place not far." Her eyes light up. "I know, I'll buy you coffee! Because you're saving me!"
Another crash, and once again she's clinging tight, fingers balled against his jacket. "And um maybe a chocolate pastry thingy if they have them still I hope they're good."
As she speaks, she forces her hands from him, balling them instead against her own coat, face pressing against his jacket.
"It's it's it's ahead if we follow the path and and and at the very least it's not raining indoors..."
She deflates a little at the correction of his name even as a deeper part soars at it, holding the name close to the bodice of an empire waist dress.
"But you do know me. You've just forgotten. And I promised you I'd find you." She probably sounds crazy. This isn't the way to go about things.
"I'm sorry." Her voice is soft and close to tears. "I should have gotten to you..."
But no, she can't, won't cry right now.
So she pulls back, just a little, to look at his face. His eyes are wrong. The wrong color, the wrong crease in eyebrows, the wrong way they look at her. But she smiles anyway. "There's a coffee place not far." Her eyes light up. "I know, I'll buy you coffee! Because you're saving me!"
Another crash, and once again she's clinging tight, fingers balled against his jacket. "And um maybe a chocolate pastry thingy if they have them still I hope they're good."
As she speaks, she forces her hands from him, balling them instead against her own coat, face pressing against his jacket.
"It's it's it's ahead if we follow the path and and and at the very least it's not raining indoors..."
"I'm not-- saving you," the red-eyed boy says in puzzlement, his hair plastered to his head from the rain. He squints down at the blonde girl, her buns kind of soggy in the downpour, and there's something--
There's something familiar about her, somehow. And she says he's just forgotten, but-- no, that's not important, a slithering red and black voice impresses upon him.
She called him something like that name the other girl called him, too, but it just must mean he has a doppelganger in this city. This is, frankly, a little irritating.
Endymion shakes his head. "I'll take you there if that's where you want to wait out the storm, but I have things I need to do--"
That next crash and she's clinging again, hands curled up against herself and face on him, on him, what the hell is he supposed to do with this? "Godddddd, it's just THUNDER," he says in unsocialized-seventeen-year-old aggravation, and whips his cape off, settling it around her before unceremoniously scooping her up in his arms, bundled like a wet burrito.
A split second of absolute darkness and silence, and Endymion sets Usagi down under the awning of the coffee shop, his cape still on her, scowl on his face. But-- then-- his eyes flicker up to her hair again, and abruptly they're no longer a dull, rusty color, they are bright red. There's an aura around him that Usagi will feel-- unmistakeably evil. His body language is completely different now.
And he smiles. It's a cold, cold smile, though his hand lifts up toward her face, gently strokes her cheek with his thumb, his palm cupping the side of her jaw. "Usagi-chan, you said? Your hair-- it's so much like Sailor Moon's, isn't it?"
"Yes you are. You're taking me out of the rain." That, she believes, is very much rescue.
He scoops her up, and is so early Mamoru that her response is a knee-jerk one, an angry pout even as she's shivering. "Thunder is scary, you jerk!"
For a moment, she can't breathe. A darkness envelops her that she very much does not like. It goes against the grain of her very existence, but then she's safe on the ground again. She clutches the cape tight around her, knuckles white as she stares up at him.
One moment, he's painfully similar to the boy she knew. The next steals the air from her lungs.
Usagi's never been afraid of him. But the sudden evil that just pounds down on her leaves her knees shaking even worse. If possible, she's never been more terrified in her life.
She whimpers even as, on instinct, she presses her face against his hand.
He asked her something. What was it?
Oh. Right.
She nods, and her breath hitches. "Y-yeah." She wants to take a step back, to press into the relative safety of the brick behind her. "It's because I'm--" NO! "--a big fan."
Those glowing eyes narrow even as the smile widens. Dark Endymion's fingers trail to the back of Usagi's head, neck; to where her hair is. She's tilting her head into his hand, and it's nearly an echo to almost a month ago, to the reason for the bruises on her pretty throat that took so long to heal.
Still, his thumb continues to stroke her cheek, though it's closer to her ear now. He tilts his own head, and his eyes glitter. "Such a big fan? Really. I bet you could tell me allll about her, Usagi-chan-- couldn't you?"
He leans in closer, backing her against the wall, and bends his head further in, mouth seeking her lips.
She shakes even worse now. Not Usagi-chan. She wants to shove and scream at him. I'm your Usako.
Her shoulders scrunch up as he backs her into the wall, and she tries to make herself much smaller than she actually is.
She's crying now because he's about to kiss her and it's just too cruel.
"You're hurting me."
She thinks, as he leans even closer, that she'd rather his hand be tight around her throat again.
And she leans up against her will, shaking, because she's too weak not to, lips brushing against his before she can jerk herself back with a choked sob.
"HEY!"
Makoto hadn't meant to stop in at the coffee shop, really. But the bottom fell out while she was on her way to Usagi's house, the storm breaking hard enough that even her capacious umbrella with its pretty rose pattern wasn't up to the task of keeping her dry. Ducking into shelter for a little while and having a cuppa while she waited out the worst of the rain seemed like the thing to do.
That was all - until a surge of dark energy just outside the building crackled to life, pricling her skin like the charge in the air before a lightning strike but inexpressibly colder. Without a thought, Mako leaps from her seat, leaving umbrella and bag at the table as she bolts for the door--
--just in time to see Usagi scrunching up against the wall, the tall boy looming over her--
Hers is not a reasoned reaction. Makoto's body moves on pure instinct; lunging out of the door and into the rain towards the pair, she grabs for the back of Dark Endymion's collar to yank him away from Usagi, a split second before her other hand snaps forward in a fist aimed straight for his face.
"I'm-- what--?" the boy says, snatching his hand away from Usagi's face even as she leans to brush her lips against his despite her words; he starts to straighten, the glow fading slightly from his eyes; he's still entirely to preoccupied by her to take any notice of the door opening--
--and all of a sudden, he's getting yanked back by the collar away from Usagi's personal space, and there's a seriously angry fist impacting with his face. It's disorienting. It HURTS. He's CONFUSED.
Dark Endymion staggers back, holding his bleeding nose, and stares at Makoto and Usagi in utter incomprehension.
His eyes are a dull, rusty red. His hair is plastered down to his head. His clothes are navy blue, ancient military styling; there's a sword on his belt. But even with his hand over part of it, Makoto will be able to recognise the face that so sheepishly admitted it belonged to Tuxedo Mask, only a couple of months ago.
And then he's gone in an inversion of light and space, the black night swallowing him.
He's pulling away, so she's safe. The evil is gone, more or less, so she's safe.
The door bursts open, he's being hauled away and punched and basically thrown back from her, so she's safe.
She doesn't feel safe.
She feels confused, scared, and there's still that ache where she's still hurting.
She notices who her rescuer is and starts to feel a little bit safe. "Mako-chan!"
Safer still when she's plastered against the taller girl's side, shaking not from the rain or cold.
Both girl and the cape still clutched tight around her undo whatever drying off Makoto had accomplished.
With the same sort of instinctive reaction that just led her to punch Mamoru Chiba - or his evil alter ego, or whatever - in the face, Makoto's arms wrap snugly and reassuringly around Usagi, and never mind the rain. "Sorry, Usagi-chan. Are you okay? C'mon, you should come inside and sit down for a little while..."