Spinning on that crazy edge

After years of dating, Mamoru is used to dealing with Usagi's dramatic freak-outs, but this one caught him a little off-guard. "Do you even think about me that way?"

(title comes from The Cure "Just Like Heaven" because titling fics after song lyrics is my new thing apparently)

This is, let's just say, not my favorite thing I've ever written. but, it's written, it's here, might as well share it! It's totally anime-verse (this is not an issue in any other canon, let's be real).

Usagi came in like a hurricane, throwing the door open so it bounced violently against the wall and before slamming closed behind her. Her key was thrown onto the counter with a dramatic clatter and her purse and shoes dropped in the doorway with equal anguish.

Mamoru looked up from the table where he had been quietly tapping away at his laptop and fixed his girlfriend with a bland stare. "Hello," he said. "Nice day out?"

Usagi stood, hands on hips, face flush, desperately trying to catch her breath as she'd run the entire way to his apartment in the sweltering summer heat. "This... is... no time to ... make small talk, Mamo-chan!" she managed to get out between gasps of air.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, glancing at the paper he'd half written on the computer in front of him.

"Yes, something is wrong!" Usagi said, waving her arms up in the air with an incredulous look at him. "Something is very wrong, Mamo-chan, oh my god you have NO idea!" Dramatically she threw herself backwards onto his sofa and covered her face with a pillow to scream.

Mamoru sighed. He knew he'd be aware already if it were an actual emergency or senshi-related drama (not that they'd dealt with anything since Galaxia). Which meant this was Usagi-related drama. Which meant he wasn't even sure what he was in for. He hit the 'save' button on his computer and stood up. "What happened?"

Usagi's answer was a dramatic wail, muffled by the pillow, followed by something he couldn't quite make out.

"What was that?"

Usagi removed the pillow and repeated, "It's not what 'happened', Mamo-chan, it's what 'will happen!'" She sat up and pushed her hair out of her face with fluttery movements.

"Which is?" Mamoru had to ask, once it was clear Usagi wasn't going to elaborate.

"I'm going to be stuck in a loveless, sexless sham marriage that's what!" she cried, as if Mamoru should have gleaned that already and she was frustrated at having to spell it out for him.

"Wait a minute, back up, aren't we getting married in the future?"

"Yes!" Usagi said, throwing the pillow right at Mamoru's face (he had the reflexes to catch it - this wasn't exactly his first rodeo), "that's why I'm so upset!" She stood up and whirled on him, hands on hips, hair flying wild around her face. "Because this isn't my fault, Mamoru Chiba, I'll tell you that much!"

"What are you talking about?" Despite himself, Mamoru's voice ended up raising, just a little bit. It wasn't that he wasn't completely capable at this point of dealing with Usagi flying off the handle, he just needed to know what she was flying off the handle about.

Usagi gave a frustrated sigh. "Ugh! So earlier today, Luna told me that Diana said -"

"Wait, Diana?"

"Yes, that tiny kitten that you super loved and spent an insane amount of time fawning over, who was always hanging out with that pink-haired kid who, oh yeah, is our future daughter?"

"Diana hasn't been here in years!"

"Yes, Luna just told me now, (all off-hand about it, mind, like it wasn't even that big a deal!) That when she was here Diana said the king and queen barely see each other and don't even sleep in the same room, Mamo-chan, like they have separate bedrooms and that place is so big they might as well not even be neighbors!"

She continued, "And, obviously they never have sex, which is literally the worst news ever because even though you don't look at me that way now, I thought for sure in the future, when I'm all tall and beautiful," Usagi lifted her hand up in the air as if measuring her future height and paused for a moment before blinking and continuing as if she hadn't stopped at all, "when I'm all gorgeous and curvy and grown, then maybe you'll actually freaking want to touch me, but nooooo, no, it's gonna be like this forever!"

Mamoru opened his mouth to answer but Usagi kept going right over him.

"And I know what you are gonna say 'oh we are gonna have a kid' well, I don't think that changes much except that's the one good thing out of all of this, is that at least I'll have Chibi-Usa." Usagi sniffled. "And get laid at least once."

"Usa-"

"Don't ever tell her I said that!" she interrupted. "About her being a good thing, not about getting laid."

"U-"

"Although don't tell her that other thing either!"

There were a few seconds of silence. "Are you done?" Mamoru asked, finally.

Usagi frowned at him, crossing her arms like a petulant child. Then she nodded, still sulking.

"Are you sure? Because you need to understand you are completely wrong about almost every single thing you said since coming in here."

"Mamo-"

"You said you were done," he said, raising a finger and an eyebrow, ignoring her offended gasp. "I'm getting you some water and then we are going to talk about this. Calmly."

Usagi sat back on the sofa, keeping her arms crossed protectively around her. Now that her initial outburst was over, she was feeling a little embarrassed and exposed. She always did this, got emotional and burst into delicate situations, guns blazing, until her fits were over and she had to reel in any overstepped bounds. She wondered if she'd still do this as Queen, would her fuck ups be plastered all over the news for all citizens to see? Then thinking about Crystal Tokyo just made her remember Luna's words and her own insecurities about that foggy and distant future.

Groaning out loud, she pressed her head into the back of the couch, shutting her eyes. She stayed that way until she heard Mamoru gently clearing his throat and opened her eyes to grudgingly take the water glass he was holding out to her. In spite of herself, she drank it all almost right away, the run to Mamoru's apartment had been brutal in the summer heat.

"Firstly," Mamoru said, taking a seat across from her in the chair, "I've spent quite a lot of time with Diana, too, as you've mentioned."

"So?" she said with an edge of challenge in her voice.

"So," Mamoru said, his face serious, "both Chibi-Usa and Diana were instructed by Sailor Pluto not to give away any mention of the future. But Diana is very young, and often let things slip, even without realizing it. Okay?"

Usagi regarded him almost suspiciously. "Okay."

"And I learned to pay close attention to that. Therefore, I know a bit about our day to day lives in Crystal Tokyo. I know that, although the king and queen each have private chambers for the rare times they need to be apart, they do sleep in the same bed the vast majority of the time. Chibi-Usa cuddles between them when she has a nightmare, staying until morning. And Diana almost always comes in the morning to share breakfast with everyone."

Usagi felt her pout relenting a bit, in spite of herself. That did sound nice.

"And sometimes we even get to sleep late," Mamoru said, teasingly, and Usagi forgot to sulk for a second, the briefest of smiles fluttering across her lips.

"But-"

"And," Mamoru said, "as for the rest, please remember that Diana is really young, and the King and Queen are Chibi-Usa's parents."

"And?" Usagi said, putting her glass on the table like a poker hand.

"So how much do you know about your parents' sex life?"

Usagi recoiled and Mamoru couldn't help laughing a bit at her reaction. "See?" he said, with a grin."You can't trust an eight year old and a kitten with that sort of information, Usa."

Then he sobered, looked at her in the eyes. "From what Diana says, it really does sound the king and queen have a good marriage, Usako. On all fronts."

She still looked doubtful.

"Once, Luna came here personally once to scold and lecture me about the king skipping important meetings in the future, pretending to be sick at the same time Serenity does," Mamoru offered.

Usagi couldn't help her lips curling upwards at that mental image.

"I caught hell for that one," he said "Complete with 'I'm not mad, I'm disappointed', and something about you corrupting me beyond all recognition."

Usagi swallowed a smile and uncrossed her arms, pulling the pillow into her lap and hugging it to her chest. "That does sound like Luna."

"Do you think I am?" she asked. "Corrupting you, I mean."

Mamoru shrugged, smiled. "Maybe." For a moment she smiled at him, then her gaze lowered and she gnawed on her lower lip, unsettled.

"What is it, Usako?" Mamoru asked, trying to catch her gaze, which Usagi studiously avoided. She stood up and paced a little bit, and Mamoru followed a few steps behind.

Her silence was becoming frustrating.

"Jeeze, Usako," he said, "you had plenty to say when you burst in here a ten minutes ago!"

Usagi sighed and turned to face him, keeping her gaze on her hands, pulling nervously at the hem of the skirt. "Ugh! Okay! Sometimes I wonder if you... want me the same way I want you - which is a lot by the way, which you know, which is sort of obnoxious to me. And that's why Luna's comment about the separate rooms made me so upset because that's, like, a nightmare, Mamo-chan, that I might wait and wait and wait and still ... still be here, looking at you when you never look back at me."

His lack of response made her nervous so she finally looked up and met his eyes. Mamoru's expression was somewhat hard to read. Disbelief, if she had to guess, mixed with a fair amount of annoyance.

"What?" she demanded. How dare he be annoyed at her?

"I'm just - I'm trying to process how someone who is so in-tune with me generally could be so completely off-base about this," he said, "I don't even know what to say. Of course I want you."

Usagi narrowed her eyes. "It's not obvious, Mamo-chan."

"Usako," Mamoru started, searching for the right words. His calm demeanor from before had started to crack, just a little. Usagi always seemed to throw him for a loop, "if memory serves, there have been times when - when I'm pretty sure it was quite obvious. Times in this very apartment, in fact. On that very sofa if you want to get technical."

Usagi shifted a little and flushed. But she stubbornly met his eyes dead-on, putting her hands on her hips. She was determined not to be embarrassed out of this discussion. "That's different, Mamo-chan. I mean, when we aren't together like that, when you just see me. Being me. Do you think about me that way?"

"Yes."

The quickness of his answer threw her for a second, and she blinked at him. "I mean, do you look at me and think...ya know..."

"Yes," he said. She looked at him and he shrugged a little. Mamoru wasn't even blushing, and Usagi felt like her face was on fire.

"You fantasize about me the way I do about you?" Usagi sounded doubtful.

"Well, I don't know exactly what you fantasize about," he said, "but I promise you, Usako, I am sure I can match you there."

"Oh," she said, her brows knit for a moment. "But you don't- really act like - like that." She had no idea what she was saying at this point. Mamoru always looked at her warmly, but now she felt more heat from his gaze and she knew it was for her benefit - she had practically asked him to reveal that to her - but she still felt unbalanced, flush, vulnerable. And kinda turned on.

"Act like how?" he asked, "like when you come in, I should sweep all the papers off my desk and throw you down on it or...?" He was teasing her, that much was clear. Usagi didn't want to turn this into a joke, just another way for her boyfriend to look at her as amusing, adorable. That was the whole problem!

"Well, what do you want?" she said, tossing her hair back behind one shoulder, tilting her head. "You told me you think about me, tell me what you think about."

Her eyes opened a bit wider, peering up at him with a mock-innocent expression. The blush wasn't going anywhere, but that couldn't really be helped.

Mamoru seemed caught off guard by the flirtatious turn of the conversation but he didn't miss a beat. "I suppose the desk thing doesn't sound so bad," he said with a half-smile, and Usagi pushed his arm a little.

"That's all you got?" she asked, allowing a smile to flutter around her mouth, "I thought you said you could match me."

Her fingers skirted around his waist and he caught her hands in his, holding them steadily a few inches away from him. "Okay," he said, seriously. He gently lowered her hands and took half a step back back, looked her right in the eyes.

"I want you," Mamoru said simply. "Just all of you. I want to know the taste of your skin, the sound of your gasps in my ear. I want to be tangled up in those legs, that hair, my god, Usako, since I met you, I've - god, I could-"

He swallowed, tried to control his words. She didn't need to know everything, he didn't need to scare her away with any x-rated talk. She just needed to know that he wasn't immune to her considerable charms, as she apparently had thought he was. As if such a thing was possible. "I want you to cry out my name so loudly the neighbors complain to me the next day. I want to make you feel so good, to tease you until you beg, to make you need me half as much as I need you, even if it's just for a few moments at the edge of ecstasy."

Usagi's blush was fading, her eyes darkening slightly with mounting desire. His voice was sliding over her, thick, like honey, and she was starting to ache. "Your arms, your hands, your breasts, your lips..." he slid his finger tips down her arms, the barest of brushes, and a shudder trembled down her spine, "your voice, your smile, your eyes, your heart..." with a sudden, smooth movement he wrapped his hands around her hips and pulled her upward, pressed her against him, so she could feel his arousal, so there could be no doubt how much he wanted her, how desperately she turned him on.

"I want everything," he ground out in her ear. Calling on every ounce of self control he had, he gently loosened his grip on Usagi. Her small mewl of protest nearly undid him, and she rocked her hips into his just once, making him moan out loud, before she let him release her and take a step back.

"You are the most phenomenal person I have ever met," Mamoru continued, gaze softening as he looked at her, "I do not deserve you. But by some twist of fate here I am, with you. And I want to make you happy. In every way. Okay?"

Usagi nodded, looking a little abashed, but touched and happy, too. "Okay," she whispered. She hunched her shoulders a little, "Sorry I doubted you," she said, meeting his eyes sheepishly.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head, she leaned into his chest...

"Oh, crap, I gotta go," she said, her eyes catching the clock on the wall. "It's almost dinnertime and I didn't tell anyone where I was running off to so quickly..."

"Of course," he said, as she gathered her things.

When he leaned in to kiss her goodbye, Usagi stood on her tip toes and softly opened her mouth into his, running her fingertips behind his ears and audaciously slipping one leg around his for a brief moment. When she stepped back she looked at him with smirking eyes and winked.

"I think I created a monster," he muttered and she laughed and blew him a kiss from the doorway.

"Silly," she said. Then as an afterthought, Usagi turned and added "Oh yeah! Good luck with that paper you were working on."

Mamoru leaned his head back against the wall with a loud 'thunk'. It was unlikely anymore of that essay would get written tonight - maybe Luna was right, and Usagi would be the end of him.

Then again, Mamoru thought, there were worse ways to go.