I.

Dawn was breaking.

When Endymion gently pushed the door to his first in command's living quarters open, he expected both of them to be staring back at him, just like they had done last night, but this time with overwhelming rage in their eyes. He had thought that his first executive order would be something groundbreaking, like declaring a truce or redrawing boundaries or Goddess forbid, ordering an execution. But in actuality, it had been simple: for Kunzite to shut the fuck up and not bother him, and to keep the lady company, since she had just been ordered the same by her Princess and was pretty much stuck on Earth until they…finished.

Find something to do. Don't worry about us, we'll be fine.

That had stunned them both enough for the royal pair to slip away, ward his chamber door, and laugh uncontrollably at the look on their guards' faces before stripping their clothing off with just as much mania and falling into each other's arms.

At the very least, he thought they'd still be awake, perhaps making small talk, or just sitting there staring at the door like sentinels.

The Princess's guard was curled up on the couch, her hair unpinned and fanned out around her face; her lips slightly parted, fast asleep, with Kunzite's cape draped over her like a blanket. The man in question was sitting upright at the table, one elbow propped up, holding his head in his hand with his eyes closed and his breathing slow.

Huh. So he did sleep, Endymion thought. Unable to resist, he snuck forward and knocked Kunzite's arm so that his head fell and smacked the tabletop with a sickening crack. The blonde on the couch bolted upright at the sound, her eyes bright with exhaustion, her hair in a messy golden nest, looking very appealing, actually, if he had been interested in that sort of thing. Ignoring Serenity's giggling chirp and Endymion's near hysteria, she stood and grabbed her Princess by the elbow and rushed her to the window. After a quick search of the lightening sky for the location of the Moon, the pair disappeared in a pop of golden smoke.

Kunzite's glare only made him laugh harder. "I leave you locked in a room with a beautiful woman and you don't even try?"

Probably, most definitely, if he hadn't been the Prince of Earth, he would have gotten punched right there.

II.

Two nights later, Kunzite was pouring over the map when a flash of silver burst through his bedroom door. Before he could think, react, anything!--he felt his body freeze as his limbs were paralyzed. Every voluntary muscle was struck immobile under the heavy spell. The Princess blew him a kiss as she ran through his room. "Sorry! It will only last a few minutes! Please don't be mad!" With one last apologetic smile, she slipped through his door, leaving him with no choice but to listen to her fading footsteps as she made her way to the Prince's chambers.

The bedroom door thumped open again as Venus crashed through, chasing her Princess in a flutter of gold and light. She was halfway through the door before she noticed him sitting at the table, motionless. "Oh, no." A flick of her hand, and he could move again.

They were too late: the door was locked, warded, and a note written in ghostly light across the surface: I order you to stay out. Both the Prince of Earth and the Princess of the Moon had signed it.

Venus growled with exasperation and smashed the door with her fist.

Kunzite stupidly tried to break the ward, and got a spectacular nosebleed as a result.

Back in his room, Venus quietly watched across the table as he held a cloth to his face, trying to staunch the flow of blood without swallowing any. "I could help you with that."

"No." He had enough magic for one night. "Thank you."

"All right." She leaned back. "What now?"

When Endymion popped in the next morning, they both had their heads down on the table, a smattering of playing cards scattered between them.

He checked Kunzite's hand before kicking him awake. Flush, queen high.

III.

Three nights later, Venus felt her way around the darkened passages, retracing her steps carefully, mentally cursing the hallways, the palace, the whole damn planet for being so paranoid about magic persons and their gifts. It was because of them she was being forced to try and find her way around in the complete darkness, lest she attract attention by using a spell. Damn troglodytes. Their solution to something they didn't understand was simple: fear it, revere it, then kill it. No wonder they were still reeling from the Prince being born with magic.

She wondered how long it would take before they turned on him, too.

She found the door she was looking for, knocking softly. When he opened it and saw her, his eyes lifted to the ceiling and he sighed. "Again?"

"I'm afraid so," she said, lowering her eyes to the floor. Sometimes when he looked at her, she felt naked. "She's locked me out already. Are you sure—" She hesitated, unsure of how to ask. He had magic, loads of it, she could feel it practically pouring off; but it was all untapped. She wasn't even sure he knew how to use it.

If he did, between the two of them, they could have Endymion's door in pieces.

"I think they're going to, um," she kept her voice quiet. "Be a while."

"Ah." He didn't make any move to let her in, but kept his eyes focused on a point halfway between her collarbone and chin. Glancing down, she realized that the palace hallway was cold. And her dress—the toga style drape she wore during the day—was very thin, very white, and dipping dangerously low down her chest. She frowned; what was it with Earth men and breasts? The first time this one had seen her, running after Serenity, as usual, she had only one drape across her shoulder, exposing half of her chest. He had stopped mid-sentence and turned so red she thought his face might start sweating blood.

They didn't like magic; they didn't like breasts. What fun were these people?

In his room, she gestured to the cold fireplace. "Can I light this? It's cold in here."

"Uh, sure." Before he could make a move to collect wood and tinder, she simply blinked, and flames erupted in a red wave amongst the dry logs. "I guess you don't need any help."

She shivered and rubbed her bare arms. "I don't understand why anyone would live on a planet that gets cold."

Instead of responding, he merely shrugged his shoulders and pulled a cigarette from a box on the table. She wondered briefly if she had annoyed him, before deciding that she really didn't care, dragging a chair over to the ring of heat created by the fire.

They passed the rest of the night sitting in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames, waiting for the lovers down the hall, who were undoubtedly having a great deal more fun than they were. When Venus woke up in the same chair, the hearth was cold and covered in white ash, and her neck had a terrible cramp in it from holding the weight of her head.

IV.

It was embarrassing enough that she had to unfreeze him, again, but the Princess was a sneaky one, hiding behind a curtain and hitting him with the spell when he was leaning over to retrieve a pencil that he had dropped on the floor. The salt in the wound was the position he had landed on the floor: face down, ass up.

To her credit, she had been more incensed than amused.

"She's abusing her power," Venus said bitterly, pulling the borrowed cape tighter around her shoulders to keep out the chill. Again, the fireplace had been cold before she arrived, and Kunzite insisted on starting it the hard way. It was taking forever to warm up. "She knows I can't block her slowness spell, so when she hits me with it—" she sighed. "Once she gets a pretty good head start, I can't catch up. Sorry she keeps messing with you this way; she knows you're defenseless."

"I'm not defenseless."

She looked abashed. "No, I—you know what I mean."

Unfortunately, he knew exactly what she meant.

He stuck a cigarette between his lips and patted his pockets, searching for a light. He had used the last one in the fireplace. After thinking for a moment, he held it out to her. "I don't suppose you could—"

"I could," she replied, giving him a half-smirk. "But you could, too."

"Actually—"

"Would you like me to show you?"

"The thing is." He stopped. "Too much and I—" he gestured to his face. "You've seen it." He didn't mention how hard it was on all of them, how Zoisite's head would ache for hours afterwards, how Nephrite would get lightheaded and usually faint, dropping like a sack of wheat, and how much of a pain in the ass it was to haul the big guy off of the ground afterwards, especially when one's nose was hemorrhaging blood down one's face. That sort of information was better off not being shared with the guard of the Princess of the Moon, no matter how breathtaking she might be, and how amusing it was to see her wrapped up in his cape with only her blonde head sticking out of the top and her bare toes peeking out from the bottom.

She was staring at him strangely. "Are you sure you're not from the Moon?"

"I'm sure. Why would you ask?"

Venus leaned forward, her arms resting on the huge map of Earth spread out on the table. When children on the Moon started working with their magic, they were unfocused and raw, and physical reactions—nosebleeds, fainting, vomiting—were common enough to be considered a rite of passage, one that would usually be recalled humorously later in life. "Give me your hand."

It was cool and large, and she felt suddenly self-conscious of the moisture that was collecting in her palm. "Ready?"

She had to practically yank the resisting energy out of him, but when he relented, an ember flared at the tip of his cigarette. He let go of her hand and touched his face, shocked to find that there was no blood gushing down his front. "Shit—that worked."

She grinned, her smile bright in the dark room. "Want to try the fireplace now? I can put it out."

He took a long drag. "Let's not get carried away. This is my last clean shirt."

They stayed up late into the night, and it took only fifteen more cigarettes until he perfected lighting them on his own, and he couldn't very well waste them once they were lit. He waited until she was fast asleep on the couch before vomiting.

Endymion remarked the next day that the room smelled like the ass end of a Shantytown whore; Kunzite countered by asking how he would even know what that smelled like. Stumped, the Prince admitted that he had nothing left in his arsenal but a joke about his mother, and it wouldn't be very fair for him to pull that out, seeing as he didn't have a mother.

V.

The next night, she asked to try one.

"Really," she insisted. The way he would sigh and exhale a plume of smoke seemed to erase the tension out of his face. "You make it look very pleasurable."

Nephrite, that ass, had smoked the rest of the box during their meeting that afternoon, so he quickly rolled one and handed it across the table.

She took a drag and started coughing uncontrollably. "Ugh! Goddess it's like breathing fire! Why would you do that?" She frantically wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "That's the worst thing I've ever had in my mouth!"

He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing at the faces she was making as she tried vainly to rid herself of the taste of the tobacco. If she had been just a common Earth woman, or even a friend, he could have flirted with her. So what was the best?

VI.

Earth liquor was amber colored, with a strong odor and an even stronger taste. She knocked the glass back effortlessly, smacking her lips as she processed the taste. "Not very strong."

Jadeite had once illegally finagled a bottle of literal Moonshine: a beautifully clear, odorless, practically tasteless liquor which, unbeknownst to them, was almost pure alcohol. The first shot pretty much dissolved their soft palates, the second burned less going down, and the final, unwise third was enough to get them completely obliterated. Zoisite had tried to stand, and had immediately lost his balance and hit the ground, deciding to remain there while bitching for someone to help him. Jadeite had stumbled and ate floor face first when he attempted making his way over to give him a hand, then gave up and passed out where he lay. Later, Endymion had gotten punchy and tried to start a fight with Nephrite; not one of his most brilliant moments considering that Nephrite had about forty pounds and six inches on him. He had absolutely no memory of the incident the next morning.

Kunzite thought this important enough to share with her. When she laughed, she covered her mouth with her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. He noticed that she had very attractive hands, with small, oval nails on the ends of elegantly long, slender fingers, he wondered briefly what it would feel like to have her stroke his face with those fingers. And other things.

Her voice broke into his thoughts. "Why did you keep drinking it after you found out how strong it was?"

The reasoning didn't hold any water, even now. "Because we had it."

She laughed again, leaning back and clapping her hands. "That is stupidest thing I've ever heard of, and that includes smoking!"

Later, when he noticed that her eyelids were getting heavy, he insisted that she sleep in his bed while he took the couch. She nodded once, exhausted, and didn't give him a second look before disappearing behind the door.

It wasn't until noon the next day that he admitted to himself that he wished she did.

VII.

His pillows started to smell like her hair. Sometimes, he would pick them up after she was gone and inhale the scent. Not always. But sometimes.

VIII.

Sometimes she would slide between his covers and wonder what he looked like when he slept. Not sitting in a chair, his shoulders and back bunched up with tension, but in a proper bed, fully soaking in the dew of slumber, relaxed.

IX.

One point for each shot that got past her, two that got past him, and if magic was used, five.

The rubber ball zinged by her head, but was accompanied by a nosebleed from him, which was minus one and a penalty shot by her, once he was cleaned up, of course. She put a small glamour on the ball, so that it appeared that three were hurtling towards him instead of one. But he was too clever, and deflected the right one, amazingly without bleeding this time.

When they retired that night, her to his bed and him to the couch, the final score called was Venus winning fifteen to twelve. She suspected he threw the game.

X.

The Princess brought him a gift, slamming it down on the table before paralyzing him. "Heard you liked this!" she winked, her silver pigtails flying like ribbons as she darted across the room. She turned to face his immobile form before opening the door. "You know, you're supposed to dilute it with water first!" She giggled. "Otherwise, you're going to end up pretty drunk." The door slammed behind her.

The guardian who ended up unfreezing him had the same pale complexion as Venus, but was shorter, with blazing violet eyes and hair so black and shiny it resembled the surface of spilled ink. She stared at him suspiciously as he explained the situation, and refused to stay in the room, choosing instead to station herself outside of Endymion's door and not speak a single word.

It was her first time; she didn't know the circumstances yet, but regardless, he didn't feel like putting up with it. He pulled Jadeite to keep watch with her and went to bed.

XI.

The next time, after she unfroze him, he nodded towards the bottle sitting on the surface of the table. "Apparently we were supposed to dilute it before drinking."

Her hands wrapped around the bottle, and she stared at it curiously, sloshing it back and forth. "Didn't I tell you that?"

"No." He fell silent as he concentrated, and two small glasses flew through the air and landed on the table, although not upright.

She picked them up and righted them. "Nice work. Have you been practicing?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "A little." A lie; after running Nephrite through a messy crash course on how to focus his magic, they had killed an entire afternoon zinging small objects at a target on the tabletop and lighting cigarettes without matches. One point for each item that landed on a circle drawn on a piece of paper, and he had won, twenty-ten. Annoyingly, Nephrite had almost cut into his lead at one point, but was penalized for missing his cigarette and hilariously lighting a piece of his hair on fire. And then fainting. With his head still on fire.

Venus noticed her inhibitions going down as she poured herself another glass. When she leaned forward to grab the bottle, she felt her dress slip down her chest, exposing the round surface of her breasts.

More importantly, she noticed that she had done it on purpose.

He stared at a point on the wall. It took two more rounds before he would look at her again.

By the third, her tongue was so loose, she was afraid that it would fall out of her mouth and roll away. At a mention of Mars, she launched into a story about the raven-haired priestess, about how many weapons accumulated in her prayer fountain from Earth offerings, and how she secretly longed for something pretty, just once in a while.

"That's always me," she admitted, leaning forward in her seat and resting on her elbows. "Everything pretty and delicate always comes to me. If these men would stop praying and offering gifts to me and give them instead to their intended …" She smiled into her glass and took a sip. "Well, they wouldn't need to pray so much, if you know what I mean."

The fire threw orange light across his pale hair. "It seems like everyone wishes to be loved. They just don't know how to obtain it."

"No, no." She shook her head. "It's not something you catch and hold on to. That's not the way it works. What should happen is, you give love, and not just to who you think should receive it, but anyone, because everyone deserves it, and then you wait—it will come back to you. It may not come back from the person you want it to, but it will and does come back. You just have to accept that it may not be expected." Her eyes were glittering. "I wish people would understand that. They would be so happy."

They were silent for a few moments, both thinking of the couple they were charged with guarding. When he looked at her, she knew that he was wondering if his Prince had already known about what she spoke of.

He broke the silence. "So what do they send to you?"

"Me?" Her pulse fluttered in her throat. "Jewelry, mostly, and dresses. A lot of undergarments." A short giggle escaped, and Kunzite noticed for the first time how young she was. Not as young as the Princess, but still youthful.

"What a waste," she continued, spreading her arms out. "I mean, I don't wear them, so what's the point?"

He had noticed that, too.

She couldn't stop babbling. "Well, I do if I'm doing something physical, so that these—" She tucked her palms underneath her breasts and bounced them once. "—don't get uncomfortable, and—" He was staring at the wall again. She rolled her eyes.

Later, when they had moved from the table and onto the couch, slouching against the cushions, she was unable to resist asking. "So, what is the deal with the Earth and breasts?"

Kunzite jammed a palm into his eye and radiated out from that point, rubbing his face, hard. "Please don't ask this."

"Why not?"

"Just…don't." Even in the dying light of the fireplace, she could see how red his face was getting.

However, she was not one to be deterred. "Why? Come on, I think you're a qualified representative of your planet and your gender. Tell me what the fuss is about. It's just a body part. Like ears, or eyes." Part of her wished that she would shut the hell up, but the other part, the one that had leaned over the table and inhaled the scent of his pillows, was very interested.

His voice was low. "It's not just a body part."

"OK, then what is it?"

He took his hand away from his face to look at her. "You must understand that when something is forbidden, its appeal increases considerably."

She sunk down until she was almost recumbent. "I wouldn't be chasing someone down here almost every night if I didn't."

His cigarette flared in the darkness. By the time he had smoked it down to the end, her eyes were closing. "Can I put my legs on you?"

"You're welcome to use the bed." Always so polite, she thought, yawning.

"Too tired."

"Hmm." His eyes were closed and his head nodded drunkenly. "I can help you."

Serenity thought it was very cute, the way they fell asleep together on opposite sides of the couch.

XII.

Three things happened to Kunzite that week that were worth noting.

One was to admit defeat and keep his door unlocked so that the Princess didn't keep breaking it every time she felt like visiting Endymion, which was increasingly often. His bad luck was that his balcony was the only one that faced outwards, and repairing the lock was tedious.

The second was to leave a note for Jadeite to stop fucking the Princess's dark-haired guardian up against the hallway wall: please be a Goddess-damned gentleman and take it to the bedroom already before someone else noticed.

The third was that wet dreams about the Princess's golden guardian usually started off with her pulling her dress down, and then rubbing her exposed breasts over his erect cock until he exploded on her face. And then, she would laugh in that way she did that made him smile long after she was gone.

Three things happened to Venus that week that were worth noting.

One was to try on some of the offered undergarments that appeared in her prayer fountain: frilly, lacy things with too many straps and clasps that were hideously uncomfortable. They did, however, push her breasts together and up rather attractively, she noticed, before balling them up and throwing them away.

The second was catching Mars staring at herself in a mirror, turning slightly one way, and then the other, then closing her eyes and suppressing a small smile. Venus had seen that before: Mars was trying to see if she looked different now.

The third was that she wondered if she would have that same opportunity. And the person who her mind went immediately to…this could be bad. Very bad.

XIII.

"You don't have to freeze me!" He yelled at the first flash of silver light.

The Princess stopped her hand in mid-air. "Really?"

"Yes." He spread his hands in surrender. "I'm not going to stop you; I already realize it's pointless."

"Oh." She stared at him for a long moment, considering the standoff, and then quirked her mouth. He felt his body seize up. "Sorry, but it's really, really fun to do this to you. Maybe you should ask Venus to teach you how to block!" She ran to the door, laughing. "Good night!"

XIV.

It was the first thing he asked her the next time she came.

"I could…but it's going to be completely ineffective," she said. "She's much more powerful than you, no offense."

"None taken. It doesn't have to be good; I just need to put up something." He smirked and reached for the cigarette box. "It's personal now."

To learn how to block, one first had to learn how to freeze, and that wasn't too bad, if one remembered that it wasn't a good idea to freeze your test subject when she was halfway to sitting.

"I'm sorry," he apologized for the tenth time in a row as he helped her off the floor. "Are you sure you're all right?"

She dusted off her backside, and made a brushing motion with her left hand. He crashed to the floor in an undignified heap. "I am now," she said, grinning. She let him stay in that position for a while as she made her way around the room, picking up objects, paging through books. His eyes, the only thing that he could control, followed her every move.

She pretended to drop a glass bottle, catching it inches from the floor with magic and pulling it back up. She twirled around a coat rack and juggled objects in the air without using her hands. It was only when she picked up a pencil and mocked drawing slashes on the map on the table did he force his vocal chords to emit a weak grunt.

She let him go. "I'm sorry," she immediately apologized.

"You didn't know. But if anything gets changed on that map, I'm pretty much--" Fucked. "—It would be very difficult to rectify."

Venus sat on the edge of the table and examined the vast map that lay on the table. All of the continents of Earth, incredibly huge to her, entirely entrusted to one person. No wonder they drank so much. "Can you tell me about it?"

He crossed the room to stand next to her. "Tell you about what? The Earth?"

She swept her hair over one shoulder as she bent closer to the map. "Of course. I mean, I—" She felt sheepish asking. "I've never seen anything of it but this room."

He hadn't thought about it that way. "What do you want to know?"

Her hand stretched across to the biggest landmass. "What's this?"

"Asian continent. It's part of Jadeite's kingdom."

"What's it like?"

"Cold."

"What about this?"

"That's a really big island that we call Greenland."

"What's that like?"

"Cold."

"And this?"

"Northern part of the Americas. Nephrite's Kingdom."

"Hmm. What's that like?"

"Cold."

She started laughing, again. "What about…here?" Her finger moved to the southern most point.

"South Pole. Cold."

He watched her turn her body slightly, allowing him to view her silhouette: her perfect face, the slope of her neck, the round swell of her barely-covered breasts, the narrowing of her waist and the curve of her hips, and her legs, always almost visible through her thin white dress. "Show me somewhere hot."

When his eyes met hers, the feeling of excitement peaked over into discomfort. He had to look away as he leaned over and moved her hand to a different landmass. "Here. Central America. Hot. Lots of mosquitoes."

He didn't notice that she wasn't looking at the map anymore. "Where else?" she whispered.

"Here," he moved her hand again. "South—" He finally noticed that their faces were inches apart. "America."

She moved her fingers off of the surface of the map and brushed it lightly across the top of his hand. She felt him jump under her touch.

"Don't," he said, sharply.

Venus held his gaze, hoping the anxiety that was clawing at her throat wasn't showing on her face. She had wondered if it would happen, and how, and now that it might, she didn't know what to do except hope that each subsequent action was the right one. She licked her bottom lip. "Stop me."

She watched a tiny pulse thrum along his jawline, and turned to angle her body towards his.

His voice was strained. "I can't."

It happened so quickly that she didn't have time to process. Her eyes went wide; she couldn't remember if she was supposed to keep them open, or shut, or where her hands were supposed to go, but when she opened her mouth to accept his kiss, every thought went out of her head and her body took over.

It was suddenly wet, everywhere: her mouth, her lips, the insides of her thighs. Their lips crashed together, again and again, with more pressure each time. Venus had to remember to breathe in between, and suddenly his lips were on her neck and she was flat on her back on the table, on top of the map of Earth that had started everything.

She felt her straps tear as he pulled them down her arms, leaving her breasts exposed to the cold air.

She felt his mouth travel down and start licking and sucking at her nipples, the electric shock that flowed to her groin made her finally understand why breasts were so erogenous.

In the back of her mind, she asked herself if she was prepared to let him into places that no one had touched, places on her bodythat she held sacred. But then he gently bit her nipple, and she jumped and shrieked, feeling something in her chest twinge and break, and suddenly she was ready for him to take her body, mind, anything he wanted at that moment if he just wouldn't stop.

She couldn't resist reaching down and gently rubbing the slick tissue between her legs, the small action made him almost crazy with desire. The rest of her dress was torn off and she was naked, lying on the table, chest heaving, legs spread, waiting for what came next.

What happened next was that she ripped at his shirt and tangled with his hands as they both tried to unbutton his pants. Her hand slipped in first, making him grunt as she wrapped her fingers around him and pulled him out. He grabbed her wrist, hard, and threw it back behind her head as he climbed on top of her.

Their bodies pressed together: his, hard and tanned, hers, milky pale and soft, she felt him nudge her while he bit her ear, groaning her name. She understood, flexing upwards, allowing him to shove forward and into her as she cried out, locking her limbs around him and arching her back.

She pressed her face against his as he thrust, holding onto whatever she could, feeling it build, a little more, then a lot more, feeling it rush up to her head until all she could sense was the pressure of the wave that needed to break, and soon.

She heard herself begging him to go harder, faster, and he buried his face in her neck and obliged.

She moved her leg higher, allowing him to bury deeper into her. He was groaning her name now, his face tight, trying to hold back. His hand came up and turned her face to him as their bodies fell into a more frantic rhythm. He pulled her head forward, and the desire that had been building for weeks was finally expressed in the heat of their kiss.

The wave built strength as it rolled closer to her breaking point.

Closer.

Closer.

She threw her head back, her body thrumming against his penetration, wriggling uncontrollably on the hard surface as she felt it coming on.

"Don't move!" she shouted, pressing her knees together and catching him fully inside of her as the wave crashed with devastating force. She couldn't make any sound as her body came hard, except to frantically gasp air through clenched teeth as she pulsed with contractions like a beating heart.

He waited until he felt her body relax before moving again, slower, but harder, pressing her down into the table, hoping that he wasn't hurting her. She moved with him, her breath coming in jagged gasps.

"Go," she whispered.

She never took her eyes off of his.

He did.

He had to shut them when he came, shoving his hips forward as the first spasm of his climax gripped him and pushed him over the edge. He didn't hear himself groan, or feel his teeth clench together, or anything but the next tremor that shuddered his body as he spurted into her.

He couldn't tell if she was terrified or exhilarated when he opened his eyes to look at her. She was still breathing hard, her forehead covered with a fine layer of moisture, lips swollen, eyes wild. She was vulnerable, beautiful, and erotic, and he couldn't let go.

"What did we do?" Her voice was shaking. "What's going to happen?"

He leaned forward and caught her lips in a soft kiss. For a moment, she froze, her mouth tight, and then relaxed into him, responding to the kiss, allowing it to deepen until he was kissing all over her face, her eyes, her neck. His voice was hoarse. "I don't care."

They moved to his bedroom. She had been in his bed before, but never with him. It was a night of firsts.

No one had seen her like this: not naked, per se, since there was a statue in the garden of her naked, that was nothing new. No one had ever spilled her across his bed and touched her everywhere; kissed her in places that were no longer familiar, but new and exciting since his lips had brushed there. No one had spread her with his fingers and put his mouth on her, slipping his tongue inside of her until she was moaning and writhing and pleading with him to give her release.

That night, she learned how to read him, and knew when he was getting close, so that she rode him until he was almost to that point, and then she would pull off and lean forward to kiss him before he realized what was going on. She did that two more times before he growled and lunged forward, pinned her to the bed, and mounted her, thrusting so hard that it made her shout. She nearly blacked out with the intensity when she came.

He apologized afterwards, and she hadn't responded, but kissed him until the shocked expression slid from his face.

"Don't sleep," she murmured, fighting off fatigue, as they lay clasped together in the darkness.

"I won't."

They did.

When she opened the door softly the next morning, the Princess was waiting on his couch, twirling her fingers around one pigtail and smirking as she surveyed the damage. "Where is he?"

Venus pulled the cape around her shoulders, hoping that he wouldn't mind her borrowing it. She couldn't repair her dress well enough to fool anyone right now, and she didn't want to give her charge any more ammunition to use against her later. "Sleeping."

"Ah." The Princess stood, brushing herself off.

They didn't speak again until they returned to the Moon Palace, blinking at the change back to the comfortable darkness of constant night. Venus headed straight for her chambers, intent on taking a bath to wash off the dried sweat from her skin and the warm trickle of semen between her legs, but her Princess doggedly trailed her all the way into her room. "Aren't you going to tell me what happened?"

She let her hair fall in front of her face. "Nothing happened."

The younger girl irritatingly smirked and pushed it back. "Well, nothing ripped your dress to shreds and left a mark on your neck. How's nothing in bed?"

"Stop it." She turned away and headed for the washroom.

The Princess grinned and followed. "Why? We're talking about nothing, right? Right?"

Venus filled the tub, and after quick deliberation, admitted that her cover had been blown the minute she sheepishly emerged from his bedroom that morning. In one quick motion, she flipped the cape and the tatters of her dress over her head, and dipped one foot in the hot water.

Behind her, the Princess gasped. "What happened to your back?"

"What?" She maneuvered in front of a mirror and peered over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of her back. "Oh, Goddess."

A greasy black film was smudged heavily on her shoulders and backside, which also sported several shiny blisters. The Princess reached out and pressed her finger to a dark spot, her finger coming away black. "What is this?"

Venus groaned with the sudden realization. "It's the Earth."

Kunzite had been staring at it for a good ten minutes, and the shock still hadn't worn off yet.

All that work, the meticulous hours of strategizing and marking and explaining, gone in one night. The only thing that hadn't been rubbed off was the little stick figure that Zoisite had drawn standing on the North Pole; her head must not have reached that far. The rest of the map was a gray blotch. His finger rubbed a particularly dark smear where the legend used to be. It was probably on the back of her thigh right now.

"Here," Endymion said, holding out a pencil. "Looks like you have some work to do." He stopped and turned to Kunzite, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. "Oh, and don't move."

Kunzite was sure that wasn't the last time he would hear that particular catch phrase.

Endymion clapped him on the back. "I'd say you're pretty fucked."

He grabbed the pencil from his Prince's hand. Redrawing it was going to be a lot less enjoyable than erasing it had been.

He used a pen and ink this time.

It would be harder to rub off. But they could try.