Hi there and welcome to my series of Rei/Minako one-shots. I use word prompts as my inspiration and these will serve as the chapter titles. Hope you like them. Any and all feedback appreciated, and if you want to make any word prompt suggestions for future chapters feel free to let me know!

Also, I don't own Sailor Moon, Rei or Minako.

Deluge

A severe flood; a heavy downpour.

The rain was relentless. Minako had fled without so much as a jacket and now she was drenched from head to toe. Slick blonde locks hung dark and heavy around her face, already conspiring to knot themselves together.

Rei shook beads of water from her umbrella and cocked it back up, the metal cold against her collarbone. The resort was quiet, every other tourist having retreated indoors, and Rei would have enjoyed the peace if not for Minako's behaviour. She had been quiet all morning. Then, when Rei had struck up a conversation with a male acquaintance at lunch, she had abruptly gotten up and stalked off for no discernible reason. Rei had pursued her.

A volleyball net stood abandoned on the beach. With a sluggish arm the blonde served a sopping leather ball. It hit the net with a wet thuck and fell lacklustre to the ground, half burying itself in the sand under its own weight. Minako had yet to notice her and sighed in bitter frustration, pushing her bangs back from her face with a sweep of her hand.

She tilted her head up to the sky; reddened eyes searched the cloud cover. Rei wondered, not for the first time, what she had done.

"You'll catch a cold," she said softly. The statement wasn't news by any stretch, but it caught Minako's attention. Minako stiffened, glowering across the sand at her.

"So what?"

"So, I don't want you to get sick."

"Why shouldn't I?"

So much for the gentle approach. Rei glared back, mentally rearming. "Pardon me for caring. I'm trying to be nice!"

"Well, you're being nice to way too many people these days," Minako muttered.

"The hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Ask Yamato. Or Goro. Or Ken."

Rei was so enraged she nearly sputtered. "I dance with one or two guys at a bar and that makes me a slut?"

"Yamato took you home!"

"He walked me up to my room! He was being a gentleman! Unlike the human garbage you open your legs for."

Rei watched Minako visibly recoil at her wording. A flush of anger – or something which at least passed for it - travelled up her neck at having said it, heart hammering acid around her veins. Minako toed the sand, an emotion not unlike shame flashing across her face.

"That's different."

"How is it different?" Rei snapped.

Minako said nothing. For a few moments Rei listened to the rain pound down around her ears. It sounded as if the world was ending. She wondered if she could be persuaded to call a ceasefire with Minako even if it was, or if this conversation would somehow take precedence over the sky falling in.

Minako spoke, quiet and shaky. "Did you sleep with him?"

Rei swallowed hard. She had not slept with Yamato. The very assumption was utterly preposterous, and the slightest suggestion that anyone would doubt her should have sent Rei's temper up like a rocket. But it didn't, because it was how Minako asked it.

Rei really looked at her. Her eyes sported the bags of someone up all night pacing. Blue irises were manic with insecurity, bubbling over with fear. Minako knew better than to even entertain that Rei would do anything like that, which meant she had asked that stupid question beyond all sense of reason. It had driven some part of her, some part beyond friendly concern and beyond common sense, completely crazy, and Minako was now stood before her, wan and shivering, cold and wet, absolutely petrified of Rei's answer.

Rei's eyes softened. She looked squarely at Minako. In her gaze, she tried to project every ounce of integrity she could muster. "No."

Minako exhaled anxiety. So much tension left her shoulders she appeared to almost deflate.

The rain kept falling. Rei's sandals were sinking. She forced a smile.

"Do you like Yamato?" she asked gently. "Is that why it's different?"

Minako's sigh was lost in the rainfall. She shook her head. "It's different because... because I'm in love with someone I shouldn't be. So I go around kissing frogs, hoping just one of them will turn into a prince and make me forget."

She met Rei's gaze again and at once Rei knew it was true. That it was real. She knew Minako loved her because she loved Minako the same way. It was the kind of love that hides, even from yourself, but spills from your subconscious as too-long hugs and heart lurches and the tingle of accidentally touching hands. Love you chastised yourself for, put down to hormones and too much thinking, or dismissed as a fluke, the cling of a particular outfit or the allure of a particular perfume. A love you wrote off as a million other things – compassion and admiration and the heat of a moment – but which never disappeared no matter how much you wished you could stop it.

Rei smiled at Minako, bittersweetly and from the bottom of her heart.

"Has it worked yet?" she asked.

Minako's eyes welled up. Rei had never seen Minako cry; now her tears rolled freely, racing raindrops down her face. "No," Minako said, smiling back sadly. "It never works."

The umbrella hit the sand and Rei was upon her, gripping her fiercely as Minako fell to her knees. The scratchy wet sand soaked Rei's shins, caked itself to her skin. She braced them both against the wracking of Minako's sobs, heard her hiccough and gasp for air as if Rei had saved her from drowning.

Rei held her until her extremities ran cold. She couldn't feel her hands. All that existed was the warmth of Minako's neck, the softness of her body and the steady rise and fall of her chest.

"Minako," she murmured.

"Mm?"

"I think we should stop fighting it."

Minako gripped her waist tighter. "So do I."