2553/Secret Please

Secret Please
Date of Scene:	21 May 2025
Location:	Crystal Millennium
Synopsis:	On the ship back from Nemesis, Kazuo and Mamoru share a quiet moment of information transfer and mental cuddles. Also, ice chips and rage feature.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Kazuo Saitou
Tinyplot:	BMC: Dimension Future
Tinyplot2:	Black Moon Clan

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It takes a while, during the four hours it takes to navigate the gates from the outer system back to Earth, for Mamoru to wake up again. Then, even with the painkillers that had been on the ship, even with Zoisite's lotus keeping him stable, it takes until he can dissociate for him to be able to talk again.

Someone's reset his nose already, probably Chrono, and taped it; his arm and leg have been splinted and his hands... well, he can't move them anyway, and there's nothing can be done for his ribs for now. He's slowly begun to heal, away from the suppressing influence and dark energy of Nemesis, but he doesn't have much power left to do it with yet. Not until they're properly back on Earth and he can recharge.

His face is still swollen too, eyes shut except with effort spent to keep them open despite the pressure. He has a concussion, but you don't actually need to keep people awake with them...

"Kun-- Kazs--" his voice croaks out, and then he whispers, sagging, "--hi."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Hi." Kazuo (he's fallen back to Kazuo, finally) is sitting beside him. This isn't a surprise, really. "Would it be easier not to use words?"

It really is a question. With the amount of pain and the concussion, it might be harder to think than to croak.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Touch," whispers Mamoru, "ask with words."

He can't keep it all straight in his head, but he can think about answers to prompts, to solid questions.

When Kazuo touches him, there's a brief blinding flash of pain before it swiftly vanishes and there's a very dry and kind of detached sense of Mamoru there. Then an image, perfectly healthy, a little shorter, curly hair -- a sort of melding of Mamoru and Endymion, his image of himself. He holds out his hat and reaches in, then pulls out the Silver Crystal, the Time Key, and Luminous Titan's necklace charm, all on a slender golden chain.

Mamoru seems smug.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
There's a hand at the side of forehead, gentle against the radiant swelling, easing carefully into the contact -

And then there's a very quiet but really amazing choked sound, a moment after which a cartoonish white-haired figure in a cape appears next to that mental image, kisses Mamorudymion on the cheek, and pops out of sight again.

"Do you want some water?" is all he says out loud. "Or ice chips?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Yes, ice," the prince whispers. He's absolutely not moving, he's absolutely just keeping himself... detached, from the pain. He's good at this. He's so good at this.

In the contact, after the kiss and a wry little smile, Endymoru carefully puts the priceless treasures and Rashmi's roommate back in his hat, then takes a step back and gestures. Wicked Lady is there, standing over him where he is on the floor. Nearby is a hologram of Neo Queen Serenity looking like an Art Nouveau portrait, flower in her hair and long strings of pearls hanging from her neck and hand.

Replay: Wicked Lady's so tall, she's furious he's injured, telling him he's her favorite toy, telling him he should just heal himself by letting the dark in, indicating she wants him to join her-- and then her bending down to touch his face and show him something. The memory of what she showed him is in there too, just as clear: she hates Demande, she has Usagi, Usagi is with her now in a new henshin, also corrupted. Then the last thing Wicked Lady showed him: a game. Don't let Demande find out that Usagi is New Moon, is right under his nose.

"Secret," he whispers. "Please."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo absorbs the images and memory, keeping emotional reaction to them muted, silent. Time for that later. For now, he leans over and kisses Mamoru's temple lightly, murmuring, "You don't need to keep ice chips a secret, I promise." While under the surface is a fierce agreement. Tell one person, that one tells another, it's only fair for another to know, and then someone's blurting it out in front of a Droid whose eyes the Black Moon are watching through. "I'll be right back, it's only a few steps."

Which is good, because once he stands up and withdraws his touch and turns away, for the first two paces he's navigating by memory. Vision filled with a raging red haze.

He hasn't been working with Wako for nothing. He breathes, and focuses on the touch of the air and its preciousness, the life-harboring gift of water, and by the time he's coming back with a cup of ice he's firmly in control of himself again.

(It's not her fault. She's a child. And even in her madness, she's trying to protect her people. Mamoru too - there was that thing Rubeus did, to force the dark into people. She didn't.)

Which means that when he settles back down by Mamoru, fingertips finding their place again, he can be silently absolutely confident. Even as he's carefully feeding the first of the ice chips to him, Mamoru can feel that silent message: You'll heal. We'll get them back.

'We'll deal with the Black Moon' is implied, but those two take first and firmest priority.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's silent, tired agreement with Kazuo, he'll heal, they'll all get them back together. There's another thing that's riding with that: Mamoru trusts Wicked Lady to keep Usagi safe from Demande and safe from... a lot of other things.

The amount of power singing through Wicked Lady's touch was considerably more than his had been as Hematite. He has no doubt his corrupted daughter could kill Demande out of hand, the way she is now. There are still Saphir and Death Phantom and Esmeraude, but Demande is the ringleader of Serenity-obsessed hate.

Another thing that's probably startling to Kazuo -- Mamoru's not angry at all about what Demande did to him. He knew what he was getting into when he stopped the man. He is absolutely furious that Chibiusa and Usagi got corrupted anyway.

He takes the ice chip in his mouth and there's a wash of relief, the relief of the truly cottonmouthed and dehydrated.

There's love.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
They'll all get them back together: there's something like a single crystalline ring of a bell in the back of Kazuo's mind, the sense of a spot rarely thought about behind the back of the throat, a moment's taste of salt. Something to mention to Mamoru, but he'll come back to it in a moment, this is more important. Mamoru trusting Wicked Lady. Keeping Usagi safe from ... other things.

Kazuo shares, without a word, that inescapable sense of being watched while they were on Nemesis. Watched by something inimical, that simultaneously simply couldn't be bothered to share. A handful of ants, scurrying in and then out again with their tiny prizes. There's something there; and Kazuo is very glad that Wicked Lady can keep Usagi safe.

(He consciously lays down the label New Moon over Usagi's name. Not to risk a bad habit.)

Speaking of things done to people...

"I should tell you," says Kazuo aloud, "that you'll have company in the infirmary. Nephrite will be all right. Esmeraude turned into a ten-story-tall dragon, picked him up, squeezed a bit, and threw him back, but Zoisite took him to medical care before he could try to be stubborn and add any new complications to his injuries."

Softer: "You'll both be fine."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
That thing -- Mamoru's attention latches on swiftly to what Kazuo shows him, and he echoes it: for a day and a night he swam in that planet, keeping himself from accepting the dark energy that was killing him, the dark energy his body kept absorbing like the energy he absorbs from earth, but not staying because he refused, even though it would have been so easy, it would have been so simple to just accept it, patch himself back together temporarily, kill Demande-- and he shows how it stopped there, how there was no next step, how that was--

How that was all there was, because dark energy makes him impulsive, makes him care less about consequences, makes him care less, but how it would at least have made this hurting stop, and he's been Hematite before, he could have done it again, it would have been fine, his daughter tried to get him to drink from that well, and...

...yes, there was something watching. It was patient, it was ancient, it was immense. But yes, also inimical. So far from his home where he feels so large, Mamoru felt so small, and it offered such strength if he wanted to take it.

"Thank you," Mamoru whispers, "for the promise. Kept me from it. Only thing that did."

Then he closes his slit-open eyes and sighs. "Neph..."

There is absolutely the mental image of Jupiter suplexing the dragon. But-- Kazuo is being soft, and the painkillers are making Mamoru drifty, so his mind just curls sort of hazily around Kazuo's, enveloping and also being held.