A Dry Spell by Starsea

I had your number quite some time ago —
Back when we were young —
But I had to go.
Ten thousand years I’ve searched, it seems,
And now, got to get to you,
Won’t you tell me how?

Call me, call me,
Let me know you are there.
Call me, call me,
I wanna know if you still care,
Come on now,
Won’t you ease my mind?
Reasons for me to find you:
Peace of mind.
What can I do to get me to you?

The Seatbelts

He knows he has no right.

He knows that her relationships are her own business. He knows that it’s partly his fault she has such bad luck with them. He knows he has no right to speak to her about anything to do with romance.

He knows all of this.

But he still speaks before he thinks, and when he sees her come in after the latest fight with her boyfriend, his sense of injustice flares up and he hears his voice, harsh with anger.

“He doesn’t deserve you.”

She stops. Her head lifts and she looks at him. He is aware that he’s said the wrong thing again. Her eyes are dark, full of pain and resentment. She opens her mouth and he jumps in before she can say the obvious.

“I know you can say the same thing about me. But it’s true. He doesn’t deserve you.”

“And who does?” she asks. “You?” She turns and walks towards him, chin jutting out. He doesn’t care that he’s just volunteered to be her target. What matters is that she’s no longer dejected or unhappy. There is life in her eyes now.

“No,” he says, frustrated, because what he’d really like to say is ‘yes and I’ll show you just how much’. “But you deserve to be happy. And he doesn’t make you happy. You need to find someone who makes you happy.”

“I thought I had,” she says, low, her eyes burning into his. “But we both know what happened then, don’t we?”

The words thud into him. She turns and leaves him aching both inside and out.

“Feel better?” he says.

She doesn’t answer but her feet speed up. He watches her turn the corner. Always leaving him behind.

*
Whenever she sees him, she’s drawn to him. She hates that. She hates the fact he has this hold over her (though, thankfully, he doesn’t realise it). She ends up yelling at him, insulting him, throwing the past in his face over and over again so that he goes away. She tells herself it’s better than throwing punches but the look in his face hurts her every time: the regret, the misery. She ends up feeling like she’s kicked a puppy. She ends up feeling like she’s in the wrong, when he’s the one who betrayed his vows, he’s the one who turned to evil!

“Why do you do it?” Serenity asks sadly after she’s driven him from another council meeting, white-lipped. “Why do you do it when you only end up hurting yourself?”

Makoto turns away. She knows that Serenity will never understand. Because she needs it. She needs some kind of release and he is such a willing provider. He steps up to the plate again and again. He makes himself a target. She’d call him a masochist except that masochists enjoy pain and he obviously does not enjoy being her target.

So the question is, why does he do it?

The question haunts her through springtime, through the worsening arguments with Susumu.

“All I’m asking is that you be home at a certain time so we can have a quiet evening together.”

“I told you at the beginning that my schedule’s erratic! You said that you could handle it!”

“Not this erratic!”

She slams the drawer closed and turns to him. “If you don’t like it, you know what you can do.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asks, pleading. “We never used to fight, Makoto. But ever since that man came back…”

“This has nothing to do with him!” she cries, feeling the words stick in her heart, jagged pieces of glass.

Susumu looks at her, his face tight with frustration and sorrow. “I’m not stupid, Makoto. It does have something to do with him. You should resolve this… before it ruins what’s left of our relationship.” He walks towards her and kisses her very lightly on the cheek. His lips feel cold. Then he’s gone, the door closing behind him.

Makoto hugs herself. Resolve this? Susumu has no idea what he’s asking. And that’s probably a good thing.

*
It wasn’t always like this. Back then, back when they were new to each other, young and fresh, it had been joyful. It had been like the taste of rain on your tongue after a dry summer: startling yet inevitable.

He remembers.

He remembers that she tasted like raindrops, and so whenever it rains now, he stands and lifts his head and opens his mouth, just to remember, just to taste her one more time.

He remembers chasing her through the gardens while it rained (where? Earth? the Moon? he doesn’t remember that part), and they were both laughing, because they were young and happy and they had no idea what the future held. Her dress was green, like the grass, like spring, and he remembers catching her about the waist and falling to the ground, rolling in the wet grass. Her hair curled into ringlets in the damp, just like it does now, and he remembers that she took out the ribbons so it fell around them in auburn waves. He remembers putting his hands into those waves, kissing soft pink lips.

He remembers the taste.

He remembers.

He wonders if she still tastes like rain. It would probably be acid rain now. At least, if it was him kissing her. Which it won’t be.

He feels like he’s in the desert and there has been no rain for so long that he’s even forgotten what clouds look like and there is nothing to slake his thirst.

So he stands in the rain and lets the water trickle down his throat.

It helps. A little.

“What are you doing?”

He blinks and brings his head forward. There she is, arms folded, looking unimpressed.

“I’m drinking the rain,” he says.

“I can see that: why?” She glances around. “You could leave a cup outside and drink it that way and stay dry.”

“It reminds me of you.”

There, that’s shocked her. She stares at him, eyes wide. “What?”

“You tasted like rain.” Nephrite is aware that this is probably not the best time or place to remind her that they ever kissed, but he is not good at lying, he never was. Lying is for Jadeite or Zoisite. And is there ever going to be a good time or place for reminding her that they once loved? He doubts it.

“You… how…” Her lips move but only disjointed words come out.

“You tasted like rain,” he says again. “I’ve never found that with anybody else. Ever. And I get thirsty…” He licks his lips, tasting the fresh water. “I have to slake my thirst somehow.”

“You could catch your death,” she says, her eyes dark. He can’t read her expression. He doesn’t know if she’s warning him or throwing him a challenge. Either way, his answer is the same.

“I don’t care.” He looks straight at her. She turns her face away but she doesn’t leave. He could reach out and touch her if he chose. His fingers twitch. He knows what he wants and he knows what he can’t have. But he’s not like Kunzite. He’s never been good at resigning himself.

“Maybe I want to catch my death,” he adds and then she looks at him, furious.

“Then you’re an idiot!”

“Yeah, I think we’ve established that by now, haven’t we?” he throws back and he’s surprised to see her go red. “I’m the stupid one, the reckless one, the one who betrayed you. So why don’t you run away, like you always do?”

“Susumu wants me to resolve this.” She hugs herself.

“’This’? What’s ‘this’?”

“Us! You and me!”

“How?”

She shrugs, the rage disappearing, looking miserable. “I don’t know.”

Nephrite looks at her and his heart aches. In one respect, he understands Kunzite: he knows that he would do anything to make that misery go away.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

She stares at him. Overhead, he hears thunder rumble and he flinches automatically, but he doesn’t run away. Her lips curl and her eyes narrow, telling him without words that he’s a coward.

“Is that it?”

“What else do you want me to say?” He throws his arms wide, showing her all he’s got. “Do you want me to say I’d go back and change it if I could? I’d go back and change it if I could! Do you want me to apologise for Endymion keeping us in stones? I’m sorry that he kept us in stones! Do you want me to apologise for him letting us go? Do you want me to apologise for daring to be reborn? Do you want to me apologise for fucking up your life just by breathing?”

“I want to know WHY!” she screams, silencing him, and the sky cracks open above her, showing blinding light for a moment. “I want to know why you did it! Why did you think that we were going to take you over?! Why did you listen to her? Why did her words have more weight than mine?!” She steps forward and lightning flashes through her eyes. “I loved you, Nephrite! I told you that! I’d never told any man that but I told you! And you…” She slams a fist into his chest and he’s sure he feels a rib crack but he doesn’t stumble backwards or bend over in pain. He holds his ground and looks her in the eye.

“And I was a coward and a traitor and I threw away what was most precious in the world to me.”

“I was not your most precious!” she yells, her voice hoarse with tears. “If I was so precious to you, you would never have given me up!”

“Haven’t you ever heard of not knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone?” he snaps. “Because that’s me, Makoto! I know exactly what I had, I know exactly how precious you were, and I know because I don’t have you anymore, because I have to watch another man stand by your side, hold your hand, kiss your cheek! I know exactly how stupid I was and I know that I’ll keep paying for it until I die again!”

“Is that what you want?” she demands, green eyes electrified and crazy. “Death?” Lightning licks the sky above her, reminding him of last time.

He laughs, feeling just as crazy, taunting a thunder goddess, taunting his killer. “How is my death going to resolve anything? You don’t get rid of me that easily, not this time!”

“I don’t want to get rid of you!”

“Then what do you want?!”

“I want you to promise me it won’t happen again!” She grabs his arms, her grip tight, almost painful. “Promise me you’ll stay good! Promise me you’re not going to believe the next crazy conspiracy theory and abandon everything!”

“So you can what? Relax? Go off and marry your sweet Susumu, the guy who can’t even handle you being a senshi when you’re not married?”

“You LEAVE him out of this!”

“How can I when he’s the only reason you’re here?!”

Their faces are so close now, so close, and the thunder is growling overhead. It’s like the nightmare of his death and yet he isn’t scared, not scared at all. He feels exhilarated, free. She looks down for a moment and he feels her grip loosen slightly. If they weren’t so close, he’d miss her words.

“He’s not the only reason.”

For a moment, the thunder pauses, the world is muffled. He stares at her and she looks up at him. He is suddenly aware of possibilities previously unimagined and wishes that one of the others was there. He is not good at this. He is not good at handling precious things. She should know that by now. He places his hands on her shoulders and a shudder runs through his body that has nothing to do with the rain.

Careful, you must be careful, so careful.

“Look,” he says, “we’ve… we’ve talked, haven’t we? I think we both understand each other better now. It’s… resolved.”

Makoto laughs. “So you’re going to be happy for me?”

“If you find someone who deserves you…”

“Nobody will ever deserve me according to you, will they?” she demands.

He takes his hands off and looks away. “Don’t ask the impossible,” he says, his gut twisting, feeling the cold of the rain now.

“Damn you,” she says, her voice breaking. “Why…?”

“Why what?” He turns back to her, weary but willing, ever willing to try and make things better.

“Why do you still make me weak?” She brushes her hair back. It’s so wet that even its natural curl has been flattened. She looks small and young. He feels guilty.

“Let’s go inside,” he says. “You’ll catch your death.”

“Maybe I want to catch my death,” she retorts, looking up, and this time there is no mistaking the darkness in her eyes, the meaning of it, and he feels more breathless than he did when she punched him.

“Killing you once was quite enough for me,” he says, and before she can say anything, he grabs her arm and pulls her towards the palace, towards dryness and warmth and other people. She does not protest, which is strange; he feels her watching him all the way back. He says nothing, either.

Storms always make him vulnerable.


DISCLAIMER: Nephrite and Makoto both belong to Naoko Takeuchi. I just borrow them occasionally. And the song Call Me, Call Me was written by Tim Jensen and Yoko Kanno.