Tag: haruka x michiru

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

Very brief entry for the fic party. Between my thesis and vacation, I didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to this, but I wanted to get something out. I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Wet Toes

812 Words

Haruka has always been afraid of the water, but Michiru has something she wants Haruka to experience.

Haruka watched as Michiru stood in the tide, rising andfalling with every wave as easily as she breathed. She could feel Michiru’sbreath now the way she could feel the sea when she listened to Michiru fallingasleep so nights. Coming to the beach with her had become one of Haruka’s
favorite little day-cations. This was the first clear day of spring. The sun
beat down warm enough to make the sand hot under Haruka’s towel. Michiru looked
back at her. Her hair blew around her face like a halo, like a flower blooming
from the waters of melted snow.

She padded back across the sand as though the heat didn’t
bother her. “You’re coming in with me today.”

Haruka pushed her sun glasses up into her hair. “You know I
don’t swim.”

“I do know.” Michiru smiled. “But I’m not asking you to
swim.”

“I don’t do water.” She didn’t remember why, not quite.
Maybe something had happened. Maybe she’d heard the wrong story at the wrong
time when she was young. But Haruka did not swim, did not wade. She’d go on
boats easily enough, and, as she had to insist to Mina countless times, could
bathe without a problem. Just nothing bigger than a bathtub.

Michiru knelt down next to her. Haruka hugged her knees and
tried to keep looking grumpy, but she felt her face soften when Michiru put her
hand over hers. “Do you see the line, where the water hasn’t reached any
higher?”

“Mm.”

“I want you to stand right there. Just on the line.”

“I’m not a toddler,” Haruka said, ready for her mother’s old
rebuttal that she was, otherwise she’d just get in the damn water already.

But Michiru just said, “I know,” and pulled her up. “But I’ve
been in the sky with you, so I want you to be in the sea with me, even if only
a little.” She squeezed her hand. “I’ll be with you the whole time.”

It was only her toes. Haruka could be brave with her toes,
certainly. Definitely. No doubt. She was Haruka Tennoh, Sailor Uranus, who
faced monsters and death and countless horrors with hardly a blink, she could
get her feet wet without fear. But she found herself swallowing down a lump
that had formed in her throat as she looked out at the endless mass of crashing
water. “Alright.”

Michiru was rarely as gentle as she was now. She let Haruka
set the pace, which was admittedly unthinkably slow for the soldier of speed.
She did not tug or dance ahead or even talk. She breathed slow and deep and
Haruka tried to follow her example, but her pulse kept getting faster as the
water got closer and she kept catching her breaths going fast and shallow.

But she refused to stop. She’d go slower than the crabs that
occasionally meandered out of their little hole homes, but she wouldn’t stop.
The line was only a few feet away. One foot. One step. She put both feet on the
line. Michiru stood next to her, and they waited. The waved slid in and out,
creeping closer and stopping short and sliding back to smaller waves over and
over until Haruka was sure that she’d never get wet at all. Her shoulders
relaxed. And that, of course, was the moment the water slid up and over her
toes.

She gasped; it was cold, it was the ocean, but it was also Michiru.
It was morning coffee and the feeling of snuggling next to her in bed and the
way her eyes drooped when she was tired. It was the way she played the violin
and the sound of her voice. Her paintings and her breath and the way she looked
at things she liked as though she’d like to absorb them but could not touch
them. And it was a thousand other things Haruka had never noticed or felt
before. She felt, for a moment, that she knew her fully, more than she even
knew herself.

As quick as it had come, the water receded, sinking Haruka’s
feet into the sand as it took grains with it. “Is this how you feel when we’re
in the air together?” How many times had they been in the helicopter? Or
anywhere the wind was strong?

“Not every time. Not even close to most of the time. But
enough to hope you could feel it too.” She raised Haruka’s hand and kissed it.

It was like having their first kiss over again, but fearless
and closer. Haruka moved her free hand to brush Michiru’s hair from her face. “Thank
you.” She kissed her forehead. “Maybe, another day, I’ll go in farther.”

Michiru smiled. “I doubt that. But this is enough.” She
rested her head on Haruka’s shoulder. “I’m glad you can meet me like this.”

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

I intended to write something fluffy and Outers Family-Oriented for Michiru’s birthday, but somehow I ended up writing this instead.

We Could Pretend

1219 Words

On Michiru’s birthday, Haruka makes a suggestion Michiru knows she should refuse.

Set during or a little before S. Not a particularly happy fic.

Read on AO3 here or under the cut.

Sunlight streamed through the curtains as she opened her eyes. She lie still for a long while, feeling the bruises still forming from the battle the night before.

There was a knock on her door.  “Michiru? Are you awake?”

“Yes, what’s wrong?” She sat up quickly. “Do you sense a Daimon?” She didn’t feel anything, but maybe sleep was clinging to her mind and keeping her from noticing what Haruka sensed. That was why they’d decided to live together, anyway. Easier to keep constant vigilance.

“No, no, don’t worry. Nothing’s happening. Er, nothing bad.” She heard Haruka shuffle her feet against the carpet. “Do you want to come out?”

“One moment.”

She made her bed and padded out to the living room. Haruka stood fidgety paper banner that read “Happy Birthday, Michiru” in big sloppy letters. Haruka’s marker had clearly started to die by the time she’d gotten to the “iru.” A large vase of roses sat next to a modest gift bag on the coffee table.

“It’s, uh, it’s not much, but—“

“Oh, you shouldn’t have done anything.”

“What just because we’re going to… just because of what we are, we can’t have birthdays?” Haruka’s tone started off joking but ended in a real question. Her smile faltered. The sadness in her eyes hurt worse than any Daimon punch.

“No, I only meant… I don’t really celebrate my birthday. And we didn’t do anything for yours. I didn’t, I mean.”

Haruka laughed. “That doesn’t matter. And I already got you something, so you can celebrate it at least this once, right?”

“I suppose,” she said, as if she could ever really say no. Haruka was still easily disappointed, she still knew how to be happy. Michiru was robbing her of that piece by piece, with every battle and every assurance that they would kill whoever they needed to, but she refused to take another piece now.

They sat together on the couch, a little closer than they should have been; Michiru feeling obligated no to move away and Haruka, perhaps, feeling like closeness was another gift Michiru wanted. Michiru longed to regain plausible deniability on that. Every time Haruka did something to oblige her feelings, she cursed herself for confessing. She’d known better. She’d always known better.

“Like I said,” Haruka started, setting the gift bag between them, “It’s not much, but I did my best.”

Michiru pulled apart the tissue paper slowly, ready to fake delight. She’d rarely gotten real gifts over the past several years, but none of them had particularly pleased her. Expensive brushes, a new violin, whatever else her parents bought all were very nice, very useful, but very predictable. Haruka hadn’t gotten her anything like that, but she still expected the worst. She felt almost validated when she unearthed a slender box that surely contained jewelry. A cold gift, and hardly a thoughtful one.

But then she opened it.

It was a silver bracelet, a little clunky and a little gaudy, with four charms clipped on—a seashell, a paintbrush, a music note, and a horse. Michiru stared down at it for a long moment.

“I know it’s not really your style, but you have everything and I… I tried to make it something special.” Haruka’s checks flushed red.

Michiru should have assured her she loved it, she should have immediately plastered a smile on her face like she was trained to do. But she stared for another moment and then asked, “Why the horse?”

Haruka cleared her throat and fixed her eyes somewhere over Michiru’s head. “Well, I heard this story, that Poseidon, ruler of the sea, created horses, and so that’s very you. But horses also race, so.” She let her eyes meet Michiru’s for a split second. “So.”

Michiru felt her chest crest over itself and crash down into her stomach. “Will you put it on me?”

Haruka’s unsteady fingers fidgeted with the clasp for longer than it would have taken Michiru to put it on with one hand. But Michiru didn’t comment. “I forgot to say thank you.”

Haruka looked up at her through her bangs. She dropped one end of the bracelet. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

Haruka got the loops to hook together, but she kept looking down. “Michiru?”

“Hm?”

“I know…” She cleared her throat. Her voice stayed rough anyway. “I know we can’t, and I know we don’t deserve anything, with what we’re going to do. But maybe… It’s your birthday. One day.” She traced Michiru’s skin around the bracelet with her finger. “We could pretend.”

“Haruka…” You deserve everything. I’m the one who dragged you into this, I’m the one… But Haruka looked up just then, still so open, still absolutely raw. If Michiru had been a better person, she would have endured hurting Haruka now to save her later. She would have thought about what would happen come tomorrow, how much more it would hurt Haruka, how much more it would chip away at her, how much harder, too, it would be if she needed to abandon Neptune to pain or death to complete their mission.

But Michiru hadn’t been a good enough person to keep Haruka from being a senshi.

And she wasn’t good enough to say no to her now.

Michiru kissed Haruka, both of them soft and hesitant. Haruka laced the fingers of one hand with hers, and put the other on the back of her neck, thumb brushing into her hair. For the first time in years, Michiru felt a real urge to cry.

She broke away and pressed her face into Haruka’s shoulder. She wouldn’t cry, Michiru Kaioh did not cry. And how would Haruka feel, if kissing her made her cry? She shut her eyes tight against the tears and breathed in deep breaths tinged with Haruka’s cologne.

“Are you okay?”

“You…” Michiru stopped. The truth would unravel everything. You’re amazing, and I love you. I will do everything I can to keep the blood on my hands, not yours. But she couldn’t promise anything, and Haruka had to be prepared. Hope was the worst thing she could give her. “You’re my first kiss.” A different truth, easier than a lie.

“Oh. You’re mine, too.” Haruka’s hand moved further into her hair and rubbed gently against the base of her skull. Michiru had had a nanny who did that when she was very young to put her to sleep. “Was I very bad?”

“No. Quite the opposite.” Michiru felt herself smile before she recognized there was a part of her that was happy. She closed her eyes again and let herself pretend that was all there was. Haruka rested her head on top of hers. Michiru hoped she was pretending, too. “We could go somewhere for breakfast.”

“And then we could walk through the park. Like a real date.”

“Something like that,” Michiru said, and already she saw it falling apart.

—-

She slipped the bracelet into her jewelry box before she went to bed, and in the morning she saw Haruka’s eyes fall on her naked wrist. “I have a premonition there will be a Daimon attack today,” Michiru said without a good morning. She fixed her eyes on the ground. She couldn’t watch as she broke Haruka that little bit more. “Today might be the day.”