So, here it is, the end of this! (But of course it's not REALLY the end! After all, we all know it

ends (or starts back up) with a test paper and a couple of dorks in front of Osa-P, finding each other, so please excuse the drama!

Anyway, my beta has been having the worst two weeks at work ever, but I do want to get this out finally, and today is June 30th, Usagi's birthday, and so, as an exception, this comes to you unbeta-ed. Please forgive my German ass some mistakes, lol!

Anyway, thank you for everyone who wrote me a wonderful review, or made me moodboards on tumblr (!), OR EVEN DREW ME SERENITY IN THAT FLOWERY DRESS (looking at you Beej). And thank you thank you Antigone2 for cheerleading me on in this! You guys are so good to me, and 200% the reason I'm still here and writing! Thank you for every nice word and here are a few last words on this story for you, now!

Part III: The End

Perhaps, it had all been inevitable. Perhaps, he should have seen it coming. Perhaps, he'd never had any chance at all.

After all, the very Earth's gravity tended to go a bit nuts when the moon was involved. How should it be any different for the Crown Prince of Earth when faced with the incalculably disarming effect the very presence of this Lunar goddess had on the threads of his very being?

And if, for just a moment, he stopped thinking in excuses, and stopped blaming gravity and destiny for every last reckless risk he'd chosen to take in the name of love, he would have to face the fact that he had been willing to take every chance even when he knew he was walking into every doom with seeing eyes and a knowing heart, simply because he was clinging to a sliver of pale hope.

A loophole he might find. A law that might be bent under his will. The arrogance of a royal still hoping he might get to puppeteer once he became king, instead of being the puppet. Because he'd grown up a pampered prince so used to getting his every last mundanest wish fulfilled, even when he knew that was only the case because beyond that was no freedom for him at all where it really mattered.

He'd trade in every southern ripened peach from every prized orchard delivered in the mornings from across the globe in his childhood just because they were his favorite, and from his youth he would give every rare expensive thread spooled into his robes because he liked the lavish softness, and every expert teacher taken from their studies to put into his lonesome palace classrooms too big and too golden for just one snot-nosed, royal boy. Every last sham privilege he'd had that disguised itself as free will and he hadn't understood the emptiness of it, he not only would give it, he wanted to be rid of it all. Had wanted to hand it over long before he ever met her, long before he'd understood what he was really robbed of.

The freedom of choosing her.

Of course, he chose her anyway.

So very forbidden, so very dishonoring every rule placed upon him, so very treasonous.

It had been inevitable. All of it. Her gasps into his mouth when he made her come with his fingers, his tongue, his cock, and her gasps when they ran for their lives to cheat destiny another second in the end, after millions had died because he was too weak to resist. Deep in his soul, buried and locked and ignored, he'd known from the start this might be the price to pay. And yet he'd begged for it to happen. The future king of Elysion falling to his knees in broken pride at the feet of the heiress of the Silver Millennium. Bawling frustrated, angry tears into the warm lap of the very person his kingdom so despised, the symbol they blamed all their grievances on, in a degrading, emasculating image he might have been stoned for had anyone seen, and yet he couldn't give a damn at all. Because all that mattered was that she had tried to say goodbye yet again, back when they still believed they could. Tried to be reasonable because they had to, and he'd thrown all caution to the wind. When he committed treason just to see her and it was a prize he paid for even just a simple stolen kiss.

Because he was trapped forever missing her even when she was right there. Because he needed her anyway. Because she was his world when he was already supposed to have another.

He'd known what he was doing, at least he thought he did. Arrogant and reckless and full of false hope, he did it anyway.

He'd take it all back if it meant she would live. The one price he'd never calculated in. Too late, he realised that if everything burned, so would she. But he only learned that in the very last breath he would take, and it would be a knowledge he'd take with him into the burned ash that remained of the moon soil that would make up their grave, and beyond.

A mourning ghost haunting a young boy's mind, whispering of caution and regret.

It was the custom in the Golden Kingdom that a married couple wear a golden ring on their hand. A symbol quite quaint, quite laughed at in the rest of the solar system. A sign of binding, of possession. A tradition quite reflecting of humanity, they said, and how humanity so ached to possess.

But he wanted to be possessed by her so very, very badly. So very, very openly.

He hadn't been able to wear his father's ring. Of course he hadn't. Instead, Serenity had presented him with two small, thin bands, moon stone set in both, and an apologetic flutter in her brow he'd kissed away in reverence.

She wore his on a chain against her heart, wider for his bigger finger, hidden for all who did not know. He wore hers, so tiny it barely fit his little finger, on a chain in his pocket, dangling from the star-shaped pocket watch she'd given him so many, many moons ago.

Of course they would never be able to wear their wedding bands openly. Until the day they would die, they would have worn them on their fingers only once: the night they were so secretly wed in the gardens of Elysion.

But they wanted to. They wanted until they no longer were. And because the want was so strong, they wore each other's rings in secret as a precaution. So he wouldn't be tempted to rip it from its chain, if he were to wear his own, and push it onto his finger in an angry display of open defiance right in front of his mother, right in front of the rebellion, right in front of all the lords and ladies and judges and consorts and phony advisors of his court, when it all, once again, became too much.

But it burned against his pocket. Her ring. It burned every day.

He never glared at that crescent moon sigil so hard as when it was Venus wearing it in her stead.

And how the court that despised her so did not even notice when it wasn't she they were thundering at.

Peace negotiations. These were supposed to be peace negotiations. For a war in waiting caused by his own people. So much so that it was unsafe for his own wife on his own planet to attend them herself.

He was an angry, irritable, hissing mess of a man throughout the whole ordeal and it didn't help their cause one bit.

He'd approached her with the fiercest glare, the coldest demeanor, and hated the way he felt the glee of his lords at this hostile display towards what they supposed to be the rightful Moon Princess even as he bent to hiss right into Venus's face.

It wasn't the first time he'd sat next to Venus instead of Serenity. Of course it wasn't. Serenity's decoy was a staple on his planet at this point in time, had been for so long.

Over the years he'd sat next to Venus in demure politeness, trying to prove his worth to her authoritative gaze. Had pleaded and begged for details of Serenity's well-being during a lengthy 'goodbye', or tales from her childhood alike when he yearned for her too much, or even, in the early days, tried to gauge what the Princess might think of him by ways of her First Guardian, all of it in a wide spectrum from attempted subtlety to open despair. Had grown to laugh with her and glare at her and grovel at her feet.

But he hadn't seen Serenity in months.

Hadn't seen her since the night he stole her in secret.

And she was supposed to be here. Now. She'd promised. She would have been here. She would not have broken her word.

"Where is she?" he'd demanded, hot-headed and infuriated and in search of a culprit so badly it was almost a relief he had a convenient one right here.

Venus, to her credit, had held her head high and not flinched away at all, but met his glare with one of her own. This princess was not accustomed to bowing, either.

But then her gaze had flickered, for the briefest moment, to behind his shoulder, and he'd felt the uncomfortable jolt of armor to his right, and he'd known.

Of fucking course.

"We thought it best that I would travel in her stead today," she said levelly. Challengingly.

We.

Not we, the Senshi. Not we, Serenity and he.

No, it was we, the Senshi and his Shitennou. Making his decisions. Making her decisions. Now that they thought they'd finally gone too far, finally risked too much.

(And they had.)

He whirled around in purest anger, but Kunzite's gaze was made of controlled, levelled calm.

Endymion toppled over his high seat (higher than what was Serenity's rightful seat at the table, the gall of them!) as he left in a flurry of cape and rage.

The day he first realised he would never get his way was a Monday. The day dedicated to the moon of all things.

"The court is gathering today," Kunzite announced that morning without meeting his eyes. Eyes averted from the royal bed.

Endymion glared as he threw back the covers, stepped into his robe. "For what purpose?"

"Arranging for Leda's Call," he said evenly, watching him, and Endymion stumbled.

The traditional ceremony to choose his bride.

"It will be held in the royal gardens this year, since the rose bloom is so plentiful this year," Kunzite went on, as if he hadn't just said what he'd just said.

Endymion snatched up his watch, clutched at her ring. Unhidden if only in his bedchambers.

He threw Kunzite the darkest look of his life and waited.

Kunzite only looked back, waiting, and it made Endymion even angrier.

"...I'm married."

Kunzite's brow jumped, his own gaze grew darker.

He turned, ripped open the thick red curtains from Endymion's tall windows and violently tied them away with the golden ropes, tassels moving erratically. The sunlight that newly filtered into the room felt like a window to a different world right about now.

"You'll marry, Your Highness."

Endymion was ready to throw the bed, was ready to shout down the halls.

But Kunzite's voice was ice. He didn't look at him. Tied the curtains with whipping motions.

"You're not the only one giving their life for this kingdom. For your people."

And so Endymion's voice was ice, too. How fucking dare he.

"I'm married." Endymion's jaw cracked as he spoke between clenched teeth. "I can't be married again."

Two, three whips more, and the other curtain was tied. Kunzite's shoulders dropped as he turned.

And waited.

"The priest that married us will have to confess my treason…" Endymion said, glaring. "It cannot happen. The high priest cannot marry me if it comes to light. And it must."

Kunzite just sighed.

"It can be kept confidential," Endymion reasoned. "No one must know. Officially, I'll just be the first unmarried sovereign."

His gaze didn't change. But Endymion waited it out.

A match of wills, until one of them broke.

Kunzite broke first.

"That's your plan?" he finally said.

"It can work." Endymion licked his lips, his heart hammering in his chest. It could. It had to work.

But Kunzite sighed, and turned.

It was when he was back at the door that he spoke again, turned away from him.

"Leda's Call is on the first. You have two weeks."

Endymion smashed his fist against the antique coffer next to his bed.

"I'm married."

Another sigh, and Kunzite turned around. This time, his eyes were filled with compassion. With pity.

"That priest you were playing your cards on?" he asked.

Endymion paled. He knew. He knew before Kunzite finished speaking. He should have known.

Of course, he should have known.

"He's long dead," Kunzite said with a long, pointed, meaningful look.

His shock must have shown on his face. Kunzite's voice was softer as Endymion collapsed to his knees.

"You'll marry," he still said. "You'll keep the peace."

Endymion shook his head, yanked at his hair.

"You'll keep us all alive."

The circus that followed was excruciating and this garden fête the crowning torture.

The women were powdered, their dresses bright and colorful and expensive, their fans whipping like lashes. Women as far as he could see from up here, conversing with straight spines and fake laughter and raised crystal glasses like battle shields and eyes that of competitors. There was a group of people by the lotus pond and his statue, conversing about the merits of being the future Terran queen at the very place he'd given his heart.

It was the main event. The final viewing. Whomever they would choose, she was here tonight.

Almost every women in attendance was meant to be in the running for his hand, and from up here, he could see them all. From up here, they looked like tiny play dolls. Stiff dresses barely moving with the breeze as they bounced from place to place, always alert, always watching to find him in the crowd. In between them was every member of his court. Every last lord and priest. Judging, noting, smiling brightly and assuredly.

It was disgusting.

From up here, he could pretend it didn't concern him.

"What about this one?"

Serenity's soft, sad voice didn't fit his angry scowl, didn't fit the high-strung tension in his bones so ready to snap. Instead, her small hand was soft against the sandstone, her sigh a melancholy caress.

She was nodding over the wide railing. The newly annointed high priest - a man he'd never liked, too stern, too traditional, too proud - was holding a woman's hand pressed between both of his and nodded at her with a smile so wide all his giant teeth were showing at once.

She was fair-haired and short and her dress was a flower in pastel.

He was surprised the stone of the balcony railing didn't crack under his fingertips.

"No," he bit out.

Obviously, he knew it would never be his choice.

He pressed his hand to his tunic - against the chain of his watch in his breast pocket and with it her ring against his heart. He pressed against the embroidered fabric so hard it was painful where the gold band beneath it crushed into his ribcage.

"What about her?" she said instead. Calmly. Softly. Pitifully.

She pointed her hand towards a woman with flowing red hair, emeralds for jewelry so thick they looked uncomfortably heavy, deep in conversation with the Lord Themis. … And Kunzite.

Her smile looked proud. Her eyes had a goal. And a following. He knew that. He knew her.

His lungs pinched and his throat closed and his body was a constant flood of despair and wrath and he could not handle either, much less both at the same time.

He was so irritated he wanted to dig his fingers into the sandstone until it pulverised.

"It won't happen," he snapped, his eyes a glare on the Lady Beryl.

It can't happen.

But his litany ended there. Gone were his whispered assurances. Gone because they were no longer true. They'd all toppled one by one.

"Dimi…"

She shouldn't even be here. It was nothing short of a miracle it was her today, and not Venus in her place. Knew by the fact she was here alone that she was not supposed to be here at all.

Her hand was soft as it brushed against his hand. Nudged against his iron grip on the railing, the back of her left hand discreetly caressing the side of his palm the way that might be seen as an accidental touch should anyone walk onto the balcony with them, or anyone look up.

Careful. Hidden. Secret.

Her left hand. Her bare left hand. It shouldn't be bare.

He growled and his hand flipped out and around and captured hers. He laced his fingers through hers aggressively, and with a yank pressed their joined hands to his chest. To her ring.

She stumbled with a gasp against his side, and he whipped his gaze around to unabashedly stare at her.

His wife was an invited guest tonight. Not to ironically be one of the contenders for his hand, no. Not that. Just to publicly not be asked to bless the choice. A further act of defiance and rebellion, this time against a custom hundreds of years old.

She wasn't here for honoring a disrespectful invitation. Everyone would have told her not to come. Everyone surely did. Perhaps, most likely, no one knew she was here, again.

No, she was here because she wanted to see every last woman allowed to marry him.

And for once the disrespect against her didn't even make him angry. He would have broken had she had to stand there to have her hand kissed by them all and to bless every woman here. To have his wife bless inevitably the woman among them they would end up choosing soon. The woman he would ultimately be forced to marry. To bed. To have children with.

His throat was choked and his anger made his hands tremble, but he kept hers prisoner against his chest, and with every second of his terrified, angry gaze boring down into hers, her own eyes turned glassier and glassier.

"Maybe you'll like her," she offered, whispering, her brow puckering, and her beautiful lilting voice broke twice in such a simple sentence.

She moved her eyes away from his and down to their hands. Couldn't bear saying it any more than he could bear hearing it.

"I won't," he pressed out between clenched teeth, his eyes wet and stubbornly on her, even when hers still stubbornly remained dry and not on him.

I won't like her. I won't have her. I won't marry. It won't happen.

He would give anything for it not to happen.

It wouldn't happen, of course. His prayers would be answered in the most horrible, most wrong way. He'd never beg for it so hard if he'd known that then, but he had. Couldn't sleep because he begged for it so ironically with his life. For divine intervention. For the dead to rise and confess to his marriage. For them to get the chance to run away and never be found. For the silver crystal to fail to protect her just once.

Anything. Anything at all.

"Please don't like her," she said then, even softer, even pitifully. "I don't want you to like her."

She said it like she'd said something horrible.

"I won't," he promised, growling, squeezing her hand even tighter against him with the utmost vehemence, and yet her possessiveness burned in his heart.

It was so very new, but Serenity was possessive. It hadn't been in her nature when he met her. Her culture wasn't possessive. She hadn't been. It was him that had taught her to be. It was them.

Now, she whispered it in his ear whenever she had the chance. Had come apart, shaking and sated, to his promises that he was hers forever, hushed over and over and over until he was hoarse, the night they were married and she rode him wearing nothing but her wedding band on her finger and the moonlight reflecting off her glimmering skin as she drew a litany of 'yours' and 'mine' from his overwhelmed lips with every strong, slow, hard, torturous grind of her hips until they collapsed in exhaustion.

It was an ugly feeling. Jealousy. He'd put it in her veins.

And yet it was the only thing that kept him from snapping. The only thing that made this unbearable situation bearable at all. Because she was here, and her eyes swept back over the women below them, her brow puckered even more, her mouth a twisted line, her hand shaking in his.

Her eyes as she scanned every woman. Every single one.

She was mad with jealousy and he wanted it all when he should pray for her not to be. But how could he?

Her eyes narrowed even further. Flicking his gaze to where she was looking, he found a woman whose hand was kissed by Jadeite of all people. His smile was easy, friendly. None of the contempt in them he held for her. For them.

With a grunt, her eyes flew back to the Lady Beryl.

Reluctantly, he released her hand. But with one stride, he was behind her, his arms around her, his boots tangling into the flowing fabric of her ceremonial white dress, and his breath in her hair as he pressed her against the railing and shushed her as she trembled in rage.

Her hand settled back over one of his and squeezed, and she continued on her quest to glare at and memorize every woman here from her place in his arms.

He had never been more reckless. They were on a balcony, in broad daylight during the biggest royal event he'd ever attended.

It wasn't even the highest balcony. The staff liked to look down upon the mingling upper class from the upper galleries, huddled together to get a glimpse of the spectacles. From every direction thus, above or below, the whole kingdom could see him press his traitorous, rapidly hardening, supposedly-publicly-virgin cock against the future empress of the Silver Millennium at the very event meant to find him a bride.

But his actual bride was as angry as him now, finally, and he was drunk on her jealousy. It grounded him. It drove him. It made him stupid.

Her whole body started to tremble, and he held her even tighter, the gossamer dress swimming around him, her bare shoulder blades shifting against his tunic, her hair a silken fountain against his mouth and fingers.

"Shhh," he hushed into her hair. Rubbed his cheek against the fair, silky strands in the way he always did - like it might be the last time he could, and it made him only needier.

She puffed out a frustrated breath so deep it moved his arms clamped so tightly around her chest with the heave of her chest, and his thumb couldn't help but stroke across the golden, round embroidery of her bodice just below her softly swollen cleavage, the pad of his finger brushing against the rough, strong threads until they glided over cool, smooth, threaded peals.

She lolled her head back against his collarbone and he tucked it beneath his chin, and even when he was pressing his half-hard cock against the small of her back, her demand still threw him like a bucket of sensation that ran along his veins.

And it definitely was a demand, even when she whispered it.

"Fuck me where they could see," she hushed. Hushed it looking down across the crowd. Hushed it reaching back around and cupping his bulge.

He sputtered. "What?"

Below them one woman's shrill laughter rose above the rumbled cacophony of noise of a hundred-and-more people conversing at once, and heads turned to her.

Instead of pushing Serenity away like he rationally should, he pushed against her. Even when he'd gone pale. Even when his eyes grew wide and flew to make out his Shitennou on the ground in a practiced sweep. One, two, three, four. All of them down there. None of them looking up.

Serenity didn't turn to find his gaze. She continued to glare across the crowd, but she did remove her hands and braced them on the sandstone railing. And then she pushed back against him even more insistently.

"Fuck me," she repeated. Vehement. Her head moved against his chin when she spoke. "Here. Where they could see."

His heart hammered and his adrenaline spiked and his cock jumped like a friggin traitor. He should protest. He shouldn't do it. The high priest was right there.

But he'd eaten this woman out in the holiest temples and let her ride him and his naked, traitorous ass on the cold seat of his future throne, and if his wife wanted to be fucked in front of every woman attempting to marry him, he would not protest. No, like every other previous fuck-you to this prison in any fucking form they'd done before, it just made him impossibly hard.

It spiked his blood and clouded his judgement and she seemed to feel quite similarly. Because when he unwound one hand from her waist to lift her skirt and brushed his palm slowly, slowly down her form, across silky fabric and then silkier skin, she shivered so hard, so relieved, that it made him inhale sharply through his nose.

He held her tighter to him by her chest, rocked into her skirts with the bulge in his breeches, and she moaned pitifully, surrendering all her weight against his chest and arms when his hand made it all the way where it was always supposed to be.

When his stroking fingers met her slick, heat-flushed slit, he knew it wasn't any sort of skill that made her so very wet so very fast. He knew it was the irrational, dangerous thrill knowing they were so stupidly, so recklessly defying every rule right in front of everyone. No matter the cost.

He wasn't gonna fuck her. They were gonna fuck them. All of it. All of them. Fuck them all. Fuck their rules, fuck Leda's Call, fuck the high priest, fuck the holy seed.

His vision, his touch, his smell, all of it blurred hot and intense. She'd switched him on with that simple demand and he felt a bit simple, but ultimately couldn't care less. So instead, he stooped over ever so slightly, brushed the hair from her shoulders with his nose to make room for his lips and pressed them against the nape of her neck wet and hot and shivering.

"Please," she whispered, and then her breath hitched when he thumbed her clit just once.

Her thin, thin skirts were falling around her, shifting ever so slightly in a light rustle to his hand moving between her legs. Obscured by the layers and layers of fabric, but he knew. He knew this dress was so famously slightly see-through. He knew his tunic was grief-black for today's grim occasion. He knew the shadow of his arm would be seen, the back of his hand clearly contoured, even though his fingers' actions were invisible.

She was so very, very wet. Her stuttering breath his personal aphrodisiac.

She bucked her hips and rubbed against him, and he grimaced, his eyes rolling back into his head for just a moment until he released his hold on her completely, dress falling back to the floor like a waterfall, and she whined.

"No—"

But she broke off in a gasp when he grabbed her hips and rocked against her hard, her fingers twitching on either side of her on the railing, and he covered them with his own, nose in her hair, inhaling.

"Why?" he demanded right back.

A glass broke below in a sounding smash. Laughter from a group by the fountain. The gazes of women straying from their conversation partners. Looking for him.

"You know why," she gasped when he rocked against her ass again, and of course he did.

"I want to hear it," he whispered, and brushed his nose down the shell of her ear.

"You're mine," she growled. "Because you're mine."

Not theirs. Never theirs. Even if he was married to one of them. Would never be married to one of them because he was already hers.

He sighed, brushed her wild hair back once more, and reached to walk the pads of his fingers of his right hand up the tips of her spine where they were left bare from the middle of her back upwards. Walked them up as if her spine were a ladder. Up, up, up the softest skin he would ever feel to the part of her hair, then pressed his mouth back against the nape of her neck and inhaled like she was his salvation and not his end.

She whined, pressed against him.

Below them, the high priest excused himself from a group of women for his short introductory speech. Walked to the small dais built above the lotus pond, right behind his ridiculous statue.

Up here, just as the high priest was about to make a flowery, ridiculous speech about him in front of his flowery, ridiculous likeness that did not represent him at all —about his virtue, his holy purpose, all translating to explain to these women what everyone already knew: Sometime soon, he was supposed to put his dick in one of them— he brushed his hands along Serenity's hips, her midriff, her thighs, her abdomen, his hands digging and possessive and shifting with the silky fabric, front and back, breast and ass and hips and bare back.

She whined again, grabbed his hands and moved them back to her ass, gathered her skirts and he unfurled her impatient hands and had her drop it again.

The crowd below was quieting, expectant.

He stroked his hands slowly down the fabric over the curve of her ass, used his thumbs and fingers to ever so slowly, one by own, lift her skirt up until her knuckles on the railing were white and he chuckled just as the fanfares blared to announce the high priest's introductory speech.

When he finally touched her again, she was even wetter than before. Gasped noiselessly as his finger dragged along her just as the high priest started to greet the women. The 'bringers of the future', as he greeted them. He scoffed, twitched his fingers, and Serenity bit her lip.

Her gaze on the crowd, he decided to ignore the crowd was there. He didn't want them here. He only wanted her.

He drowned out the cheerful, aggravating voice of the new high priest, and instead listened intently to Serenity's sharp staccato breathing.

She was reaching back and blindly unlacing him with all-too-practiced fingers, and he let her.

Stroked his middle finger down her folds and up to her clit and down her folds.

He was slow about it. He was drawing it out. And even if he wanted to believe he didn't do this all that purposefully, that he did it despite, that he was manned over by his lust and out of his mind, he couldn't, because he was drawing it out. Because he was giving them time. If he drew this out, he would give them more chances to look up. To discover them.

And because he was stupid, that was exactly what he wanted.

With a grunt, he backed his hips away from her fingers when they, at last, had drawn his cock out from his pants through the lacing. Instead, he pressed her against the balcony.

"—the Crown Prince cannot await the day he will walk down the steps of the golden temple and lay eyes on his blessed bride—"

She growled. Held up her skirt, and spread her legs.

And then she growled some more, because he didn't ram himself into her.

Instead, he stepped up to her, bent his knees to align himself with her, one hand on his cock, one hand between her shoulder blades, and with an inaudible hiss, he dipped his cock against her ever so slightly.

Her shins quivered. She moved onto her tiptoes, clawed at the broad, wide railing and arched her back.

If she dared, she would be moaning. He wanted her to be moaning.

"—serve the kingdom as his Holiness will serve the people and restore the standing of the Earth to its rightful place and glory—"

Biting down on his tongue to keep from moaning himself, he dragged his cock along her wet folds. She was slick and warm and her flushed skin like a plush pillow beckoning, her inner muscles flexing with every slow drag of his tip against her entrance, the quiver he felt from her whole body as he dragged his cock in the staccato beat of her breathing back down the whole length of her wetness. She backed her ass up at him, balancing on her tiptoes with her chest now flat against the wide railing so he would just push into her.

But he couldn't have that. He pulled at her dress, yanked her up a little and she whimpered ever-so softly because it had stopped the movement of his cock.

But if she was bent over completely like that, they would not see from below. They wouldn't see her.

He should have wanted that. He should be pushing her down, not up.

She whined, whimpered by the time she managed to brace her hands back up, back arched and ass bucking, and he resumed his slow strokes against her. Up, down, up down, slow and pressing.

"—today, alas, is the most important day of your lives. Today is the day a select few of you will be chosen for holy examination. May one of you bear the fruit of—"

He wanted to push into her. Wanted to ram into her and fuck her into the stone. He wanted her to moan so loud the high priest would flush and look up to make out the improper noise. He wanted the eyes of every person down there to follow. All those gazes that had been looking for him in the crowd, he wanted them to find him all at once as he plowed into his forbidden wife.

And yet he stalled, kept his wits. And when he hovered against her, when her entrance clenched wet and warm and deliriously needy, instead of pushing the tip into her, he orbited it around and around and around, heavy and pulsing and studiously ignoring the build-up deep inside that wanted to be stupid.

But she wanted him to be stupid, too. She was so wet it was smeared on the inside of her thighs.

It was when the crowd finally clapped, the murmur of conversation once again rising, that he let go.

Her hiss of pleasure was so pitiful it rivalled even his own when he finally allowed his cock to dip inside, felt the slick heat of her envelope him as he stretched her, moaned too loud and too relieved between his clenched teeth and tense jaw as he grabbed her hip with one hand and slowly, slowly, slowly filled her up completely.

He felt every millimeter of himself push into her fluttering insides. She clenched and spasmed around his cock, trembled and cursed when he pushed as far as he fit and then just stayed there, buried deep inside of her where he would always belong.

She squirmed. She wanted to be fucked, she told him so, but he was grabbing her milky thigh and watched his long fingers dig into the softest, pale-white skin, mesmerized. Lifted it up and away just ever so slightly to open her up a little further so he would fit just that tiny bit more, and when he so carefully pressed against her —into her— that very last bit, she almost wailed. Her elbows flew up, her hands clawing at the sandstone as she braced herself against it to press back against him, to help him in just a millimeter more, just a tiny bit closer.

The sensation made him delirious, his cock swelled and throbbed inside her and she felt it and clenched back. He shuddered a gasp and pressed his forehead into her neck.

When he did fuck her, finally, hard and off-beat, just a little later, he ripped the necklace from between her breasts. Ripped his ring from her bosom so it would dangle freely, visibly, as it clicked against the sandstone as he fucked her bent over the balcony at last, and she moaned to every last metallic clang of it even more than to his cock in her.

He fucked her so thoroughly, so attentively, watching her every reaction, his eyes glued to her form and hers glued to the crowd, thrusting harder when she moaned for it, deeper when she pressed against him for it, rolling his hips when she shuddered on it, until he was drilling her into the balcony because she wanted him to, until she was a moaning, gasping, wet mess on wobbly, trembling legs and he held her as steady as he could, holding on by a thread.

She clawed at the sandstone to keep upright, the rhythmic movement of his thrusts moving her across the railing so that her thick white-golden bodice was dragged down, her pale pink nipples so beautifully puckered and just-so free, brushing against the stone. Her breasts bounced as he thrust into her and he wrapped his arms back around her to cup the soft mounds possessively, to hide her breasts from view should anyone look, because these were only for him, for no one else ever, not in the thousand years he still thought she would live.

He didn't even need to wipe her insignia free. This time it was already out. She was in the most famous dress in the solar system in a messy disarray around her middle, his unworthy cock throbbing inside of her at Leda's Call, and the golden crescent moon on her forehead wasn't hidden whatsoever, it was out and glowing with her forbidden pleasure.

He fucked her and fucked her until his hips burned, fucked her to the clang and clatter of the mingling crowd below, clasped his hands with hers over her chest and pressed his mouth into her sweaty neck and prayed and prayed and prayed that someone would look up.

Anyone.

It was risky. It was dangerous. And neither of them even pretended anymore that it was only 'deep down' that they wanted to be caught.

They desperately, desperately wanted to be caught.

But no one did, and he squeezed her hand and his thrusts became desperate, unrhythmic, and when he kissed the nape of her neck next, it was damp and smelled like her.

"Promise you'll never do it here again?" she gasped.

He stilled his hips. Stopped buried deep inside of her, bent over her.

"Never," he vowed.

"With no one else but me," she begged, turned her head. Found his eyes for the first time they'd been doing this, and they were heavy and desperate and oh-so-pretty. "This memory is mine."

"Yes," he croaked.

And then the tears burst from those pretty eyes, and he wanted them to stop. He wanted them to never exist.

"Promise I'm the only one," she cried.

He couldn't help it, his tears fell too. Fell into her face. "I promise," he hushed, and thrust into her slowly, carefully, tenderly, as if to prove a point.

She shook her head, looked back down at the crowd. The sandstone turned dark where her tears dropped onto it.

"No," she said. "Fuck me like you could make me yours."

And so he did.

He did until his stupid holy seed was dribbling down her thighs, mingled with her wetness. In clear, incriminating view and the sight was enough to make his flaccid cock come back to life and try again.

He tried. He tried so hard, so fruitlessly.

It could be so easy. There was a reason why his chastity was so protected. Their laws would protect his child. Would protect her. Would force him to marry even the enemy. It could be their out if she was anyone but her.

How could this ever have felt like a blessing? The irony that the most feared union in the entire solar system was not a danger at all for the golden kingdom's laws. This was a woman he could paint in seed, and yet the Silver Crystal would always protect her - and him, in a way. At least that's what they'd thought before. The holy seed in an unwelcoming womb.

Only later when they realised this might have been their loophole, and even before had become something he so desperately wanted, her round with his child, her to be his in the eyes of his world.

Only later they realised it was a curse.

When her legs started to shake, he slipped out of her, still hard. Dropped to his knees where his cum was smeared across her thighs and dragged his tongue into it, his hands pressed into her milky-white thighs. Pressed his mouth against her not to lap it up, but to catch it and press it back into her, every last bit back into her, his tongue as deep as it will go again and again so it stays, and did it until she came again, hunched bonelessly and shuddering over the railing.

It didn't stay. When reason returned and they finally realised what they had almost done, what they had almost forced to happen, and started to regret it with a burning heart and guilty conscience, it was all smeared down her legs and his chin and it didn't ever stay.

Of all their transgressions, of all their reckless stupidity, of obvious disguises and kisses on beams of the moon palace, tête-à-têtes on the very fucking throne, and fucking her on a golden balcony overlooking the biggest event of his young life where one just had to look up to see the treason right in front their eyes, it was a seating chart and a simple kiss that had killed them in the end.

They'd been so careful, in the end. When his Shitennou all knew and her Senshi all knew and they'd gotten too close to the fire too often, and enough had happened to finally, finally, make them careful. When he barely saw her anymore, tasted her even less, because, by now, he'd finally understood what the prize would be, and so had she.

It wasn't his cum on her thighs, or his cock deep inside of her as she rode him in the throne room, that had doomed them all.

It was a Prince too angry and too loud.

After their last near-exposure, when they no longer pretend they were careful and even Nephrite —who had found them flushed and in obvious disarray after that balcony— had thrown a fit, it had been months of agony where he did not see her. His own wife. In a time where his court decided his future completely without his say. Where Venus came in her stead to represent her for meetings once again. Meetings he had called in for the sole reason to get a glimpse of her in the first place.

Months until, finally, there she was, her at her mother's side, him at his mother's side, during rounds and rounds and rounds of negotiation with the Mercurians to grant the Earth a trade treaty so they may have access to their advanced technology at last.

He didn't attempt to sneak into her quarters and she didn't attempt to sneak out. They held their gazes as neutral as they could and only spoke when appropriate.

He didn't offer to accompany her anywhere and she did not request it. He didn't direct his speech at her, only her mother, and she didn't either.

And yet, on the second day of negotiations —and so late in the day and it seemed even later than that— after glances painted in agonizing yearning that he did not know how well he managed to cover up, he found himself in a seat next to her, facing straight forward at the round table.

A half an hour more and she'd not moved a muscle in her face when he'd finally dared his hand to reach and touch her leg. Did not move a muscle in her face either, when she grabbed it underneath the table, squeezed it so hard his fingers hurt, and held on to it until they both startled and straightened and broke contact when one of the Mercurian guards had moved to stand where they might see.

A room filled with the aristocracy of three kingdoms, guards from all of them on top, and no one had seen.

And then he'd broken.

The sixth and last day of the negotiations, the final banquet. Her mother already back on the moon for more important dealings, Serenity to represent the Silver Millennium Alliance in her place. A disgrace planned on her name so unimportant in retrospect, but by his own men right under his nose. He'd waved a seating chart in Kunzite's face in rage, and broken.

It all happened only mere weeks before his coronation. He'd been too sure, too arrogant, that they could deal with what was coming, with what he was doing. He'd been so wrong.

He'd flown across the palace, loud and reckless and done. Caused half the palace to whisper: the Crown Prince in the Moon Princess's chambers. Flew at her like she was his oasis, and she was. And she reached him just as fast, sighed in such painful relief when her hands connected with his face, and he pressed his lips to hers in the briefest, chastest kiss they'd ever shared, and it had again tasted like tears, like so many of her kisses had tasted, in the end.

They hadn't even needed to wait for the whispers to become the storm. The lips of the Crown Prince Endymion of Elysion on those of Princess Serenity's, the heiress of the Silver Millennium, had barely disconnected before the consequences of his carelessness had hit.

Too many had seen.

They'd gotten what they wanted. Gotten what they should never have wanted.

The maids in the visitor's hall had called for a guard. With reinforcement, they'd pried the doors open under Jupiter's hands.

Voice reached the court, the Queen Regent, the Rebellion, like dominoes falling.

The guard's name was Amynaeschylos. He openly cried of seduction and treason. Of the holy vessel in need of protection and salvation. Of suspictions he'd had for a while. He only did his duty.

The Earth never got that trade deal. In fact, the Earth pulled out of the silver alliance only three days later, breaking his heart, breaking with it every peace negotiation accomplished between the Earth and the rest of the solar system since the long war, and he'd been powerless to prevent it, days before being the most powerful man on this planet.

It was the day he'd finally understood what exactly it was that he had risked, and had begged and confessed and revealed all his truths on his knees at his mother's feet, the rightful king before the Queen Regent. For naught.

The hate and backlash towards the Moon Kingdom that erupted in the wake of his carelessness was so full of violent rage it felt as though it was supernaturally fueled, and maybe it was. A darkest of humany's many sides that had needed but a Catalyst to justify violence and genocide, and he had provided.

His Shittenou sided with the Lady Beryl and her nationalist Rebellion one by one. First Jadeite. Last, and most painful, Kunzite. The rebellion decided to invade for revenge in his name, his mother's armies behind them, blackened hearts and broken pride and the dream of superiority their driving forces. He'd barely had the time to make it to the Moon, to warn her, and he did. But when the troops arrived only hours later, they did not make it off the castle grounds, even as he yanked her down the burning, smoking corridors himself.

He died three weeks after that kiss in the visitor's wing. He died trying to protect her from his own men's swords, trying so hard that she would live.

She didn't.

Fin

I'M SORRY, OK?!

Anyway. I hope you're all doing ok out there!

(Also, fyi, the new color version of the Japanese eternal edition manga gives us very naked Serenity and Endymion proof that they were intimate, ok? Just so you know xD I'M CANON-COMPLIANT, I AM!)

Writing me a review, please?