Pay it Forward Fic #1: Sailor Moon, Starlights, NC-17
Title: Monterey
Rating: NC-17 for LESBIANS FROM OUTER SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE.
Prompt: "Free-loving, pot and LSD, Monterey Pop Festival Starlights."
Dedicated, of course, to ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evil_authoress.
Notes: Hah, okay. This was wretchedly difficult to write. I do love music from the 1960's, but I really don't have the faintest clue about the culture - or rather, the counterculture movement - surrounding it. It was hard to research this fic, too. For example, I've seen videos and photos of the Monterey Pop Festival, but they always show the stage and never the crowd, so I really don't know what it looked or felt like on the fields around the stage. I also am unsure about LSD delivery methods, and I suspect that sugar cubes might have been passé by 1967, but I really don't know. So I'm certain that in the following fic I've gotten a LOT of important details wrong. But I'm kind of going for the Arthur Golden method here - "Screw historical accuracy, this is what I THINK it might have been like." That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
Monterey
“I think you might have made a mistake,” Yaten said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “This people are filthy.”
“No more or less than just about any other human we’ve ever met,” Seiya said, deftly navigating through the thronging crowd, stepping around as many lolling hippies and dirty blankets as she could. The day was hot, but the mud and grass were cool against her bare feet. Some of the local customs were turning out to be good ideas, after all.
Yaten followed Seiya, but still clearly was not convinced. “I don’t think that some of these people have ever washed their hair.” She turned to Taiki. “Are you sure about this?”
“No. But it’s a lead. And we’ll take whatever leads we can get.”
Seiya silently agreed with this. The sun was bright, the music was loud, and the crowd – even if mostly seated or lying down in this particular area - was enormous. Perfect. If you’re looking for someone, you’ll find them there, Taiki’s sitar-playing musician friend had said. Everybody will be there. And then he’d added, Even if the person that you’re looking for isn’t there, you’ll find the way to find them.
Cryptic, but Seiya was willing to take any risk.
“I’m getting sweaty,” Yaten complained, loudly. “I need to sit down.” She stopped in the middle of the crowd. Immediately sensing her hostility, the revelers around Yaten all seemed to simultaneously scoot away from her. That left a perfect clearing on the ground for the three of them to claim. “Seiya, tell me that you remembered to bring the blanket.”
“Uh…”
“Fine. I’ll sit in the mud then.” Yaten flopped down in the ground angrily, crossing her legs beneath the patchwork skirt that Seiya knew she loathed but had insisted on wearing anyway, if only to fit in with what passed for fashion among this particular crowd.
Seiya sat down behind Yaten. “Taiki, you should probably go find that friend of yours.”
“All right.” Taiki turned around in a circle, surveying the crowd around them, and frowned. “Well. Um. He must be around here somewhere.”
“Maybe he’s performing?” Seiya suggested.
Taiki frowned again. They were currently a long way from the stage. “Right. Okay. I’ll just start going that way. And you two stay here and wait for me, all right?”
Seiya gave Taiki a thumbs-up. Then Taiki was gone.
Yaten adjusted her skirt angrily. “Seiya, I’m fairly certain the people behind us are having sex. We should m-- Goddammit, Seiya, don’t turn around and look at them!”
“Er. Sorry.”
“Anyway, I want to move. Everybody here smells bad.”
“I think everybody on this planet smells bad, period.” Seiya shook her head. “If we move, Taiki will never find us again.” Suddenly there was a stranger’s elbow in her face. She pushed the stranger’s arm aside. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry.” The owner of the elbow, covered in dirt and sweat, peered at Seiya with bloodshot eyes. A couple of his friends, men and women lounging on top of his blanket with him, laughed at the glare that Yaten shot them. “Sorry, man,” the elbow’s owner repeated. Then he squinted at Seiya blearily. “Oh fuck you guys. Check it out. It’s an alien.”
Seiya froze.
“Oh shit. You’re right,” one of the girls on the blanket said. She brushed a tangled mat of hair from her face and asked Seiya, somewhat cautiously, “Do you come in peace?”
“I’m not an alien,” Seiya said quickly.
“Where’s your spaceship?” the tangle-haired girl asked, undeterred. Her pupils were wide and dark.
“I’m not--” Seiya started to repeat, but suddenly Yaten was at her shoulder, eagerly interrupting. “How did you know that?” Yaten asked their neighbors lounging on the blanket. “How could you tell?”
The girl crawled toward them. “Got a dollar?”
“Nah, nah,” one of the others on the blanket suddenly said. “Don’t charge them for it. That’s not cool.”
“Okaaaaaay.” She crawled back onto the blanket, then seemed to be struggling to push aside one of her more inert companions, reaching for a bag beneath him.
“So,” someone else on the blanket said, conversationally, and the tangle-haired girl did whatever she was doing. “Why are you here? Is there gonna be an invasion? With… lasers?”
“No,” Yaten said, bluntly. “We’re looking for someone.”
“Ah. That’s good.” The tangle-haired girl held out her hands, now full of sticky sugar cubes. “Whoever you’re looking for – whatever you’re looking for – this will help you find it.” She swayed blearily. “Find the path, at least. It’ll show you the path.”
Seiya hesitated. But Yaten placed her hand on Seiya’s shoulder and said, “Anything for her sake. Remember?”
Seiya nodded.
“The fate of the universe is at stake,” Yaten reminded Seiya solemnly.
Seiya nodded again. “Anything,” she repeated to herself, reaching for the promised truth that the stranger in front of her had to offer.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Wait.” She squinted against the lights, reaching upward, her arm growing for miles, but her voice too small, too quiet. She tried to shout, but it came out as a whisper. “Where are you?”
“In the teapot,” Kakyuu sighed, long, fire-red tresses wrapping around Seiya’s naked body. They writhed together; Seiya buried her face in the curled red hairs between her princess’s legs, drinking in the feel of her, the scent of her, greedily lapping up the taste of her.
Butterflies, red like blood. Flowers, smashed and muddy. She was gone. Seiya rolled over, groping blindly. “Princess? Princess?”
“She can’t hear you,” Yaten said. Not looking at Seiya, but at her hand, held up against the sun, casting shadows on her face. Her silly-looking jewelry jangled against her skin. There was a smear of mud on her cheek. She was dirty. Yaten was never dirty. But she was. Yaten lowered her hand, slowly. “She can’t hear you.” The she pointed. “She won’t hear us… Unless we do that.”
Seiya turned her head slowly, trying to focus on what Yaten was pointing at. The stage. Fire. “Set.. a guitar on fire?”
“No. Sing.”
“He’s not singing.”
“Seiya… shut up.” Yaten was a thousand red butterflies melting into the summer sky. She was a golden light. She was the path. “We have to sing.” She was floating away. Seiya grasped at her shoulders, in a panic, willing her not to leave. “Ow,” Yaten said.
“Don’t leave me,” Seiya gasped.
“I’m not leaving you. I’m… I’m just molting.”
Seiya licked her neck. “You taste like sunflowers.”
Yaten arched her back and moaned. “No. No. Not in public. People will see us.”
Seiya lolled her head. There were flowers everywhere, and mud, and flesh. The smell and sounds of sex, bodies coming together, the whole field vibrating with the strums of the guitar and the rhythm of love. And blood, everywhere. Red butterflies. These people – these Earthlings – these musicians, these lovers, these shouters, these dancers – they were all doomed.
Yaten on her back in the mud. Seiya straddling her, grinding down with her hips, enjoying the sweatness of her heat, her sweat. Silver hair gleaming in the sunlight. Watery, bloodshot emerald eyes. Lucious lips, parted, waiting for a kiss. Shirt pulled up beneath Seiya’s hands, tiny white breasts exposed, hard little nipples pointing at the sky invitingly. Long, thin skirt bunched around her hips – and torn. Seiya tore it further, fascinated by the ripping sound of it. Rrrrrrrrrrrrip.
Seiya tossed aside the remains of Yaten’s skirt, and at least had the presence of mind to gasp. “No underwear?”
“She’s in the teapot,” Yaten answered, “hiding.” She reached up, grasping for Seiya’s breasts, swinging low and loose beneath her shirt. “Do you see them?”
“Mm?”
“The butterflies.”
“...Yes.”
“What color is the path that you see?”
Seiya looked down at the warm, inviting wetness between Yaten’s legs. She licked her lips. “Silver.”
Yaten looked up at Seiya, squinting as Seiya’s head blocked the sunlight. “Eclipse,” she said. “Every star burning out and going dark.” She closed her eyes. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be scared,” Seiya breathed, gently kneading Yaten’s breasts with her hands. “Don’t be scared. Can’t you feel it?” The field, teaming with life and love. A thousands star seeds vibrating in ectastic harmony. The music, the thrumming rhythm from the speakers, coursing through their bodies. The drug, on fire in their veins, expanding their minds, showing them the path. The path to the Princess.
Seiya’s lips suckled on Yaten’s nipples, her fingers plunged deep into Yaten’s tight warmth. Yaten bucked and moaned beneath her, her lust burning Seiya’s skin, her flesh flowing like water, her body a wave cresting against Seiya. Her cries soared to the heavens, carried on the wings of thousands of butterflies. “She can hear you now,” Seiya said. Everyone could hear Yaten. Everyone could feel her. She was a star exploding into a supernova, a scream of white-hot joy burning through the crowd.
Seiya held her close, feeling her go limp. “Mm,” Yaten said. “Mm.” Satisfied. Spent. But Seiya was still burning hot with her need. She grasped one of Yaten’s sweat-slicked hands, and plunged it down the front of her pants. Inelegant and crude as the gesture was, it got her point across. “Please,” she begged.
Then they were rolling in the mud, limbs tangled. Yaten pushed Seiya down, and laid on top of her, melting against her. “Do you know what’s in the center of the stars?” Yaten asked, suddenly capable of articulating her speech, for some reason.
“Nn. Fire.” Seiya’s swollen labia pressed down on her brain. “I think I’m on fire.”
“You are.” Yaten had pulled Seiya’s pants down and her shirt up; she placed one hand on Seiya’s bare stomach. “In here. You’re just… fire. The same fire inside the stars. The same fire in the sky here. The same fire that the humans put in their bombs.”
Seiya stared straight up at the sun overhead. The light burned her, blinded her. In that blindness came an idea clearer and truer than anything she had ever known. “I’m a bomb?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Seiya felt lasers crackling beneath her fingertips. Promise of deliverance – and destruction.
“I’m going to make you explode,” Yaten said, positioning herself to place a kiss just above the dark curled hairs between Seiya’s legs. “Going to make you burn up. Going to make you scream.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s give them a light show, Fighter.”
Seiya closed her eyes, felt Yaten’s tongue burning inside of her, watched the nuclear fire of the sun behind her eyelids. She bucked her hips against Yaten, and Yaten’s face melted into her. The two of them fit together like pieces of a puzzle, merging perfectly into one writhing arc of passion. Fusion. Fission.
Seiya felt the scream welling up inside of her. She let it come, surrendering herself to the flames.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first thing that Seiya was aware of, as her senses slowly returned to her, was the scent of burnt grass. She opened her eyes and blinked, squinting against the sunlight. Then she sat up, quickly. Three things registered at once: One, the earth around here was scorched and burnt. Two, her shirt was gone. And three, Yaten was glaring at her murderously.
“Don’t thank me. I just found it lying on the ground. It’s probably lice-infested anyway.”
Seiya stared at Yaten. She was wearing jeans now, instead of the skirt that she had been wearing before. And she was filthy – utterly filthy. Skin smeared with dirt, hair tangled and matted in clumps, makeup smeared and streaked all over her face. “Come on,” Yaten said, standing up and brushing the grass off her legs, even though, in the face of her currently mud-covered state, it was a somewhat futile gesture. “Let’s find Taiki and get out of here.”
Seiya stood up too, although it took her a moment to find her balance. “Hey Yaten…”
“What?”
“Were you watching over me? When I was… you know, out of it?”
Yaten blinked at her. “Do you really think that I would just leave you lying there like that?” She seemed insulted by the idea.
“No, I…” Memories were slowly starting to filter in now. “Oh. Oh god oh god oh god oh god. We need to find Taiki.”
“Seiya, don’t--”
“We need to find Taiki--”
“Don’t panic, dammit!” Yaten hissed, angrily. “I knew you were going to do this. Ugh. I just knew it.”
“But we--”
“Listen, Seiya. Listen. I’ll tell you exactly what we did. One, we trusted the humans, which we shouldn’t have done. Two, I had a fantastic idea for something that actually will help us find the Princess. Three, you set a good portion of that field and possibly even a couple of filthy smelly hippies on fire. And four, the Princess heard us. Do you understand?! She’s here, on this planet. And she heard us.” Yaten’s voice suddenly broke, put she pressed on through her sudden tears. “Don’t you remember? She was there with us. She told us that we were on the right path. And it was beautiful.”
Seiya stepped forward, then, and wrapped her arms around Yaten’s slight shoulders. She pulled Yaten close and embraced her tightly, feeling Yaten’s tears immediately soaking into her shirt. Neither of them said anything for a long, endless moment. Seiya listened to Yaten sniffling quietly, crying from a combination of fear, exhaustion, and the daring heartache of having finally been given a tiny sliver of hope. Then Seiya stroked Yaten’s hair and said, “I do remember.” In the midst of the flames, the Princess had come to them. Seiya remembered the scent of her, the oh-so-real weight of her, the heat of her. And most of all, she remembered the whispered command:
Sing for me, Fighter.
Seiya turned her eyes toward the stage, still so far away from them. She watched the butterflies dancing over and around the crowd. Then she let go of Yaten’s shoulders, and said quietly, “Come on. We’re done here. Let’s go find Taiki.”
Yaten nodded. The two of them walked back into the crowd, hand-in-hand.
They found Taiki curled up on a blanket, with a group of strangers, either sleeping or passed out. Yaten tried to shake her awake, then suddenly paused, and said, “Oh, what’s this?”
“What’s what?”
Yaten rolled Taiki over and off another semi-conscious reveler, and pushed her shirt up off her stomach. Something was written in marker on Taiki's stomach.
Seiya read the message, then turned to Yaten and asked, “Who’s ‘Jimi’?”
Yaten shrugged. “I don’t know. I think maybe we should have been paying more attention to the music…”
Taiki chose that moment to open her eyes and sit up, blinking up at her companions blearily. “Ouh…?”
“Taiki, what happened to you?” Yaten demanded. “And who are these people?”
Taiki struggled to stand up. “These people? I don’t know.” She leaned against Seiya, frowning her way through the first question. “I saw the Princess. She told me… to learn… the guitar. And then
“Then let’s get out of here,” Yaten said, wearily.
The three of them stumbled back through the crowd. Seiya dragged Taiki along, concentrating on not stepping on anyone, and trying not to let herself be distracted by the butterflies everywhere. One step in front of the other, she told herself. Coming to this place had not been a waste after all. She had found her path, and she was on the right path, and at the end of the path was her Princess, still waiting for her.
Seiya grinned at the thought. A passing stranger suddenly waved and returned Seiya’s grin. Seiya threw back her head and laughed, drinking in the infectious energy of the crowd. All of this passion – all of this fire. And she knew how to harness it now, too. It wasn’t the sugar cubes – it had never been the sugar cubes. The key was in the music.
“There is power here,” Seiya suddenly said. It was an unusually obtuse statement by Seiya standards, but it made perfect sense in her own head. “You were right, Taiki.”
“Gooood,” Taiki drawled, still not quite completely returned to her senses. “I’m usually… right.”
Seiya laughed, and the butterflies laughed with her.
**Apologies for LJ messing up the formatting of a couple paragraphs in the middle. I have no idea how to fix that. And boy have I tried.
no subject
no subject
"Is there gonna be an invasion? With… lasers?"
:D
“This people are filthy.”
“No more or less than just about any other human we’ve ever met,” Seiya said...
They must not have met many humans, then. I wonder if the backstory for this was supposed to be that the Starlights landed on Earth and got into the whole counterculture thing.
Great story, though! I wish I had been on time to request one of your stories, because they're always good.
no subject
You, my friend, have just made my day. XD
Ahh, I miss all the Starlight!snark...