DISCLAIMER: You know good and well I didn't make up these characters. It's fanfic. Copyrights (and possibly trademarks) of the original characters and story are recognized as belonging to whoever owns them. ^_^ Now, on with the show... "Inside Out" A Sailor Moon fanfiction by Addison Godel "I am who I am who I am Well, who am I? Requesting some enlightenment Could I have been anyone other than me?" The Dave Matthews Band, "Dancing Nancies" *** "For the last time, SERENA WOULD YOU WAKE UP?" I was awake already. I usually am when she's yelling at me. I'm just good at faking. If you fake being asleep you're ready for the real dirty tricks. She tried a bucket of water one time when I really was asleep. Don't ask me how a cat managed to drag a bucket of water in and dump it on me (The answer: Very slowly). "WAKE UP!" She was lying. Third time today she's said "the last time." Still, I've gotten about as much rest as I can with her yelling at me like this, so I might as well give up. "Wha...it's Sunday, Luna, let me sleep in...just a little longer..." I say, yawning. Same routine, every weekend. Predictable. Here's where she does the main points of the lecture thing. She'll go over them again later, on the way... "Serena, you really are getting too old for this. You've got to take being a Sailor Scout more seriously. Now come on and get out of bed and dressed, we need to be at the temple in fifteen minutes." What'd I tell ya? "Luna, you're so mean, just one more minute, if we can get there in fifteen we can get there in fourteen!" Just a touch of the whine, to let her know how things could explode if she doesn't lighten up a little. That whine comes in real handy. I use it a lot. "We could barely make it in -twenty- minutes, we're going to be LATE, Serena!" "Well if we're going to be late either way why can't we..." I give her the opportunity to cut me off. She takes it. She gets more predictable every day... "Just get up and let's -go-!" she says. Obnoxious little furball. I tear up just a little before fake-stumbling out of bed and across the room. I feel completely rested, really. I just like taking the opportunity to annoy Luna. Screw the meeting. We never talk about anything important anyway---just TV and guys, the normal teenage stuff. Luna doesn't want to admit that to herself or something. *** The run across town goes as normal. It only gets easier, that's how exercise is. Nobody's about to admit it but I've got the best legs of any of the Scouts. I don't think they've noticed, not that I expect them to. I don't eat as much as they think, either. I go a little overboard when they're around, so they assume I'm like that all the time. A few occasional sugar overloads aren't gonna do any permanent harm, though. So the actual running is pretty easy. It's the conversation that gets to me. Don't ask me how a cat can talk while running, don't ask me how a cat can keep perfect pace with me, hell, don't ask me anything about how Luna does anything. She's a magic cat, I guess is the answer to all of it. It's pretty flaky but you got a better answer? But anyway she spends most of the run every time lecturing me, and since I need to breathe I can't poke her with any real effective barbs on the way. Best I can do is just look whiny and lazy, which will get her riled anyway. Temple stairs are easy when you're in this kind of shape. A few nicely-placed pants and wheezes from yours truly keep up the ol' image for the feline fans in the audience, then the difficult crowd takes all the seats. First one I spot is Amy, hanging around outside the temple feeding seed to Raye's stupid birds. I wonder about Amy sometimes. She's no idiot---you knew that already, I'm sure. One of the smartest people I've ever known, both in books and in judging things. That can't be easy for her, I tell you now. Keeping up what people expect of you, having to meet a certain level of quality all the time or people get suspicious...sounds familiar. But anyway. I'm not fooling myself; I'm not a perfect actress. I figure there's a pretty good chance Amy'll figure out sometime that I'm not really as whiny, hungry, or lazy as I pretend. She doesn't know already, though, I'm pretty sure of that. And if she doesn't know the others don't. They're not stupid, of course, but if an academic and analytical genius can't spot it, then they sure can't. "Oh, hey Serena," she says in that singsongy voice of hers, "You're late you know. Raye's been yelling about it for ten minutes." She's smiling, though. After all, she knows that Raye is just picking on poor little emotionally defenseless me. I smile back, wheezing a little more than usual. "Sorry...Amy...Luna forgot to wake me up..." That sort of lie is really easy. Has to be. If I couldn't pull that off no way I could pull off the big lie. "No I didn't!" Luna exclaims in that tone of voice that makes the whole thing sound like a big joke. Amy and I both giggle a little. I don't think the furball realizes how she sounds when she says things like that. I know -I- realize it. I expect it. "I guess we better get inside huh Amy?" I say, gradually dropping off the wheezing and panting. She nods and turns towards one of the temple buildings, letting me follow. Inside to go through the motions with the other three. Basically the same bit I give Luna and Amy, with a few different parts. *** "SERENA YOU KLUTZ! Look what you did this time!" Raye's all fire and yelling as usual. With her I usually alternate strategies. Sometimes it's a tongue-out-sticking match, sometimes it's her yelling and me crying on the floor. I take some care with her. I'm pretty sure her big brimstone and hot coals spiel is just as much an act as the klutziness she's getting mad at. Of course, that means she probably could figure out I'm faking too, so I try to avoid falling into a pattern with her. "WAAAAAAAAH! Raye you're so mean!" Yeah, today feels like a crying day. This is good when I want the thing to get settled right off with just a tinge of it left over in the atmosphere. The tongue competitions are a lot worse at resolving things and actually put me in a bad mood sometimes. In any case, I get the anticpated result. Lita glares at Raye. "Back off Raye, it was an accident." I nod and sniffle, looking ready to burst back into tears at any moment. Amy joins in, right on schedule. "Yes, Raye, you'd think by now you'd understand her better." Ha. That's a laugh. I actually almost giggle out loud, but I hold it back. Barely. "Oh..fine," Raye finally breaks off, staring daggers at anything that happens to be in her field of vision. "I suppose I shouldn't expect a meatball-head like her to have any coordination..." Logic would dictate I start crying again at that remark, but that would just start things up again. I just sit there and continue sniffling. I imagine the others think I just didn't hear her or something. Coming up with explanations for the things Serena does is probably pretty easy. I haven't tried. *** Like I figured, the meeting was pretty straightforward and was over fast. The Negaverse hasn't done anything in ages so there wasn't much to talk about except some map Amy made with Negaverse attack sites marked on it...actually just a cleaned-up version of the one she showed us last week. So once the meeting ended we just hung around for a while. We all had our shopping done and the homework load was pretty light for once so we didn't have any real obligations. Now we're just goofing off at the temple like always. Well, most of us are goofing off. Amy's studying. I'd study more myself but that wouldn't fit my character too well. Raye and I are reading comics, Luna's curled up in a corner, and Lita's doing leg lifts while staring at the ceiling. A lazy Sunday afternoon with my friends. Ha. "Friends." Not really friends if the person they like, the one they've learned to care about, isn't real anymore. Oh, sure, I admit that I used to be a self-centered, work-shirking, stubborn pig, but I got over that. I did inside, anyway. Outside, I still play the role. I guess it's really dumb in a way, but in another way it's the only way to hold onto my...friends. Lita grunts and switches to the other leg. She's big on fitness, of course. That's almost all I know about her---that, and she can cook and she's hung up on her old boyfriend. If you asked me, I'd say she's a closet lesb', but who'd ask an innocent girl like Serena about that sort of thing? Anyway I really couldn't say for sure. We only just met a few weeks ago. She seems comfortable with us, though. Probably got some self-image problems, now that I think about it. But I don't like to delve into that sort of thing. Makes me start thinking about myself, and what it costs me to keep up the image. I'm not paying attention to the comic anymore. I'm thinking about this thing, now. All four of us, we're not what we seem. And I don't mean about us being Sailor Scouts. Though that's probably tied in together with it all. But we've got me, being the brat people expect; Amy, the genius people expect; Raye, the bitch people expect; Lita, the...tomboy she expects of herself, I guess. And thinking about that makes me wonder. Am I really keeping up this thing just avoid losing my friends by having them find out I'm not the person they care about? Or is it because I'm starting to really believe in this phony personality I'm keeping up? No, that can't be...if I believed I'm the way I act, I wouldn't be thinking along these lines...would I? I don't know anymore. And that scares me. The real me. I think. *** END *** Author's notes: Well, that was odd. Definitely not what I set out to write, but once I had it down I couldn't let it be so I fiddled with it till I got to this revised version. I want to make it clear that the interpretation shown here is - not- the interpretation I hold in mind while watching the show or reading the manga, but I do think it's interesting as a peculiarity or novelty or what have you. Though I use the DIC names here, it's not because I prefer them over the originals (I don't), but because the story isn't even plausible with the original characters. The DIC characters, I think, could fill in the roles of this fanfic, though it's not likely. There ya go. Comments, questions, suggestions, and feedback in general. Heck, even flames are welcome if they're clever. Better than nothing... ---Addison