Just call me a sap now and leave me be.
Anyway, this is a Valentines Day present for my beautiful uke, Zume. I've spent the whole week slowly editing (and editing, and editing, and editing...) and finally became happy with the result with a few minutes to spare (for me, you bros in the USofA have half a day still to go or something like that, right?)
So yeah, enjoy this little ficlet, it was strange to write this because, though I call Zemyx my OTP, my fav pairing right now floats between AkuRoku, Seiner and Cleon (Leon topping of course) depending on what I'm reading at the mo. So I spent half the time trying to avoid putting the great things about those pairings in and focusing on what I liked about Demyx and Zexion being together.
My playlist while writing: -Where's My Love by Caroline
-Swallowed In The Sea by Coldplay
-In Demand by Texas (for you and you alone, babe)
-Won't Go Home Without You by Maroon 5
-Glycerine by Bush
-I Think About You Everyday by A Rocket To The Moon
...and other such fluff music I had sitting on my computer.
Have fun!
Wide eyes quivered in timid defiance. Painted like the ocean after a particularly harsh storm and shimmering as if tears were constantly threatening to slide down creamy cheeks. A few dusty blond strands of hair fell into the glistening spheres, but they did nothing to distract the boy from his task.
Shining gold orbs stared right back, a pure black antenna twitching as awkward feet shuffled slightly in thought.
It was a standoff.
One lone drop of sweat, caused by both sun and thick tension, trickled down the blond boys left temple, following the curve of his tanned neck to disappear under the black shirt at his collarbone, another following from somewhere under the longer hair flowing from the base of his skull.
Finally, after regarding the boy carefully, the tiny creature, smaller than a kitten, seemed to conclude that he posed no immediate threat and flattened itself against the grassy soil, moving away from the patch of wildflowers it had been hovering by ever since the young man had shown up an hour previous and, with a quick scramble, vanished into the shadows cast from one of the large apple trees surrounding them.
Demyx released a deep breath, glad that the little heartless hadn't taken his obvious fear as weakness and attacked him; he hated the idea of having to stab one of the admittedly cute creatures through the heart, which he knew was the only way to stop one should they determine your presence bothersome.
Scratching at the fuzz-like hair on one of the sides of his head, Demyx reached out one nimble hand, grasping a small bunch of flowers at the base of their stems and, careful not to take the roots out as well, pulled them out in one go.
The blond stood up with the small posy of wildflowers gripped firmly in his hand, trying to ignore the large number of dark bodies that squirmed and shuddered around him and wandered back across the grassy hill hesitantly.
He was not in his own backyard, but in fact trespassing on the grounds of one Genesis Rhapsodos who, though content enough with Demyx's company due to the younger male's delight in literature, simply loathed having someone even gazing upon his cherished Banora apple trees, even if the orchid's floor was covered in flowers that 'I really really need with every cell in my body, badly enough that I'd wriggle along the ground with my head down so I couldn't possibly see the trees if that was what it took to have a few flowers', he still sent the boy packing with not a tear shed.
Thankfully, it seemed to be too hot out for even Genesis to remain outdoors for a long period of time and the copper haired man had retreated into his lovely abode to do whatever it was he did.
He made it over the white-now-grey wall that was covered in dark green creepers the same way he got in and sighed in relief, knowing that the property he was now on belonged to the council and, therefore, wouldn't get him in trouble should he be found there.
It wasn't nearly as marvelous as the last residence, an unadorned field, three times the size in length than in width, consisting of tall, seed filled grass and a dirt track down the middle leading off from the road, both of which were scheduled to be replaced with something silly like a shopping strip or a gas station. The only downside being that in its current state, the field was hard to walk away from unscathed.
Demyx held the flowers above his head and, with a sort of self-righteous aura, strolled right into the mass of jean staining grass and squishy mud. He would have much preferred to have walked around the meadow, but one direction involved going onto the road, where he could get caught wandering around and his mom would then know he'd stolen from someone's garden.
The other direction was much worse, along that way lived a downright awful lady named Maleficent. And let's just say that the only difference between walking through scratchy grass and meeting that woman was that the grass doesn't act like it wanted to skewer you with its pointy nails, turn you into its 24hour sex slave and then, when it's finished playing with your dying body, sell your soul to someone even nastier. Demyx silently worshipped the council owned field.
He made it through with only a few stains and tears in his jeans and, after crossing one last property, found the rose lined fence that outlined his own family's estate. He hopped the fence without a moment's thought, carefully making sure not to look at the rows upon rows of high market flowers his mom, Aerith, had taken pleasure in growing.
Roses thought too highly of themselves, was Demyx's reasoning behind not picking these obviously beautiful ones but, really though, he had once glimpsed the pretty flowers in the apple orchid a long time ago with a friend, and didn't think about all the other just as good flowers in easy reach of himself.
He casually strolled round the side of the house, straining to hear the noises of a television when passing by the kitchen door. He trekked down the long driveway and followed it to the road, taking a left to continue where he'd left off before and heading to the neighboring house only a little bit up the road.
Sweat clung to him uncomfortably and loose stones, sharp and irritating, stabbed at his bare feet, jeans going through further torment and fraying a bit more at the bottoms to suggest he often went without footwear.
Even so he was feeling rather happy about himself. And as he skipped to his neighbor's property he hummed tune after cheerful tune with an air of confidence one doesn't usually get when receiving strange looks from foreigners driving by in their cars.
…nevertheless he was looking upwards at anything and everything to avoid drawing attention to his right hand, going by the ostrich theory that, if you can't see something, neither can they.
Finally making it to the other house, the boy with the strange hair pressed a slightly gnawed pointer finger at the doorbell and, in a rather sudden show of bashfulness, hid the flowers behind his back with both hands childishly, thin frame barely concealing it from view.
The blue mahogany door opened with a flourish, as if it had no reason to be hesitant, and a boy of about Demyx's age leaned confidently against the doorsill, arms crossed and fine eyebrow arched expectantly.
Sadly though, it wasn't the boy Demyx wanted to see at all.
"Hey Riku," he said with an almost inaudible groan, grin plastered to his dusty face by force of habit, "is Zexion in?"
Riku was admittedly a pretty boy. With flowing silver hair that brushed his shoulders and, hiding under that long fringe, alluring aquamarine eyes that were carefully schooled to an almost blank expression.
Almost in contradiction to his feminine features, Riku was blessed with a pleasantly deep voice, chiseled muscles and the cockiest attitude ever witnessed. Such a strange thing for this guy to be the bestfriend of Demyx's little brother, Sora, who was by far the sweetest, scrawniest and most sun kissed boy you could find sharing friendship pacts with a prick like the one in front of him.
Demyx was friendly enough with Riku, but there had always been this rift caused by a slight green tinge to Demyx's thoughts towards the other boy, and without meaning to, it meant they never got along in the same way that Demyx usually did with people.
He was, regrettably, nothing like the incubus, for lack of a better word, loitering in the doorway. His hair was something between blond and a light brown, a color you usually found in the re-growth of a dyed blond or black haired person, and his skin was, while naturally quite pale, a sort of creamy olive oil shade and a far stretch from helping him camouflage in snow.
He had luckily skipped the short gene that was passed to Sora, but with hardly any muscle on his lithe, bony form, his respectable height made him more clumsy than graceful and, weighing almost the same as his little brother, he looked like a giant stickbug from the 80s.
Internally complaining at how shallow his end of the gene pool had been, Demyx did not notice Riku call out to someone and move back inside the house to watch TV, a shorter, less arrogant person leaning in his place. Now he was staring into half of Zexion's pale face, the other half hidden by his long slate colored hair.
This brought about another kick below the belt of Demyx's self-confidence, the boy facing him had been his best friend practically since both had been pushed out of vaginas, and Demyx was pretty sure that by now he knew his type. The shorter male's hair, while darker than Riku's, was even prettier in shades; short and choppy at the back while long and elegant up front, the darkest ends matching his disciplined eyes perfectly. The boy was also a certified genius, and probably had friends who were smarter and much less pathetic than Demyx could even dream of being.
The jealousy never meant to have been directed at Riku. Demyx's logic had merely predicted intelligence and muscle (both of which Riku had, all while maintaining his gorgeous flair) to be the real key to Zexion's heart long ago when the young man had taken interest in someone called Lexaeus, who was ripped to the point of intimidation if you didn't know the sweet man and had oodles of brains to boot, to be his partner in a school project. There was no way they could have just been friends, even if they were put together out of the hat by their teacher.
"I've been trying to reach you all morning, Demyx," The shorter boy said, dangling his cellphone at shoulder height by its cute book shaped charm (I wonder who gave him that) as he eyed up Demyx's disarrayed appearance curiously, "what on earth have you been doing?"
The blond cursed in his head, remembering that he had left his phone at home that morning even though he'd promised Zexion he would call to organize times for a movie night that evening.
"Oh! Um… well I… I-I wanted to… to…" Demyx purposely smacked his toe on the deck in shame and, head bowed, thrust the flowers into Zexion's face, still gripping them tightly.
There was a pause where neither knew quite what to do. Demyx dared to peek up between the hanging pieces of hair at the other boy's face and, upon finding the shocked expression leaning more towards affection than anger, lifted his head completely up with a more genuine smile replacing the usual goofy grin.
Then he saw the state the flowers were in. The tops had wilted horribly and the stems were squished from his sweaty hands, a few shriveled from the sun and one or two were missing the heads of them altogether. He panicked at the sorry mess of colorful mush in his fisted hand and felt the tears that were always there start to prickle his eyes.
Zexion gave him a tender look and delicately grabbed the wrist of his spare hand, lightly tugging him through the house, past Riku in the living room, and into the kitchen, where he pulled out an empty jam jar and filled it with warm water and a quarter-teaspoon of sugar
"I'm sorry Zexy," Demyx whimpered as the other took the flowers out of his hand, "It was a long walk back from Genesis' place and I was so worried about being caught I didn't take good care of them," Demyx slapped a slightly green hand over his mouth at that, moaning to himself at how, on top of everything else wrong with him, he was also lacking a bloody brain to mouth filter.
Zexion had hesitated in putting the flowers in the makeshift vase to look at them carefully. After what felt like forever he turned towards the window where Demyx could not see his face through the veil of hair on his right hand side.
"You took these from Genesis' orchid, didn't you?" He glanced at Demyx to see the blond nod before turning back to face window again, somehow plopping the flowers into the jar on the table without looking.
"Why do something so troublesome for yourself? You could have easily asked your mother for a clean cut bouquet… why?"
Demyx sheepishly looked down at his feet, wringing his hands out in front of him.
"One time when we snuck into the orchid, you said you thought they were the most beautiful flowers you had ever seen. I thought you would want those more than mom's roses…" Demyx trailed off, eyes widening when Zexion gasped and whipped his head to face him, fringe fanning out like a skirt and uncovering two very startled eyes for a moment before the hair settled back down in its original position, covering one daintily.
"Dem," he started, as if trying to comprehend something, "you're trying to tell me that you went into Genesis Rhapsodos' apple orchid, picked a handful of wildflowers and walked all the way over here just because I liked them more than commercial flowers?!" He gradually got louder until he was almost shouting.
Demyx nodded meekly, shoulders hunched, and abruptly felt cool lips press against his, almost ashen hands curling around his shoulders and fisting his hair to pull him closer, a shorter body pressing against him fiercely so no skin was left untouched.
And, in the heat of the moment, Demyx was glad that, even with everything else wrong with him, he had a great memory…
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Little Zexion blew air into his fringe to move it away from his eyes, following the blond, who had been acting like a secret agent for the past thirty seconds, over to the white wall covered in climbable creepers so that they could see what Genesis Rhapsodos had hiding in his backyard.
Together, they sat on the thick wall, taking in every detail they could of the large, elegant trees covered in white apples and wishing they could taste one, but neither of them were crazy enough to set foot into the property just like that, it was suicide.
He brushed at his long slate colored fringe again in irritation, the orange setting sun flickering into something shiny and momentarily blinding him.
He looked over at his friend for the source and found the strange haired boy's eyes were twinkling with more beauty than he gave himself credit for, his whole face depicting a soft sort of happy that Zexion thought somehow looked even better on him than the childish grin he always had ever would.
Oceanic's eyes widened in its usual glee, a knobby finger thrusting forward to point at something in the yard.
"Hey, look!" he said joyfully, and Zexion couldn't help but smile gently as his eyes focused in on what the taller boy was talking about, then he saw it too.
A patch of flowers, tiny white ones with a big yellow middle, sat nestled in the fading sun amongst the tall trees. They weren't amazing or glamorous or even wanted, but Zexion couldn't stop staring in awe at the pretty little things, disregarding the trees entirely.
When there was only a thin strip of sunlight left in the sky, they made a silent agreement to head home soon. And, while taking one last look at the orchid, Zexion spoke
"I think," He started, yet again attempting to blow the hair out of his eyes, "those are the most beautiful flower's I have ever seen…"
He turned a light shade of pink at the exclamation and look over at the blond, who was gazing at him with an adoring expression his little eight-year-old mind couldn't comprehend written clear across his face. It made him blush even harder, something he never did when with anyone else other than the skinny boy with the silly grin he warmly called his idiotic best friend.
The other boy leaned forward and brushed the hair, which had fallen once more to rest in front of Zexion's eyes, to the right, parting it and leaving the hair to rest over only one startling eye. Zexion shifted and was pleased to find it stayed in place.
The darker skinned boy clapped his hands merrily, jumping down off the wall and turning to look up at the other boy, hand outstretched for him.
"I like your hair much better like that, Zexy!"
And when Zexion took Demyx's hand to help him get down, he thought:
'I think I like you more than a bunch of flowers…'
~~The End~~
I hate the ending. But no matter what I did, I couldn't find something that worked better without ruining the atmosphere of the fic (or whatever it is that got ruined).
Anyway, the whole idea actually came from a poem (which is amazing in the fact that I absolutly detest poems unless they are lyrics for songs or really funny) that I had to study in English last year. I shall copy and paste it for you, because I'm awesome like that:
If you love me
Bring me flowers
Wild daisies
Clutched in your fist
Like a torches
No orchids or roses
Or carnations
No florist's bow
Just daisies
Steal them
Risk your life for them
Up the sharp hills
In the teeth of the wind
If you love me
Bring me daisies
That I will cram
In a bright vase
And marvel at.
I have no idea who wrote it or what it's called (I copied it out of my school notes). But I had been tempted to get a plane ticket down to Palmy for the weekend so I could do just that for Zu, but sadly homework, lack of money and such forbid me from doing so... so instead I wrote about Demyx doing that for Zexy!
Lovely how my mind works, isn't it?
So this was my Valentines Day present finished and sent, now all I have to do is sleep in and appear anti-social like I do every year (I turn my cellphone off because I can almost feel the chainletters itching to be sent).
Hope everyone else has something special planned for their Miss-fortunes and Sir-prizes (sorry, bad bad reference), have a happy/depressing/whatever V-Day and see you in the aftermath!
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY BABY!