Differences

Warnings: Mentions of sex, a couple swearwords, and failish writing. Carry on at your own peril.

xxx

Vexen was beginning to get sick of Marluxia.

They were so different. Vexen was clearly the smart, hardworking, thoughtful one, and Marluxia was the bouncy, thoughtless, sometimes-a-little-thick-but-don't-tell-him-I-said-that one. They were starting to grow apart, fray at the edges, sting each other with every word and quite frankly trying to maintain their relationship was a lot like trying to sprint through honey.

Now, there were things about Marluxia that were fun, or cute, or sexy. Things like his adorable jealous streak, his hair that just screamed "Run your fingers through me! I'm the nicest hair ever!" and the eyes, those eyes that trapped Vexen in their blue light for hours on end. In a lot of ways, Marluxia was amazing, and Vexen was lucky to have him. But in other ways... well...

There was the slight creepiness. Maybe Vexen was a prude, but he didn't appreciate having his ass complimented more often than his cooking. Not to mention the odd incidents like Marluxia noticing the hole in his jeans, which made Vexen wonder just how much time he had spent looking at the blonde's crotch, and that time when Marluxia had complimented Vexen's spotted underwear. Really, he was all talk and no action. In the year that they had been together they'd only had sex twice, Vexen topping both times which had been really unusual for him because he was sure he was an uke.

Then there was the bickering. Marluxia could be bitchy from time to time. Not outright "I hate your hair and those jeans make your butt look big" type bitchy, but subtle, poking, twisting, high-school-girl type bitchy. And it wasn't always directed at Vexen, either. A lot of the time, the comments were to or about Vexen's friends, which of course pissed Vexen off. So after a year of having his head fucked with beyond belief, an on-and-off relationship which seemed to involve more arguing than heart-stopping, smile-inducing romantic texts, and more talking about sex than even so much as kissing, Vexen had almost had it. In fact, one night, he decided that he had had it, and stormed out of their flat for a drink or four, a small part of him half-hoping that he would meet someone beautiful whilst drunk and cheat on his beloved dickwad of a boyfriend.

xxx

He was sat alone in a bar. Always a fun way to spend a Friday night. His phone had mysteriously "run out of battery" - as in, texting Marluxia was utterly out of the question, but the phone seemed to magically revive itself when one of his friends texted him, pestering him to read her fanfiction and asking whether he would help her with her German homework. He responded with a blunt "No on both counts, now kindly leave me alone, Yuffie" and ordered another drink, barely noticing when a man with an eyepatch slid into the seat next to him and requested the strongest thing they would give him.

"You." Vexen looked up at that, realising that the word was meant for him, and looked at the one-eyed person on his left. "You're Vexen, aren't you?"
"Yes, I am. And you know this how?" Vexen asked, receiving his third drink gladly and beginning to sip it delicately, or as delicately as one who has just had about two units of alcohol can sip something.

"I know one of your friends." There was a pause. "I'm Xigbar."

"Oh! Oh, yes, I remember Demyx said..." Vexen trailed off awkwardly, not liking the sudden change in Xigbar's face.

"Don't mention him in front of me," he growled. "Ever."

Vexen nodded. There was a very long, very awkward silence in which Xigbar rapidly got himself drunk and Vexen found himself more than a little tipsy. Marluxia would not be pleased if he came home tipsy. Vexen was, supposedly, the more delicate one, the "girl" of the relationship, if you will. Eventually, Xigbar decided to speak, or rather, attempt to speak.

"You're blonde..." he said thickly, swaying slightly in his seat. "He was blonde, you know."

"Who? Demyx?" Had Vexen's mind not been fogged with alcohol and some rather graphic thoughts about Marluxia, he would have avoided the topic of Demyx completely while in Xigbar's presence.

"Yeah... pretty li'l thing... I miss him." His face was completely void of the anger it had harboured before, and instead had misery written all over it. "You got a boyfriend?"

Vexen nodded. "He's a dick, though. Thinking about ending it." Only once the words were out in the open, hanging in the air like cobwebs, did he realise that he had, from time to time, been thinking about ending it.

Xigbar shrugged. "I thought Demyx was a dick... thought he was the biggest idiot in the world, sometimes..." Vexen knew that feeling. Damn, did he know it. "We used to bicker, a lot. He was so awkward in bed, and I always used to joke about how sex would be better with someone like Luxord..." Vexen had met Luxord twice. He seemed like a bit of a slut, and had actually been the cause of one of his bigger fights with Marluxia, who had made more than one comment about how he "wouldn't mind tapping that". "And then there was one fight too many and I... I kicked him out, Vexen, what kind of a bitch would do that to him? He's so ditzy and sweet and careless and he could be living on the streets for all I know and he could be dead and... and..."

"Xigbar, I saw Demyx just yesterday. He's living with his sister, Larxene, and her girlfriend. Naminé, I think her name was."

Xigbar scowled. "Stupid sister of his. Hate her. Always telling him that he could do better than me..."

Vexen sighed. "None of my Marly's friends seem to like me..."

"At least you and him are together. Stupid ditzy blonde won't have fuck all to do with me any more." He stood up abruptly. "I need to find him."

Vexen, being slightly drunk at this point, thought this was a great idea. "I'll help you. And then I need to..."

"You needa tell your boyfriend that you're... you're lucky to have him..."

Vexen nodded, stumbling to his feet. "Okay."

xxx

"Aren't they just adorable?"

Vexen stirred awake. A very familiar face was smirking down at him. He fought to sit up for a moment, but gave up and settled back into his pillows. "Marly... wha..."

"You had a little bit to drink last night, met Xigbar, and decided it would be a fantastic idea to track down Demyx so that Xigbar could beg him to take him back."

"Oh." Vexen winced. The alcohol was making its presence known in his body, his head pounding and his mouth crying out for water. "How did that go for us?"

"Well..." Marluxia pointed to a blurry form in the corner. When Vexen's eyes refocused, he recognised the skinny shape of Demyx wrapped around Xigbar, who looked twice as hungover as Vexen felt. "I'd say Xigbar got what he wanted."

Vexen smiled. "I think... I meant to tell you..."

"That you love me and I'm the best thing that's ever thrown itself into your life? Yeah, you did say that. You were pretty tipsy."

There was a moment in which Vexen started to worry about all the ways in which he could have humiliated himself, but for some reason all the panicky schoolgirlish thoughts he shouldn't have had in the first place seemed to dissipate as Marluxia shook the bottle of ibuprofen syrup stuff (Vexen had never been able to swallow tablets) and carefully poured out five millilitres into the medicine spoon, then bent down. "Open wide, Vexy."

Vexen opened his mouth, took the sickly sweet painkiller, and screwed his face up at the taste. "Sorry about being a bitch sometimes..."

Marluxia shrugged. "You make up for it by just... being you. I love you."

"I love you too."

The words were echoed in the corner of the room, as Demyx ran his fingers through his boyfriend's ponytail and wondered why he had let the man go in the first place.

Sure, Marluxia and Vexen had their differences, but as long as Vexen could come home drunk and be rewarded with painkillers and called "Vexy", as long as they could still say "I love you" like teenagers fizzing with hormones, smiles splitting their faces in half at times, as long as Vexen could put up with his boyfriend's stupidity and Marluxia could put up with Vexen being uptight, everything would be okay. Well, maybe less than okay sometimes, and more than okay other times, but overall...

"Stop thinking," Marluxia half-laughed. "Just relax, okay? And let's see that pretty smile of yours some more."

One thing that was noteworthy: Marluxia was the only one ever to make Vexen blush.

xxx

Ahaha, this is so not great. Oh well. It's entirely based on my dearest friend Death By Nutella (who is Vexen) and her totally-not-boyfriend-GOSH (Marluxia) with a special guest appearance by yours truly (Yuffie, texting Vexen about fanfiction). I might do an AkuRoku oneshot next. I feel I don't do enough oneshots. I would like my profile to say "Author has written eleventy thousand stories for Kingdom Hearts" and everyone to know my name. That is what I want out of life. Loves to you all, review or I will die, so on and so forth.