A/N: Holy shit, I actually got this done before I went back to school (it's our Spring Break). Anyway, I've been feeling a little angsty lately, and Orin Drake made an LJ offer of drabble trades. I wrote her Saix x Demyx, and she's writing me Larxene x Marluxia. All in all, I really like this. I got the tattoo ink idea from Maru (my girlfriend). The rest was MINEALLMINE. Well, except the sex. That was Orin's idea. XD And I guess this kinda follows the theme of Orin's Demyx LJ icon. Where he's all bloody and it says, "Dying for my art". ... My only thought is ... I guess it didn't come out as "dark" as I wanted it to. But maybe that's just my opinion. But I think the Saix in my head is really fuckin' evil. Just another note, I was really apprehensive about posting this on (since it's so mature), but ... Y'know, I've seen worse. This isn't too explicit. So I'll leave it for now.

Disclaiminess: Saix and Demyx and all the other mentioned characters belong to Squeenixney and NomuraSama! Alas, I am not NomuraSama or his wife, so ... I have to put this here. XD ... Hm ... Do you think Nomura writes fanfics...? ... XD I'm so weird.

Rating: Mature. Violence, Homosexuality, Non-Con. Well, really, it's like "Consensual Non-Consent." ... Just read it.
Pairing: Saix x Demyx.
Word Count: Just over 1,100.

"What are you doing?"

It was the most painfully incredulous question he had ever heard asked to him without the tone moving a line on the scale of notes. It made him nearly leap out of his coat with … something like a sharp cry of surprise, paint going a flutter and splattering on the marble floors around him. No big deal. Paint came out of marble. But not out of canvas.

"I'm painting," the musician responded in a matter-of-fact manner with no twist of his features to see the so quoth 'second-in-command' behind him. But he heard the movement of fabric, the padded steps on stone, felt the magnetic pull of the moon closing in on the waters. And he felt the heated, yellow gaze staring at his piece with utmost skepticism.

Nobodys weren't supposed to have talent. Lack of hearts meant lack of talent. Lack of talent meant lack of individuality. Demyx refused to believe that. Lexeaus was good at solving puzzles. Demyx was good at playing the sitar (at least, in his finely-tuned opinion). Xigbar was god of the shooting ranges.

And Saix was so very good at what he did: making Demyx's spine freeze over. He wondered if that was a honed skill, or something that came natural.

The Diviner tilted his head at the canvas before him, eyes tracing at first the brush strokes and not quite able to put them together. When he changed his perception and followed the wet essences more like a book, he saw it.

A bird. Wings open, cage-less. Nothing but sky in front of it. And that was when Saix smirked.

"Symbolic, IX?"

"Don't call me that," was the first response, but the noted tilt of blonde spikes of consideration followed. "Yeah, I … guess this castle could sort of be like a cage…"

There was a pause of something. Time, thought, unwritten letters on the walls that Demyx never could depict, like old characters that wrote fairytales of happy endings and buttered bread. Maybe he liked those moments. Maybe he hated them, because something bad always followed.

And on just the right note of their little dance, he felt the sharp pressure on his stomach, being pulled to the Superior behind him with a hard, greedy--and gloveless, he noted--hands. He did not have to wiggle into his elder's contours, hips against hips for a perfect fit: it was something that came naturally. They fit. And they both hated it.

There was cruelty in his eyes again.

"You will never be free."

"Neither will you."

"You will always belong to the 13th Order."

"You'll always belong to your master."

"I will abuse you."

"You should know my response to that by now."

Saix did, indeed, know. He shoved the boy, pushed his waves into the crashing bay, and Demyx knew it was coming. He was just glad he missed the canvas, didn't blight that piece of art. He would take the punishment for his individuality in a physical manner, satiate the beast for just a little while … if he could keep his individuality. That was the sacrifice he made for his art. And he would gladly take it up.

But when his face was against the wall, one set of claws on his hips and the other on his shoulders, he wormed uncomfortably, daring to open his mouth.

"N-no. Not like this."

"You defy me?"

There was a pause. "Don't you … want to see my face … in agony?"

Another pause. Saix submitted to the lure of his sadism, however, grabbed the boy's arms and threw him to the ground. Demyx flinched as he heard the resounding clutter of his paints being thrown about. His arm had caught the corner of the case and all was lost.

'Better than the canvas,' he told himself in litany with eyes closed. He was waiting to feel the movement of his fabric, feel the deadly closeness of the elder's claws on him, expecting to have to hold his breath and not choke out a cry.

There was nothing. He creaked open one eye and saw the claymore-wielder with a blank expression on his face. He was holding a small bottle, staring at the crimson substance within. Not paint, but …

"Ink," clarified the musician with a quiet, obviously apprehensive tone. "Tattoo ink. They use it, in some worlds, to make body art."

Malice returned in a flash, and he knew he had said too much. The zippered coat was off of him before he could even let out his inconclusive cry of distaste, and claws shred through his undershirt before the Nocturne had a chance to play the game of wriggling away from them. Pants were simply torn asunder and lost in the chaos.

Too soon, too hard, the heat was inside of him, the timed growl above him as he was bent and forced to accept. The strangled cry only helped to further provoke the Diviner's lust and brutality with a hard push into the boy and claws biting into his hip to hold him still.

But there was more paint to come, and this time, Demyx saw red. Blood? No. … Ink?

Fingernails were on his chest, scraping, tearing, taking. He tried to follow the lines, but with the persistent movement inside of him, he couldn't focus. There was a hum of approval above him before all became an acapella dance of thrusts and sobs and the occasional grunt.

The Diviner found release with a final movement inside the tearless youth, and knew it stung, knew it burned.

"Feeling pain is better than feeling nothing," was the comment as the elder cleaned only himself off on one of the boy's rags he was going to use for painting.

Demyx hated how he was never looked at after all was said and done. As his superior began walking away, he sat up in a pained flurry and chucked a tube of paint at him.

"As destructive as you are, it's only a transient!" He shouted, not really even sure what he meant by it.

The diviner's steps didn't pause. "As hopeful as you are, you are still a caged bird. You know I will return to clip your wings."

And he did. Dear Gods, he did know. And it broke him inside, or should have, inside where he should shatter, but couldn't.

Instead, his anger broke. He glared at his painting.

And he ripped it. Tore it and tore it until his hands were wet with the canvas's paint, as though his art had bled on him.

It was only later when he looked into a mirror did he realize what the lines were on his chest. On his skin, ink and blood mixed, were the dripping roman numerals of his number. Of his place. Of his non-existence.