This was written for a prompt on the kink meme asking for genderswapped Demyx. It started as a simple ~500 word thing, but then inspiration got in the way of everything else I had to do and gave me Effy Lewis. Hopefully, she's as close to Demyx's personality as I was trying for, but I think I'll just let you guys decide that.

Enjoy!

Effy Lewis was a dumb whore.

She possessed both the 'annoying cheerful disposition' and 'distractingly bright clothing' attributes of being such a dumb whore, and neither of those factors had any business in a behavioral psych class. Yet there she sat, in the stark middle of of the lecture hall - far enough back to make those in front turn around to look at her when she spoke, and far enough forward so that those behind her would have something to stare at when she arrived late and of course would insist on still sitting in the same seat.

She hadn't been late, she'd actually arrived shortly after Zexion, pigtails pulled ridiculously high, eyes outlined in some bright blue imitation of makeup, smiling and humming something loud enough he it could hear it from the row behind her. She'd pulled out a notebook, scribbled something at the top of a page, and reclined in the chair, beating out a rhythm on the table to match her humming.

Zexion didn't have a problem with humming, or tapping, or fidgeting, or even with the way she used her style to attempt and revive her childhood. He had a problem with the smile that had yet to disappear (from what he could see), the way it rubbed off on the people around her - all male, of course, and the bubbly manner in which she had answered to her name during the roll. Being a dunderheaded optimist was all well and fine - the world would crumble without people believing in its worth - but this was a higher level psychology class. Let the attention-seeking harlot go be an art major.

'Negative reinforcement,' Zexion thought into the silence created by the professor's question.

"Negative reinforcement," Effy Lewis said cheerfully.

Zexion glared.

Effy Lewis was out to ruin his life.

This was one of three conclusions Zexion had come to in the two short weeks he'd endured her presence in the lecture hall. The first was that Effy Lewis was not as dumb as she appeared – on the contrary, she consistently gave correct answers. The second was that Effy Lewis was not a whore. This was more of a reconciliation of a split-second judgment than a conclusion, but Zexion considered it part of his short list anyway.

His third conclusion was fueled by her insistence upon proving him wrong, and furthered by her theft of his reputation. Zexion had taken classes with the professor in the past, and his near perfect grades had given him the occasional shout-out. Now, with Effy Lewis calling out answers every chance she got, all the while wearing that damned smile, Zexion was no longer the target of pleasantly jealous eyes. No, all the attention went to Effy Lewis and her ridiculous hair.

Sometimes he really just wanted to give those pigtails a good tug.

Effy Lewis was an oblivious idiot.

"I'm sorry?" Zexion asked. He wasn't accustomed to being caught off guard.

"I mean, you're the smart guy, right? So I figured you might be good with math, too, and I really need to pass my math class." She scratched the back of her head nervously, awkwardly shifting the strap on her shoulder.

"So...you want me to tutor you?" He was growing increasingly irritated with her reluctance to face him head on. She'd already shown her herself to be oozing with confidence, so why couldn't she just ask him straight out?

"Please? I can pay you!"

That was easily the most tempting part of the offer - it the was only part he liked so far, but then again, a part-time job at the library was only so fulfilling, and she was right - math was definitely his strong point. He could use something to fill some of his time, but how much was putting up with someone he couldn't stand worth?

"You'd have to meet me in the library at 7:30, starting tomorrow."

"So you'll do it?" She bounced excitedly onto her toes, and Zexion resisted a sigh - why invite someone somewhere only to reject them?

"As long as it doesn't interfere with my work."

"Awesome! Thanks! I won't, I swear!" That infernal smile was back, even more noticeable - noticeably annoying - now that he was the cause of it. "7:30 tomorrow, see you!"

"Don't be late."

"I won't!"

Off she ran, ever-present pigtails bouncing in time with her laptop bag, and Zexion mentally began briefing himself for the horrors he had just signed himself into.

He blamed it on the joy he gained from others relying on his intelligence.

Effy Lewis confused him.

She had walked into class with the same bouncing walk she always had, this time gracing him with a smile and wave. He watched, intrigued, and came to the swift conclusion that he hadn't the faintest idea what she could be so pleased about.

He heard her jangling bracelets rapidly approaching after class, but didn't bother turning, or even slowing his pace. If she had an excuse, she could make it fast.

"May I help you?" he asked once she was in stride next to him.

"Well jeez, somebody's extra frigid today."

Zexion nearly whipped his head around to glare in irritated shock - was that really something she'd say to someone she hardly knew? - but decided her crassness didn't really deserve it.

"So do you want me to bring my book with me tonight?"

"Tonight?"

"Um...yeah. You said to meet you at 7:30."

Zexion stopped walking, and noted that Effy was giving him a very confused look, one he actually enjoyed seeing on her. A welcome difference from the mindless smile she loved so much. "Yes, and you failed to show up this morning."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa..." She held out her hands as if his words were physically assaulting her. "7:30 in the morning?"

Zexion ran a hand through his hair in exasperation, not finding anything appealing in the childishly disbelieving tone she had adopted. "I'm in class all evening." He resumed walking, and Effy caught up moments later.

"How many classes are you taking?"

"Many more than you, I presume."

Either she missed the attack on her intelligence, or she merely chose to ignore his remark in favor of over-reacting. "And you're working 7:30 in the morning?"

"I arrive at seven."

"Shit...so I have to pay you for me getting up that early and still being expected to learn something."

"The college does offer tutors." Zexion was letting his irritation slip into his tone. Before the first session, and he already regretting it.

"Yeah, but they don't have anyone for my level math." She kept her head down, as if she were deep in thought. Zexion found it slightly unnerving to see her so contemplative, because he'd never seen her actually stop to think about anything before, at least in class.

"Okay," she finally said in a rather subdued voice, at least compared to normal. "I'll be there tomorrow morning. At 7:30."

"Fine," Zexion said, pausing outside the front doors to his dorm building. The last thing he needed was Effy learning where he room was, with the newfound fondness she seemed to have discovered for him, but she didn't seem to be showing any signs of leaving, now that they'd made their agreement. Actually, she was rummaging through her bag, a cacophony of jingling coming from her wrists.

"Hey, do you have your card handy? Think I left mine in my dorm."

Zexion stared at her unblinkingly until she finally raised her head and stared back.

"This is your building?" he asked.

She smiled. "Yeah. I always drop off my stuff before going to my next class, but since you walk so fast, I'm always way back there when you get the door." She pointed in the direction they'd come from, going up on tiptoe and raising her chin as if she were pinpointing an exact spot. "Otherwise I'd walk with you."

Zexion chose to ignore this remark - why would he want her company on the walk back? - and pulled out his own card, unlocking the doors for them.

"Lucky I caught up with you this time."

"Indeed."

"I could have been waiting out there for a while. Well, until class started. Which I could bring all my stuff with me; it's just a pain to carry it all the way there and back, you know?"

"I'll bet."

Even Zexion wanted to cringe at the awkwardness of their conversation: Effy was doing the talking for both of them, fueled only by his clipped answers forced out by an ingrained politeness that refused to let him be outright rude to the girl, however grating he might find her.

She pushed the elevator button for the second floor, and the mechanical click sent a brief wave of relief through Zexion - he'd been wondering if she intended to follow him to his dorm.

"So anyway, should I bring my book? That was my original question anyway." She laughed, and again, Zexion's morals prevented him from withholding a forced smile.

"Don't bother. If you can't learn it from the book, you'll need to do it some other way. Just bring your notes."

"Gotcha," she said as the doors slid open. "So, I'll see you around, then?"

"Right. 7:30."

"Right." She sighed uncharacteristically, turning away, but the smile was back once she waved goodbye. The doors slid shut heavily, obscuring her excited face, and Zexion leaned against the wall, sighing.

Effy Lewis was not a morning person.

This was evident in the sluggish affect to her walk, which, unlike the ill-at-ease glance around stacks, couldn't be traced to her unfamiliarity with being in a library. Her hair was only back in a single ponytail, Zexion noted as he waved her over to the desks by the windows. The colors around her eyes were bright as ever, but she had significantly less bracelets, matching her toned-down wardrobe. Simply for the fact that it was unlike her, Zexion didn't prefer the look.

"I didn't know the library was even open this early," she said with a quietness that was probably the product of years of being told to 'shh' in the library.

"Technically, it doesn't open until eight," Zexion said in a normal voice, shelving a book. "But since I have to be here anyway, I leave it unlocked." He turned to Effy. "Let's get started."

"Right." She dug out her notebook and let it fall open, then started flipping through pages.

"You take that many notes?" They were only in the first month of classes, after all.

"I suck at math, so I write down everything in that class."

Zexion pondered telling her that she'd never learn anything on her own like that, but actually, having more examples ready would make explaining easier for him.

"Right," she said, stopping on a page full of pencil scrabble. Zexion hated writing in pencil; too light and too fragile. And it scratched unpleasantly on paper.

"So we're actually still going over trig stuff right now, but I barely scraped by that, and the professor said we need to know this stuff as a basis for the rest of the class. So I'm kinda fucked..."

Zexion had pushed her single-sided banter to one side of his mind, the rest of it focused on the upside-down notebook laid out in front of him. Formulas were popping into his mind as he thought back to what he'd done in trigonometry. That class had been a few years ago, but sines and cosines were fitting themselves into triangles, points were arranging themselves on the unit circle, and reciprocal identities made themselves seen once again as he pulled out his knowledge.

"What exactly it is you're having trouble with?"

She spun the notebook around and pushed it toward him. "We just started with quadratic functions."

A quick once-over of the paper filled Zexion's mind with parabolas and equations, bringing with them memories of high school math.

"And I'm just not getting any of it."

"Then we'll just start from the beginning. You should get this formula," he jotted down 'f(x) = ax² + bx + c' and flipped the paper around to show her, "because if this isn't true, than you don't have a quadratic function."

"Okay, but how does that become a curvy thing?" The fact that she was utterly serious as she drew the object in question in the air with her finger made Zexion question his abilty to teach her anything.

"A parabola."

"Yeah, that."

"Okay, this function here..." Zexion circled where Effy had written 'f(x) = x²,' "is the simplest to graph, because it ends up beginning at the origin."

"How?"

Zexion paused, then glanced at the clock Definitely not.

"That's not important. You just need to know that when have 'x²,' your parabola begins at the origin. Any other functions can be graphed from this."

"Okay, it's like middle C," Effy said with a nod.

The non-sequitor threw Zexion for a moment (his mind immediately jumped to thinking that even if C were remotely near the middle the alphabet was hardly relevant at this point), but his IQ supplied him a response before Effy could register a hesitation.

"You're a musician?"

"Yeah, I'm a music business major." She grinned, one that showed how passionate she was about her area of study, and Zexion realized it was the first smile she'd given since they'd started. Unusual for her.

"I don't presume to know much about music, but it helps you, go for it."

"Well, middle C is the note that's in the middle of a piano, so like...when people first start learning, they learn where middle C is, then it's easy to learn simple songs that just go up or down from that. Makes it easier to learn the notes."

Zexion nodded in appreciation of such a logical approach. He also appreciated the fact that Effy had sounded tolerably intelligent for a moment.

The lesson ended with Zexion declaring that 100M was most certainly not too much for a half hour of his time, and Effy handing over the munny with a glare on her face that had turned into more of a pout.

"You'll be back Thursday, then?"

She sighed. "Yeah, if I can get up this early again."

Zexion decided against telling her that he had no problem with her not showing up. He didn't actually need the munny, and he'd be able to get the work done that he usually did in the hour before the library opened. He wondered again why he had agreed to the whole thing.

"See you," Effy said in a voice that was now entirely inappropriate for a library, grinning and waving at him.

Oh, yeah. That was why.

He was such a sucker for blonde hair and green eyes.

Zexion sighed.

Effy Lewis did, in fact, show up on time for her lesson on Thursday, every day for two weeks later. Zexion was beginning to get used to seeing her without her overload of accessories, though her steadily more put-together hair and makeup told him that she was getting better at waking up on time. This 7:30 a.m. Effy was still quite an offshoot from the girl in bright blue who couldn't walk in Psych without a smile or resist waving at him, but he was beginning to see how the toned-down worked for her as well.

Upon his notation that her smile was still cute with or without her hair ridiculous pigtails, he spent a good deal of time proving to himself that recognizing something as cute was not equal to an attraction. Effy fit the general society's standards of cute and attractive. He'd need to be lacking a few IQ points not to have noticed.

She had moved on from functions faster than he'd expected, partially because he had picked up on how she equated vertical and horizontal shifts to changes in notes and pitches. She took an extra step to get to the answer - having to add and subtract through scales - but she arrived at a correct answer nonetheless.

"Done," she called out, but Zexion had by then learned to tolerate her loudness, if only because there was nobody else in the library. He strode back to the table and sat - beside Effy this time, because sliding the notebook back and forth across the table had quickly become troublesome.

"Perfect," he said after a quick look through the problems. "Your test is today?"

"Yeah. It's on all the review stuff. Which I get most of it now." She paused in packing her things to look up and smile at him, one he halfheartedly returned. "But we start brand new stuff next time, and I'm totally not looking forward to it. Oh! I, uh..." She turned to him with an apologetic look on her face. "I can't really afford a hundred munny this time. I can give you fifty now and make up the rest later..."

Zexion only took a moment to contemplate her open, hopeful face before deciding he truly didn't need to be making an extra 200M per week.

"Fifty is fine."

"Awesome!"

He watched her walk out of the library with that bounce in her step that never failed to attract attention, and shook his head.

That girl was crazy. And he was even crazier for letting her naivety break down the initial aversion he'd had toward her.

It couldn't be helped, he supposed. Her optimism knew no apparent bounds.

Effy Lewis continued to become less dumb and more fascinating.

The fascination began when Zexion first saw the faint lines of muscle around her stomach. He'd never taken her for a jogger, but rounding the corner only to end up on the ground with a sharp pain in one's head would make anyone take notice.

"Ohmygosh, I'm so sorry!"

Despite the pulsing at the back of his head and his irritation at Effy's lack of observational skills, he found the stricken look on her face, one hand covering her mouth, to be highly amusing. He must have been concussed, because he allowed himself to laugh aloud.

Effy began to laugh as well, abs taut as she caught her breath, and took her headphones out to let them rest around her neck. Zexion could faintly hear something loud and fast playing as he stood, but it was too soft for him to distinguish any words.

"What are you doing out on a Saturday? I kinda thought of you as a recluse." The breathless tone of Effy's voice, mixed with her slightly quickened breathing and scantily clad body, made Zexion create a parallel he had never before seen between sex and jogging. He took a moment to glance over her body before answering. She was as slender as her normal clothes made her appear, but now he could see shadows along her sides and thighs that said she was less 'skinny' and more 'fit.'

"I work weekends as well."

"Jeez, do you have to pay your whole tuition or something?" She wasn't wearing any makeup, he noticed. At least as far as he could tell, which made him respect her maybe just a bit more - she wasn't so vain as to refuse to be seen without doing her face up. On the contrary, with her face naturally pink from running, and her hair in a low ponytail with a few tendrils escaping, she created a vastly different of kind attractive than what she usually showed the world.

"No, I just prefer to be prepared, and I find that I need something to fill the time between studying and classes."

Effy laughed, pulling one leg (with a bright blue sneaker on her foot, he noticed) behind her in a yoga-like stretch. "It's called a hobby." She switched legs, and Zexion couldn't help but notice her flexibility, not with how she was showing off like that. "C'mon, what do you do other than work and homework?"

"Mostly I read," he said, indulging her.

"There you go; a smart person hobby. Wait..." She stopped herself and narrowed her eyes at him. "You do read fiction, right?" She placed her hands on her hips, and Zexion found himself smiling at her antics.

"The classics, yes. I find I don't really appreciate modern fiction," Zexion said with a slight air of disdain.

"Well how do you know if something written today isn't going to be just as good? You know, stuff written now will be classics one day. It's like...me only listening to classical music." She waved her hands in the air as she spoke, a gesture Zexion usually took to mean immaturity, but considering Effy's demeanor, he couldn't exactly call her out on it. "I mean, sure, they were geniuses, but there are people these days doing some pretty awesome stuff, too."

"You never struck me as the classical type," Zexion said.

Effy shrugged. "Some of my favorite things to play on piano came from Mendelssohn, though he's actually romantic, not classical. But yeah, there's also this one thing from Blue October that sounds amazing and it's so much fun to play. See? Modern stuff can be good too."

Zexion assumed she had mentioned a band name, and ignored the obscure reference, thinking instead on how Effy was probably the only person that could ramble on childishly about piano composers. "For the most past, I've only been disappointed by the modern word. Writers have lost track of the point of story-telling."

"Which is what?"

Zexion chuckled to himself. "As much as I'd enjoy getting into that," -this was partially a lie, as he highly doubted Effy would follow his argument - "I was on my way to work."

"Right! Jeez, I'm sorry."

He offered a small smile in acceptance of her apology before moving past her, saying, "I'll see you next time, then."

"See ya!"

Zexion walked away feeling no more the wiser on the subject of Effy's mind. He'd seen her be less than perky several times, when she rushed into the library several minutes late, but even caught unaware in the middle of campus, she was all smiles and idle chat. Nobody else he'd ever conversed with carried such an upbeat attitude with them at all times, ready to slip it on whenever necessary. Or even when unnecessary, in Effy's case.

"Hey Zex!"

He paused, cringing. He despised that nickname. He despised any other forms of his name, really. He kept his face passive nonetheless as he turned around, though, to see Effy sprint the few steps between them.

"There's this place that has an open mic every month, and I'm gonna be playing tonight. You should totally come. I play there pretty often, so people have started to recognize me. It's kindof awesome." She laughed a little, obviously both pleased and modestly flattered with the attention she got. "But yeah, it'd...be awesome if you were there."

It'd be awesome if your math tutor came to watch you and be just another face for you to recognize in the crowd? How flattering, Effy.

"That's not really my thing," he said, but felt instantly guilty about the uncaring tilt of his voice. "Thank you, though. And good luck." Sure, she probably didn't need luck if performed on a regular basis, but at least it replaced the disheartened look on her face with her optimistic smile.

"Thanks. See you!"

The jogging incident wasn't the last surprise to come from knowing Effy. Zexion's amazement continued through the week. Monday, she left her usual seat in Psych to sit next to him, not bothering with an explanation of why. And Zexion hadn't bothered to ask, despite noticing a few glances at them from the boys near her usual seat. They were also watching as Effy left the classroom with him, making idle chatter he hardly tried to keep alive. He couldn't deny, though, the smugness he got from the looks, having something for others to be openly jealous of, even if it was Effy. Well, they probably thought he and Effy were sleeping together.

Effy had given him a strange look for suddenly laughing aloud.

Tuesday morning was strangely quiet in the library - since Effy's last math class had only consisted of a test, they had nothing new to work on, and the room lacked her brightness and her curious eyes.

Wednesday was a repeat of Monday, complete with Effy walking back to their dorm with him.

Thursday was more like he was used to. Effy showed up several minutes early, collapsing at the table with a yawn, and Zexion spent most of the lesson listening to her count out the Fibonacci sequence ("...and one, two, and three, rest, five and, 2 beat rest, eight...") as she drew it out on a music bar. He'd realized that her musical mind was one that could give his mathematical abilities a fair fight, but knowing that she could visualize the sequence into the higher numbers using her simple notes gave him maybe just a little more respect for her.

They finished reviewing her test - she'd gotten a better grade than she'd been expecting, something that made her eyes glow with excitement - and Zexion left her to pack up, heading to start the computers for the day.

"So Zex..?"

He turned his head enough to look at her, standing awkwardly with her notebook in her hands, fingering the spiral binding. His eyes narrowed slightly. The nervousness wasn't like her.

"I know an open mic isn't your thing, but there's this play tomorrow night, and I'm going because I wrote the music for it, but you might like it." She shifted her weight onto one foot, her eyes darting between his own and the floor. "Uh, d'you...wanna come? With me?"

He stared at her for a moment, utterly confused at this side of her: chin down slightly (subconsciously wishing to hide her face, he recalled from a previous class), chewing on her lip, fiddling with her notebook, moving her weight between her heels and the balls of her feet. "That's short notice," he finally said, turning back to the screen in front of him. "I'd have to check the new work schedule."

The sigh that came from Effy following that was sharp and out of character enough to make him turn back around.

"Yeah, okay." She stuffed the notebook into her bag. "I get it," she said just loud enough for him to make out.

"Get what?" Zexion asked in honest surprise at this outburst.

Already halfway to the door, she turned around with a hurt look on her face that he instantly hated. "I know you're a lot smarter than me and all, but you do really have to make me feel like such an idiot every time?"

Zexion watched her leave without moving. Every time?

It wasn't her words, but the way she didn't look back and wave as the door closed that made the previous weeks flash through Zexion's mind, and realization hit him harder than Effy coming around a corner. Her forced conversation in the elevator she'd taken despite being on the second floor, all the smiles and waves directed at him, moving next to him in class, the fact that she came at 7:30 in the morning despite hating it, and her two invitations that he suddenly saw for what they were - attempts at asking him out.

Well fuck me, no wonder she was upset.

He later told himself it was guilty conscience that made him break his natural stoicism and belt for the door, but he was denying a simple fact: when he'd said he'd check the schedule, he'd meant it. Somewhere along the line, he'd gotten to the point where he didn't want to make Effy upset, sad, or angry, or any of the other negative emotions his mind could name - which was quite a few by this point.

Had he not spent the past few weeks admiring her smile and studying her eyes?

He caught sight of her halfway down the hall.

"Effy!"

Okay, two surprises in a row, both brought out by this girl he supposedly hated - he never raised his voice like that, but she had turned around and seen him, so he couldn't back out now, even if he had already attracted the attention of everyone walking past him.

"Tomorrow night is fine!"

She grinned - how had me missed diagnosing the feeling he got when she did that? "That's awesome!" She waved excitedly and kept walking, the bounce back in her step.

Zexion stepped back into the library, making a conscious decision to focus not on the fact that he had just very loudly accepted a date in a somewhat crowded hallway, but on the girl that had made him do it.

Effy Lewis wasn't like he'd imagine she'd be in bed.

Granted, he'd only been imagining her in bed for a matter of hours before they'd wound up there, but the point was that she was different. Instead of loud, demanding, and unafraid of telling him just what she wanted, she was more...romantic. She was content to take it slow and let him discover what she liked using touch and not words for communication. Quiet, light gasps as she scraped her nails lightly down his arms, up his back. A quiet moan sometimes, other times a sharp nip where his neck met his shoulder. Her hair had been down, spread out on the pillow, her eyes had stayed shut, leaving him wondering, and her mouth had just barely been open, yet still as enticing as when she smiled.

The curtains weren't very dark, leaving the morning sun free to light the room as it pleased. Effy was still asleep, apparently dreaming, because the fingers resting on the middle of his chest kept twitching lightly. She was also apparently a cover hog, because his leg was sticking out enough to have plenty of thigh warmed by the sun. He tugged at the sheets and shuffled closer to her, reminding himself that dorm beds were just too small for this.

Effy stretched her arm out, making a content humming noise. "Morning," came her sleep-laden voice as she curled into his side.

"Good morning," he said softly, letting one arm go around her shoulders for her to rest on him. They stayed like that for a moment, Zexion studying the patterns on the ceiling with Effy's ear against his heart, before she turned her head enough to look up at him.

"So do you always sleep with girls on the first date?" she asked, rubbing lazily at her eye.

"No," Zexion said. He couldn't' begin to fathom what had led him into bed with Effy the night after their first date - if it could indeed be called such - but he couldn't say he regretted it. Not when her hair was wavy from being up the previous night, and her eyes were outlined by the remnants of the makeup she hadn't bothered to wash off, and certainly not while she was wearing a content little smile and nothing else. No, in fact, as she moved up to kiss him, he found not even the sharing of bitter morning breath could stop him from falling victim to the utter sensuality of bare breasts against one's skin.

"I probably look like shit," Effy whispered, her lips close enough to brush his, and laughed softly.

It was the kind of statement Zexion normally would have hated - blatantly looking for a response that stated the opposite - but he thought he could tolerate it when the response was actually true.

"You look gorgeous."

She pulled back a little, eyes widening with amusement. "I think that's the nicest thing I've ever heard you say. To anyone."

Zexion chuckled pulled her back to kiss her again.

If Effy went on to hear more of those lines from him, that was fine.

And if they ended up being probably the only couple on campus who would compromise on opera as a date, that was fine as well.

And if he later found out that Effy had actually always been pretty good at math, well, that was fine too.

Because Effy Lewis was his.

*****END

So, so, so? Concrit would be greatly appreciated, especially on the characterization of Effy. Or, you know, just drop a review anyway. They make my day. X3