"Hng, Vexen. Ah-! Yes, just... just there- oh, fuck, why does somebody always have to call right when we are in the middle of-"
"It's for you."
Marluxia huffed a little, wriggling in the bedsheets and reaching up to take the little handset.
"Yeah?"
"Marluxia? Are you okay? What happened?"
It was Larxene. She sounded worried.
"I'm fine," Marluxia replied, quickly forcing his irritation at being interrupted down. "I just had a bit of a problem at school is all. Vexen took me home and I'm okay now."
"Alright," Larxene said from the other end of the phone. "But... are you sure you're okay? People said that they heard screaming..."
Marluxia cast a furtive glance at Vexen, unsure what to say.
"Uh... I'll explain to you later. Maybe, one day."
"So it was you who was screaming?"
"... Yeah."
"Okay," Larxene said quietly, then coughed. "Okay, just as long as you're feeling better now. You had me really worried."
Worried, Marluxia thought. Nobody except Vexen's ever been worried about me before.
"I'm fine," He clarified again, and then quickly added. "Thanks. For worrying, I mean."
Larxene chuckled.
"Any time."
"Any time to do what?"
At the receiver, Larxene giggled.
"Oh, God, Marluxia, you are cute sometimes. If stupid. Any time is just an acknowledgement of your thanks. You know, like no problem and stuff."
"Oh right,"
Marluxia had never before said thank you enough to know this, so he quickly mentally tagged it for future reference.
"So what are you doing?"
"I'm having sex with Vexen," Marluxia replied honestly.
"What, now?"
"Well, until you interrupted us, yes."
"Eek. Sorry. I shan't hold you any longer."
"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yeah."
Marluxia chucked the phone somewhere and returned to Vexen.
---
"Hey! Marluxia!"
Marluxia had been scurrying to his next lesson when he heard his name being called, so he stopped and turned around.
"Hey Larxene."
"You alright?"
"Yeah. I am now."
Larxene laughed, momentarily resting her hands on her knees to catch her breath.
"Where you gotta be?"
"Huh? Oh, I have English next. I'm doing my exam next week so I need to get as much revision done as possible."
"I didn't think you were doing English," Larxene said. Marluxia waved his hand.
"It's catch-up. I didn't really get much education done when I was in prison."
There was a long pause, and suddenly Marluxia remembered that Larxene wasn't supposed to know. Horror filled him; what if she started treating him like the others? What if he lost her? What if she left? What if she-
He didn't even notice that his breath had hitched as it bordered on hyperventilation, his hands clenched tight into fists, until Larxene was shaking him and his back crashed against the corridor wall.
"Marluxia? Marluxia!"
He let out a sob, and slid helplessly to the floor. Larxene came down with him, pulling his shoulders into her chest.
"Hey, Marluxia. Are you okay?"
"Don't leave me," He managed, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. "Fuck, Larxene, don't leave. Please..."
"I won't," Larxene promised. "I just didn't realise that you'd... you know. Been in jail."
She let go of him and sat down beside him.
"I don't really care," She said after a moment. The students who had been staring considered the situation boring and were filtering away. "You know, whatever happened in the past. I don't think it should really matter, should it?"
Marluxia looked at her in surprise.
"R-really?"
"Yeah, sure. Obviously you're not like that now, are you?"
"I like to think I'm not," Marluxia admitted. Of course, some of the things he'd done horrified him even now, but he of all people knew that you couldn't fix a person in just three months, no matter how good a psychiatrist you were. The murderer was still inside him and he knew that. It was just a question of suppressing it until he forgot it was there entirely.
"So, what'd you get?" Larxene asked. Marluxia shrugged, looking down. Larxene was his friend, right? So she deserved to know.
"It was an indeterminate sentence," He said. "But I ended up doing seven years in the end. I got out six months ago."
"Woah." Larxene said quietly. "That's... a long time..."
"That's why I don't know very much," Marluxia replied. "Because I've spent most of my teens in a cell."
Larxene whistled, leaning back against the wall.
"Still, you're out now, right?"
"I'm always scared that it's only temporary," Marluxia replied reproachfully. "That's... that's why I scream sometimes. Because I think that they're going to take me away from Vexen again."
"You really do love him, don't you?" Larxene murmured almost jealously. Marluxia nodded.
"More than anything."
"Wish I had someone like that,"
Marluxia was a little surprised; he'd sort of assumed that everybody had a special person that they cared for more than everybody else. That was what parents were, wasn't it? Two special people who had found each other...
"I'm sure there's a special person out there, waiting for you to come along," He said sincerely, not really realising how cliché that sounded, and a little put out when Larxene laughed.
"Maybe. Come on, you need to go to class."
"Oh, yeah. Right."
"I'm gonna be working through lunch. Wanna walk home after school?"
"Sure."
---
Marluxia waited patiently for five minutes on the lawn where he and Larxene sat until she stumbled out, laughing at some red-haired boy who seemed more interested in some tiny blonde kid, and jogged over.
"Hey there. Sorry I'm late. Axel decided to blow up our circuit in electronics."
"Axel?" Marluxia echoed. "The red haired one?"
"Yeah. He's a cock. Ignore him."
"Oh. Okay."
Larxene laughed again at Marluxia's awkward innocence as they set off down to the park.
"So. You ever have any friends on the inside?"
"Not really. I was a bit of a loner. Everybody got scared of me after a while. And then they moved me to high security and I didn't really see much of anybody after that."
Larxene gave Marluxia a worried look.
"Are you... being sarcastic?"
Marluxia shook his head.
"I have changed," He promised. "I just used to be kinda... violent. Can we talk about something else?"
"Funny, I couldn't imagine you hurting a fly, let alone anybody else. But, sure. What else is there to talk about?"
"There's you," Marluxia replied. "What're you like?"
"Me?" Larxene said as she jumped up onto a wall to walk high above Marluxia. Not to be beaten, he quickly found a foothold, and joined her. "I guess I'm just your average bitch."
"You don't seem like a bitch to me," Marluxia, who knew what he was talking about when he came to bitches - prisons were rife with them, whether it was convicts or staff - said.
"That's 'cause I like you."
"I suppose."
"But anyway, I love chocolate and steak - but not together, that would be weird - and running in the mornings and wearing boys' clothes."
"I like wearing boys' clothes too," Marluxia said, and for a moment they both giggled until the wall came to a steep ascent - which Larxene scaled with ease, and Marluxia only needed a little assistance for the last few steps - and they were walking on the perimeter of the park. Larxene climbed onto an overhanging tree, and scrambled down. Marluxia just jumped straight from the wall with a grin.
"Show-off."
He stuck his tongue out and made her laugh. Marluxia liked Larxene's laugh, he realised. It was so light, and carefree, like a bird that couldn't ever be caged.
"Larxene?"
"Uh huh."
"We... we're friends, right?"
"Sure," Larxene replied, tugging at Marluxia's elbow to the bridge over the pond, fishing out her lunch box and emptying the breadcrumbs over the bridge to be snapped up by the hungry ducks and geese. "Why do you ask?"
"I just wondered," Marluxia replied, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets as he watched a moor hen and a pair of chicks hurry over to the mayhem in the hopes of free food.
"If you say so." Larxene replied lightly, moving on. "So this is where we say goodbye, right?"
"Oh. Yeah. See you tomorrow?"
"Of course!"
And then Larxene was jogging away towards one of the park exits, occasionally turning back to wave. Marluxia waited on the bridge until she had disappeared out of sight, and then walked home.
---
It hardly took a month for Larxene and Marluxia to grow close enough to be inseparable. After a week or so of walking home together Marluxia was invited to meet Larxene's family and then forced to memorise all the names of her siblings, parents and extended relatives, and soon they were out at weekends watching movies, shopping, throwing food at ducks in the park and generally fooling around as teenagers are wont to do.
Marluxia enjoyed every second of it. It was like nothing he'd ever really experienced before, just having fun and doing whatever, whenever. Curling up on the sofa watching Vexen's old DVD's, chatting about everything and anything on Marluxia's bed (the one he never slept in because he always slept with Vexen)...
"What's it like?" Larxene would ask on one occasion, waving her hand.
"What's what like?"
"You know. Sex."
Marluxia would shrug. Marluxia shrugged a lot, either because he didn't know or because he was thinking.
"Well, it depends on who it's with, I suppose. If it's with somebody you don't really care about, then it's not that good. I mean, like, it's sex, but... it isn't really anything else. Like eating cheap cake."
Larxene would laugh. She laughed a lot, either because Marluxia had made a joke, or was being inadvertently innocent again.
"But when it's with someone you love, like, really really love, then it's like... it's like the cake, but it's not just any cake. It's the most amazing cake ever, and has whipped cream and three types of chocolate sprinkles and strawberries on top and it makes you just want to go down on your knees and thank God that such a wonderful cake exists."
"And have you ever had sex with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles and strawberries on top?"
Marluxia would colour a little at that point.
"Only once."
"I mean, what's it like, not just how good it is," Larxene would clarify. This would take a significant amount more thought from Marluxia.
"Well," He would begin again, "It's like... it's like coming together with that person and being really close to them because you love them and they love you, and you get this beautiful feeling inside because you know that it just feels so... right. Larky, when you meet the right girl, and you're in bed with her, you'll know. You'll know that she's the one. It's amazing."
And because they were so close they could talk about stuff like that, and it was okay to ask why exactly Marluxia had had sex with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles and strawberries on top ("We were making a cake, but then I got whipped cream all over Vexen and then we got distracted."), and it wasn't long before Marluxia tentatively wrote, evening of the 13th of February, To my best friend, Larxene, and when Larxene told him about Naminé, he forgave her because that was exactly what they were.