Surprisingly, for all his threats of imminent sexual harassment, Marluxia more or less ignored Vexen for the remainder of the week, preferring instead to lead Naminé on all kinds of wild goose chases with kisses, flattery and promises that would make Larxene blush. Vexen was happy enough with this arrangement. He could still taste that slightly odd flavour of Marluxia's tongue in his mouth. It took him a lot of thought to describe that heavy, musky and yet fresh cut-grass taste... not that he thought about it much, of course. Because he was trying to forget the entire ordeal. Obviously.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, it was difficult to forget that experience, particularly for Vexen. He'd never actually been tongued before (Larxene, which was ages ago, had been so drunk that she kept missing), much less groped, and by a man of all people. Even on Friday as he drove to work, he caught himself running his tongue over his teeth and blushing at the memory.
But Marluxia did seem to have been joking, at the very least, so things were gradually settling into their old routine. And Vexen was pretty certain that he'd had sex with Larxene already, and not only on one occasion, and if he had her to amuse himself there was no way that he'd bother with a prude like Vexen.
Right?
Wrong.
---
"Vexen."
Friday evening, and finally Vexen was settling down without the need to get up any time soon, getting comfortable under the thick, heavy duvet (Vexen got cold easily), and there he was.
In extremely tight leather.
With handcuffs.
Marluxia seemed to take the fact that Vexen was staring as an invitation to walk over from the doorway, his hips swinging.
"Like what you see?"
Vexen managed to snap himself out of staring enough to violently shake his head.
"G-get away from me."
Marluxia chuckled, bending over at the waist to cup Vexen's chin between his forefinger and thumb.
"Have you already forgotten our deal?"
"I'm not going to let you control me," Vexen said lowly, hoping to sound threatening... but he guessed that he probably sounded more pathetic. Predictably enough, Marluxia just laughed.
"You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart."
Vexen, who had never been called sweetheart before, felt a blush rising to his cheeks - and Marluxia noticed.
"What's this?" he said quietly, rubbing his thumb across Vexen's cheek. "Somebody's getting flustered already?"
Vexen hissed, pushing away.
"Just leave me-"
He was interrupted by a kiss as Marluxia invaded his mouth, climbing onto the bed and pushing the duvet away until it toppled gracelessly to the floor. Vexen stared at the double-image of Marluxia, too close, eyes closed in some ironic gesture of sincerity. It was too terrifying.
Considering Vexen suitably kissed into submission, Marluxia eventually leant back, a crooked smile curving his full, pink lips.
"You can enjoy this, you know," he murmured huskily as his fingertips fell to Vexen's hips. Vexen squeaked with indignation, and tried to make a grab for Marluxia, push him away or off or something, but he found that he couldn't move his arms. Somewhere along the line, he'd been handcuffed to the bed.
"Just relax," Marluxia whispered playfully, kneading Vexen's taut skin with the palms of his hands. "If you stop looking so horrified and tell me how you want this, I assure you that it will be a lot easier for both of us. Mostly you."
"Firstly," Vexen said venomously, "I don't want to be tied up like some kind of toy. Secondly, I want you to get off me. And thirdly, I want you to walk over to the other side of the room and out of the door and never harass me again."
Marluxia laughed again.
"I already told you that wasn't an option."
"Why do you want me so much anyway?" Vexen, who'd never been in a relationship and much less a sexual one, demanded. Marluxia's eyes became almost sad, as though it seemed a pity that Vexen would ever have to ask such a question, and he leaned down to gently brush his fingers across Vexen's cheek.
"Why wouldn't I want you?"
Vexen rallied off a well-rehearsed list of reasons.
"I'm old," He said, "I'm old and I'm ugly and bony and cranky, I'm a man, I hate sex, I'm terrible in bed, all I care about is science, my voice is extraordinarily irritating, I must be incredibly uncomfortable to sit on, I smell odd, I'm pernickety about everything, my breath reeks of coffee and I hate you."
He was replied to with a chuckle as Marluxia's hands began to roam once again.
"Besides that."
"Isn't that a good enough reason for you?!"
Marluxia shrugged, reaching up to thread a lock of Vexen's long hair through his hands.
"You're blonde."
"So what?"
Marluxia smiled a little, too unpredictably softly kissing Vexen's nose.
"That's enough of a reason for me."
"You're sick," Vexen spat, gasping and buckling into the mattress as Marluxia's fingertips encountered the waistband of his flannel pyjama trousers and without a second's hesitation, pushed their way inside. He tried to kick his legs but Marluxia had them firmly pinned down with his own, strength too great for Vexen to overpower him.
"I shan't penetrate you tonight if you don't want it," Marluxia said offhandedly, as though he weren't expertly stroking an extremely private area of a less than consenting partner.
"Do I look like I'd ever want it?" Vexen snapped right back, but his voice had risen to something just short of a squeak as he desperately tried to stay in control, willing his body to be uncooperative to Marluxia's twisted ends. It didn't seem too inclined to listen to him.
"Oh, you'll want it once you feel the things I can do with your body," Marluxia promised huskily, twitching his fingers just so and Vexen groaned, eyelids fluttering.
"St-stop that!"
"Just relax," Marluxia murmured, leaning forwards to lick Vexen's ear. "Just relax, it'll make things a whole lot better. You'll enjoy yourself. I can give you the night of your life."
Vexen tried to scoff, but the control he was desperately clinging to was all too quickly slipping past him, and when Marluxia started using his mouth he tried to tell the other man to get off and go away and he suddenly found that he couldn't, because he'd never felt anything like a hot, wet, experienced tongue and it was just too much, too much, and he bucked and squirmed helplessly in the way that he just knew Marluxia would gain sick, perverted pleasure from.
He still stubbornly held back any moans that threatened to slip past his lips, determined to hate what Marluxia was doing, because if there was one thing he wasn't going to do it was just give in and let Marluxia think that he could do whatever he wanted to with his body. Just because he couldn't stop Marluxia didn't mean that he had to like it. Even if every nerve ending on his skin tingled where the pink haired man's fingers roamed, even when he saw stars as Marluxia licked and breathed and performed elaborate movements with his tongue that Vexen didn't even know were physically possible.
It was all over quickly, but not quickly enough as Marluxia saw fit to cover Vexen's entire torso with saliva as though he wasn't already soaked in sweat and messy enough with other bodily fluids.
"See? That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"I hate you."
As soon as Marluxia had undone the handcuffs, Vexen managed to get his numb arm working enough to resolutely slap him with all his might, sending pink hair flying and leaving a rather satisfying red mark beginning to form on Marluxia's cheek.
Marluxia, the bastard, just laughed.
"I suppose I deserved that."
He left Vexen with one last, lingering kiss and was gone.
-
It took half an hour or so before Vexen managed to stumble to the bathroom, a hastily grabbed towel around his waist, to have a shower or better still, a bath to clean himself off and wash away as many traces of Marluxia as humanly possible without actually removing any of his skin, too. The night's events were just beginning to sink into his tired, confused mind, and it wasn't long before sheer horror had set in. He'd just been... by a man. Without his consent. Was that rape? Could he call the police?
Oh God, he couldn't. He'd never live down the shame. Loathe as he was to admit it, Marluxia had won this time.
Somebody was in the bathroom - it was nearly one o'clock in the morning, why the hell was anybody still awake? - and Vexen, wondering just how awful he looked, with messy hair and a shell shocked expression not to mention covered in lick, waited in the shadows for whoever it was to come out.
It was Naminé. She noticed Vexen, frowning a little worriedly.
"What happened to you?"
"Nothing," Vexen quickly replied, slipping into the bathroom and closing the door before its light could reveal too much of his dishevelled appearance. Once inside, he shoved the plug into the drain of the bath and began to fill it up, shuddering again and again as his mind kept wandering back to earlier that night. It took him several minutes to realise that he'd forgotten to lock the door and Naminé was watching him from the dark corridor.
"You look awful."
Vexen panicked. She knew! She knew, she must have realised, and it was horrible and Vexen wanted to disappear and she was going to tell Larxene and Larxene was going to laugh and everybody would know and they would all laugh...
"I... I had a nightmare." He managed to say in place of a proper alibi, some sort of lame excuse that would do nothing to explain his state of messy undress and disrupted thought track.
"You okay?"
Nobody really ever asked Vexen if he was okay except out of formality or, in Naminé's case, innate kindness. He was well aware of that fact and he'd never paid much attention to the apathy of others towards him. Besides, if anybody was to ask, all he ever did was lie.
"I'm fine."
"Okay. Try to get some sleep, won't you?"
Vexen nodded, trying and failing to judge Naminé's thoughts from her expression. It annoyed him that he couldn't know what she thought had happened to him, but then she was gone without another word. He turned, brushing her from his mind, and turned off the taps, slipping a little clumsily into the bath. He must have spent a good half an hour scrubbing, but it was no use; he could still feel Marluxia's touches on his skin like burns, and eventually he was forced to simply sink into the water up to his nose so that his knees had to stick well out into the steamy air and brood until the water turned tepid. Once in the darkest of moments he fancied he might just dip his head a few more inches into the water and hold his breath until his heart gave out, just to show Marluxia... but he knew he could never do that. So his airways stayed safely above the water until he stood unsteadily, climbed out and found a clean towel to dry himself off, then staggered back to his bed.
His bed.
It was a mess. He'd have to change it. He couldn't sleep on a bed covered in things he didn't want to think about and reeking of Marluxia. So he reluctantly flicked on the light and stripped down his mattress, replacing the sheet and duvet cover. The clean, starched sheets offered him a little comfort as he tried to settle down in a position that didn't constantly remind him of lying helplessly trapped between Marluxia and the bed. He slept badly.
-
"Where's Vexen?"
"Who cares. Quick, hide the coffee before he comes just to annoy him."
"Oh, Larxene, don't. You're so heartless."
For once, all of the house's inhabitants bar Vexen were collected in the kitchen; Marluxia appeared to just be randomly posing in one of the chairs by the table, looking like a king asserting his authority over his dominion, Larxene had just got up and was making something which she might have called breakfast but nobody else would, and Naminé was drawing them both for her art project.
"I mean, he's always up really early in the morning," Naminé continued, glancing at her two elders for help. "Maybe he's having a lie in... he had a pretty rough night last night."
Marluxia arched a neat, tapered eyebrow at her. Habitually observant, Naminé noticed that Marluxia's fluffy hair was covering one of his cheeks more than usual today. She briefly wondered why.
"Rough?"
"Yeah, I met him at about one in the morning and he looked terrible."
"He always looks terrible," Larxene giggled.
"Hey, that's not nice!" Naminé exclaimed. She was the kind of person who always stuck up for everybody unconditionally whether she liked them or not, and Vexen was no exception to this rule.
"What? I'm just stating the facts. He's not exactly what you'd call attractive."
Naminé frowned a little, knowing that Larxene was right but not wanting to admit it for politeness' sake. Marluxia, however, decided to take matters into his own hands.
"Says the one woman who, I distinctly recall, admitted to having had sex with Vexen?"
Larxene coloured immediately and Naminé found herself pretty impressed at Marluxia. Not just anybody could make Larxene blush.
"Oh, come off it. I was drunk. I didn't even realise that it was Vexen until it was too late."
"Poor thing," Marluxia laughed, although whether he was referring to Larxene or Vexen, Naminé wasn't quite sure. She felt a little bit bad for Vexen, though; Naminé herself was as plain as could be and yet even she'd managed to have a couple of romances in her short life. But Vexen was a good decade older, and with the exception of Larxene... nothing. Naminé wasn't really even sure if he had any friends.
She suddenly felt the need to go cheer Vexen up, so she excused herself and slipped through the door into the hallway. What she didn't expect was to see Vexen there, hand halfway up to the doorknob and frozen.
"Oh, hey there."
Vexen shook his head a little, snapping out of his reverie with a frown.
"What do you want?"
"I was just wondering if you were up yet," Naminé said, dancing around the much taller man. Inside, in the little part of her mind that she always tried to ignore, she thought that it was probably only reasonable that Vexen wasn't anybody popular. He was just antisocial by nature, always scowling and snappish, and physically quite intimidating too since he was so tall.
"Of course I am," Vexen replied flatly, momentarily pinching the bridge of his nose.
"You wanted the kitchen?"
Vexen quickly - just a little too quickly - shook his head.
"No. No, I was just thinking."
"Okay. Are you feeling better?"
"I'm fine."
It was that same flat monotone, the automatic textbook answer that Vexen always supplied when such questions were asked. He was fine. Never good, never bad, just... fine.
"So what are you doing today?"
Vexen shrugged and swept off upstairs, so Naminé returned listlessly to the kitchen, feeling as though nothing at all had been achieved. If she'd stayed in the corridor she might have heard the sounds of retching coming from the bathroom. But she didn't. Nobody did.
-
After a pathetic half hour attempt at getting up, Vexen violently threw up into the kitchen sink and went back to bed.
Ever since last night he'd been feeling worse and worse, the truth of what Marluxia had done slowly but surely seeping into his body and mind more and more as time progressed. Marluxia had sexually harassed him. More than that, he'd actually... Vexen couldn't even bring himself to think of the words. He'd been licked, his mouth invaded and his personal space ripped mercilessly apart and that on its own was enough to make Vexen feel sick. But worse than that was the fact that as time progressed, he kept thinking of more and more things that he could have done to keep Marluxia away so that it never would have happened. He hadn't fought hard enough, his words weren't harsh enough, he hadn't tried hard enough to keep Marluxia way and now what would happen if the man were to come back? If people were to start asking questions? If Marluxia told them that he'd just lain there like a more than willing partner, what could he reply with? What if, what if, what if? And if all of that wasn't bad enough, he'd just been about to finally get some breakfast in the morning when he'd happened to overhear Marluxia and Larxene talking.
"I didn't even realise that it was Vexen until it was too late."
And everything had been too much and Vexen hadn't been able to keep the contents of his stomach safely down, particularly when Naminé kept asking such pointed questions that could only have related to last night. Oh God, what if Marluxia had told them? Larxene knew that he wanted to get in bed with Vexen, and what if, what if, what if?
And Larxene. Larxene, the only woman he'd ever slept with. In fact, the only woman he'd even come close to. And she didn't realise it was him until it was too late. Was there something wrong with him? That the only person who thought him worth screwing over was Marluxia, a sick, twisted bastard who was probably only doing it because it was funny.
Vexen wished for a long time that it could be sometime during the week, because then at least he'd have work to do and not be forced to just lie in bed, mulling things over and over. He couldn't even bring himself to go and watch TV downstairs in the sitting room because there was every chance that one of the others might join him; Larxene with her callous laughter, or Naminé who asked too many questions, or Marluxia...
And the more he mulled, the more dissatisfied he became. He had, as a general rule, simply stumbled through nearly three decades of life without care for anything bar science; if people didn't like him (which was the standard state of affairs), then it was their problem. But... was he really that unattractive? That annoying?
The thoughts plagued him for a long time.
