007 - Belief

Marluxia had honestly believed that it would last forever.
In fact, it wasn't even a belief. That implied considering other options to be false. But it hadn't even occurred to him that things would be any different to how he expected them to be. He'd just assumed that the two of them would grow old together just like this. Not... not this.

"Nobodies don't age," Zexion says to the cold, lifeless room as though he can explain away the grief that anybody feels at the loss of a dear friend. "But with the return of the heart, the internal body does have a tendency to catch up, of sorts."

Marluxia looks blankly into the coffin, the man inside lying still and peaceful amongst white satin sheets and cherry blossoms.

He feels stupid. Ignorant. Heartless. The two of them, hearts returned, had lived on the edge. He'd thought nothing of it. Assumed that it would simply last forever.

"It isn't surprising, really," Zexion continues blandly. "The considerable physical trauma of his brush with darkness... and a reckless lifestyle."

Marluxia's stomach curls unpleasantly and he has to close his eyes for a moment. Zexion turns away a little to allow him some privacy. It's painful for them all, Marluxia knows. But still they can't seem to be seen loosing face in front of each other.

"How old was he?"

Curious - he'd never thought about age. The man - his lover - had just seemed so timeless. But now that Marluxia thinks about it...

Zexion counts on his fingers.

"He was forty-six when we became nobodies..."

"It never showed."

Zexion shrugs.

"He didn't like to think about it. He knew... he knew he wasn't going to last long. Eleven years in the darkness, that makes fifty-seven. And four in the light - sixty-one years."

Marluxia turns back. Sixty-one, he thinks. He's barely even thirty. It seems surreal. The man always seemed sort of old, but never had he expected him to be that old.

Four years.

"We told him that his body would probably give out," Zexion continues quietly, his voice faraway. "But he said that a few years of emotions was better than an eternity of heartlessness."

"Shut up," Marluxia says, blinking away tears. Zexion's complicated vocabulary and scientific explanations just remind him of the dead man. He doesn't want a reason. He wants his lover back.

"He did it for you."

Marluxia closes his eyes and thinks about the morning he woke up to find his companion slightly cooler than usual one idle morning, a little stiff and pale, eyes closed as though in thought and lips parted just a little where his very last breath had just slipped away.

"He was stupid."

Zexion smiles tightly.

"He was in love."

Marluxia shoos the diminutive man from the room so that he can have some time alone. How could he be so stupid? So unobservant? How did he not notice his other growing old and frail? He'd just messed around with that tall, pale, gorgeous body like it was his own, like it was fit enough to withstand hours of running wild around streets and forests and across worlds, passionate trysts in bed (and other places) every other night...

Marluxia had truly been convinced that Vexen would just always be there. It was just going to be them, together, forever.

Physical trauma.

Reckless lifestyle.

Sixty-one years.

Marluxia leans over the coffin until tears drip down his cheeks and splash against the smart white laboratory suit and signature purple Ascot pulled from the posterity box and straightened out for the funeral. He lays a gentle kiss to Vexen's forehead, and lowers the lid.