The exam came and went. In fact, a lot of things came and went unnoticed - and if noticed, uncared for, because Marluxia's eighteenth birthday was inching closer and so too was his final judgement. Heaven or hell, sink or swim, fall or fly; it made Marluxia shiver with anticipation and agitation whenever he thought about it.

He thought about it a lot. Vexen still only visited for a few hours a day, and that equated to a lot of spare thinking time.

He wasn't optimistic. Vexen was evasive about the subject, and if Marluxia really had met - or was going to meet - all the criteria, or whatever, then he would have said so. And he hadn't.

Marluxia didn't want to imagine that his future - after everything that had happened - was going to equate to a lifetime of drugs, straight jackets and padded cells. Not now he'd even finished an entire qualification. Found somebody he could talk to - somebody he liked, experienced the beauty of wildlife and nature, and still would be locked up forever, until he grew old and died, alone and insane and forgotten. Even Vexen would move on, to another case, another troublemaker, and he would just be one more failure in a long line.

The nightmares came thick and fast, and he would wake up drenched in cold sweat, screaming.

He wanted to go home. He wanted there to be a home to go to, anywhere but this cold, lifeless, sterile place and nothing but promises of more, more, more, stretching out into infinity until finally he would one day fall asleep and never again wake up.

Sometimes the nightmares crept up on him even when he was awake, and he'd have to curl up in a tiny ball, shivering and sobbing until he could stamp out the terrible images and memories of things to come.

There was no escaping from his own conscience, once dormant for so long, now unlocked.

Amazingly, they never happened when Vexen was around, and Marluxia didn't tell him about them. He didn't want the psychiatrist thinking he was psychotic and better off in the loony bin, after all. He wanted to be free. He yearned for the sun on his back, the wind in his hair, the grass beneath his feet...

---

A week before the deadline, Vexen came in to find Marluxia hunched over in his chair, a sombre expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" He immediately asked, crouching down to look at the boy through the mop of dusty pink hair. Marluxia's eyebrows - already furrowed - knitted together even more.

"I'm not going to do it," He muttered, quietly, as though he didn't want to admit it.

Vexen sat down on the floor to look directly into those cold, azure eyes.

"Why do you think that?" he asked gently, placing one hand on Marluxia's knee.

"You're being so evasive!" Marluxia blurted out before he could stop himself. "If I had any chance at all of getting out of this stupid prison, you'd have told me!"

Vexen sighed.

"Marluxia, if I was certain, I'd tell you-"

"You're not! You don't think I'm changing! You still don't trust me!"

"If you'll hear me out," Vexen calmly continued. "You're not the only factor featuring in this, you know. It's all very well me thinking you've got the criteria covered, but if my contractors disagree, then there's nothing I can do. So all either of us can do is try. Right?"

Marluxia just shook his head, clenching and unclenching his fists.

"It's not just that," he muttered. "Goddamn you! You're making this so difficult for me!"

Vexen frowned. "Why do you say that?" He asked. "You know I'm just trying to help,"

Marluxia glared sideways at the wall.

"It's not that," He said, a little uncertainly. "It's just... Goddamnit, I can't... not..." And he trailed off into incoherence.

Vexen reached up to gingerly tuck a stray strand of hair behind Marluxia's ear, and suddenly found his wrist caught in a vice like grip.

"Bah. I never had a chance, anyway," Marluxia said, his voice showing a little more of that old, cocky confidence.

And then he pushed Vexen down onto the floor with a strength it was easy to forget he had, reaching out to grab the other wrist, pinning his legs down so that Vexen couldn't struggle, and then leaned close and kissed him, at first gingerly, then deeper. There was desperation in each kiss, and helpless, pent up lust.

Surprised - although he really ought to have been expecting it, Vexen opened his mouth to accept Marluxia in, kissing back softly and warmly.

The action threw Marluxia completely. He tore himself away from Vexen, eyes wide with shock.

"What are you-?!"

Vexen seized the opportunity to pull himself from Marluxia's loosened hands, and reach up to kiss him again.

Even if he had half-expected it, he had not expected it to feel this good.

Marluxia was recovering a little from the shock of one of his rape victims actually enjoying it, and changed his posture so that he was more... curled up in Vexen's outstretched arms, leaning closer, hungrily.

For a single, beautiful moment, the deal didn't matter, the prison didn't matter, nothing in the world could happen to stop either of them now and they kissed, came together in rare, perfect unison.

It was the single best moment of Marluxia's life.

When, finally, they parted with more lingering kisses, Vexen took a moment to study Marluxia. Caught in a situation he hadn't expected, nor could control, he quivered with uncertainty and tension, as though simply wanting to wait for events to play out around him until he was in more familiar ground. But another side, in his eyes and his slightly parted lips, yearned for more.

It was rare that Marluxia's expression could be so open that Vexen could read him like a book.

"What," He finally whispered, crumpling into Vexen's chest, "Was that?"

Vexen shrugged and didn't reply. What was there to say?

Marluxia's voice faltered a little, in new and unexpected territory.

"Why did you do that?"

"I simply do what it occurs to me to do," Vexen replied softly. Why were they whispering all of a sudden? It was a question even he couldn't answer.

He lifted one hand to gently detangle Marluxia's matted hair, and the boy shuddered at first at the touch, then lay limp in his arms.

After a while, Marluxia chuckled.

"You're crazy, Vexen,"

Vexen didn't need to know that he savoured the man's name on his lips, and insanely hoped that Vexen would - somehow - do the same.

---

The night before his birthday, Vexen stayed with him a little longer, until dusk set in.

Marluxia worried - feared, so much - that that was because this was the last time they were going to get to be together again.

"I'm not going to get out, am I," He said quietly once the other conversations faded to a halt. He was lying on the floor, head resting in Vexen's lap.

Things had become a lot more... intimate after Marluxia had attempted - and failed - to rape Vexen.

Vexen shrugged.

"I might be able to do a little fiddling with the figures and transcripts. But..." He sighed. "It's still only a chance,"

He knew that Marluxia had been expecting that answer, but it didn't ease his conscience any more.

"I screwed it all up last week, didn't I? When I tried to... you know..."

Vexen shook his head.

"I decided to leave that out of the official documents. So it's just our little secret, okay?"

"Why?"

"Why did I leave it out? Well, either way, one of us would have been incriminated for what we did. Put it one way, and you'd be a rapist. Put it the other, and I'd be a paedophile and lose my job."

"Oh yeah, I'm still seventeen, aren't I," Marluxia said. Still, that didn't help much. It meant that without even that ugly mar, he still wasn't good enough to leave.

"I'll miss you," He said after a while.

"Save the goodbyes for when we know the verdict,"

---

When Zexion came in, Vexen was scribbling furiously, sheets of endlessly rewritten and revised papers and notes scattered all over the kitchen table.

Finally, just as the tea was ready to pour, Vexen let out an exasperated yell and flung his pen, hard, across the table and against the wall. It clattered, broken and spilling ink, to the floor.

"It's no good," He moaned. "Criteria 13. I just can't make it work."

Zexion gave Vexen a concerned look, but said nothing.

"He's showing all the signs, and has been for a long time. But I need confirmation,"

"He kissed you, didn't he?" Zexion asked. "Surely that's confirmation enough..."

Vexen shook his head.

"I had to leave that out. It's not legal, if consensual. And they'd never understand, anyway. I can't see how anything short of an actual confession could fulfil this,"

Zexion sat down next to Vexen, passing him a cup of tea as a friendly gesture. Vexen sipped it, distractedly.

"It's so annoying," He finally said. "Marluxia has every other criteria covered, more or less. And he'll still be locked up for life because of a single, damned pitfall. I've failed him."

Zexion sighed.

"You ought to consider it a miracle, anyway, that you managed to do what you did. Think about what he was like three months ago,"

"I should have tried harder," Vexen continued miserably.

"At least you made him happy for a few months,"

"He wasn't happy," Vexen said. "He tried to be, but he wasn't. I'm sure that he was having nightmares, panic attacks... He spent his last relatively free time plagued by his own past and conscience,"

"You mustn't be so hard on yourself," Zexion said. "It's not your fault. You did all you could."

Vexen sighed, leaning heavily on the table.

"I can't do it," He said, finally. "I can't walk into this god-forsaken cell tomorrow and tell him that he's failed, that he's going to spend the rest of his pathetic life delirious from drugs, trapped, bound and tied, until the day he dies, all because of some stupid stipulation that shouldn't even apply!"

"Have some more tea," Zexion said kindly. Vexen complied. It scalded his tongue and the roof of his mouth, but he ignored the feeling.

"He loves me," He said at length. "He loves me, and he doesn't even know. He doesn't understand why he wants to be with me or enjoys my company, and he never will, because he has nobody to explain his emotions to him."

Zexion stood, slowly. Vexen wasn't going to be persuaded to cheer up.

"Do you love him?" He asked.

Vexen glanced up in surprise, for once lost for words.

"I..."

There was no point in putting up fronts of bravado now, this late in the game.

"... Of course I do."

---

He awoke, sobbing, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Even after he'd calmed down a little, his hands still shook, reminding him of his acute weakness, even now.

It was funny. He was convinced that he hadn't slept at all that night for fear and worry, and still the lingering nightmares were there, images of him, old and broken, tied in a stark white straight jacket, lying on a stark white floor in a stark white mental institution. Vexen on the outside, with some other man, laughing, gorgeous as ever and he, forgotten. It was worse than death.

They exercised him at nine, as always, and he took his time to enjoy the outdoors air, even if it wasn't as fresh as in the reserve, imagine the soft texture of the grass, even if he was wearing tattered trainers, search for the birds in the sky, even if there were none.

He imagined them, instead, pin wheeling and dancing intricate aerobatics in the sky.

Then he was dragged back inside and forced to sit, alone, in his cell, and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And-

A click at the door had him jumping up from his station on the end of the bed in surprise. But when Vexen came in, his expression was sombre.

Marluxia deflated into the chair, head in his hands.

"I didn't do it, did I," He whispered, trying desperately to will his voice not to crack. Just because he was falling apart inside didn't mean that he had to lose face in front of Vexen, as well.

Two men were behind him, in stark white laboratory coats.

Vexen walked over to kneel next to Marluxia.

"I'm sorry," He murmured.

"It's not your fucking fault," Marluxia hissed, not trusting his voice to speak any louder.

He felt a cold hand on his, and shook, armrests gripped hard enough to leave dents in the old wood.

Then Vexen stood again and Marluxia knew it was over. No more Vexen. No more chances. No more soft kisses falling on his lips like rain, no more long, crazy conversations, no more mind games, no more goddamn analysis.

He simply let himself be pulled from the chair by the men, trapped in their arms, handcuffs clipped on behind his back. What was the point of resisting now?

Nobody spoke as he was led to the door. Vexen collected the spare clothes, the sketchbook and pens, the considerably larger spider plant and its children together on a little tray on the windowsill.

More people were waiting outside; a whole parade of them, all the same, in identical white coats. They must have been expecting him to fight more, or something.

He tried to say goodbye to Vexen but the words caught in his throat and refused to tumble out. His eyes stung with tears, vision a little blurred.

He'd thought about it a lot. There hadn't really been a tipping point between no and maybe and yes, he'd just been thinking and thinking and thinking so hard that it was either stupid, or true, or both.

He thought that he might have been falling in love with Vexen.

It explained a lot - why he could never get the other man off his mind, why he was always so much happier around him, why the only thing that horrified him more than being locked up forever was being locked up forever without Vexen...

He didn't voice those thoughts. Vexen would laugh.

But he suddenly realised that, sink or swim, fall or fly, he'd never have another chance.

"Vexen," He said, forcing horror from the pit of his stomach down, just so he could speak. "I... I'll miss you,"

Vexen smiled a little, and drew close enough to touch his arm.

"Yeah. I'll miss you too,"

And he turned, slowly, and began to walk away.

"Wait!" Marluxia called, desperately. "Vexen!"

Vexen stopped, but didn't turn around. There was no noise, anywhere, the stoic figures around him like statues, merely observing through cold, empty eyes.

"Don't go," Marluxia continued. "Don't leave. Please. I...

...I love you,"

Vexen spun back round to face Marluxia, hair flying, eyes wide. They were already beginning to drag him away, never to be seen again.

Confirmation…

"Wait." He said.

They stopped.

"Criteria 13: The subject must be capable of feeling, and expressing, the emotion of love," Vexen intoned dully.

Marluxia's head snapped up, shock showing on his features beneath the long fringe hanging in his eyes and tears streaking down his cheek.

"You mean...?" He whispered, voice just seconds from breaking.

"Let him go. He comes with me."

"Sir," One of the coated men tried to protest. "We need confirmation-"

"Confirmation? You heard him!"

They had no choice but to release their hold of him, and he stumbled forwards.

"I will be in touch with Mr Heartista in due course to secure the contract."

The handcuffs clattered hollowly on the floor.

"Marluxia?"

"Y-yeah?"

A chaste, gentle kiss.

"I love you too,"