Shout It From The Rooftops
Author's Note: Here it is boys and girls, the final chapter! I want to say sorry for taking so ridiculously, incredibly LONG to update, but I feel like "sorry" is so lame...I really, really am though! D8 Now I know what I can get done in school and what I can't. All I can say is I'll try not to have that happen with any future fics. To make it up to you wonderful readers, I really tried to make this the best chapter yet. Even though for half of it I was going "OMG JUST BE DONE ALREADY YOU CURSED THINGGGG" DX. But that aside. Lol. It was a fun fic, and I hope you all enjoy it.
Comments are, as always, so very greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading! xoxo -Peachy
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Chapter 7 - Let All Your Love Shine
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It was nearly seven o'clock when the teens piled out of their respective cars, crossing the parking lot to the country club that their school had rented to host the prom. Sora and his group of friends walked through the darkening evening together, slightly nervous, giddy, and eager for the night to begin.
Standing on either side of the large double door that served as the country club's entrance were two men; one tall, broad-chested and smiling, and the other worn, thin, and scowling.
They checked the ID's of the group of teens who approached them, nodding as each junior passed inspection.
"Welcome to your junior prom! Have a glorious time," The fit man declared with an absent toss of his meticulously styled hair, the pale pink layers framing his face and neck flawlessly.
"Oh, we will, Mar-Mar. Don't you worry." Axel replied, smirk set smugly on his face as he draped an arm around Roxas's shoulders possessively. Marluxia's pleasant expression slipped into one of contempt as he glared daggers at the student, their eye contact only broken by Roxas very purposefully pulling his date through the building's threshold.
"Welcome to the prom. If there are any shenanigans, I will see to it you are removed from the premises. That is all." The other man uttered as his too-wide eyes narrowed in thinly-veiled annoyance. His long blonde hair hung around his high cheekbones cut severely on his thin, pale face. Sora, gulping, took his ID back from the man and nodded his head.
"Thank you, sir." He said hurriedly as Riku escorted him inside.
The doors slid closed once again as the last of the group ushered inside. The two professors stood in silence for a few moments, crickets chirping in the distant bushes the only other sound.
"Why so uptight, Vexy darling? It must be uncomfortable for you, always walking around with that big ol' stick up your ass." The pink-haired man implored, devious smile gracing his face once more.
"And it must be uncomfortable for you knowing that a seventeen-year-old child can make you so furious, Marluxia." Vexen quipped, cold stare firmly in place.
Marluxia clicked his tongue in dismissal, waving a hand in the air as if to brush off his colleague's disdain.
"No need to be so touchy, Vexy. Honestly, you give a bad name to science teachers everywhere." The taller man stated, straightening his pink tie that matched his hair to perfection.
"You are the one who discredits the field of science. How they even gave you a position at this school is far beyond me," Vexen replied, glaring at the empty space in front of him.
"Environmental studies is just as credible and academically challenging as chemistry. And no one knows the facets of the environment as well as I do." Marluxia said proudly, reminiscing fondly on all the flower bushes he had planted around the school over the years.
Vexen merely scoffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest and standing in silence.
Marluxia cast a sidelong glance at his companion, his eyes twinkling with amusement and something more.
"So cold, Vexen. So very bright, and so very cold. But if you like, I could show you a few things that are sure to warm you up," his lips curled devilishly at the suggestion, one eyebrow cocked confidently as his layered mane was tousled by an evening breeze.
Vexen's face burned a bright, incredulous red and he sputtered incoherently, making eye contact with his colleague for the first time since their conversation had begun.
Satisfied, Marluxia hummed contentedly as he took the ID's of the next wave of students, Vexen rendered too speechless and immobile to handle the job himself.
The junior prom was, in a word, gorgeous. Dozens of dark wood dining tables were set with pristine silverware atop ornately-patterned carpets, each seat marked with a placeholder, students' names scrawled in fancy script on folded white paper. Giant golden chandeliers dangled from the high ceiling, casting the enormous ballroom in a caramel glow. The dance floor rest in the center of it all, DJ stand still playing quiet pop tunes as students began coming in droves, moving to find their tables or to greet friends.
"Wanna go sit down? I think I see our table over there!" Demyx said, pointing to a table that outlined a corner of the dance floor.
Some of the group nodded, a few starting to make their way over, when Sora put out his hand in a halting motion.
"Whoa whoa whoa. Hold on a minute. I'm not going anywhere until I see who Kairi's date is!" The brunette declared.
"Yeah, Kairi! When do we get to meet the lucky dude?" Riku chimed in, hands on his hips and a goofy grin in place. Kairi burst out in giggles at the earnestness of her one best friend and the playful mocking of the other.
"Hush, both of you! Don't cause a scene. He's right over there." She replied with a vague gesture toward the opposite side of the crowded ballroom.
Sora's eyes followed Kairi's gesture and he soon found himself staring at a tall, brown-eyed boy walking toward them. some members of the group gasped and murmured as they realized who their secretive friend had taken to prom.
The boy came to a halt when he stood right beside a now-blushing Kairi. He stooped slightly in order to fasten a small arrangement of pale pink roses to Kairi's slender wrist, a few stray wisps of brunette bangs falling out of his ponytail and framing his cheekbones.
He quickly stood upright again as he felt the gazes of eight other teenagers upon him. His dark eyes flitted from person to person, finally resting on Sora as he gave a small, awkward grin.
"Uh, hey everybody. I'm Jim. Jim Hawkins. Nice to meet you all." He said with a small smile.
Demyx gasped, turning to his friends with wide, eager eyes.
"Oh, I know who you are! He's a junior over at the private school. He's been suspended more times than Axel," he exclaimed, pointing at an indignant redhead.
"What, a guy gets suspended one, two…" Axel's eyes went skyward as he tried to recall the number.
"Eight," Roxas softly interjected.
"—times, and suddenly he's a standard for comparison?" Axel finished smoothly, his smirk giving away his total lack of anger.
Sora opened his mouth to speak but was drowned out by the music that began blaring from the DJ's speakers.
"WELCOME EVERYBODY!" The DJ exclaimed into his microphone, his loud voice carrying an accent that reminded Sora of long summer days.
"WHO'S READY TO GET THEIR GROOVE ON, YA' KNOW?"
A chorus of cheering and applauding rose from the quickly-filling ballroom.
"OKAY THEN!" Wakka declared with a wide grin as he fiddled with the speaker controls. "Let's get this party started, ya' know?!"
The mass of teens scampered to their respective tables, dropping off bags and jackets before making their way to the dance floor. Sora and his friends were no exception, and they quickly found themselves swept up by the current of adrenaline-fueled bodies moving to the infectious beat of a hip-hop tune.
Demyx bounced up and down, trying his hardest to get Zexion's feet moving. Kairi and Jim were talking as they danced, and Sora's heart warmed as he saw a blissful smile break out over his best friend's face. She was also egging on a timid Naminé, who stood beside an equally awkward Hayner, neither quite sure how close they should get to the other.
Meanwhile, Sora watched as his twin moved comfortably with his boyfriend on the floor. Axel's fingers were entwined with the blonde's own and they seemed not to notice the several onlookers that fixed the pair with questioning stares. Sora knew they were aware of the attention and envied their cool as he stood nervously beside Riku.
Kairi, seeming to have a sixth sense for Sora's times of need, grounded his thoughts to reality as she grabbed his hand tightly. Sora's eyes met hers, and he had no time to protest as she swung the brunette around, twirling and dancing with him, Jim keeping his distance in silent understanding. With his mind effectively taken off his nerves, Sora moved in time with his best friend, catching both her hands in his and smiling widely. Kairi looked over her friend's shoulder to lock eyes with Riku, who nodded silent thanks. She smiled and shook her head as if to say forget it before spinning skillfully away from Sora and attaching herself to his silver-haired boyfriend.
Riku's eyes widened in surprise but he caught Kairi by the waist, moving her with ease. After a minute or so, Riku dipped her, laughing as Kairi all but squealed, holding onto him for dear life. With one last twirl, Riku let her go, nudging her back toward her waiting date. Kairi smiled warmly at Jim and let him lead her around the floor, too preoccupied with the boy's dark eyes to check on her friends as much as she would've liked.
Riku looked down at his boyfriend, his smile quickly dissolving as he saw worry leak back into the brunette's eyes. Gently, he took one of Sora's small hands in his own. Blue eyes traveled upward to meet his and Riku's breath hitched, still far too easily consumed by that gaze.
"Sora," he said softly when his voice no longer betrayed him.
"It's not…I mean, we don't have to—"
But whatever words Riku was about to offer the smaller boy were drowned out by Wakka's loud announcement of "IT'S DINNERTIME!" and the procession of waiters carting trays of food to each table. Riku cleared his throat and let his sentence go unfinished as he followed his friends to their designated table.
Dinner went quickly and without much talking; Sora kept his head down and his eyes on his plate, much to the chagrin of his brother, who was watching the brunette with agitated intensity. Axel made a valiant effort to distract the blonde by tracing soothing circles on his lower back, but was only successful at diverting the boy's attention when his hand wandered to a distinctly lower area. Demyx finished his food and left the table in record time, puzzling everyone with his odd behavior. Zexion excused himself and went off in the direction his mulleted friend had gone a moment ago. Roxas stood, successfully catching the attention of his twin and pointed at him.
"Hey, you. Look sharp. I need a word with you," he said, moving toward a distant corner of the room.
Sora followed without a word, and Axel and Riku exchanged a look.
"Brothers," Axel said en lieu of explanation, his suit jacket bunching at the shoulders as he shrugged.
"Demyx. Demyx. DEMYX!" Zexion exclaimed, finally catching hold of his friend's jacket as he caught up to him. Demyx whipped his head around, looking down at the panting boy behind him.
"Long trip, Zexy?" he teased, grinning at the boy's breathlessness.
"Shut it. Your legs are considerably longer than mine, so I…never mind." Zexion's face went from indignant to embarrassed as he realized his fist was still balled up in Demyx's suit. He released his taller friend and took a hasty step backwards as the sitar player turned fully around to face him. Demyx waited silently, a small smile playing on his lips.
"I…noticed you left the table rather hastily," Zexion fumbled, now wondering what exactly he had planned on saying to the other boy once he caught him.
"And I…simply wanted to make sure circumstances were…that—that everything was alright." He finished, his hair doing nothing to hide the blush burning deep on his face.
"You want to know if I'm okay?" Demyx asked, arching a brow.
"Well…yes. Generally that is an emotion one feels for someone they care about," Zexion defended, immediately regretting his choice of words.
"I mean…you understand. That I care about you. I—I mean, in the most friendly and platonic way possible, of course, and I…" Zexion trailed off, at a loss for explanations, wishing his friend would help him save face, but Demyx just stood there wearing the same strange smile.
"Oh for god's sake, say something, will you?!" Zexion pleaded.
Demyx sighed, eyes flitting to gaze into the distance before settling back on Zexion's own.
"The truth is, Zexy, I'm not okay. You see, I'm in love with somebody, but he only cares about me in the most friendly and platonic way possible." He said, smile still in place, tossing his head upward with flippant dramatics. But when he lowered his gaze to Zexion, his eyes were clear in their seriousness.
Zexion felt his breath leave his body, limbs tingling with numbness.
"Dem—what?" was all he could muster, eyes wide as saucers.
Demyx leaned forward, placing his hands on Zexion's shoulders.
"You still haven't figured it out, my silly Zexy?"
And then Demyx leaned in closer, his breath ghosting over Zexion's face as the shorter boy held his own and prayed to everything holy that he would not pass out.
"It's all for you, Zexion. It always has been." He finished, voice soft as a whisper.
"I never knew," was the truthful whisper that came from Zexion's mouth, his stomach doing leaps and somersaults inside his abdomen.
Demyx smiled wider now, bringing his mouth inches from Zexion's own.
"Then you must be dumber than you look."
With that, Demyx brought their lips together in a gentle kiss, gasping in surprise as he felt Zexion, after a moment of shocked paralysis, return the kiss wholeheartedly. Elated, Demyx wrapped his arms tightly around the smaller boy, their kiss growing in intensity until the giggling of girls brought them back to reality.
Their mouths parted, however reluctantly, and Zexion now wore a smile to match Demyx's as they gazed at each other with newfound emotion.
"We should go back. They're probably wondering what on Earth happened to us," Zexion managed to get out from behind his beaming smile. Demyx felt a lump form in his throat as he realized he had never once seen Zexion smile quite to brilliantly.
As they trekked back toward their table, they cast a sidelong glance at the twins, standing in a corner of the room and seeming to have a heated discussion. They ruled it best to pass the two without a word.
Roxas, in fact, was becoming very heated as he spoke to his troubled brother.
"Sora, man, come on. This is ridiculous. You made it this far only to ditch him at the finish line?" he exclaimed, hands on his hips and speaking with a tone that demanded answers.
"I…I can't! I feel like everyone's looking at us…" Sora trailed off, hanging his head in a mixture of sadness and shame that did not mesh well on his boyish face.
"Please. You're not that important. They're probably just wondering what blonde ice queen sold you that rockin' suit," Roxas replied with a crooked grin.
Sora laughed then, lifting his face to meet his twin's gaze.
"Cloud would murder you for that comment, you know." The brunette said.
"Which is why I did not say it in his remote presence. Now come on. We're going to enjoy our prom with the people we love." Roxas concluded, beginning to walk back to the table and tugging on Sora's sleeve for him to follow.
By the time everyone had reconvened at the table, the music was once again turned up and people were beginning to fill the dance floor once again. Roxas had swept up a blushing Naminé, leading her around while Axel and Hayner pretended to be angry. Jim appeared to go in for a kiss, but Kairi noticed Olette dancing with Pence beside her and turned to greet her, leaving her poor date to awkwardly attempt to play off his failure. Demyx and Zexion were inseparable, and everyone was speculating about what had happened between them. Riku, in the meantime, was standing next to Sora, looking up to the ceiling and wishing he could evaporate, like a bucket of rain, and rise through the atmosphere. His delusions of superhuman escape came to a grinding halt, however, as the warm weight of Sora's hand grounded him to the present moment.
"Hey there." Sora said with a small smile.
Riku blinked and gave the brunette's hand a small squeeze.
"Hey yourself." Riku replied, brushing a few rebellious strays of silver hair away from his eyes.
He opened his mouth to say something further, but thought better of it and, in a bold move, pulled Sora to him in one swift motion and began moving his feet in time with the music.
Sora gave a surprised "Riku!" but did not protest as the silver-haired boy displayed his considerable dancing skill.
"How did I not know you were a good dancer? In the eighth grade you were plain awful!" Sora said with a laugh.
"Yeah, well, I got some dance lessons from Leon, actually. Wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing before I went to prom and made a complete ass of myself," Riku admitted.
Sora broke out in surprised laughter as Riku led him around the dance floor. Kairi saw the pair and smiled, expression matching Roxas's as the little blonde also noticed the two. Four more songs came and went, and Sora danced delightedly with Riku, becoming more and more comfortable as time passed. As the last song ended, however, Wakka switched the track, grabbing the microphone with one hand and gazing into the dimly lit ballroom.
"Alright e'rybody, we gonna slow things down now. So grab your date, or your friend's date, or the next pretty lady you see, and let the love in, ya'know?" He announced, turning up a romantic ballad. Hoards of couples flooded the floor, wrapping their arms around one another and swaying to the slow beat.
Sora looked to his left and noticed that Jim had finally, in fact, gotten a kiss from Kairi, and they stood motionless on the floor as if forgetting how to move their feet as their mouths moved shyly against each other's. Naminé, while she thought no one was watching, placed a light kiss to Hayner's cheek, sending the boy into a fluster as he tried to remember the footsteps Riku had shown him a week earlier. Demyx and Zexion were nowhere near kissing, but they were dancing together, Demyx gracefully taking the lead. They were so wrapped up in each other that it was plain for everyone to see the change between them, their aura totally different than one of close friends.
"About time," Riku said with a smile as they noticed the pair.
Sora could also see Axel to his right, his lanky arms wrapped firmly around his blonde love. Roxas's eyes were shut tight as he kissed the redhead slow and open-mouthed, his hands resting on the nape of Axel's neck. They looked so utterly perfect in each other's arms that Sora felt his lips jut out in envy. Did he and Riku look that way when they held each other tight?
The boy in question turned to face Sora once again, grasping both the brunette's hands in his. As he opened his mouth to speak, however, Sora's eyes met with another pair over Riku's shoulder.
Seifer stood on the edge of the dance floor, glaring his malicious worst at Sora and his boyfriend. Sora's eyes were round orbs as he stared in shock and disbelief at the unfortunate turn of events looking straight in his direction.
His first instinct was to run, to curl his fingers around Riku's as tightly as he could and make a quick escape to a dark corner somewhere, hoping Seifer would lose their scent and move on.
But Riku sank to one knee then, letting go of Sora's hands but extending one of his toward the brunette beseechingly. Unaware of any trouble, his aquamarine eyes looked earnestly into Sora's as he asked,
"May I have this dance?"
Sora's eyes flitted from those of his boyfriend to Seifer's glaring slits. His heart swelled magnificently inside his chest and he squared his jaw firmly, looking down and holding Riku's anticipating gaze.
"Of course," he said, grabbing onto Riku's outstretched hand and pulling him to his feet.
Riku placed a hand on Sora's shoulder, the other keeping its grip on Sora's opposite hand. He led them slowly around the floor with an easy grace that made Sora fall even harder for him.
If Sora had been looking, he would have seen Seifer sputtering in indignant disgust and disappearing from the ballroom. He would have seen his brother swiping tears away from his face quickly before anyone but Axel could see them fall, and Axel smiling warmly at the dancing pair as he would at a particularly beloved child. He would have seen smiles and frowns, cheers and scoffs, Kairi's serene smile and Roxas's elated tears, but Sora wasn't looking anywhere but straight into Riku's eyes, sliding them closed slowly as he felt the electric shock of the silver-haired boy's lips press against his own. Wrapping his arms around Riku's shoulders as the song played out its last few notes in the dim of the crowded ballroom, Sora kissed Riku back with everything in him, and realized with a pleasant jolt that once he let himself fall without fear, he was strong enough to shout out his love from the very highest rooftop.
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The End
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Author's Note: VICTORY KISS WOOOO!!! XD So that's all there is! Except that is actually a lie and there is a juicy AkuRoku bit on the cutting room floor, a.k.a. stowed away in a Word document somewhere...
AND LOL, in case you were wondering about the whole AXEL/MARLY RAAAAAGEEE...Axel and Roxas took Marmar's science class the previous year. Aaaaand Marly, in true form, hit on Rox epically and we all know Axel is not amused when those sorts of things happen...soooo yeah. LOL. Random things from my brain that don't get explained. That's what Author's Notes are for! (/notreally). AND LOL, ZEMYX?! I REALLY wasn't gonna make them gay. I REALLY wasn't. But then Demyx was all OMGAH ILU ZEXIONNNN DO MEEEEEE RIGHT NAOWWWW And I was like D: FINE, DEMYX. HERE YOU GO. So then I had to make Cloud straight with Tifa when everyone knows he more likely would've been gay for Leon LOL. Ah well, sacrifices...just because I hate the "LOL EVERYONE IS GAY" fanfic device. Although I'm sure I've done it, and like this fic, have come close to it...
AHEM. Well, I hope you liked the fic. Maybe if I get lots of nice reviews I'll upload a smutty Axel/Roxas bonus chapter of lemony goodness. Because I'm that nice (/perverted). Let me know what you thought of it!