"Hey, Vexen. You look like hell."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious."
Xigbar laughed amiably at me as I took my seat, leaning against the back of the chair.
"Forget it was a full moon?"
"You could say that," I replied sardonically, not really wanting to remember Saturday night and everything that had happened during it.
Xigbar grinned widely, sitting on my desk as though it wasn't covered with paperwork.
"If it took your eye out, we could have matched," He laughed. "Got any other souvenirs?"
I silently clawed a line across my chest, and he nodded sagely.
"Lucky bastard. Coulda killed you, that."
"I know," I said quietly, not really thinking. "I think we're both glad that it didn't,"
"Yeah, 'cus you're such a-" Xigbar began, but then he stopped, realising that by "both" I didn't mean him and me. I knew this because I'd just realised the exact same thing. "What do you mean, both of us? You knew the werewolf, or something?
"'Knew'," I laughed sarcastically. "Knew? He lives with me."
There was a horrible, painful pause in which I seriously thought that Xigbar was going to strangle me on the spot. But then I realised that he was frozen, face in a locked half-smile, as though he didn't believe that I'd even spoken those words.
"I'm looking after a werewolf and a gargoyle," I continued, as though I was just mentioning the weather and trying to sound nonchalant about it. When Xigbar didn't outwardly react I continued, biting my lip. He needed to know this, anyway. He needed to know the truth about Demyx and the Unwanted. "The werewolf's name is Marluxia. The gargoyle is called-" The final word caught at my throat- "Is called Demyx."
Very gently, and too terrifyingly unpredictably, Xigbar eased himself from the desk, walking over until he was a little way from me down the office.
"That's taking it too far, you fucker."
"It's true," I insisted. "As soon as I saw the photograph in your wallet I saw that it was the same person. Demyx didn't die. He was turned."
"I saw him go through the fucking windscreen of the car," Xigbar replied lowly. "He's dead. I don't need you fucking around pretending like it's any different."
"I'm not pretending," I said, standing up and walking over to the frozen man. He was scowling. "I'm not pretending! He wants to meet you again."
"I'll blow that fucking imposter's brains out."
"He's just the same as he always was," I said carefully. I had no doubt that Xigbar had a gun on his person and even if he didn't kill me he could very well come close. "He says that they turned him because he couldn't survive as a human. His injuries from the crash were too bad."
"You're bullshitting," Xigbar muttered. "You are fucking bullshitting about my dead boyfriend. Seriously, I knew you weren't a nice guy but that is low."
"Do you think I would be so disrespectful as to lie?" I demanded instantly, jabbing Xigbar's chest. "Do you think I'd make up a story as sick as that for a laugh? I may be many things, but a liar isn't one of them."
"Yeah, that's what I used to think," Xigbar chuckled grimly. "Just fuck off, won't you?"
"I would, but if Demyx doesn't sort things out with you he may well go insane," I replied quietly, returning to my seat. To my surprise, Xigbar didn't storm away, he simply turned on his heel to face me. His expression was unreadable.
"Come to my house tonight and I'll show you," I promised. "The Marked aren't monsters, Xigbar. They're people, just like you and me. What they don't need is to be shot down every time they even try to pretend that their lives are normal; what they need is help. Our help."
Xigbar silently drew up a chair to sit next to me, staring blankly at my flickering screen.
"Tell me about him." He said.

---

I arrived home in good time to catch Demyx and Marluxia singing in the kitchen. I was mildly surprised; Marluxia could actually hold a tune. Coupled with his gorgeous, soft deep voice and Demyx's cheerful tinkling on the guitar, it sounded nice.
When I stepped in, clapping, he immediately coloured and turned away.
"Oh, stop it."
Demyx was more shameless, bounding up to me and cheerfully prodding me.
"We're starting a band, aren't we, Marly?"
"Don't call me that,"
"Yeah, we're gonna make a band," Demyx continued, unfazed by Marluxia's reluctance. "An Unwanted band. We're gonna make people listen because our songs are gonna be catchy! Nye-haw!"
"Good luck with that."
I ruffled his hair, laughing, and he giggled too. For a moment we pretended that everything was okay.
"I talked to Xigbar today."
Silence. Marluxia was staring as if you say "Are you stupid?" Demyx's expression held mad hope.
I sat down, carefully.
"He wants to meet you, Demyx. I said that he could come around tomorrow."
Suddenly a good five foot five of solid stone bowled into me, nearly knocking me from my chair. It wasn't that Demyx was particularly heavy, he was just hard at the same time as being soft. I couldn't describe the texture of his skin except in that when it stopped, he was a statue, and when he moved it flowed just like normal skin.
"Oh my god," Demyx was squealing. "Oh my god. Oh my god. Thank you so much. I can't believe I'm actually gonna get to see him again and all after so long-" And he dissolved into incomprehensible whittering.
Marluxia rolled his eyes, and raided the fridge again.

---

The next day, Xigbar wasn't in.
Rumours flew like flies around the office; he was ill, he was dead, he'd moved to New Mexico, he'd got married to a sexy truck driver in Inverness, he was hitchiking to find his soul, he couldn't be asked and had spent the day in bed.
I was horrified; Xigbar had promised to see Demyx tonight and I couldn't face letting the poor boy down. I found his home number, called. The phone at the other end just kept on ringing. He didn't even pick up his mobile, and he always picked up his mobile.
Xigbar had disappeared.
Had he wimped out of visiting Demyx? Didn't he know that it would break the gargoyle's heart?
About halfway through the morning, one of Xigbar's friends - a man even taller than me who turned facial hair into an art - walked in with a somber expression on his face, and held up a formal looking letter. We all knew what it was.
"Werewolf attack." He said simply. The office was utterly silent.
I looked meaningfully up at him, as though I wanted to know more details. He was walking over anyway.
"Xaldin-"
"Xigbar told me to talk to you." He said, leaning on the desk. "He said he knew they were coming for him and he had some unfinished business with you. Can I help?"
I shook my head, unable to look Xaldin in the eye. So Xigbar was... dead. After all that.
"It wasn't really that great an importance to anybody but him and a friend of mine."
"He told me that Demyx wasn't dead, and you were looking after him."
"That's true,"I replied evenly.
"Might I meet him?"
"He'll break to know that Xigbar's dead," I blurted out. There was a sob from one of the female workers, and she had to be led away. "I'm sorry..."
Xaldin shook his head in apologetic sympathy.
"Can you tell him?"
"I don't think so." I replied helplessly. "Look, Xaldin, there's something you need to know about Demyx-"
"Xigbar already told me," Xaldin said gently, resting a large, tanned hand on my shoulder. Then he sighed a little, looking away, his expression saddened "He was my best friend, Vexen, you know that. We used to hunt the Marked together. Now I feel like a murderer."
"I won't hold it against you," I murmured. Although Marluxia might...
He chuckled hollowly.
"And you escape an assault from a transformed werewolf with just a few scratches. You lucky bastard."
"That's what Xigbar said."
Xaldin sighed again.
"Goddamn it. Stupid, bastard werewolf."
"It was probably scared," I reasoned gently.
"Yeah. Surprised that Xigbar didn't blow its brains out."
"Well, would he, if he knew that all Marked used to be normal people?"
"But he's not so bad at the whole "running the fuck away" thing either. At least, I thought so."
There was silence for a while as we contemplated this. I noticed out of the corner of my eye Xaldin discretely wipe at his eyes with one sleeve. I didn't call him up on it; I felt like crying too.
"At least he knew the truth," I finally said. Xaldin nodded, but we both knew that if anything it just made it worse.
"What confuses me," Xaldin said after another long silence, "Is why. Xigbar said that he knew "they" were coming, but why would the Unwanted want to kill him once he knew the truth about them? And if they didn't know, why not do it before if it was going to be so goddamn easy?"
I didn't know either.

---

After work I numbly paid for Xaldin's train ticket to my station, then walked him home. I wasn't even going to be the one to break the news to Demyx and yet I felt like I was in more of a state than Xaldin who walked stoically next to me. Marluxia was waiting in the doorway, but momentarily shrank back when he saw Xaldin-
"It's okay. He knows."
"Demyx is in the garden. Where's Xigbar?"
Before I could reply, Demyx, having presumably heard the door go, bounded in with an innocent grin on his face. Upon seeing Xaldin, it fell considerably.
"Where's Xigbar?"
Xaldin simply bowed his head, nodding a little to me, and led Demyx into the sitting room, closing the door with its impressive collection of gouges courtesy of Marluxia behind him.
"Where's Xigbar?" Marluxia said again, voice low. His eyes were trained, cold, on the door and what lay behind. "What happened?"
"He was attacked last night," I whispered. "By a werewolf. He didn't survive."
"Bullshit." Marluxia immediately snapped.
"Xaldin has a doctor's certificate. This isn't a joke, Marluxia."
Marluxia rolled his eyes.
"What, a doctor's certificate like the one they gave to Xigbar when Demyx supposedly died?"
I dragged him out into the kitchen.
"You and your conspiracy theories! It's perfectly probable that he was attacked by a werewolf; after all, he did used to hunt them,"
Marluxia gave me a disbelieving look, grabbing an apple from the basket. I knocked it out of his hands.
"Now is not the time to be eating!"
"In case you haven't noticed," Marluxia hissed as he salvaged the fruit from the floor and rubbed it off, "I'm always eating."
"Maybe you ought to show a little more respect to both Demyx and Xigbar."
"Demyx, who is naively going to believe the lies he's told and Xigbar who isn't even dead? Xigbar who nearly killed his boyfriend?"
"Don't you dare forget that he wasn't the only one to come so close," I growled, jabbing Marluxia's chest. I immediately regretted the blow; it was low, even for me. Anger and horror flared in Marluxia's eyes and he took a stumbling step backwards. The apple dropped, half eaten and forgotten, to the floor.
"You fucking bastard. Do you think I wanted to do that? Do you think I was enjoying the fact that I was trying to rip you to pieces?!"
"Just shut the fuck up."
"I hate you."
"I hate you more! Always so angst-ridden like some petulant teenager, always going on about how bad it is for you, never even considering that maybe other people have feelings! You think that every human in the world is out to get you, you can't God damned accept that maybe there are werewolves that live up to their gruesome reputation! Why does everything to you always have to be either fucking black or white?!"
"Vexen." Marluxia said quietly, his voice strained. "First of all, I was sixteen when I turned. In human terms I still am a teenager. Secondly, I'd like you to spend just one day in my shoes - and I know I'm barefoot, it's a metaphor so don't call me up on that because I know you would - and see how you like it. Thirdly, no werewolf would be stupid enough to attack a known hunter who no doubt had a gun."
I sighed.
"Everybody else managed to grow up just fine. Why don't you take a page out of Demyx's book?"
"Don't." Marluxia replied, murder in his voice. "Don't start on me. Don't try to compare me to Demyx. Just because he has chosen to cover up his pain and take the fucking shit that we're put through without even standing up for himself doesn't mean that I will."
"You are such a moron." I decided.
"Is that supposed to be some kind of comeback?" Marluxia asked incredulously. "Is your argument so pathetic that all you can come up with is just outright insulting me?"
At some point I realised that Larxene had walked in, but we were both ignoring her, even when she spoke.
"Guys?"
"I'm just not even going to bother to reply to your idiotic "woe is me" rants; it's a waste of my breath!"
"Guys."
"You know what else is a waste of breath? Letting you fucking live! I could rip you apart, right now!"
"Guys!"
Larxene stormed in between us, pushing us firmly away from each other (I hadn't even registered that our noses were just inches apart).
"Guys. Seriously. Shut the fuck up, both of you. Demyx is crying his heart out in the next room trying to make out like things are going to be okay, the very least you could do is play happy families until he's out of earshot,"
I glared at Marluxia.
"He started it."
Larxene turned her full outrage towards me, using both hands to push me backwards against the wall. I had never seen her so inflamed with anger.
"You! You're twenty-nine, for God's sake, you of all people ought to have known better and stopped this argument before it even began!"
"Great," I huffed. "So now you're siding with Marluxia?"
"Marluxia is a fuckwit moron too, and I'm going to claws his eyes out about it later. God damn both of you, I'm supposed to the bitch of this house. And you're supposed to be playing at mum and dad."
She scrabbled inside her pocket for something as Marluxia and I exchanged horrified glances at the prospect of one of us to be degraded to "mum" status, and pressed a little packet into my hand. Before either of us could speak, she was gone.
I looked at her thoughtful gift.
"What the hell are we supposed to use a condom for?"
"She's right," Marluxia huffed grudgingly, approaching me to grab my hand and pull the condom away from me, inspecting it closely. "We shouldn't be fighting. Not now."
He sighed a little, and looked meaningfully at me. "If you apologise, I will too."
"Fine," I muttered. "I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too. Come on, let's put this to good use."
"What, now?!"
Marluxia paused, face pensive. Then he pocketed the condom.
"Okay, maybe later. This is for me, though."
"What? Don't be stupid. I'm older."
"I'm stronger."
"I'm taller."
"I'm more forward!"
"I'm more mature!"
"No, you're not. You're trying to grab my butt."