"Where's Vexen?"
Larxene was sulking in front of the TV and had been for some time. She was, as it were, pissed. Partly at the world at large but mostly towards Vexen. Of all the treacherous things, that man had the audacity to-
"He's out with Naminé."
There was such malice in her words that even Marluxia seemed a little intimidated.
"Oh? Where?"
"Who cares," Larxene said sourly. "The point is they're going out and he's ten bloody years older than her, which is just disgusting. Not to mention the fact that he's Vexen."
Marluxia shrugged.
"My parents were a decade apart," He said.
"Was your mother nineteen?" Larxene shot back. She elicited a laugh from Marluxia, who conquered the floor in two easy strides and lounged elegantly on the half of the sofa that wasn't already claimed by Larxene's sprawling mass.
"At some point, I suppose she must have been."
In no mood for jokes, Larxene threw Marluxia a murderous glare.
"You know what I mean."
Marluxia seemed somehow to sense her displeasure and settled into one of his more fitting personalities.
"If she matters that much to you, take her back."
Larxene ignored this too personal suggestion completely, her face contorting instead into an irritable scowl.
"But Vexen."
"He's rather tentatively gorgeous," Marluxia commented offhandedly. Larxene appeared to consider this a joke, and laughed cynically.
"You can't actually think that."
"I do," Marluxia promised earnestly. "He has an unorthodox beauty about him."
"He's foul," Larxene spat. "You can't go a day without receiving the brunt of another one of his temper tantrums, and he thinks he's so much better than everyone else. It's sickening."
"Marluxia appeared to consider this before speaking.
"It's nothing a little persuasion can't fix."
Larxene looked at Marluxia incredulously.
"I really don't like your tone of voice."
"You really are as oblivious as Naminé says, then," Marluxia laughed, stretching until his back clicked and somehow managing to make even that look graceful. "When was the last time Vexen shouted at you?"
Larxene opened her mouth to reply and found that, embarrassingly, the most recent time she could recall was back when Marluxia had just moved in - and even then...
"Well, he's been a bit quieter recently, I'll admit."
"And why do you think that is?"
There was a slight pause.
"Oh God. You didn't."
Marluxia simply smiled a knowing smile.
"It took an amount of convincing..."
Larxene spluttered a little.
"But Vexen's straighter than a ruler! He'd never agree to- he did agree, right?"
Marluxia laughed again as he none-too-subtly tugged Larxene onto his lap for kiss and tell.
"Of course. What do you take me for, a rapist?"
"Sometimes the pants you manage to climb into beggars belief."
Marluxia chuckled to himself as clothes were lost and bruising holds were found.
"You're right, though. He really is like fucking a woman."
"I told you. Probably wasn't even worth it."
"Oh, no. You see, the difference is that I like that kind of thing."
It was a good day. Vexen surprised himself: he'd expected to be sullenly awkward all day but he and Naminé somehow found plenty to talk about. He told her about his siblings, the brother who carried on his father's trade and the sister given a grant by the government to train at a national level in gymnastics. She revealed a little of her own secret past, one in a long line of artistic heritage and twin brothers who'd moved to Spain together last year. They talked about the weather, mainly because there was so much of it. Vexen explained all the fronts and pressure and prevailing winds and Naminé told him how to paint a cloud with just the right fluffy colours. They were a world apart but it comforted Vexen to realise that somewhere even they could find a patch of common ground.
The rain steadily worsened over the course of the morning until the forest floor was a swamp and they were akin to drowned rats. Naminé fell down a pothole and had to be carried until they reached a comparatively sheltered thicket. The sandwiches were crushed but thankfully dry; Naminé giggled when Vexen poured water out of his boots and they both laughed when she slipped in the mud and dragged him down with her.
When they reached the car they were both thoroughly soaked and freezing, but... it was a good day.
It was quite a ritual, stripping down sodden clothes and boiling the kettle for hot chocolate when they finally arrived back at home. Larxene and Marluxia were nowhere to be seen, and that suited Vexen just fine. He ran a bath for Naminé, and was awfully tempted to ask if he could sit in the bathroom with her as she pruned - but that was very definitely inappropriate. So he hung up all their wet clothes to dry in the utility room instead and towelled the worst of the water from his hair until she shyly popped out onto the landing.
"All yours."
She looked so adorable wrapped in a towel with her hair in a messy bun, Vexen thought somewhere in the very secret part of his brain that conveniently forgot that she was too young and most certainly not available, and he was so dislikeable that even if she was, just - no. But then again, Naminé always looked adorable, and now that Vexen had noticed it once he saw it in everything she did.
"Thanks."
He slipped inside and to his surprise, Naminé followed him. The bathroom was like a sauna and it enveloped them both in a sleepy warmth.
"If I..." She began, and paused momentarily, "If I go put my pyjamas on, d'you mind if I come sit with you?"
Vexen did not mind at all and hesitantly told her so, so after she'd gone he stripped off and was safely amassed with bubbles by the time she returned.
"We should do this again."
"What, go walking in the pouring rain?" Vexen asked, a little surprised.
"Yeah," Naminé said, chuckling under her breath. "It was fun."
"More fun than going to the zoo with Marluxia?"
Naminé considered this for quite a while, and Vexen was sure that she was torn between lying to be kind, or being honest and insulting. Obviously she'd enjoy Marluxia's company more, particularly when it didn't entail falling over in muddy fields and trying to salvage dead sandwiches from the bottom of a rucksack.
"Just as much," She eventually said. "You two are very different and I value you both equally."
"But he's rich and charismatic and interesting," Vexen protested before he caught himself. He was unsure as to why he couldn't just take the compliment for face value. It was like he secretly wanted her to keep arguing with his self-depreciative nature so he'd have a chance to coddle his pathetic little ego.
"But you're thoughtful and attentive and intelligent," Naminé duly elaborated. "And anyway, you've got to be pretty impressive to be able to make getting completely soaking wet worthwhile."
Vexen, who had not been called impressive pretty much ever, honestly didn't know what to say to that. He just wasn't used to compliments, which, he thought dully, was a rather sad state of affairs. So he blushed a little, and kept his focus on his hands.
"You're exaggerating."
Naminé sighed a little, tentatively brushing her fingers against Vexen's bare, slightly freckled shoulder.
"You really don't have much self confidence, do you?"
Vexen glanced up to find Naminé's nose a lot closer than he'd expected. They were almost touching, and in the murky heat of the bathroom, it almost seemed like she'd actually meant to be so close, and when she didn't back away Vexen fleetingly wondered of-
"Not any more."
"You've changed a lot," Naminé whispered, and Vexen felt fingertips rest so softly on his bare arms. He nodded distantly, the registration of every humming muscle louder than words. Where was sense and reason here with a tiny teenage girl just centimetres from his lips, eyes sliding closed, the softest of sensations and warm, fuzzy intimacy?
Vexen's mind went blank.
Ever since he could remember, Vexen had been thinking. His busy mind just never stopped working; if he wasn't mulling over the events of a day he was recalling snippets of knowledge or calculating random numbers just to have something to do. But now all those whirring thoughts just toppled out like sand through a sieve. It was a moment or six before even one thought tentatively crept in.
Oh my God. She's kissed me.
She actually just kissed me.
And then all the or did I kiss her? Oh sweet Jesus, did I just kiss a nineteen year old girl? She can't have meant to kiss me. Nobody would want to kiss me and anyway I'm in the bath and why would she kiss me in the bath in fact why would she want to be in the bathroom with me anyway and oh my God I'm naked and she kissed me this has to be a dream there's no way that she's actually-
Naminé moved. Just a centimetre or so, tilting her head away from Vexen's nose and the worries tumbled away again. He frantically tried to remember - well, learn - how to kiss somebody when they weren't just politely pecking his cheek or seemingly hell-bent on thrusting their tongue down his throat. He mostly failed, but Naminé didn't seem to mind terribly, and by Vexen's standards she knew what she was doing. It was still just a peck of a kiss (two kisses when they momentarily broke and returned to each other's lips) and there were no tongues or moaning, but it was a thousand times better than Larxene drunkenly dragging her nails down Vexen's chest or Marluxia invading every inch of his privacy. The other two were barely an inkling in his mind as arms were looped around flushed skin and wet handprints were left on soft fabric. When Naminé pulled away with a wet sort of pop, Vexen was still hardly thinking, which he'd have found disconcerting if the pure amazement of the kiss hadn't overridden all other emotions.
"Sorry."
Her shy apology snapped him from some sort of daze, and he quickly busied himself in relocating an errant duck.
"Don't be."
She pulled away and began to fiddle with her thumbs, still furtively watching Vexen out of the corner of her eye. Vexen wouldn't have noticed, except he was doing exactly the same thing.
Downstairs and out of Vexen's mind, the door heralded merry yells and the occasion crash of Marluxia and Larxene's unwelcome return. The bathroom was in another universe, particularly when Naminé looked up through her hair and their eyes met and locked, lips again to follow. Even when Larxene was calling for Naminé, her fingertips stayed loyally locked with Vexen's.
It slowly dawned on him that he was falling in love. With a nineteen year old girl. One with a very, very overprotective best friend who was knocking on doors and calling her name.
Reluctantly, Vexen pulled away.
"Go," He whispered, "I'll get out when the coast is clear."
She smiled a little, nodded, and with one last little kiss was gone.
Vexen sank down into the water and blushed until his heartbeat slowed to its usual steady pace.
Larxene had been looking for Naminé for about four minutes or so when she popped, red-faced, out of the bathroom.
"Was just having a bath," She explained, pointing to the hastily closed door. "Vexen and I got pretty wet today. And then we fell over. Where did you go?"
Larxene's scowl didn't lift at all.
"Just out. Is Marluxia home?"
"I thought he came home with you," Naminé said, dusting herself off and making for her room.
"That's just some guy," Larxene scoffed dismissively. "Marluxia's probably off arranging a threesome somewhere. Why are you blushing so much?"
Naminé quickly busied herself with something peripheral in her room. Larxene, if anything more displeased, stepped in and closed the door behind her.
"Well?"
"I- I like Vexen," Naminé blurted out. "And, well, it was all a bit sudden, but I... I kissed him a bit."
Naminé always loathed telling Larxene about boyfriends; it was like some excruciating test that they had to go through: obtaining Larxene's approval. None of them ever had and Vexen - although he wasn't really exactly a boyfriend - had the added disadvantage of Larxene already positively abhorring him. But Naminé steeled herself, because for once she had a selfless reason for not being a pushover and that was Vexen.
"A bit." Larxene echoed sourly.
"Yeah." Naminé said.
"Vexen."
"He's sort of sweet."
"Sweet is the last word I'd ever think of to describe Vexen," Larxene said. "Well, except gorgeous, which Marluxia seems to think he is."
"Marluxia thinks he's gorgeous?" Naminé questioned. With the nicest will in the world, even she wouldn't go that far. Vexen wasn't ugly, but he wasn't gorgeous.
Larxene nodded sagely.
"Unwaveringly."
"Wow," Naminé said thoughtfully. "I... I'm not sure I'd go that far, but..."
"I would not go anywhere near that world and Vexen," Larxene decided definitively. "But really? Vexen? Naminé, he's probably diseased."
"He's less likely to be diseased than Marluxia," Naminé pointed out without thinking, then against better judgement added, "Statistically."
"You are not going to do anything with Vexen that would give Marluxia a statistically higher chance of being diseased," Larxene declared. This was not a suggestion or a request: it was an order.
Naminé, who had not even thought about that yet, blushed furiously and had nothing more to say.
"And anyway, he's a bloody decade older than you. And he smells odd. Just stay away from him. I've have thought that even you would have better standards than-"
"Don't you have a friend waiting?" Naminé interrupted. She didn't mean to snap - it just slipped out. Larxene stared.
"He's rubbing off on you," She said as she headed for the door. "Why do you even hang around with him? He's vile."
"He isn't!" Naminé protested. "He's just lonely, and no wonder he thinks he's awful, because you're so busy always telling him that he is!"
"Are we talking about the same Vexen?"
Naminé sat down heavily on the bed and pulled Snjór onto her lap.
"No," She whispered into the matted white fluff. "I... I don't think we are."
Larxene gave her the look of a person who didn't understand poetic metaphors, and left. Naminé waited a moment before tottering over to Vexen's room, Snjór safe in her arms.
After that, it became a sort of routine for Vexen to come creeping into Naminé's room at night and hold her tentatively close, a gesture that became less and less awkward as each of them found places to put elbows and knees where they could both be comfortable; even under the pastel pink duvet Vexen soon felt quite at home. Even if he never dared even think of the word girlfriend, it was still so mind-blowing to consider that Naminé might actually like to have his hands splayed on her back and her head tucked beneath his chin. It gave him a shy, shaky little confidence to see her off with a kiss the next time she left for university, or pop into her room to ask if she'd keep him company while he rebound the spines of a few of his oldest books.
Things in the second shared bed of the house were not so content. Larxene was in a foul mood and had been since Naminé came home from her day out with Vexen and decided that he wasn't the surly, self-centred jerk that Larxene knew and loathed, but some kind of hapless academic who just needed a hug. And, granted, she was willing to accept that in recent months, Vexen had become slightly less of a cantankerous old geezer, but an old geezer he still was and not the kind of person Larxene ever wanted infecting Naminé. He was supposed to be safe, someone who'd never interfere with Larxene's affairs with Naminé, and now he suddenly thought it was acceptable to go around modestly kissing Naminé's cheeks and brushing his hands across her hips when they thought that nobody was looking.
Unfortunately, since Vexen was at best elusive and at worst impossible to find, much of Larxene's temper came crashing down to rest heavily on Marluxia's shoulders. She bit right through his skin one night, and after that they slept in their own beds.
"Naminé!" She kept saying whenever Marluxia was idly hanging around. "I can't believe that Vexen thinks he can get away with stealing her from me like he's the one she's been best friends with for oh, only sixteen bloody years."
Marluxia had wisely appeared to listen, and refrained from offering his own opinion. But it was Vexen who truly suffered, in hundreds of petty ways that it took him quite some time to register. Namely when there were calls for potential employers asking about interviews.
"Vexen Carlisle? Oh, is that his name? Sorry, I'm just the hooker he hired... maybe you should call back later...?"
The car keys left hanging on the rack were also a perfect opportunity for vengeance: Larxene drove the battered old thing to a car park and left it there with no ticket. She 'accidentally' dropped his favourite coffee mug.
"Whoops~"
It was almost funny, seeing Vexen try to contain his anger. He'd blanch, fists clenching into tight knots of bones and veins. Larxene was used to screeching retorts which she could effortlessly run Vexen in circles with, but as of late he'd taken to simply keeping his gaze averted and leaving the vicinity as quickly as possible. The coward. He was boring now that all he ever did was run with his tail firmly locked between his legs.
Naminé became more distant, too. Sometimes Larxene glimpsed her with Vexen occasionally doing things that the two girls used to do together. How was that possibly fair? Until a few weeks ago Naminé barely even talked to the reclusive man, and now they were going out for walks every weekend and even had embarked on a project to clean up the garden now the days were growing longer. Marluxia, the slimy bastard, for all his words, didn't even seem to care in the slightest that his darling Vexen was charading around with somebody else. But then again, Marluxia rarely seemed concerned about anything at all. She called him up on it, once.
"Don't you even care about Vexen and Naminé?"
He shrugged philosophically, perfectly poised on the kitchen chair with a glass of fruit tea in his hands. He didn't seem interested in drinking it; it simply seemed to serve as a tool with which to look more sophisticatedly relaxed.
"If he fucks Naminé, does that mean I'm allowed to?"
"You go anywhere near her," Larxene muttered dangerously, "And I will rip out every pink hair from your head. And possibly your body, too."
Marluxia, unfazed, just laughed.
"My, my. I don't remember that being a part of the deal," He said flippantly. When Larxene didn't immediately reply, he smirked and chose another question. "Why don't you ever ask her about it?"
Larxene looked horrified.
"She's straight! How could I ever- it'd ruin us. Things would never be the same again and I'd be all the worse for it."
"You're sounding like the dog in the manger," Marluxia said thoughtfully.
"Just because you're a wanton slut," Larxene scoffed. "You really don't get what it's like, every time Naminé gets herself a new boyfriend. They weren't the ones helping her out every time she argued with her parents. They didn't give up everything for her like I did. They say that they love her and they don't. I do."
Marluxia stood and poured his untouched tea meticulously down the sink.
"Naminé," He said softly as he watched the liquid trickle away, "Is a very lucky girl indeed."
In the two minutes it that it took Marluxia to load up the last space in the dishwasher and set it running, Larxene could think of nothing to say. What could he have meant? He made it clear that as fun as the sex was, there was no love between them and Marluxia wasn't the kind of person to conceal his emotions. He wouldn't seek Larxene's love, so why...?
Marluxia stopped by on the way to the door with a surprisingly chaste kiss to Larxene's forehead.
"Perhaps," He whispered, "She deserves to know just how lucky he is."
"Don't you dare-" Larxene began, but Marluxia had slipped away. "- tell her."
And twenty minutes later Vexen wandered in looking purposeful and Larxene let punches fly until he crumpled, whimpering, to the floor. She felt a little better for pulling him up by his ridiculously long hair and hissing threats in his ear then planting a solid foot into his stomach, but... not much.
