Chapter 10: Bitter Suite

Nightshroud: My thanks to all you reviewers. I got six reviews for the last chapter! Nightshroud is happy!

Axel: Why are you talking in the third person?

Nightshroud: Silence before I make you get Larxene pregnant for REAL.

Axel: oO

Larxene: If you even dare...

Nightshroud: Hehe joking! Anyway, I had to get the help of another friend with this chapter. She had to write the description of the hotel room for me, since I'm...well a guy haha. I don't do that stuff well. Confused? Ah, you'll see! Anyway, here you are.

After they had claimed their luggage, Axel and Larxene looked for a way to exit the airport.

"We have to go through to the Arrivals' Lounge," Axel said, "Mansex said that the company had arranged for a cab driver to meet us there. He'll probably be holding a sign saying 'Axel and Larxene' or 'Organization XIII employees' or 'The people that Xemnas guy sent me to pick up' or…"

"Alright, alright! I get the idea!" Larxene interrupted before he could muse even further. "And, Mansex?"

"A little nickname the employees have for Xemnas," he said with a grin. She tried to stifle a laugh.

"I see."

They wheeled their suitcases through the glass double doors and spotted their cab driver, holding up a sign for the "Organization employees." The cab driver didn't seem like the talkative type, so they rode the rest of the way in silence to the hotel, a pretty fancy looking one at that.

"Hello," a plump, blonde receptionist addressed them as she looked up from her computer, "How may I help you?"

"Larxene and Axel," Larxene said politely, "I believe we were booked in for two rooms here by Organization XIII?"

The receptionist typed something into her computer, then frowned.

"No, there's no recording of any booking," she said, looking confused.

"But our company said they booked us two rooms…There must be some mistake," Larxene said, looking confused herself. The receptionist looked suddenly enlightened.

"I think I know what might have happened," she said, frowning as she re-adjusted her glasses, "a trainee might have taken the booking… They're all useless, the lot of them. Let's see…"

She typed something else into the computer.

"Well, nothing's come up yet…" she said, then smacked a hand to her forehead, lifting a yellow post-it from her desk, which she appeared to have only just noticed.

"It says here," she said, reading from the small piece of paper, "'Charlotte, make booking for 'Organization', two single rooms'. The trainee who took the call from your employers must have left it here. I'm Charlotte, you see. The trainees don't know how to make bookings…Oh no! I'm so sorry!"

Charlotte began to talk in a rush, her voice sounding slowly realising, then panicked, and her words tripped over themselves. Larxene and Axel blinked.

"Do you have any other vacant rooms?" Larxene asked, ever the sensible and business-like one. It was, Axel thought fondly, what made her such a great deputy head of department.

Charlotte appeared to be unable to speak right at that moment, as she silently typed something into her computer. Then she attempted a weak smile, though she was about to deliver some bad news.

"Just the one room. It's the deluxe honeymoon suite."

"I'm sorry, what?" Larxene said, leaning intently towards Charlotte the receptionist, as if she genuinely hadn't heard the blonde woman's words. Axel had heard well enough though, and now he was trying to stop his mouth from hanging open in disbelief.

"I'm sorry, Miss…What was it? Larxene? I just said that, unfortunately, all we have left is the Deluxe Honeymoon Suite. We'll let you have it half-price, of course, to make up for our blunder," Charlotte said.

"Can I just talk this over with my associate?" Larxene asked Charlotte politely, still managing to keep her head in the midst of a crisis.

"Certainly," Charlotte said graciously, "Take as long as you need."

Larxene smiled, but it was decidedly frosty, and grabbed Axel by the arm, steering him away from the main desk to a point about thirty feet away. Charlotte had returned to typing while she waited for them to reach a decision.

"Well," Larxene hissed, "what do you think we should do?"

"I think we should take it," Axel said simply, a surprising amount of confidence and firmness about his tone.

"What?! Are you crazy?!" Larxene cried.

"Look," she began again after she had taken a few calming breaths, "there's no point in taking the room. The half-price offer is no use because the Organization is footing the bill anyway. I say we call up Xemnas and find another hotel."

"Look, Larxene, I don't know what's wrong with your watch, but mine says it's 8:15 A.M. We don't have time to call Xemnas up and find another hotel - there's no telling how long that'll take. We could end up going miles, and Mansex thinks we're staying here - what if they try to contact us here and the hotel tells them we didn't even check-in here? They'll panic and do something stupid like send out a search party. Besides, we have to be at the convention by 9:30 A.M. We need to check in right now, go upstairs, unpack enough to get us through today and have a shower. I'm sorry, Larxene, but we just don't have an alternative. Maybe we can stay the one night here and try to find a different hotel tomorrow," Axel reasoned.

Larxene had to admit that what he said made sense, even if she didn't particularly like it. She sighed heavily and looked reluctantly into Axel's emerald eyes.

"I suppose," she said, sounding weary. Axel grinned, said he knew she'd see it his way and walked back up to Charlotte at the reception desk.

"We'll take it," he said.

"Oh…my…God…" Larxene said when she and Axel unlocked the door to their room. For a start, the key handle was in the shape of a heart, which fitted into a heart-shaped lock. Larxene was feeling nauseated already. Then, when Axel unlocked the door and they stepped in, she couldn't believe it. The room was utterly gorgeous - at least, it would have been if she had been here with a boyfriend or something.

White voile curtains floated at the patio doors which opened out on to a balcony overlooking the hotel's inner courtyard, where there was a fountain. The bed was an enormous king-size four-poster, with white canopies hanging from it. The bedclothes were purple and white, with purple and white fluffy pillows piled at the head of it. Someone, presumably a maid, had scattered the bed with rose petals. The whole room was done in a colour scheme of purple and white, and was fabulously light and airy, with purple and white candles dotted here and there. Larxene sniffed a few of them, and was delighted to find that the white ones smelt of vanilla, while the purple smelled of lavender. There was a T.V. sitting on a white cabinet near the bed, and the floor was polished and wooden. The bathroom, which Larxene hurried to examine, was tiled in purple and white with a white bath, shower, toilet and handbasin, all the basics.

"Wow," Larxene breathed finally as she came back to where Axel was standing with all their bags around him on the floor.

"I know," Axel said, then they looked at each other and began to laugh.

"All this for us," Axel said, shaking his head. Then he said apologetically, "I'm sorry you're here with me and not a boyfriend."

"I'm sorry about that too," she said, a teasing grin flitting around her mouth. Axel rolled his eyes.

"I honestly don't mind," she then said, and the sincerity in her voice took Axel aback for a few seconds. He smiled.

"Good. Because I don't really mind, either," he said, and he was sincere too.

"Let's unpack," Larxene said, and Axel groaned.

"Do we have to?"

Axel was sitting on the bed about thirty minutes later, waiting for Larxene to come out of the shower so he could go in. Things had been going okay so far. Suddenly, the door to the bathroom opened and Larxene emerged, wrapped in a fluffy white towel, her wet hair loose around her face. Axel couldn't help but look at the creamy white shoulders exposed by the towel and then, at her shapely legs...

Darn it. He hoped he wasn't staring, but he had a horrible feeling he was.

Larxene felt that there was something vaguely unsettling about coming out from the bathroom to see Axel sitting on the bed, almost as if he were…waiting for her… Her heart skipped a beat when he looked at her, emerald eyes boring into her with a slightly hungry gleam in them. And she couldn't breathe. Nobody moved.

"Well, I'm out now!" Larxene cried chirpily, feeling a compelling need to break the silence. Axel jumped as if snapped out of a trance.

"Oh, so you are! Guess I'll be, um, going in now," Axel said hurriedly, getting up off the bed and going in, not able to close the door fast enough. Both of them breathed a gasp of relief, then Axel slumped against the door and buried his head in his hands. Larxene lay back on the bed and groaned. How could they have ever thought that this was a good idea?

Larxene was dressed and blow-drying her hair when she heard Axel calling her from the bathroom. She turned off her hairdryer and hollered through the door, "What is it?"

"I need some clean underwear," he said, his voice shaking a little, "Can you throw some in to me?"

Larxene blushed at the thought of handling his underwear.

"You need more than underwear," she called, "You need a full set of clothes. I'm not having you walk around in your underwear."

Axel managed a nervous laugh.

"Oh, yeah," he said, "Silly me. Okay, throw me a suitably boring suit."

Larxene searched through the things that had come out of Axel's suitcase, finally deciding on a pair of ordinary black boxers (picking out Axel's underwear for him was beyond weird, she decided) and a navy suit, but she didn't know what shirt and tie to put with it. Then, suddenly, she heard a voice behind her. Right behind her. She jumped and whirled around. And there was Axel, his hair dripping; tall, broad-shouldered, muscular frame clothed in only a towel wrapped around his waist. She had a horrible feeling she was staring. She prayed her mouth wasn't open, and that she wasn't drooling. He was looking at her with an eyebrow raised.

"You were taking a long time, so I thought I'd come see if you were okay. I thought maybe you'd forgotten," he said, and Larxene was sure he was blushing a little.

"Say something, anything!" Larxene prompted herself desperately.

"Ghurk," she said intelligently. Axel looked confused, and a little panicked. Larxene resisted the urge to bang her head on something.

"I meant 'shirt'," she explained as she shook her head vigorously, "I couldn't decide on a shirt and tie to go with this suit. That's what took me so long."

"Well done, Larxene!" She thought sarcastically, "You've learned how to act like a regular human being! Maybe someday you'll realise you're not a teenager anymore, and therefore cannot stare like an idiot at extremely hot, wet, towel-clad guys!"

"Hot?" she said to herself, sounding bewildered. Where had that come from?

"I beg your pardon?" Axel asked.

"I said, 'Isn't it awfully hot in here?'" Larxene tried to cover up, tugging at the collar of her blouse.

"Not really," Axel said.

"Must be just me then," Larxene muttered as Axel selected an ordinary white shirt and navy tie (which, Larxene reflected, made perfect sense, and made her wonder why she hadn't thought of it) and went back to the bathroom to dress.

It was approximately thirty minutes later that the two were standing outside the building where they were having the meeting, immaculately dressed, although Axel absolutely could not convince his hair to behave, despite the combined efforts of both himself and Larxene, who was believed to an expert when it came to hair, though Axel thought her antennae were proof against this, though he dare not say it. Larxene had told him that it looked good anyway, and it broke up the stuffiness of his ultra-boring suit. It helped him look more like a twenty-year-old and less like a thirty-year-old. Besides, the rumpled look was "in" this season, according to Larxene, and she read all those fashion magazines, so she would know. Axel couldn't decide if she was just being nice today, or if she was just trying to convince herself that it didn't matter that she couldn't fix it.

In any case they stood in front of the doors, staring at them.

"Ready to be bored out of our minds?" Axel asked her. Larxene nodded and they walked through the doors, feeling a little nervous.

Nightshroud: Enjoy it? Haha what suitably awkward things will happen while Axel and Larxene share a honeymoon suite? You'll just have to wait and see! I loved the towel stuff. It's always awkward and fluffy in these kinds of stories haha. Well hope you loved it. Now leave a nice review for me! 8D