It was no secret that Larxene had been avoiding Naminé ever since Vexen had finally managed to get in contact with a potential employee; even Larxene herself couldn't deny that. But she was as crafty as Naminé was a hopeless pushover and it only took a few lies to get her off the trail. But still, Larxene just couldn't look her old friend - and maybe her ex friend - in the eye any more.
But there was one thing that lightened Larxene's heart a little - the sight of Marluxia passionately snogging a very drunken - but more importantly reciprocating Vexen in the hallway last night. It had legitimately been hours until the moans had died down in the other room. Larxene knew that Vexen had always been just a bit ambiguous of sexuality (the important thing being that he was as stiff as a board and never going to get laid, ever), but she'd never had such a clue that he could be so, well... passionate.
So Larxene was in a better mood as she stretched out of her bed, catlike, and slipped out of her room. With a bit of luck, Naminé would have heard the ruckus last night and would disown Vexen immediately.
She saw Marluxia appear from his own room on the way downstairs, and grinned.
"Heard you last night. Nice."
"My compliments."
Larxene stretched again until her spine clicked, swinging around the end of the banister.. Oh, God. Her mood was exponentially better already.
"Never knew Vexen could be so loud."
"I told you all he needed was a little convincing."
She actually laughed, for the first time in weeks, freely and with perhaps a hint of sadism.
"Yeah, with alcohol."
Marluxia shrugged.
"He can be a little uptight without it."
"Understatement of the century," Larxene muttered affectionately, dropping Marluxia's immaculate lips a kiss. He chuckled a little, hand mapping the sharp curve of Larxene's back as he pulled her closer into the warm intimacy that Larxene, as of late, had sorely missed. It was so easy, she thought deliriously, to simply melt into Marluxia's warm, broad chest and forget that the world existed, to kiss him deeply and passionately safe in the beautiful knowledge that no love existed between them - only lust. It was so easy to forget that Marluxia was a bastard, that last night this very mouth had played kissing games with that despicable moron Vexen, that Larxene's heart belonged to one person and one person alone. Yet, paradoxically, here she was, leaning closer as though laughably desperate for Marluxia's alcoholic, addictive presence, for the way he held her in perfectly muscular arms, hands smooth across her bony body where here fingernails were needles in his back.
"I hate you," She murmured lovingly in the silent moment that they pulled apart. "The only person I hate more than you is Vexen. And the only reason why I hate him more than you is because he can fuck Naminé and you can't."
At this, Marluxia chuckled, sweeping Larxene off her feet and dropping her onto the kitchen table with the elegance and meticulous care that was both common and unusual for the gorgeous, enigmatic man. Yesterday's post was forgotten, some paperwork of Vexen's (the damn workaholic) tossed onto the floor and a tabloid newspaper crumpled into wreckage as Marluxia advanced with a foxy grin, palms of his hands noiselessly padding across the varnished wood. Larxene found herself leaning back, her own loathing glare matching Marluxia's demon expression as he covered her, engulfed her, pressed her flush against the kitchen table and kissed her blue and burning with desire, only to roll fluidly away when, above, there sounded a scream.
"Vexen?"
"I would imagine he'd be rather sore this morning."
Larxene fought down the urge to just drag Marluxia into a room she could lock and fuck him senseless, crawling with markedly less agility from the table.
"Just how hard did you bang him last night, anyway?"
"How loud was he screaming." Marluxia deadpanned.
There was a pause. Larxene winced, comically.
"Ouch."
"Not to mention a severe hangover, little knowledge of what actually happened last night - and the added confusion of waking up in Naminé's bed."
"You fucked him in Naminé's bed?" Larxene exclaimed incredulously. If she'd been drinking, it would have come out of her nose.
Marluxia shrugged.
"What can I say. Personal kink of mine."
"So where did Naminé sleep?"
"My room, of course."
Larxene shook her head as the inhuman howling upstairs finally ceased with the bang of opening doors and scurry of delicate feet filtered through the fragile ceiling tiles.
"You really are a fucked up shit, Marluxia."
There was silence for a few minutes; Marluxia raided the fridge and found nothing of interest, Larxene pretended like she cared for Vexen's homework and dumped it in disarray on what had become his chair. Then the pattering feet shot downstairs and a flustered looking Naminé skidded into the kitchen.
"Glass, tap, water," She rattled off quickly, dashing to each cupboard or utensil in turn. "Painkillers. Larxene, where do we keep the painkillers? Vexen looks like he's been dragged through a bush backwards. Smells like it, too."
She paused for a moment.
"Which is weird. Where are the painkillers?"
It was Marluxia who helpfully guided her to the medical basket where she rifled through an assortment of curious medications before finally plucking out a box of paracetamol tablets. She took two in her palm, thanked Marluxia profusely, and was gone as quickly as she'd appeared.
The moment her pert little bottom disappeared, Larxene's face crumpled into a scowl.
"Never ran round like a headless chicken like that for me."
"Have you ever been woken by an alarm at six thirty in the morning after drinking yourself half to death and then doing anal all night?"
"Admittedly, no..."

Naminé could only assume that Vexen had simply had far too much to drink last night as she just about managed to haul him to his feet and help him stagger to the bathroom to throw up. Her first instincts were to get him conscious enough be speaking in more than just monosyllables, so she barely even noticed that he was naked until he was slumped over the glass of water she'd hastily poured for him on the bathroom stool. And it was one of those things that once you noticed it... it was impossible not to look.
After a full ten seconds of very deliberately trying to stare at Vexen's face and not his... Naminé turned, blushing furiously, away.
"I'll, uh, get you some clothes."
"Oh, shit."
"It's okay," Naminé insisted too quickly. "I don't mind. I'll just get you some clothes you can wear."
"There's a suit on the desk," Vexen said, his voice sounding strangled and deathly embarrassed, "In my room."
"I was thinking more pyjamas," Naminé replied, making the mistake of overestimating her ability to focus her eyes where her head wanted and not any other part of her body and turning back. But Vexen had a hand clamped over his groin, face even redder than Naminé's.
"I've got work."
"You look like Hell."
"I can't skip work!" Vexen exclaimed, wincing when his own voice was too loud for his battered brain. "It's only my second day, I can't take my second day off work..."
"You're hung over," Naminé said gently, tentatively brushing her hand over Vexen's freckled shoulder.
"That's even more of a reason why I can't take the day off," Vexen moaned.
"But-"
"Just get the clothes. Underwear, at least."
"Right."
Naminé was quick to slip away. There was the full change of clothes just like Vexen had said, neatly folded on his desk with underwear included. Momentarily, Naminé was worried about Vexen's state of mind if he laid out his clothes for the day the night before. But then she realised that this was Vexen, and thought little more of it. Half an hour later, Vexen didn't look like a zombie, which was impressive for the pale man.
"How are you feeling?"
Vexen had decided that standing up was too difficult, and was perched stiffly at the edge of a sofa made for lounging over. Naminé hadn't even realised that it was possible for furniture to not suit somebody - but Vexen was proof, right there.
"Not too bad."
"Well, it's better than fine," Naminé mused, forcing a spoon into his right hand and a bowl of cereal into his left. "Come on, eat."
"My mouth tastes of dead." Vexen complained.
"All the more reason."
Vexen sighed, swapped the spoon into his left hand and grudgingly began to eat.
"Next time, tell me to stop after the second glass."
"I didn't even realise you'd had so much."
Vexen sighed, eyebrows furrowing.
"Neither did I. And I never realised that alcohol could induce such insane dreams, either-"
He stopped, and paled from unhealthy white to deathly white. His full spoon, halfway up to his mouth, dribbled milk back into the bowl.
"What?" Naminé urged, worry overtaking her mind faster than the speed of light. "What's wrong?"
Meticulously, Vexen stood.
"I am going to go to work," He resolved slowly. "And I am going to spend the day distracting myself with science. Once they kick me out I am going to come home, and kill Marluxia."
"Oh," Naminé said. There really wasn't much you could argue with to such a blank, calculative tone. "Well, don't leave a mess on the carpet."
She chuckled nervously a little. This did not ease the tension.
"Uh, Vexen? Are you alright?"
Vexen was already pulling his coat on, collecting his train pass and his keys.
"I will be in a few years. Possibly. Hopefully."
With a click of the old front door, he'd gone.
Naminé stood with a dozen pieces of a four-dimensional jigsaw puzzle and no clue as to the link between any of them on the doormat, watching Vexen disappear with a flick of long, blonde hair.

When Vexen finally arrived at work, he felt just about ready to collapse. But he managed to stagger in on time without looking too much like he was hopelessly hung over, and take his place at his seat where he quickly decided that if he could help it, he wasn't going to move at all until eight o'clock that evening. Thankfully the trains had been excruciatingly busy enough that Vexen was too preoccupied trying not to fall over in a seething mass of bodies with more confidence that he possessed to think about more troubling matters. And then battling through paperwork and experiment results analysis with a splitting migraine was more than taxing enough to delay further thought to the mess of alcohol and horror that was last night. He'd received a few odd looks, undeniably, but that was to be expected - he'd grudgingly admitted to one curious colleague that yes, he was hung over and no, this didn't happen frequently, but the conversation soon descended into the realms of in jokes that Vexen didn't understand and the worrying possibility that everybody was getting entirely the end of the stick. He'd waved people away with nothing more than an antisocial grunt after that, and concentrated all of his rather less vast than usual focus on his work. He didn't stop for lunch, turned to violently sorting his desk which was littered with remnants of his predecessor mid afternoon when he realised he had nothing left to do. Amazingly, he only had to rush to the toilet twice to be sick. He collected a new task, set upon it with feverish dedication.
He more than likely worried the hell out of the others in the office, who had by and large turned out to be a mellow group fond of promoting a more laid back working environment. But Vexen was not used to laid back. Vexen could not afford to give his overenthusiastic mind one single second free to even contemplate last night. He had to work, solidly, for eleven hours until he was ready to collapse and then some. But eventually everybody was leaving, even the receptionist, and as Vexen stepped out into the appropriately pouring rain, he had to come to terms with two inescapable facts:
Firstly, he hadn't thought to bring an umbrella or a rain coat for the walk to the railway station.
Secondly, there was absolutely no way in Hell that Vexen could possibly have mistaken a six foot tall man of stocky build with a petite, nineteen year old girl, no matter how drunk he was.
And, through a thought track that wasn't nearly as convoluted as Vexen wished it was, he could only come to one irrefutable conclusion. And it was one that ruined everything that Vexen had ever held dear about romance and relationships and sex and most deeply, most importantly, himself.

The rain was coming down in torrents now. Nobody without protection dared brave the downpour now except Vexen, dashing past street lamps to cower under the shade of bus stops or overhanging trees. By the time he reached the station, he was drenched. The journey home, back into the pokey little town he'd lived in for close to three years now and still knew nothing about, was an uncomfortable one. And finally Vexen found himself with his hand raised to the lock of the door, key clenched between white fingers, and forced to accept the one thing he never thought would ever, ever, in a million years would apply to him.

He was sexually attracted to Marluxia.