A/N: Oh dear, woah, chapter eleven. Hi, all, how's your summer going? On whatever corner of the world, is it raining, snowing, blazing, or blowing?
Here's chapter eleven.
Review Responses:
luckless-is-me: With relish, because I appreciate and nom on reviews? Eheheh. Go ahead and worry about the wedding, but you shall see how it goes soon... Hurr hurr hurrr...
Dream Me Asleep: Yeah, updates should be back on their routinely one-chapter-a-week schedule, if all goes okay! I may even update quicker as we get closer to the climax. Glad to hear Scripted can make people smile.
orgymoogle: So, uh, generally people prefer less lengthy chapters? My apologies if my pacing seems out of whack, then. Guess I'm still getting a feel of things then, eheh.
CatCrescent: Thank you! That is one of the kindest things I've ever heard from someone about my writing. I'd like to let you know that I was really happy to hear such a thing... But please don't marathon-read too often! o.o And please don't die. o.o;;
PinappleDuck: Hahaha, of all things to hear a comparison with- Inception! Here, have even more Zemyx cookies. There's plenty. :3
Big thanks to everybody else who left a review! Sorry I can't write responses to every single one, but I'll keep trying. Enjoy reading!
Chapter Eleven
Marluxia finally woke up at seven in the morning, groggy and sweaty. Better rested than he had been in days, he rolled over and absorbed the gravity of reality, starting at the beginning: How he ended up in his bed, dirty and thirsty, when his last cognitive memory was that of Vexen scolding him to bits at the front door of his apartment. Faintly the memories of ripping up the script he'd slaved over for the last few months trickled into his mind, and detachedly he reclined into his too-warm sheets and felt the pictures of the jigsaw slowly reassemble.
Only did his grasp on reality fully clench when he heard the shuffling of someone else in his room, taking long paces on his carpet floor, breathing in his rose-scented air.
"Vexen," he croaked aloud, voice rusty from misuse and disuse alike, groping out of his sheets and blinking in the darkness. Barely he could discern the lanky, tall figure of his boyfriend, skulking in the darkness, towering over him, yet the expression on Vexen's face was out of sight in the blackness of the morning. There was something terrifying about that, even if it was just Vexen. Marluxia repressed the urge to rewrap himself in the sweat-dampened sheets and forget it.
The orbs of Vexen's poison-green eyes flicked in even the minimal lighting. "You're awake," he said, nasal voice cutting sharply into the air.
"You haven't slept?" Marluxia murmured, before throwing open the sheet and baring the bed welcomingly. "Come here."
The figure seemed to cross its arms. "I've slept; on your ridiculously sullied couch. No, I won't go to bed with you."
Marluxia felt the slightest irritation stir up inside himself. "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing," Vexen replied, just as concretely calm. "What's the matter with you?" he parroted. If he was speaking in his normal mannerism, he would have enunciated much more sophisticated vocabulary as a masque to the very same question, but something bounced as bitter and meaningful when he mirrored Marluxia's brutish, groggy word choice.
The pink-haired man laughed through mussed-up, tangled locks. "Nothing, really." He marvelled at the raspiness in his voice- a good swig of something would be good, to wash the gravel away. "Vexen," he said with renewed urgency, shifting to prop himself up on his elbows. His eyes dilated with a grey blur, slowly painting the details of Vexen's sharp facial features in the minimal light, "Seriously, what are you doing here? And don't say it's anything related to me," he gestured to his pale, sweat-plastered forehead, "see, aside from being a little sweaty from a humid night, I'm pretty sparky. And I'm flattered, but when you hawk over me all night over nothing, I'm going to end up worrying about you." His tone was like the lid on a boiling pot; forcing down the desperation, steam and pressure just breaking at the surface.
Vexen stared at him with wide, glinting eyes, and then he stated in a deadpan, "It's been a cold, rainy night. You're sweaty and wet because you were rolling around and crying in your sleep. Don't make me more concerned about you."
Marluxia blinked, before jerking his head in a feral motion. "Everybody cries. Some people are weaker than others, but we have to cry sooner or later."
His boyfriend was silent, morbidly crossing, recrossing his arms and gazing at the heavy, thick darkness beyond the balcony.
"What, did you think I was somehow a pillar of resignating strength that would never chip ever so often?" he hissed out into the darkness, "It's not like- Vexen, you see all those people outside in the daytime, what do they do? They don't put up with this shit," he pointed to the typewriter, the cracks on the wall, the withering, neglected plants on the shelves, "they don't put up with this. They haven't had all this pressure. They get their stupid excuses for spotlights in life and they're happy with that inane reliability. But me.. I've seen. Ups and downs. The corporate side of the entertainment industry. The gore that goes on to keep those hollow people rotting at their television satisfied. I keep up with that. So hell yes, I cry in my sleep, if only because I'm damned tired of this."
His boyfriend interrupted him by seizing the contours of his face and all but yanking him into a powerful kiss. Marluxia blinked owlishly into it, and realised that it felt more like the soft surfaces of their lips being crushed together than a kiss. Pulling back and rolling into the covers, he lay on the bed and stared at Vexen's impassive face. "What the hell was that for?" he grunted, slightly subdued, even when they both knew that there was an odd and strong reassurance in that brutish, cold embrace. Something that reassured that both of them were still there. "You stubborn bastard, standing awake and watching me get all kiddy and sloppy in my sleep."
"You weren't crying about the entertainment industry, just so you know." Vexen's lips pursed into a string of a line, withdrawing and crossing his arms. "And I thought you had more honour than to let yourself be reduced to a complaining romance hero."
"Complaining to you helps," Marluxia admitted, voice muffled by the covers. "Relieves stress. I certainly can't complain to Demyx or Zexion or anyone else. They'd be too shocked at the fact that I'm complaining in the first place to hear a thing I'd say."
"That's only because you're more the type to take action instead of sit about and whine worthlessly," the scientist opted to stand still, and tower above, looking aptly unsatisfied with his arms crossed and his pointed frown extending over the slightly aged flesh of his face. "But the problem persists. You are still swamped with stress and worries. You have just left your own play production and cut yourself out of the picture you painted, wholly. I understand this was because you couldn't keep up."
"Yeah." There was a pause, wherein the playwright hardly moved. The entire room was so still that it was almost as if Marluxia had just pressed his face into his pillow just a little too long; decided it wasn't worth even talking anymore. And then he rolled over, and gazed at his boyfriend, sparks of slight anger igniting in his bloodshot eyes. "I bet you're just thinking, 'what the hell is he going to do now, eh?'. I've made a mess, Vexen. Left a work half-baked and at the mercy of a cast and crew with little to no idea what to do. I just couldn't... I couldn't write. I felt it the whole way through, almost. From the beginning I started writing, I had a feeling I was running towards something. Some kind of truth. I guess the truth would be that I really don't actually want to write this play. Or maybe any plays at all. So, yeah... Fuck that. It's a nice bloody mess for me, of sorts. First failure and all." He rolled again. "...Vexen, I'm sorry. I'm very tired."
Vexen said nothing. He certainly didn't say "What can I do to make it better?". He just stood, evaluating, perhaps, stance wavering ever so slightly, gaze imperturbably fixed on the emaciated form tangled between the sheets. And then he heaved a sigh, hovering over towards the bed and fell into it, just barely fitting against his boyfriend's back and wrapping his long arms around his torso. Together their forms fit, even though if either of them shifted just a bit there wouldn't be any more space on the bed. "You fool. When you're tired, you sleep. When you're angry, you shout. When you're hungry, you eat. Common sense. When you don't want to do something, don't pretend to put your heart into it. All you'll put in will be gore and blood and an outright mess; everything that isn't what you want."
Marluxia chuckled emptily and buried his head further into the pillow, but not enough to stop breathing.
()(())()
"Marluxia isn't here, huh," Axel said vacantly, lanky legs making bobbing motions to the song in his head. The slippers just barely dangling from his toes made slapping sounds against the wooden stage stilts. The redhead looked a little dazed. By his side, Roxas gave a small 'mm' sound of distant acknowledgement, absorbed in a Chemistry textbook and mostly unaware of the world beyond its pages. Slightly irked that his boyfriend paid him no attention, Axel huffed and scanned over the scene of the theatre at ten in the morning. "Vexen too. And TerminActor's not even here yet."
Demyx bit into the inside of this cheek. "Yeah. Well, you consider the rain," he reasoned lightly, "maybe he's just stuck in traffic or something." They both skirted around the topic of Vexen and Marluxia.
Axel grumbled something incoherent, crossing his legs and slouching. The auditorium was hushedly quiet, with only about ten people present, shuffling around and pretending to be doing something. "Man, this is bull with a capital S," he grumbled. "What are we supposed to do if our flower boy's not here to push us around? Not even TerminActor. And Xemnas's not gracing us with his graceful greatness today either, so what happens?" he raised his hands to the heavens. "Bull. With an S."
Roxas's eyes didn't leave his book. "I don't think you use 'bull' that way." He traced a long finger over an illustration. "'Bull' is more for like... lying."
Axel just chuckled.
Demyx felt something sour curdle in the base of his stomach. Watching the technician's box, he saw Larxene playing around the controls and screwing over the lights- blinding one moment, gone the next, killing his vision trying to adjust. Noticing him, she gave a grin barely visible beyond the lights, flashing him a thumbs-up and evening out the distribution of beams.
"What the hell, Larxene..." Axel bemoaned beside him, "she oughta be glad I don't have hangover right now, or there'd be bloody murder."
"As if you could kill her," Roxas mumbled as he flipped a page. "She'd sooner cut your hair."
"True, that..." The redhead thoughtfully sucked in the inside of his mouth, watching as the technician across the theatre instead opted to mess with the curtain. The long, billowing satin just next to Demyx gave small jerks in and out, causing the musician to jerk and make a small whine of disapproval.
"There seems to be a stalemate," Luxord said almost cheerfully as he walked directly into the stage, wearing a rumpled white dress-shirt smartly tucked in, and flicking the deck in his hand in some-or-other complex illusory trick. "As expected for a Tuesday, yet even more funereal than before," he continued, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that he was the only one contributing to the depressed excuse of a conversation.
Funereal's probably the word for it, Demyx decided as he nervously plucked at his blue wristband, snapping away some of the droplets of water. Even if he did put on his old raincoat and his helmet when he got into his motorcycle that morning, the deluge had been enough to soak well into his skin and leave a cool trace to blend in with his guilt and lack of sleep, and make a sickly concoction. Funereal. Like Marly's dead. His eye twitched as something in his head pricked into it like a needle, and he sucked in a long, desperate breath. Axel was just trying to make peace, maybe to make up for their conversation over his motorbike the other day. Luxord was just being casual to alleviate the tension. If the past is the problem, the future will solve them... something like that.
He glanced at Axel. It'd been only a week or so since he passed his CD to the fellow musician, and since the Sunday party there hadn't even been a mention of it. It would be awkward to ask now, but Demyx couldn't help but wonder where that CD had gone. He wouldn't blame Axel if he chucked it into a trashbin; he bluntly refused to feel a thing. It happened to him so many times before, so would it matter if he told off the redhead and struck a bad note, if he proved himself not worth helping, and Axel just decided not to bother? Demyx felt his stomach clench, against his wish. It wouldn't matter, he told himself. It'll be okay.
"What do you gentlemen say to a time-passing activity such as Poker as we wait for the rest of the league to join?" Luxord offered to the stagnant air between them.
"We'll pass," the redheaded musician suddenly cut in, ignoring the slightly crestfallen look he elicited from the gambler. As if he'd been in synchronisation to the troubled thoughts playing through Demyx's mind, Axel straightened up and stood, wrapping a bony hand around the musician's elbow and basically dragging him off the stage by the stairs, drawing him away from the general crowd and speaking quite stiffly for a change, "Demyx."
Demyx faked a wide, happy grin- Damn. Axel was looking worried now, when he hadn't really done anything wrong. He felt that uncomfortable twinge in his stomach tighten with pressure. It was his own fault for being depressed and letting it rub off on the redhead, who'd been doing nothing but handing out favours and looking out for him from day one. His azure blue eyes met with Axel's blazing ones and he exclaimed a little too loudly, "Dude. Why the depression?"
Axel smiled back, uncomfortably. "I just- man, music's all about being what you want to be. Don't let what happened to Marluxia get you down," he consoled weakly. "And date Zex if you like. It's your business, seriously, not mine to hawk over it and gossip like a pubescent girl," he laughed, clapping a hand over Demyx's shoulder, bracelet tinkering to the motion. "So, sorry about that crap I gave you. Oh, and can't be your fault if Marluxia's got a little monthly pain, get that memorised." His expression shifted to a serious one. "All right?"
Demyx blinked, nodding hesitantly. "Okay..."
"Yeah." The redhead looked relieved. "I sent in your CD a while back, by the way. My man's saying he'll give it a good ear and have word back to me in maybe a week. That all right?"
His shoulders sagged, even as his expression brightened hesitantly. "Man... you still sent in that CD even after I snapped at you?" Demyx smiled sheepishly. "You really didn't have to."
And, strangely enough, Axel snickered. "What'd you think I do, keep it for myself? Don't get a swollen head there, mullet boy," he gave a playful shove away with his previously rested hand, and in the same moment wiped away all the tension, "It's our job now to make sure this play stays buoyant while flower boy's out of commission, so I guess we'll have to be working with TerminActor on that one... I guess we'll make do," he shrugged, surprisingly resigned, before warily continuing, "I mean, you two aren't pulling out each others' hair anymore." He met Demyx's eyes again, this time with a small, almost incriminating gleam in the deep green, as if asking, You two aren't really, are you?
Demyx ignored the look completely, letting the thought of Zexion pressing kisses to his forehead flicker through his mind, before smiling genuinely and letting out a small, melodious laugh.
()(())()
Saϊx stood planted at Zexion's doorway, long arms stretched far and touching each side of the doorway, a protective wall of a man keeping the actor from rushing out. The blue-haired man's impassive gaze flicked from the stony-faced best friend to the actor himself, before he said, "By my own judgement, you're unfit for going to work today," coldly and strongly, just the same tone you'd use to verbally degrade someone, flexing his arms a little before dropping them, giving Lexaeus a look. "Do you not think so, Lexaeus?"
Zexion stood as the smallest of the three, yet he burned with an aura of anger that seemed to encompass the entire living room of his apartment. He smelled like Lexaeus's bacon, eggs and coffee, and looked like a train wreck personified. "Saϊx," he said coolly, sounding almost strained around the edges as he pulled his messenger bag strap over his head and thrusting it in his manager's face, "do you know what's in here? In this bag is the saviour to the play. I did not stay up intentionally into the deep crevasses of the night and endure severe sleep deprivation, narcolepsy be damned, to sit about lamenting life. Last night, I wrote the climax for Final Limit in Marluxia's stead, and this play has a deadline and opening night, time is of essence-"
"No." Saϊx's ever-present frown seemed to extend even longer than usual and his yellow eyes scanned over Zexion's haggard appearance with severe disapproval. "It is your own fault if you aren't able to compromise work for your own health. As your manager I will not allow you to attend work unrested."
The slate-blue-haired man blinked owlishly, reaching a hand and running it frustratedly through his long forelocks and swallowing back the angry sigh climbing up his voicebox. "All right," he near-groaned, "I acknowledge that this is not rational, but I truly must attend rehearsal today, Saϊx. Marluxia is not there and neither is Xemnas; who, then, will direct?"
Saϊx did not move. "That is not your responsibility. You are head actor." Reaching out and grabbing the messenger bag from Zexion's shaking, skinny arms, he held it out of grasp and continued, "You aren't the writer or director."
Zexion looked a cross between mortified and positively murderous then. "Give me the bag, Saϊx."
"You aren't a writer," Saϊx elaborated calmly. As always. He reeked a sort of secure little air that was so distinct to him, like the smell of Lysol barely covering up decay, blood and base animalistic being, which always sent Zexion and his acute sense of smell reeling whenever he was too close. Saϊx first smelled like men's cologne, and then he smelled like sweat and sex and books, and while Zexion wouldn't be repelled by any of the scents on their own, the combination made him flinch.
No- Saϊx himself made him flinch at times.
"Yes, I'm something I don't want to be because of someone I love, doesn't that sound familiar?" Zexion snapped as he made another futile grab at the bag, quite well knowing the jab he was making. "You never wanted to be in the entertainment industry, even as someone's manager; look where your rational mind delivered you," he gestured to the man's platinum wedding ring, where it caught the light in the late morning sun.
Seeming to notice the dangerous lines which the conversation was teetering on, Saϊx jerked the bag's strap over his own shoulder and held it there securely, saying, "You aren't fit to go out right now, even aesthetically. A stranger on the street would try to hand you money."
The actor looked at him with half-lidded, irritated eyes, lips twitching into a deep frown. "If I were to take a shower and shampoo my hair and dress up nicely, would you let me out?"
Saϊx withheld a cruel smile. "No."
Zexion looked liked he'd been expecting that answer. "Lexaeus," he turned to his best friend snappishly, "you tell me, is it proper for me to be confined here?"
The huge man, who'd been staying with him overnight to help him through writing the twenty pages of script, who'd been eternally helpful in making him breakfast and dinner and seeing to his health, heaved a rumbling sigh and crossed his arms, drumming his fingers against the taut muscles just beneath the white fabric of his shirt. "To be honest, Zexion, you look terrible."
"Oh, for goodness's sake-" Looking offended, Zexion glanced over himself appraisingly. The plain black shirt and the jeans he was wearing were yesterday's clothes, yes, and he hadn't run a brush through his hair today, but he deemed himself presentable enough to stand on a stage and deliver his lines. "This is suddenly a matter of being aesthetically pleasing?" he protested, resentfully pulling at the cottony fabric of his own shirt like it was some sort of specimen.
Saϊx mirrored Lexaeus's pose, crossing his own arms and securely barring Zexion from attempting to grab back his bag. "Well, I'm certain you wish to look good for your-"
Zexion turned on him like a sniper scoping in on a running target. "Demyx is not relevant to this," he growled, letting all his restraint crumble to dust.
"Hm, I never even thought of him. Of course he isn't," Saϊx agreed with feigned affectation. "Naturally he is completely irrelevant to your recent lack of rational thinking."
The actor swore beneath his ragged breath, turning on his heel towards the bare, dark-blue-tiled bathroom and disappearing behind the wall, and there was a vague motion of his cast shadow throwing open what must have been the medicine cabinet. Lexaeus sauntered close behind, peering into the bathroom with a very dark expression, sturdy body completely blocking Saϊx's view from whatever Zexion was doing. Moments later he emerged from the bathroom, small pink pill in his open palm, and skulked towards the immaculate but small kitchen on Saϊx's right, acting as if the manager didn't even exist.
He caught sight of the pill, and raised a light blue eyebrow in disbelief- he actually recognised the bloody thing. Not like he would have liked to, but olden days stuck fast in his mind and some of his less-fond memories made the sight of the pill a very strong, very recognisable one. "Diazepam, Zexion? I thought you were above drugs," he remarked slowly as the actor hastily filled a glass with water and downed the pill.
Zexion cast him a very foul, very irate glare. "And I thought you were above letting personal judgement interfere with your career, so I suppose we are even now?" he sat as he slammed down the glass with extraneous force, marvelously managing not to break it and yet elicit a sharp clanging noise as it collided with the wooden surface of the kitchen counter. He turned and stalked to the nearby, rather aged-looking couch, dropping into it and picking up a thick hardback book from the coffee table.
It was evident that they both saw he wasn't going anywhere for that day.
()(())()
Demyx waited until five in the evening, letting the day swirl by like run-off storm water filing obediently into the holes of gutters in the pouring rain outside. Sometimes he played his sitar, other times he talked with others in mundane conversation that neither participant really remembered at the end of the day, once he even sat down and seriously discussed the music in the play with Axel, and that had taken the best half of the day. Then the high of expecting Zexion grated and wore down, and resignedly he sat down for a game of Blackjack with Luxord, ignoring how the bored-looking masses of the play cast and crew filed out of the theatre one by one, saying their goodbyes and heading home.
It had been a useless day for the lot of them, filled with pointless attempts to pass the time as they waited it out for a leader of some sort. Without Marluxia, or even Zexion, the Final Limit crew was an aimless force. The resigned, depressed air of the production was only further set in stone by the terrible rainy-season weather.
"Nineteen," he said smugly as he dropped his eight of spades two fives of hearts and on the wooden floor of the deserted stage. Cross-legged and comfortable, Demyx wasn't willing to leave the musty warmth of the theatre for the deluge outside any time soon. As much as he liked the rain and the water, Marluxia's not-exactly-waterproof phone sat cradled safely in his pocket for safekeeping, and the idea of riding home on his bike through the whipping wind and heavy traffic, just to be greeted by his depressed flatmate and a cranky scientist-cum-props director rather discouraged him from leaving the theatre.
Hey, at least Luxord had a similar situation. Except the blond man had muttered something about gangsters and a casino debt, but there was some line of sympathy between the two men as they sat down and dealt their cards.
"Twenty," Luxord hummed serenely as he set down his own.
Demyx's arching eyebrows quirked upwards, and as his eyes trailed over his opponent's cards, his shoulders sagged. With a sigh, he plopped backwards. "Damn. I can't win against you in a game of luck."
The gambler snorted in amusement and gathered up all his cards with a neat swipe of the hand, emptying them into his other hand and pocketing the deck. "Men make their own luck, Demyx," he spoke, "just like they make themselves." Pulling his feet beneath him to gain a centre of balance, he smoothly rose to stand and brushed imaginary dust from his slacks as he straightened out, towering over the blond musician. "And in some cases, they also make their own downfall," Luxord continued with a morbid smile. "It's been a good evening, but I'm afraid I should leave before I make myself late for other obligations."
"You're going?" Demyx murmured unhappily. Huffing, he sat back up, slouching and watching as one of the last few people on the theatre sauntered down the stairs. "That just leaves me and..."
"Me," Larxene intervened, platinum-blond head of hair suddenly cropping up from behind the satiny curtains, thin lips stretched over her exposed teeth in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the Chesire cat. "Good time to have a family reunion and catch-up, hm, Demyx?" she tittered, voice dripping like sugar-cane sap, before waving off at Luxord, "See you around, Lux!"
The older blond man gave a coarse laugh, waving at them both before ascending the auditorium stairs towards the exit.
Demyx blinked in surprise, gazing in Larxene's general direction as the young woman fiddled with the golden threads hanging from the borders of the curtain. "Larxene?" he all but croaked. All right- he'd noticed a great deal of people going and coming from the theatre over the course of the day, but Larxene had mostly kept to her little technician's box with it's wonderful view of everything else in the theatre, with what Axel told him was a great stack of highly questionable literature. She'd just disappeared from his mind at some point, and with less and less people remaining in the theatre he just came to assume she'd left. "You're still here?"
"Mm!" Larxene nodded, her locks of hair vivaciously bobbing with her head, before she trotted towards him. "Surprise you, kid?"
He exhaled, closing his eyes momentarily before opening them again, too wary to snooze in his cousin's presence. He of all people know how Larxene could be when she wanted attention. It took work to stuff back the slight terror that chilled his veins whenever he was in her presence, but he mostly rationalised the feeling with the fact that he'd been a kid all those times when his slightly older cousin had pranked him and led him into numerous misfortunes- some even involving cranky Uncle Hojo next door and his hanging signs that warned of gutting and other violent procedures. Certainly they were both adults now, but the deja vu could always strike. "Aw, not really," he said at last.
She smiled. "Liar," she said demurely, dropping to seat herself on the ledge of the stage, prodding his sneaker-clad foot. "You know, that slimy creep's wedding is this Sunday."
Uncle Hojo's wedding. The phrase sounded so wrong in itself. Demyx shifted his worn sneakers away from her, but slid to sit beside her. "Yeah, I know," he sighed, peering down at the small hole in his right shoe, "are you going?"
Larxene snorted. "Yeah, probably; I'm supposed to, anyway. I'm tied to the family business like it's a sinking ship. Family does shit, I've got to go along with it. Thinking of skipping out with some brilliant excuse about work or something, though it probably won't be easy slipping through. You, on the other hand, darling, are a free little twitty bird," she grumbed, gesturing in his general direction with a loose, flapping hand. "Going to some stinking wedding to extend your family influence over the society in general? That's totally up to you. Not like anybody's expecting you to."
"Well..." Demyx smiled bitterly, "I am."
"Huh?" the electrician blinked, stunned, and flicked her full attention to him, "Wait, what? Why?"
He shook his head, still smiling, unconsciously letting his hand trail up his leg and settle on the shape of Marluxia's phone in his pocket. Somewhere in those phone records was the time, duration and date of that call he'd taken, like a haunting remnant refusing to be ignored or forgotten. "Selphie. She wants me to try and patch things up with my folks."
Larxene laughed, a shrill sound that made Demyx wince whenever she made it. "Selphie? That girl- you're showing up there for her?" she cried, smacking him on the shoulder playfully, like she expected him to be making some sort of joke, "Dem, that's nice and all, but you're walking into the lion's den to save a kitten. You get what I'm saying, darling?" she asked, rubbing in her hand and its sharp nails, smiling in his general direction and burning her gaze into his memory.
Weakly, he thought of Zexion. Zexion had agreed to come, and stand by him as he faced his parents. Maybe- just maybe this time, if his parents saw that he was happy as himself, happy with someone, just happy, they would accept him. They'd say, Hey, we've been trying to do what's best all this time, so maybe while he disagreed with us, he's well-off now, so it's not that bad. Ends justified by the means, and they'd drop the ridiculous marine biologist topic and accept the gay musician they had for a son. He hoped.
"Zexion's going with me. He's going to help me show them," he smiled. "Prove to them that it all ended up for the best, even if it wasn't the kind they wanted."
His cousin looked at him for a long time, like she was trying to figure out if he was bluffing or not, and then she shrugged and stood up, looking like she'd given up on some sort of small battle in life. "Your funeral," she muttered, "I'm going home, Dem. Take care of that poor playwright Marlu while you're at it, and don't get yourself killed next Sunday. Zex... sure is a pick for someone to go out with," she grinned, flashing him a thumbs-up before sticking her hands into the pockets of her black-and-yellow form-fitting hoodie and skulking off, grumbling something about 'shitty weather can't make up its mind'.
"We're not-" Demyx called after her, but she was too far away across the auditorium and the words were lost with the sound of the beating rain on the roof of the theatre building. He dropped his hand and felt a flush climb up his neck and warm his cheeks. He watched her back, thinking back on what Axel said about her in the apartment garage, over the sound of beating rain and the metallic clinking of nuts and bolts. About what she'd did to Marluxia, about how there was supposed to be some disgust elicited in the back of Demyx's mind whenever he looked at his cousin- but Demyx felt nothing. Something ever-present in Larxene was depraved, he knew, but there again was her gift of knowing people; knowing the world.
Demyx helplessly groped the void of his emotional mind and could not grasp hate or disgust for Larxene. Perhaps because he got the feeling from her that she was doing something that she wanted to do, and living the life she wanted to live, with no unnecessary layers and masquerades conducted. He could have probably asked her about her history with Marluxia, to the level of whatever detail he specified, and she would have shrugged and told him.
As she disappeared behind the exit, he threw up his hands and sighed.
Why did everyone think that he and Zexion were together, anyway? It wasn't like- well, he liked the actor well enough platonically (disregarding how unkind he could be about his job), and the fact that it had ultimately been Zexion who'd influenced his life as a child was unforgettable, but sidled at the bottom of Demyx's stomach and chewing at it mercilessly was the fact that Zexion was a stranger. A troubled stranger who kissed away his pains and let him do the same, but still a stranger.
"Lexaeus and I have been friends since childhood. He... knows everything," Zexion had said.
But what was 'everything'? Was 'everything' their confused, unspecified relationship? Or was it that Warfarin?
"This is quite the production. Zexion wants nothing more than its success... But it is not acting that he wants. Remember that. And accept him nonetheless."
Why? Why the obsession, so set-in-stone that Zexion turned as unpleasant as curdled milk if his perfect career record was even slightly jeopardised, if he didn't even like acting? What concrete, driving motivation would keep him going, above the sleep disorders and pain, above the confusion, then? What kept him above the fatigue?
"You are correct... He is tired. He's tired of acting and everything that entails it. Why do you suppose he's hanging around Marluxia and the script so much instead of practicing his pronunciation and honing his voice? He doesn't even like to act." Xemnas had said that, almost nonchalantly, like it was a given fact to him. What did the script have to do with it? And now that Demyx thought about it, it had been strange that Zexion alone had picked up the ruined pages of the script himself, like he had the intention to continue it on his own, and pick up the role as the playwright of Final Limit.
Like Zexion would have rather been the writer all along.
Demyx groaned and ran a hand through his tousled mullet. No use thinking about it when all it did was bring about a headache.
His failed train of thought was further derailed by the magnificent slamming open of the front door, letting in the sound of the pouring rain outside and a well-time growl of thunder. Surprised, Demyx looked up from his shoes, gaze flung across the entire, dim theatre and its wide stretch of audience chairs, and blinked in surprise.
()(())()
Zexion stood, breathing heavily and tugging a dishevelled, dripping raincoat around his small body, at the entrance at the top of the stairs.
Demyx dropped off the stage, landing heavily at the bottom and staggering up the stairs towards him. "Zex!" he exclaimed, grinning, surprised and breathless, as he reached the top of the aisle and ran towards the shivering actor, pulling off the draping raincoat and checking Zexion over, quickly, from head to feet. Below his knees, the shorter man's jeans grew plastered tightly to his legs, darkened with dampness, and his dark boots made idle squashing noises as the water slowly bled out of them. Small spatters of water darkened the rest of his apparel, but the raincoat had evidently done a good job of keeping him mostly dry... But not warm. Zexion was pale and shivering.
"Zexion, what the heck are you doing here?" Demyx asked as he looked around desperately for something to drape around the actor and keep him warm, unable to keep the flustered smile off his face.
He was caught by surprise when Zexion lurched forth and pulled him into a bear hug, pressing them together as he did so, burying his head into Demyx's shoulder and breathing, deeply. The damp jeans brushed against his and the soggy boots made a squashing noise when they touched against his ragged sneakers. And yet Demyx didn't mind. Smiling, a little surprised, he patted the actor on the back. "Hey," he murmured against the damp locks of slate-blue hair, "you're a little late."
"I know," Zexion groused into his shoulder, "you really have no comprehension of what sort of procedures I had to carry through to sneak out on both Saϊx and Lexaeus's extraneous rigmaroles and make it to this godforsaken theatre. Lexaeus may have worked as a bodyguard for me at some points or others, but it seems like he's fallen into the habit of mother-henning..." Raising his head, he craned his neck and looked around the deserted, barely-lit theatre. "Where is everyone?"
"Gone home, man," Demyx grinned goofily, patting Zexion a little harder. He wondered if he was doing any good in warming the actor up. "How did you get away from those two, anyway?"
"Schemes were involved."
"Oh... kay. It's late now, you know that?"
He made a small, unhappy noise into Demyx shoulder. "You can't tell the time at all when all these clouds are covering up the sun," he grumbled. "Thank you... for the heat," he added awkwardly, almost as an afterthought, before pulled away and nervously plucking at the messenger bag over his shoulder, and picking up the still-dripping raincoat on the floor. Not meeting Demyx's eyes, he quietly set to folding up the wrinkled, dark blue synthetic fibres, holding them all at arm's length to keep from getting wet. The rings beneath his eyes seemed darker than usual, and his lifeless locks of hair hung weakly over his face even more today.
"Wow..." Demyx held his arms akimbo and remarked unabashedly, "You look beat."
"Do I?" Zexion snorted as he finished wrapping. "I was up late. Writing... I finished the climax," he announced, voice seeming to power up with pride as he stated his accomplishment. "I think... It's partway more decent than the one Marluxia wrote," he continued. "I wanted to see how it would look on stage, but as..." he trailed off, the spark of his blue eyes dimming as they looked at the deserted stage. They looked like they were calculating something, contrary to the disappointed look Demyx had been expecting.
The musician huffed and grinned wanly. "Hey, tomorrow's another day for rehearsal?" he suggested.
In the next moment, there was a handful of papers shoved into Demyx's arms, and he stared at them blankly as Zexion shuffled through his messenger bag, his skinny hand disappearing completely beyond the elbow as he all but ransacked the tough canvass bag's inside. Before long, he yanked out a small orange notepad and a cheap blue pen, thoughtfully looking between the messy ensemble of papers in the stunned musician's hand and the open pages of the palm-sized notepad. "Demyx," he said abruptly, looking up at him after an impolite moment, before saying quite seriously, "rehearse with me."
He froze on the spot, and some sheaves of paper fell out from his clumsy grasp. "Uh-" Demyx smiled warily, twitching in the slightest, as if he was innately questioning the actor's sanity, "uh, Zexion, it's late and-" he paused, seeing that he was being looked at quite intently, and flushed, "you're not kidding, are you?"
"I'm not jesting," Zexion agreed forcefully, "it's not been a productive day. Just- just read the script for one character out, I'll play the others; it's a rather minimalistic climax with less than four characters involved, it should not be difficult for me to switch between roles." His commanding tone slowly tapered off and he knelt before Demyx, picking up the lost scrap of printed script and looking at it thoughtfully, before looking up at him. "'I know I don't know', Aristotle once said... Heh. Well, I know I don't know how this project will conclude if I'm the only one putting any sober, relentless effort into it, and if I don't know how the scenes I write will feel if I never see them played, even half-heartedly. Please, Demyx."
"Fine," Demyx's shoulders sagged in surrender, and he knelt as well, letting Zexion slip the paper into his arms once more. "You're really into this, aren't you?" he shook his head, looking resigned.
"Demyx, I don't want this play to fail. If we maintain this sort of pace, that is quite certainly the way it'll conclude itself- in failure," the actor near-growled, determined, before the hard facade slipped down and he looked at Demyx gently, murmuring, "I apologise. This is too demanding of me, isn't it?"
The musician grinned, feeling a small warming over his face, and looked away. "No, Zexion... thank you-" he stammered. "Hey, serious, you're saving everybody's butts with being the most determined one here." He shook his head, "This is my job, I really should give more of a darn about what we do. So yeah- let's do this." Resolvedly, he scanned over the paper and the lines of each character. "Not saying you're picking the right guy at all to do this with," he joked.
"You'll be fine; I just need to feel into the scene," Zexion said seriously, gazing into him with scrutiny before pulling in more distance between them, absentmindedly fidgeting with his opens hands against his torso and looking up at the stage. His dripping locks of hair obscured his eyes at the angle, making Demyx peer up from the papers and at the shining locks cautiously, and wonder what sort of look was glinting in those dark irises. "It's really deserted," the actor commented. He spoke distantly, oblivious to the fact that he was being observed.
"'I'll always feel you in my blood, feel your running through me like pins in my circulation... your passion is so contagious and exhilarating,'..." Demyx recited in a flat, un-thespian tone, taking a short breath between portions, surprised. "Geebuz... You wrote all this?"
"Hm?" Zexion turned to look back at him, shaking his hair; momentarily, two wide, curious and dark-rimmed eyes blinked at him, before the slate-blue curtain of hair fell back down over his face, falling into an enigmatic mask once more. "Yes. Is it bad?" he asked. The reddish luminescent lights of the stage made him look like he was permanently flush-faced, and Demyx decided he didn't mind that.
He inhaled sharply, feeling the goose-bumps form over his skin as he rubbed the paper between his fingers, "Wow. I could so write a song for these kinds of lines. It's not hard to work with at all, but it's- okay, I'm rambling- Zexion, it's great." Reading these lines full of passion and feeling, Demyx felt as if he was reaching in and catching sprinkles of the actual essence of the play itself- essences that he'd never picked up on ever before, even after seeing the overall plot being discussed numerous times. It was like the climax to Final Limit was the saving grace of the entire play.
Zexion stared for a second, like he was scoping for earnestness and found it in a moment of surprise. "Thank God," he sighed and averted his eyes. Self-consciousness may or may not have flushed a light pink over his features; it was difficult to tell in the bad lighting. "If it wasn't decent, then there would really be quite a rut to be stuck in. I digress, there are still plenty of snags to smooth out in it..."
"Hey," Demyx assured, cocking his head to the thin walls and the roaring sound of rain beating relentlessly beyond them, both of them knowing that going out in that harsh weather at night was hardly a desirable option versus remaining in the humble shelter of the aged building, "the night's young."
Zexion just barely smiled, the look in his eyes softening ever so slightly. "You're right."
()(())()
After the customary greetings and salutations through the smother of yawns, Axel dropped his sports bag and undid his guitar strap, glancing around the theatre and muttering, "Jeebuz cripes on crepes and pancakes, Pink-ass really is gone." Nobody could be sure whether it was the awkward euphemistic exclamation or the nickname 'Pink-ass' that got him more glares. Ignoring the looks he garnered from the crew, the blazing redhead absent-mindedly snapped his rubber bracelets and scoped the theatre for Roxas.
He got a head-full of Demyx, instead. The blond toppled before him, aquamarine eyes not really seeing a thing and tousled mullet a little too tousled to be stylish. With the growing new pair of eyebags, Demyx suddenly looked like he'd been experiencing the same level of sleep deprivation as the play's senior Sleeping Beauty himself. In the words of a redhead who'd enjoyed one too many shooter RPGs, he looked like a zombie. His typically perky stature was hunched over and he hung idly there, staring at the ground and trailing dark clouds of sleepy, dying glooooom behind him. "Hey, Demyx-" Axel started to greet, only to be cut off by an incomprehensible groan. "Pardon?"
"Coffee..." Demyx repeated, drawing his head away and looking around blearily, as if he wasn't really aware of where he was. "Need... energy..." he moaned, voice a metallic, hollow little shred of its former self.
The redheaded musician raised a trimmed eyebrow, before slouching with a sigh and fishing through his back jeans pockets. After a moment of sifting, he grinned in triumph, pulling out three small black plastic wraps with solid squares cleanly outlines inside them. "Coffee candy's all I got. Man," he smirked, "did you get some or something? You look like you've been banging out- and in- all night long."
Demyx's pale face flushed an unnaturally dark crimson and he snatched away the candies quickly, shaking fingers unwrapping and popping each one into his mouth. He sucked on them vigorously, contorting the soft flesh of his jaw area as he did so, averting his eyes. "I haven't been able to catch much sleep lately; composing," he explained, face still red a little as he pouted and stuck his hands into his pockets.
Axel grinned, satisfied with the embarrassed reaction. "I know. I was just kidding with you."
Like the coffee candy's sugar levels and caffeine extract was already taking effect, Demyx's wide shoulders perked up a little and he laughed weakly, "Geez, Axel, don't pick on me for stuff like that when you're the sex machine here," and gave Axel a weak little jesting shove, before hovering away towards his bright blue sitar and mounting it into his arms. "Everybody here? Let's start rehearsing," he called as he plopped into the nearby stool in the musician's chair, eyes probing over the middle-sized mass of crew members. No one seemed to hear him. "C'mon... guuyyss..." he whined.
With a sigh of resignation, he mumbled something beneath his breath. Axel figured that with that look of defeat, Demyx had pretty much sealed the fact that today was going to be another that day- another day when nobody would get anything done. How could they make any progress, anyway? Their scriptwriter and director, the only ones who really full-time pushed the crew into clockwork, had left the play to crumble into the dust, and their slave-driving lead actor was snoozing away in the backroom behind a door crankily labelled 'Janitor'- Final Limit was pretty much inching into the dark potholes of tribulations already.
"You'll probably need Marly's damned whistle to bring these guys out of oblivion, Dem," Axel said jokingly across the seats.
"Huh?" he murmured, looking at him with a strange, blank-slate look washing over his face, "huh, Axel, you know... I don't think I need it..."
And then, Demyx's eyes travelled over the auditorium, fixing on the backstage door when he seemed to have not found what he was looking for among the familiar faces of the crew. With an unfamiliar twisting line forming along his lips, the blond-brunette musician gave another small sigh and a tiny smile, and sauntered over towards one of the giant speakers that were located on either side of the stage.
Axel watched patiently, a little intrigued, as the musician's lanky figure lurched over the huge black speaker and gave small grunts as he pulled it back to expose the back area, and then reached his skilled hands and fingers along the wires, seeming to tweak the bass a little and play with a dozen other options. Demyx yanked out a few cables and replaced others, and then, plugs in hand, stumbled away, tripping on some of the wires clumsily before making it back to his sitar.
Kneeling before the prized, ornate instrument, he ran lovings hands over her shiny azure surface, and his tired eyes glinted with affection. His hands stopped when they seemed to find what they were feeling for, and Demyx popped open a small hidden compartment in the bottom side of his sitar, jamming in some of the wires.
Wait a second here, Axel blinked, dumbfounded as he watched.
Demyx grinned satisfactorily and stood, remounting his sitar comfortably, and then he skipped towards the speaker and turned up the volume knob. He began crunching down on the coffee candy in his mouth, and pulling a pick from his worn back jeans pocket.
Wait a sec, he never told me about this-!
Axel, eyes wide, glanced over the rest of the crew and found them painfully unaware of what Demyx was doing- so much the better for them- and promptly clapped his hands over his ears as Demyx took a breath and brought the pick to the strings.
...Ofuck, he never told me it was an electric sitar-
There was a wave of blasting sound that ripped right through the sleepy, thick air of the theatre, vibrating the very particles that were so unfortunate as to be located near the speaker systems, and Axel thought he could go deaf, have a heart attack, or both. And then, as soon as it came, the blast was gone, and the crew of Final Limit stared, jaws agape, at the musician standing at the core of the theatre just beneath the stage.
Demyx, unaffected by the sudden massacre of deafening noise that came and passed like an earth-shattering quake, readjusted his grip casually, and cleared his throat.
Then he proceeded to go through a long, intricate, and impressively skilful sitar solo, only in the hardcore throng of heavy rock sitar sound, easing himself into posture as his right hand grew into nothing but a blur dashing across the strings and his left hand jerked mechanically against the neck of the sitar, pressing all the correct strings at all the correct times and literally blowing away the rest of the theatre with the wonderful and deadly sound he produced.
The sitar solo was over with a heavy, demanding string of notes and then a high, loud finish. Some dumbfounded audience members didn't even bother bringing their hands to their ears to save themselves from the massacre. Meekly, Demyx relaxed out of posture, muttering a relieved "Whew!" and wiping at the sweat droplets as they ran down his flushed cheeks, grinning sheepishly when he saw that he had succeeded quite well in getting all eyes in the theatre on him.
"Heey..." he said, waving at everyone, "uh, now that I've got your attention, I just wanted to say something, okay? We may not have Marly with us right now, or even Xemnas, and Zexion's sleeping in the backroom right now... though I'm preeetty sure I just woke him up- but, er, whatever!" he breathed. "Just because they're not here with us right now, that doesn't mean we the Final Limit crew can't kick proverbial ass, okay, guys?"
Slow nods and quiet, shell-shocked murmurs of agreement echoed like weak little after-quakes after a 9.2 disaster on the Richter Scale.
"Awe-some," Demyx's grin turned earnest and his eyes sparked with buzzing, adrenaline-and-sugar-induced energy. "Soo... let's get this play movin'!"
Slowly, the Final Limit crew submitted and cheered, smiling like they weren't sure of what to expect, but that was enough; to Demyx, that already exceeded satisfying. The crew already had talent, and if the ball was rolling, if they had enough momentum, they would make the show a success by a landslide.
It would be beyond any of the deprecating expectations of the sponsor companies or audience. And where motivation failed them, they had Zexion as the sturdy, precise anchor, pressing continually onwards.
And now they had Demyx.
He hoped to do all he could to make this work, because somewhere along the way, Final Limit had ceased to be an arbitrary source of income for him. He wasn't sure if he ever saw it as such to begin with, but now he knew for sure: Final Limit had crept in and taken some of his affection, and it could keep it. Demyx was attached to the play for everything he was, now, and he wasn't backing down come hell or high water.
end of chapter eleven
A/N: Annnddd... I am uncertain of what to say, except thank you for bearing with me this far.
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